Of Holidays and Drugs

Last day of work before Christmas! Done nothing at all today, bloody great! Wrapped everything up over the last couple of days so we had a nice easy finish. So now I have just over a week off. Not sure what to do with myself really! Unfortunatly I've been put on a course of antibiotics for the next five days however. Which sucks. But at least I'll finish them on Monday so I can drink on Christmas Day!

And that is that for a week. Short post just to let you know that I'll not be writing for a few days. Merry Christmas!

Of Last Days and Christmas Dinners

Today is the first day of the last week of term. Then I get one whole week off! Pretty quiet at work as there are no students and no one is really doing much. Just winding down and pottering about. Suits Andy and I just fine. Not much admin going on and any that come in we are putting in to a list to do once we come back. Can't really do much with myBU at the moment as it's going down tomorrow while they move it to a new server. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot. And head. It's never going to come back up without a hitch (or three) somewhere.

It was also the SM staff Christmas dinner today. The admin staff served and cooked for the rest of us. If I never see some of them in a french maid outfit again I'll die a happy man. Dear God it wasn't pretty. Still, free food and free wine, can't complain! Andy, Lou and I are going to go for a Christmas drink later in the week as well, which should be good!

During the dinner Andy and I came up with an alternative to the story of Christ's birth. An interesting, and honestly, a plausable one. Not actually sure where Jesus came into it, but the three kings where three drunks coming out of the pub. They followed a (neon) sign to the local kebaby where they met three devlivery boys (shepherds), the three gifts were scented towels (from KFC for example), aka. myrrh. Hot sauce, aka incense. And finally half a toasted burger bap, aka. gold. The stable was the local Travel Lodge.

Maybe Jesus, Mary and Joseph were staying at the Travel Lodge over night on they're way to visit family. Or maybe old Jo got offered a job in a new town and they were moving. Either way, the rest of the story works and seems slightly more likely. So there we are people, we are celebrating Christmas, not as Jesus's birth but in rememberence as one of the best nights out on the lash in ~2000 years! Rejoice and enjoy your own drunken stumble!

Of Helicopters and Quiet Fronts

Above is a photo of my new private helicopter. Oh yeah. She's impressive. I'd say the engine had about... 0.0001 BHP! haha. Air Hogs Havoc Helicopter. Brilliant little bit of kit. I highly recommend to anyone. There are plenty of clones, this is one of them. The original "palm-heli" being the Picoo Z (can be found on Firebox.com).

Been pretty quite at work past couple of days. Everything is winding down for Christmas really. Just been a touch ill however. Got a bit of a sore throat. Andy is still feeling a little ill as well. Seems to be spreading. Mwahahahaha.

So I've just been thinking about all the virtual stuff we are working on at the moment. Playing with ideas in my head. Sleeping on them and the ones I remember tend to be the ones that may work best. It's a good philosophy. Ooo get me I didn't need the spell checked to spell philosophy!

Beard Watch Update: It's been shaved! The beard is all but gone! I guess the orders were given for a trim. We shall see how long it takes for the next set of orders to filter down from command. At the end of today it will have been two days since the last set.

Of Illness and DHL

Well Andy is pretty ill at the moment. I think it's because he hasn't shaved his beard. Was getting a bit long, at least a centimetre in length! So I'm all alone, sat in my dark little office. Cut off from civilisation. In a university I hear your noggin clockwork thinking?! Think about it, I'm surrounded by students and academics that talk about intellectual things. If I could only get them to all talk in Hex...

I'm also pretty pissed with DHL at the moment. I ordered some stuff off ThinkGeek.com and while tracking the parcel on the DHL website I saw no movement for four days. Then suddenly it was in the UK and a little DHL gremlin had been round my house only to find me not there and thus he (it?) was unable to pass me my parcel (of holding) containing my geeky goodies. So he left me a note telling me I could make a half hour drive to Southampton to pick it up or I could rearrange for him to come again. I choose the later, except I have given him instructions to tunnel (they do live and work underground right?) to my grandparents house instead. I hope he doesn't scare them too much...

I also started a new book last weekend, The Descent. The film is based loosely on the book for those interested. The book is also infinitely better as books-to-films usually are. Excellent read and I highly recommend it. Creepy and compelling I can't put the damn thing down. There's also a sequel called Deeper which I think I shall have to get my grubby little mitts on to read. Jeff Long is the author by the way.

I shall leave you with my rant, to post again another day. With any luck, come Monday, I shall be able to post about my geeky goodies. Watch this space, I may post a picture or two. I even have a 4th Birthday party to go to this week, I feel my toys may come in useful. Joy. And I mean that this time.

Of Admin and Busyness

This week I have been mostly... doing admin work. Sucks, but it's gotta be done I guess. Still, Andy has had some very good meetings about the virtual stuff we are doing which is great! As well as the Sports Centre to develop we now have some shops with dragable display stands and we have also been asked to think about building a hotel with around 360 rooms! So plenty of things for me to do! Quiet exciting really. While all similar stuff, creating it all should be good, if not damn confusing!

Also have some busy weeks coming up before the end of term. I have some more Teaching of Presentations to do. After my post about Death by PowerPoint I think I'm going to revamp the presentation I used to show how to give presentations. Also have some meetings coming up about Blogging and the virtual stuff. So really looking forward to the next couple of weeks.

Andy and I are also looking at putting together a paper for a conference next year on eLearning. We are looking at, and will probably go with, a paper on virtual reality as thats basically what we are doing. However we can fit the paper under several different areas. So hopefully we will get accepted to go to that!

On a personal note I've just ordered one of those palm-size helicopters that are all the rage (oh the sheep I am) and also two nerf handguns. Yase, NERF! It's still around. They even have a sniper rifle now! So with any luck, once I've payed through the nose for Customs I will be able to shoot people at work. In a non-lethal manner of course. While distracting them with a small helicopter. Ha, Joy!

Of Birthdays and Joy

It was my birthday yesterday! Joyous! 21 now... which means I can do... er... nothing I couldn't do when I was 20...

Oh well. Had a really good meal with Claire, Rach and Vic last night though. Out around Blandford tomorrow night as well which should be a laugh.

Works pretty slow at the moment though. Mostly admin stuff with myBU units and staff. Boring and repetitive but I guess it's got to be done! Unfortunately I don't really have a lot to blog about. Erm... er... nope can't think of anything. Hopefully I'll have something to blog about next week. Something amazing and exciting. Ha... in Bournemouth Uni? I think not.

Of Death and PowerPoint

Death by PowerPoint

From: thecroaker, 3 months ago

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Fighting death by PowerPoint... How to make a presentation and not to bore your audience to death.


Link: SlideShare Link

As I have been doing presentations recently I thought I would link this. Found on Life Hacker. Makes some very, very good points. Infact I may use some of them to do my next presentation on FireFox. Yes, I have to do one on why the staff at Bournemouth Uni should be using FF instead of IE. Should be fun.

On a personal note, I've been playing three Star Trek games over the weekend. All old ones... mainly because my computer isn't good enough to run the newer ones haha. But Armada II, Elite Force and Bridge Commander are excellent. All completely different as well! Armada is an RTS (like C&C) and good fun. Blasting Borg and such like from the universe is always fun when you have the Enterprise on your side! Elite Force is a create FPS set in the Voyage time line. Again, against the Borg. Great fun running around with Seven of Nine, shame it's not Geri Ryan doing her voice though. All the other characters are the original actors voices though. And finally Bridge Commander. You are a captain, you tell everyone what to do. Fantastic! I've just been given the USS Sovereign (first of the Sovereign Class) which is an awesome ship hehehe. All in all, damn good games!

Of Hatred and Happiness

Well I've done this mornings session of teaching. Went really well. I really enjoyed doing it. Talked through how to give a good presentation then got them to create some little presentations and present them. Went well and I couldn't help smiling watching them do the presentations either. I could defiantly get used to being a teacher. I really really enjoyed doing it. I'm really glad I did those myBU inductions, it's given me a lot of confidence. It's no problem to stand up and talk in front of a class now.

On other things though, Claire's having some problems with her ex. He's being a dick. Normally I wouldn't post about this sort of thing, but it's annoying me. This is advice to all ex's, of either side. Don't play games. Once it's over, it's over. It doesn't help either side to mess around unless of course you deeply desire the attention even though you have another partner (like Neil). Feel like castrating him for what stress he's putting Claire through. But, what goes around comes around.

Of Learning and Teaching

Today I have been mainly preparing for some seminars tomorrow.

Andy and I have been asked to talk about using Powerpoint and Word as well as how to give good presentations. So today I've been creating a presentation on presentations entitled "The Presentation of all Presentations". It wasn't until I wrote it did I realise how it sounded. But hell, I'll roll with it. I think it's possibly one of the best presentations I've written. So perhaps it is the presentation of all presentations....?

Pretty much covers points and tips on how to do a good presentation. Stuff I should possibly follow myself. Here are my slide notes and key points:

Slide 1

• •Introduce who you are and where you are from is relevant
• •Give the tasty bits of your presentation
• •But not the structure, give that as you go
• •Tell them that they can either ask any questions during the presentation or to wait until afterwards

Slide 2

• •You are the presentation
• •Notes, slides and their contents just support materials
• •Try to keep to five bullet points or less
• •A picture is worth a thousand words (describe the front of the building – why not just use a pictures?)
• •Use hyperlinks to websites or other documents
• •Keep your notes simple, they are there to jog your memory not to read from
• •Keep it Simple Stupid

Slide 3

• •Rule of Three, find three main points for your presentation and create it around them
• •This creates the bulk of the presentation
• •Make sure you know what you are talking about so you don’t have to constant refer to notes
• •Make sure you know the majority of the audiences background, it lets you target them better

Slide 4

• •Try to stay relaxed
• •Humour goes a long way, tell a joke or a funny story relating to your subject
• •Don’t read your slides or your notes. They are only an aid
• •Don’t worry about any mistakes you make, never say sorry for them
• •Confidence is everything. Look like you know what you are doing and no one will question it

Slide 5

• •Speak slow, it gives the audience time to register what you are saying
• •Talk to individuals, it brings the audience into the presentation
• •Think about each section of the presentation
• •Take pauses, they let the audience digest your points

Slide 6

• •Use anything you can think of to get your point across. Short videos, props, anything
• •People tend to remember the last thing they are told over everything else. So end with something powerful
• •Read the audience, they will tell you when to move on to the next section
• •Always give reference to your research, etc

Slide 7

• •Thank your audience for listening
• •Ask for any questions

Yes yes, sound advice (in note form) for any who wants to give a presentation! Or maybe not, who knows? Either way it should be good. I just hope that my cough doesn't act up too much tomorrow (yes I'm still ill). As it still acts up when I'm talking. So it would be a huge shame if I can't do this tomorrow. Especially now that I've prepared an awesome presentation!

I've also got to get a presentation ready for some staff on Wednesday. Andy and I are talking about all our projects this year and he wants me to talk about my blog (hopefully I won't have any rude comments on here for them to read) and about mySC. So all that should be good.

Mentioning mySC reminds me I said I would show a screen of what she looks like now. Screens coming soon! I've also developed an office for it now. Just awaiting content. Still pondering if it's possible to have it built dynamically by the users. It might be possible, it might not. We shall see!

Which also reminds me to find that raster to vector changing site... found it! It may be useful...

The only other news I have for you is Andy has trimmed his beard. He does now and then. Otherwise he gets into trouble for pretending to be sandpaper. I will report on it's growth rate until he saws it off next.

Of Validation and Tiredness

Well I am pretty damn knackered at the moment. Had a bit of a rough weekend with being a bit ill. Had a few arguments with Claire (nothing new there then eh?). But otherwise life is going well.

Until today when I decided to validate the two webpages I've created for mySC recently. Oh deary me. The only thing that validated straight away was the CSS but then how can you really go wrong with that?

The HTML wasn't valid, it didn't conform to Section 508 or WAI which are both accessibility standards so I've spent all today getting the pages right. So it's now official. Apart from being lazy and breaking the code of conduct about not using tables for layout design these pages are perfect. The conform to XHTML 1.1 Transitional, OK so it isn't Strict but what does that matter? haha. And they conform perfectly to accessibility standards with tab indexing and all sorts. So if a blind and deaf and limbless person can't use the site it's not my fault because someone hasn't come up with the standards for me to follow...

On a side note, it's old but there is a great plugin for FireFox called Web Developer. Gives about a hundred different options to do with websites. It will validate the code for you, strip the CSS out if you want, everything. Absolutely fantastic! I should probably use the IE Tab plugin as well, would stop me from having another window open but do I really want to bastardise FF?

Of HTML and CSS

Well past couple of days I've been coding the front page to the VSC. For now I've named it "mySC"... dunno if that will hold haha. Still, the design of it looks really nice. I'm very pleased with it. Works with the Uni's marketing guidelines but it has a Web 2.0 touch as well which is quite nice.

Taken me ages to code it though as I haven't worked with HTML or CSS for a while. The PHP side of it is going to be fun when I eventually get around to that. But we need to set up a server for it all before I get into server side stuff. For now you just hit the login button and it automatically goes straight to the VSC.

I'll try and post a picture of the design in the next couple of days, I need to rework the slices a little so I'll export a full preview at the same time. I may even try and rework the entire site to use div's instead of storing the layout in a huge table. I know it's bad practise but it's quick and easy at this stage.

I'd also like to state how bloody annoying it is that IE* and FF render sites so differently. Why can't MS just render the code normally like most other browsers? Causes such huge discrepancies in the site that you can't get it to look right in both browsers without some bad coding practise! Sometimes I guess your tools force you to do bad things eh? For a change, it's not my fault! Yays!

Of Reflection and Growth

Well now that I've had time to think more about yesterdays meeting I've realised a few things. The criticism we received yesterday is actually a good thing. It shows us where they aren't picking up on the key points. Which means that we can now go away, talk to the people that are definatly up for using the VSC and pull together something that will blow them out the water!

So next on the agenda is to start to get together some content and putting up within the system. Then we can demo, in context, what we can do with it.

For the future we are going to be looking at a Visual Editor for the content. So basically it would be a static version of the site that you would use to navigate to the area (room) you wanted to add or edit content in. Then you will be able to edit text and upload vids, etc. We also want to look at making it dynamically build itself. So the users would choose where to build a room and then add content to it. When the site is loaded it would run through a system of checks that gives it the info it needs to build itself. Should make for a very interesting and fluid site. I wonder if we could get an award for it somewhere? haha. At the moment though our ideas are pretty bluesky so plenty of research is going to have to go into them!

But it's definatly going to be an exciting project to work on! And will probably take up alot of my time...

Of Fools and Disappointment

First, let me get the disappointment out the way. We can't get hold of a Surface machine. Damn shame! Still, the multitouch meeting I had on Friday went really well and we are all defiantly looking forward to working together on it. As it allows us to put together plenty of material through the final year student (Tim) ready for looking at doing a proper research project on it next year. So I should still get to play with some homebrew multitouch stuff this year!

On to fools. There are many of them. Some were gathered in the meeting I have just come back from. Andy and I were demoing the Virtual Sports Centre we have been building to the sports lecturers. By 'we' I mean 'me' (Sorry Andy :p). There are a couple of them that think it's a great idea and hopefully they grasp what it is we are trying to do. Which is give them another tool to teach with that promotes independent learning in not only a visual way but contextual (in a virtual world sense) as well as begin to link the different subjects under Sport together. More so than what happens now.

However. The previously mentioned fools... oh dear God. Narrow minded are not the words. They couldn't grasp that we want to provide a tool that allows students to see more than just their field of learning. To allow them to see across different subjects, to relate and see how what they are learning applies across many different things. We got asked questions like "Well what can we do in this that we can't in blackboard?"... how about everything we've just shown you. They think that just because that they can upload their own files to blackboard and link it to what the students can see it compares to the dynamic system we demoed today. Er... no I don't think so. They also seemed to think that we are developing this tool because we don't think they communicate or use blackboard as their sole teaching tool. No. We are developing it to aid in the teaching of students. We are developing it because at some point Virtual Learning Environments like blackboard are going to evolve in to a visual area more than the point and click text and folder based... thing that it is. We are going one step (or more) than the game is at the moment. Unfortunately some of them seem to be under the impression that blackboard will get features like this and that this will happen soon. A system where you have to pay over a grand just to have a collapsible directory tree put in and has only just allowed for things like Blogs and Podcasts will not be getting functionality like that any time soon.

Of Swish and Script

Been completely forgetting to blog recently. Really bad of me as I'm using this as my log book for work placement! Ah well.... not much interesting has gone on recently!

So what's happened in the past week or so? Not much. More myBU problems, more admin work and not a lot else! So not had anything to blog about really. All interesting things have happened in the past couple of days.

First, Andy and I have set up a meeting with a HCI (Human Computer Inter(face/action)) teacher here at BU as she has a final year student working on multitouch displays. So hopefully we are all going to work together on that. The really cool thing with that though is that Linda Hole (the teacher) is actually meeting up with Microsoft at the end of the month about multitouch. So I may even get the chance to work with MS on this! So I'll defiantly blog about that after the meeting.

Other than that I've been working on the Virtual Sports Centre again. Starting to look pretty good now. The preloader was giving me problems until I decided to do it all a different way. Originally I wanted separate files that got loaded into one main one and have them all preload at the start. However, I couldn't get that to work so I'm doing it a different way which is to have the separate files load only when they are called. Which to be honest, is a better way of doing it as not every user is going to want every part of site. So they will only load what they need.

Just need to get hold of a few photos so that I can create the virtual environment now.

Of Relief and Colours

Well I walked out of the last induction at 1.20pm today! No more to do! The last couple of groups were returning students and a bit moody. I think I caught a couple of people making comments about me. But maybe just my imagination and a little bit of nerves mixed in? The annoying thing is that it makes you even more nervous if you clock onto something like that!

I've also been playing around in Photoshop today. Stumbled across this tutorial and rather liked the result so I gave it a whirl. Then Andy asked me to start designing some headers for a couple of our websites and I asked if I could try coming up with some new logos for Bournemouth University. He said I could and that he would pass it on to the Marketing guys too! Anyways, you can see my result at the top of this blog post!

I really like it, captures a Web 2.0 feel as well. Anyways, the ideas around it are 6 tiles, one for each "school" that is within the University (Media and DEC (Design, Engineering and Computing) for example), each with their own colour. It also represents an arrow, giving it the feel of movement. But also, and this is marketing not me, it's an arrow pointing to you with BU on it, initials of the Uni but also.... "Be You" thing going on. *Sigh*. So, not just a rip of the tutorial, but a large rework that happened to be a wee bit similar. Naff reasoning I know, but that's the way it is none-the-less!

Comments on it welcome :)

Other than that, it's the end of the week! That means pub time!

Of Problems and Unknown Solutions

Done loads of inductions today, and behold my calmness! Not gotten nervous at all today, I knew I wouldn't after the first one but as I said before, it's just getting over that initial fear. The first induction I did today though, completely by myself (go me... <_<) was for some first years and I've now had a small complaint that it was "too short". Well it can't be any longer than it takes to show the students what they need to know! I know that I covered anything and if the students don't know anything they should have asked questions and they didn't! It's not my problem if they don't listen. Besides, the guy that said it to me obviously doesn't realise that it was my first one to a group that size and if I did miss anything it was because of nerves and at the end of the day the students can work it out! When myBU came into use my course didn't get any sort of induction to it!

We are also starting to see cracks in the software. Teaching materials aren't displaying properly and the guys that look after myBU are blaming it on the teachers. It's possible yes, but it could also be myBU espically as the system is breaking anyways! Ah well... blame has always, and always will be, pushed around until it lands on someone unsuspecting!

Of Inductions and Realisation

Well I've just done my first induction... to six people. Who seemed to already know what I was talking about. Which, in a way, I guess made it a little harder as what I said my contradict what they've already been told.

However, it really wasn't that bad. I knew it wouldn't be once I got in there but it's that initial fear. I may do the next induction as well, however thats to a lecture theater. If not, then I'm forced to do some tomorrow. Which may be better as at least then I know theres no way out!

Thinking about it, I need to slow down a little. I talk way too quick when I'm nervous and I may skip over things. Or miss them out completely. I think I covered everything though so it's all good.

Of Nerves and Bricks

Today was the first day of the uni term. It's amazing how busy the uni gets pretty much over night. Lots more staff and a hell of a lot more students.

This week also finally means inductions. That means demonstrating myBU to large groups of students. Joy. I sat in one that Andy did today and just sat at the front watching him do the induction made me fill my pants with bricks. I have to do my first one tomorrow and I just know I'm going to mess it up hahaha. But, I guess what's the worst that can happen? Andy will be there in case I do anything completely wrong. At the end of the day it's only going "This does this, this doesn't work, this is pants, this allows you to email every bugger in the university so don't press this button... crap... I hope everyone likes that blank email..."

I guess I'll be fine after my first one but it's getting over that first one... first. So handful of readers, wish me luck and pray with me that I don't destroy something in the process of making myself look like a complete idiot as I stammer over my words, shake like a leaf and generally feel like I'm losing my sanity out of my arse.

EDIT: Thought some people may find this amusing.

Of Multitouch and HCI

A buzz word running around at the moment is multitouch. The two big giants are throwing it around like anything. Apples iPhone and iPod Touch uses a multitouch display, Microsoft Surface uses a HUGE multitouch display. But what does it all mean?

The iPhones multitouch display goes as far as you can have two points of contact on it at any one time, this is how they achieve the 'pinch' zooming function. However, Surface can take in as many points of contact as you want, true multitouch.

I'll go into how it works another day, I want to talk about possible applications today. Focusing on two major areas of possible use. Business meetings and lectures. Lets take a typical meeting, six people sat round a table all from different departments. One more person taking the minutes of the meeting. Each person has an ID card tagged with RFID which the drop onto the table infront of them. The table glows into life. Where once it looked like a black glass surface now it turns into several displays, one for each person.

On their display shows a Home area that contains all their documents, a presentation window that allows information to be displayed to everyone in the meeting in real time. A notes page that can be hand written to with automatic conversion to text. Now imagine that all this can be interacted with with multiple touches of your fingers. Everything works with everything else. So you can drag the current showing slide from the presentation window straight to your notes. Or drag a keyword to a search box that automatically Google's it for you.

To head towards a perspective display, under all these main windows is a virtual, top down view of the table. Around its edge it shows who is at the meeting, exactly where they are sat in real life. Want to share a file with the entire table? Pick up the file from your area, tap the table to bring it to the top and drag the file to the middle of the table, let go and it automatically appears on everyones screen. Only want it to one person? Just simple drag it to the person you want to see it and it will appear on their screen.

Looking at another use, lectures. You don't have to worry about that the lecture is in America and you're in England. The lectures being streamed across the internet. Video of the speaker appears on your display, along with their presentation. Again you have access to files, etc. Even relevant E-books that can be searched through. Find something interesting on a web page thats relevant? Select it, and drag it on to the virtual lecture theater. Or type out a question and send it straight to the speaker. It doesn't matter where anyone is, they all appear in the virtual theater as if you are all in the same room.

Touch displays could be taken in any direction. Alot of the technology talked about here isn't just multitouch, but also networking. But this networking is something I think we should look at doing, why does the speaker need to be in the same room at a lecture? Bournemouth University are going to be doing their first live streaming of a lecture from one campus to another soon. If every person in the two theaters had their own display you could just have the video feed of the speaker upfront with their presentation or notes on the screen in front of you. But its the interaction with this system where multitouch comes into play. For example, placing your finger on a file to select and hold it then using your other hand to tap on the table of lecture theater to bring it to the surface so you can drag the file to who you want to show it to.

However HCI comes into it, what sort of hand gestures should we use? Already we've seen the pinching motion on the iPhone to zoom in and out of pictures. Of flicking your finger up the display to scroll down the contact list. Jeff Han shows a couple of other gestures that his team have come up with when using World Wind. For example placing two fingers from the same hand horizontal on the screen and then using the other hand to rotate the view around that axis created by the your first hand. These are important things to consider if one is looking to develop a multitouch system. What gestures are most natural? What gestures are harder to do than others? For example to delete or close a window place all five digits of a hand on the screen then bring them all together. It's not a regularly used gesture so you wouldn't accidentally close or delete something yet, it symbolizes scrunching something up in your hand and throwing it away. Symbolism, I believe, is something else to consider when looking at hand gestures. What motions do we do in real life and how can we relate them to this interaction with a display?

Of Staff and Illness

Well I'm feeling under the weather at the moment. Got a nasty cold! Claire (my partner) has it as well! Mwahahahaha! Had the day off yesterday because I felt like death-on-a-stick and slept for most of the day!

Anyways, back at work today and Andy and I are trying to wrap up the staff assignments, yes, they are still going on. I sent an email out asking the staff to check what units they can see and to let me know of any problems. Not five minutes after I sent it I get a knock on my door. In this man comes;

"Hi I'm Nick from down the hall"
Wonderful I'm thinking, "Hi, what can I do for you?"
"The email you just sent out, can you pull it up?"
Great, whats the problem with my email? I spell checked it... it was short and to the point... so I pull up the email. He starts to read it to me as if I'm stupid...
"Staff assignments... what assignments?"
"Bt assignments I just mean assigning you to the units you'll be teaching this year."
"Oh, well assignments are things we give to the students ((no shit sherlock...)) so thats a bit confusing."
"Ok, sorry."
Reading the next line he asks where he is suppost to check where his units are.
"In blackboard..." Where they have been for the past two years and will continue to be until they eventually get rid of the bloody system! Where else numbnuts?!
"Well thats not very clear is it?"
"No, I suppose it's not. Very sorry, I'll send out a follow up email to clear up the confusion."
"Thanks! That would be great" I'm sure it would you dim witted idiot. You're suppost to teach people for a degree but you can't put two and two together and think to check what units you can see in the place you have seen them for two years?

Makes my cold worse this stuff... man this is the bitchyest post yet! Anyway... I'm off to try and install Vista Ultimate now... should be fun considering it's going on a box that already has Ubuntu on...

Of Flash and Virtualness

As mentioned previously, I'm currently developing a virtual sports center in Flash. Yesterday I got a quick and dirty mock up done. Doesn't look pretty and has hardly any functionality in it for the time being, but as a quick demo to people I think it will work fine. If people like the idea then I'm going to scrap it and start over. Need to try and get access to a 3D program however so I can render some scenes for it. Shame I can't do it all in Flash so it's vectored, would make life a little easier. Still, I should be able to get some nice images done for the project!

As for 3D, I've been taking a look at Swift 3D. It's a 3D rendering program for Flash application. But some of the 3D models, etc that have been done in it are outstanding! It outputs in both vector and raster and is also capable of photo-realistic images. So with any luck I'll be able to get hold of a copy and produce some great 3D content for the VSC.

After another mini brainstroming session with Andy we decided that, at some point, we'd like to end up with a game-esque style interface. A main window showing you what room you are in, a minimap to allow quick navigation (while still be able to navigate in the main window). An info box giving a brief description of room and finally a box that displays the information you click on in the main window. So for example, you could click on a notice board in the main window and it would display the info contained in the notice board just below in a little box.

We are also going to look at controlling the content via XML documents that are imported into Flash at runtime. This means that the entire VSC can be kept up-to-date without editing the Flash at all. Hopefully we will be able to put a PHP backend somewhere to allow the creation/updating of the XML documents so that anyone can add new/edit information.

All in all it sounds like a great project to work on and something to write my dissertation on when that comes about!

Of Bluesky Syndrome

Today Andy and I have been discussing a project we are going to be working. This being a virtual sports center. We are currently looking into how we can present it. I've been doing research into 3D rendering within Flash, as we think Flash will be the best way forward for an interface base.

As Flash doesn't natively support 3D I have been looking at ways of achieving 3D in Flash. It is possible to fake 3D within Flash with the use of maths, and this would be a basic and ideal way of presenting what we want to do without overloading the browser and bandwidth. An excellent tutorial on it can be found here.


However, an open source program I found looks even better, in fact it can produce some amazing 3D work, all rendered in real time. It's called PaperVision3D.

Their blog can be found here. It has loads of information about it as it's being developed. It produces better and better quality visuals as the project progresses. It even has interactivity within it on a 3D scale, demo here.

However, although all this is amazing stuff I don't think we will be going 3D for now, but a simple 2D interface will be used.

Apart from the cool stuff we've been looking at we are still getting ready for the start of term. Still assigning staff to their units, etc. Also been working on the placement website for the SM (Services Management) school. Thats almost complete, just waiting on content really now. Everything is getting set for moving into the new term! I'll have to start practicing the presentation for the BlackBoard inductions we have to do as well soon!!

Of Steam and Skittles

Well this weekend was great. The Great Dorset Steam Fair was visited. Some of you may laugh at the thought of going to a Steam Fair but you shouldn't knock it until you've tried it! Cider was consumed, as were burgers. Then large and possibly dangerous rides were partaken in. All in all Saturday was a great night out. It's all a touch on the expsensive side but the people I went with and I had a bloody great time, definatly revisiting next year. Should be a big one as it will be the 40th GDSF!

Last night was the first skittles match of this years season. After winning every single match last year and moving up a section in the league, my team felt the pressure a little. But we pulled through with a 51 up win! Lets hope that continues through this season, maybe we can go up another section!! For those interested I'll keep you up to date on the wins (and hopefully no losses).

Finally on todays quick update, Widgets again! Haha. I have been seeing about pulling information down from a webpage though a widget recently. Basically we are looking at using a widget to pull down emails from an MS Exchange Server. Not sure if it's possible, going to have to talk to a few people! But we shall see... The problem is that the page I'm pointing it to is Web Outlook which could cause a problem. So I'm going to ask whether there is another source to point it to. Again, I'll keep you up todate. I would show you some widget designs, but I've not gotten very far on them since my Vista install has decided to be really freaking slow and thus stopping me from using Photoshop properlly. Also doesn't help that I don't have a mouse...

Of Feisty Fawns and Gusty Gibbons

Ubuntu users out there will recognise the title as flavour names of Ubuntu Linux. Recently, as you'll know if you read it, I have installed Kubuntu on my laptop. This, however, messed up today. Not quiet sure why or how but it did. So the reinstalling began again and again... and again... and again... and, well you get the picture. Namely my graphics drivers keep messing up then Compiz Fusion messes up and I have to reinstall everything. Tain't great really. Anyways, I've now decided to use Ubuntu to see if this works a little better. The difference between Kubuntu and Ubuntu? One uses KDE and one uses Gnome as the windows manager, I'll let you work out which uses which.

I've had to reinstall twice so far because it lost a compiz package and then wouldn't reinstall it because of dependancies. Still fingers crossed this time!

For those interested I'm currently using version 7.04 (Feisty Fawn). Though looking to upgrade to 7.10 (Gusty Gibbon) once it's stable! Ubuntu has also released the name of their next flavour (surely they should move out of Alpha on the last one before doing that...?), it's called 'Hardy Heron'.

Well, wish me luck in getting my Fawn to work with beautiful eye candy! Ifyou haven't seen Compiz then I suggest you search it on You Tube and take a look, puts anything Windows and Mac users have come up with to shame...

Of Wizardry and Widgets

Today I've been pulling apart some widgets again. There are some amazing ones out there. For example, I downloaded one today that had an extremly simple interface showing the remaining space on my hard drive. But when I popped it open and had a look at the code... blew me away. Several large scripts behind, obviously created by a level 50 or above Wizard! All I wanted to find out was how to gather the informatin on the hard drive, had to scan through lines and lines of code... not sure I've found what I need either!!

After pulling apart several widgets on different things, clocks, network monitors, multi CPU watchers, etc I sat down and started doing some designs for the widgets I want to create for the Uni. So far I'm looking at a CPU watcher, maybe one that can see duel cores, a hard drive watched that, hopefuly, will be able to check whether you are on a university computer (and thus watch the student drive) or at home (thus watching your C drive), bog standard RAM watcher, battery watched for those on laptops, a WiFi watcher for those on a wireless connection, a clock (that hopefully syncs with an atomic clock server and has an alarm) and email checker that will log in to the university emails (hopefully). I was also looking at doing a widget that would let you drag a file onto it and then upload it to your student drive. However, I don't think that it will be possible unless the user is on a uni computer and then it would render it pretty pointless!

As you can see, most features are labeled as "hopeful" at the moment, simply because I just don't know if I will be able to connect up to the servers! But heres hoping!

I have had someone complain about using Yahoo Widgets however because they currently don't run on Linux and who knows when the Konfubulator engine is going to be ported to that! If anyone has any info on that though, please let me know!

So anyway, sketched out a couple of designs on paper today, tried to get them all to fit together, at least the important ones. But I think I'm going to go with a fairly simple layout. Just because not everybody is going to use every widget so I might as well make them all look nice as stand alone widgets. Gona start designing them at home as it's alot easier than doing on my laptop (no mouse and pen isn't too good for this sort of thing). Then I shall start coding them!

Of Exams and Webpages

Well this morning I did a resit exam in Internet Systems, Applications and Technologies (ISAT). Chances are I've not done enough for a pass... again. Only answered two out of required three questions and I don't think those were very well written! Left as soon as I could as well. No point in staring at a question you can't answer right? Isn't it funny how some question are simply impossible to bullshit?! It's like they want you to fail... haha.

Anyway, back at work today. Yesterday was the last day of notice at my last job, thank god!! So today I've been playing in BlackBoard learning how to set up a "My Community".... community area thingy... Basically I've been asked to set up an area for placement students and pre-placement students that has loads of content about placement opportunities and such. Pretty much done the basic shell, just need to talk to the people who want to populate it with content now to find out specifics!

Of Linux and Trailers

Just to cover what happened at work today. Had a meeting with Andy's boss about doing a student placement website within Blackboard. Looks like it's going to be pretty straight forward. Can't see any massive problems with it. Spent an hour or so going through different tools, etc with a guy called Tim that I can use in BB for this project.

Now on to todays content... Linux. Namely Kubuntu. Decided I'd chuck it on my laptop as a dual partition with Vista. So far I've had no problems booting into either or using the grub booter. Kubuntu is Ubuntu with the KDE window manager instead of Gnome. I personally prefer KDE as I think it looks a little better. Ubuntu has been heard alot recently as the 'easiest' distro of Linux to use. It's supost to be a good point at which to transfer over from Windows to Linux. So far I must say I've been fairly impressed. I've used what used to be Mandrake Linux and Debian (of which Ubuntu is based upon) before. I found both to be great distros. However, from a 'how the hell does this work?' stand point, Ubuntu beats them. The main version you can download is the Desktop CD. This is a Live CD which means it can be chucked into your CD/DVD drive (it's only a normal CD, so pretty small compared to some others that are now on DVDs). This boots up into Ubuntu (or Kubuntu in my case) so that you can give it all a good long test run. If you like it installation is as simple as clicking the "install" icon on the desktop. You choose a few options such as language and time zone and it does the rest. A reboot later you have Linux installed and ready to go.

I'll post more about it as I use it, but as I say. So far it's looking good!

Now, onto something completely different... has anyone seen or heard about this mysterious trailer thats been playing in cinema's recently? It's produced by JJ Abram, the co-creator of Lost. You can view it by going here. As yet nothing has been released about it. Plenty of rumors and ideas are running wild from a robot film to a remake of Godzilla to a brand new monster. Some people think that the guy towards the end of the trailer (as they all run outside) is shouting "it's a lion! It's huge!". Personally I hear it as "I've seen it, it's alive! It's huge!". Which makes more sense to me, why would they drop "it's a lion" in a trailer that is designed to give nothing away?

What ever happens, it's grabbed my attention. Really looking forward to seeing more about it!

Of Web 2.0

Second post today because the previous one should have been in the weekend... haha.

So I've been looking up websites that are "web 2.0". Web 2.0 is just the next step in the evolution of the World Wide Web. It begins to incorporate things like communities, podcasts, social networks, etc.

Example sites are Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, you get the picture. However there are plenty of sites that take the idea of Web 2.0 alot further than just being social (without having to meet anyone).

People search engines are starting to appear, I know of two now. One that recently started is Spock. You can search a name or avatar and it should pull results from the web relating to the name you've put in.

Interactivity is another big area of Web 2.0. Google is one of the fore fronters of this with iGoogle. I suggest you have a play with it if you haven't already. It's practically a virtual desktop that you can stick loads of different widgets to. I personally have my G.Cal, Email, weather and several news feeds running. AJAX is beginning to shine as fantastic technology and will, I think, be employed in many different aspects of Web 2.0. There is even a website that builds an AJAX website for you!

There are even online word processors and spreadsheet programs on the net now. Most people will have heard of Googles Google Docs (which are in another language at the moment... at least for me) or Thinkfree which have a word processor, spreadsheet program as well as a presentation program all online and all free to use. Saving your files is a breeze and can either be done as a PDF or an MS Office file.

One last thing I'd like to mention is a website called Vidoop. This company has created a new way of logging onto a website (that supports OpenID) with the use of pictures instead of a password. This may sounds completely stupid but if you are interested watch their video to find out how its all done.

All in all Web 2.0 looks pretty good and definatly the way forward. The Uni is looking at taking a Web 2.0 approach by using Blogs and Wikis within the Uni as well as externally for assignments and such like. I'm looking forward to playing with that!

Of XML and JavaScript

Today I've been playing with the Yahoo! Widgets a little more. Infact, I've ripped one apart to take a look inside to see what makes it tick. Mostly, XML. With JS sprinkled here and there for painful, twisted satisfaction.

However, I have found that they are fairly simple! The Widgets are built from the ground up in XML, positioning of the images you create in Photoshop can be automatically set using the script that Yahoo! have created. It runs directly through PS and creates all the folders and basic XML code for you. Then all you need to do is add some more plus a little bit of JS to give it functionality. In fact, I created a CPU watcher (gives percentage in use).


It's basically three layers of images with the XML+JS creating the text. It has some basic "options" with it as well. Again these are all set up via XML. It's such a simple platform to build from that it's almost a pleasure to use!

Anyways, I'll be positng again later about my job description and the Web 2.0 meeting I have today.

Of Widg-Away

Today I've unpacked a Widget or two to see whats going on inside it. Unfortunatly however I don't have Dreamweaver installed on my laptop at the moment so viewing the XML/JS file in notepad is a nightmare!

However, I have played with Yahoo!'s Widget Creation script that plugs straight into Photoshop (CS+). All you do is create your image, load up the script and you are presented with a dialog box. Input Widget name, author, version, etc. Hit OK and it goes off and creates the widget folder for you. This holds all the XML, JS and resources. The main file is a .kon file that holds the main XML and JS stuff.

Hopefully in a couple of weeks Andy and will be pulling apart some more widgets and reskinning them, playing with the scripts.

Off for now...

Of B and his Dogs

Thought I'd add a quick explanation. I have a fetish for dog's, sticks and B. So I took a photo, then found the "upload to blog" feature on my phone (SE K810i) and tried it. Then moved it across to this blog as it went to another one. So there.

Of First Days

Well my first day of Uni Placement went pretty good. I've been given a list of things to start on so I should keep busy! Seem to be getting on alright with my boss, Andy too.

Man... feels weird writting thing... what do I talk about?

Well three things I've been told to do are,

1. Create a BLOG Done
2. Have a gander with SecondLife Done, but slow net connection at home :(
3. Look at Yahoo! Widgets and see how they work

SecondLife seems alright, though I can't work out what do to on the "tutorial" island... The stone statues at the start are out smarting me. Thats right, virtual stone statues out smarting me. Blogger seems good, if not... weird writting about this. But, as Andy said earlier, if I do this I practically have my log book sorted.

Next couple of weeks is going to be spent learning the ins and outs of BlackBoard, so when Andy comes back from holiday we can start work on it straight away.

Nowt else to say really...