Multimedia - Legalese and Project Presentations

April 25, 2006 | 1 Comment

Here are today’s slides. We’ll be discussing legal issues when building multimedia projects as well as going over the presentation of your final projects.

Just a reminder: We have our 4th quiz on Thursday. We’ll be going over the following topics:

Here’s the presentation times:

May 9:

  • 12:30-12:38: James Hodgman - ???
  • 12:40-12:48: David O’Connell - ???
  • 12:50-12:58: John Chirila - ???
  • 1:00-1:08: Jonathan Bilodeau - Molten Core Strategy Website/Video/Instructions
  • 1:10-1:18: Paul Auger - Multimedia Storage Site Revamp
  • 1:20-1:28: Matt Baillargeon - Music Video & Documentation
  • 1:30-1:38: Jamie Howard - Rugby Website in w/ Flash
  • 1:40-1:48: Eric Croteau - Hockey Tutorial in Flash

May 11:

  • 12:30-12:38: Ryan Morash - Flash/Video filled website
  • 12:40-12:48: Tucker McGaw - A Flash Movie production
  • 12:50-12:58: Felix Rosen - DJ Flash Webpage
  • 1:00-1:08: Angela DiCicco - JCreator Tutorial in Powerpoint
  • 1:10-1:18: Matthew Doenges - Pocket PC Back End Application (Visual Basic)
  • 1:20-1:28: Erik Kowlachuk - NHL Promo Video

May 16:

  • 11:00-11:08: Christopher Signor - Dungeons and Dragons Character Creation Tutorial in Flash
  • 11:10-11:18: Jesse Patch - Company Webpage
  • 11:20-11:28: Colby Schneider - Navigable Snowboarding DVD
  • 11:30-11:38: Liam Jewell - PSU Help Tutorials in Flash
  • 11:40-11:48: Brendan Emery - TikiWiki
  • 11:50-1:30: Final Exam

Posted by Matt | Filed Under Blog, Technology 

Multimedia - Lab/Project Help

April 20, 2006 | 1 Comment

Today’s Lab will be used to assist anyone with issues they have been experiencing with labs, projects, or project planning reports. We will be meeting in Memorial as per our regularly schedule lab time.

Tuesday of next week, we’ll be discussing Copyright Law and Fair Use as this is an important part of creating a Multimedia project. Please review the following documents:

We’ll also be discussing Project Presentations…how to plan, prepare, and present your project. Here’s the presentation order that I have scheduled:

May 9:

  • 12:30-12:38: James Hodgman - ???
  • 12:40-12:48: David O’Connell - ???
  • 12:50-12:58: John Chirila - ???
  • 1:00-1:08: Jonathan Bilodeau - Homestarrunner-esque Flash Site
  • 1:10-1:18: Paul Auger - Multimedia Storage Site Revamp
  • 1:20-1:28: Matt Baillargeon - Music Video & Documentation
  • 1:30-1:38: Jamie Howard - Rugby Website in w/ Flash
  • 1:40-1:48: Eric Croteau - Hockey Tutorial in Flash

May 11:

  • 12:30-12:38: Ryan Morash - Flash/Video filled website
  • 12:40-12:48: Tucker McGaw - A Flash Movie production
  • 12:50-12:58: Felix Rosen - DJ Flash Webpage
  • 1:00-1:08: Angela DiCicco - Cooking Lessons in Flash
  • 1:10-1:18: Matthew Doenges - Pocket PC Back End Application (Visual Basic)
  • 1:20-1:28: Erik Kowlachuk - NHL Promo Video

May 16:

  • 11:00-11:08: Christopher Signor - Dungeons and Dragons Character Creation Tutorial in Flash
  • 11:10-11:18: Jesse Patch - Company Webpage
  • 11:20-11:28: Colby Schneider - Navigable Snowboarding DVD
  • 11:30-11:38: Liam Jewell - PSU Help Tutorials in Flash
  • 11:40-11:48: Brendan Emery - TikiWiki
  • 11:50-1:30: Final Exam

Posted by Matt | Filed Under Blog, Technology 

Multimedia Flash Lab 2 - Due Date Extended

April 14, 2006 | Leave a Comment

Due to problems various people are experiencing, I am extending the due date of Flash Lab 2 to Wednesday night @ Midnight so that we can discuss this further in class on Tuesday.

Posted by Matt | Filed Under Blog, Technology 

Multimedia - Video (w/ Lab)

April 13, 2006 | 2 Comments


Check out the Music Video I made! Whee. I will be taking autographs later.

As many of you may already know, myPlymouth and WebCT is down (and has been since 3am). This directly effects my duties in IT and will be needed in the office during official class time. However, here are the slides which we will go over next Tuesday (I’ll combine the two days into one). In the mean time, read this: Digital Video for Multimedia Basics.

And I suppose I’ll give you a Video Assignment. w00t! Have fun with this one.

Using the video application of your choice (Windows Movie Maker, iMovie, Adobe Premiere, etc) create a music video for one of your favorite songs. You will need to find an mp3 of a song from somewhere you can do this a few ways:

  • download it (legally) from iTunes, then download WavePad and open the song that you downloaded and save as .mp3.
  • ‘borrow’ an mp3 from a friend
  • rip one of your own cds

Next, using that song, find pictures and video from elsewhere to match your music, thus creating a sort of Music Video collage-type thing. If you’ve never used video editing software, Windows Movie Maker is super easy to learn. If you get stumped, do some google searches to find the answers you need. (Or e-mail me)

Once you are done…DO NOT turn in the Movie Maker project file…you need to save it as a Movie (.wmv). (obviously, if you are using iTunes, turn in a .mov)

Now…how should you turn it in? Well…Don’t upload it to WebCT. Save it to your M:Drive in your Home folder. (or burn it to a CD) and either send me the link to your video or get the CD to me by next Friday (4/21).

Posted by Matt | Filed Under Blog, Technology 

Google Calendar (CL2) Launched

April 12, 2006 | 2 Comments

In February I posted about the Google Calendar and speculated that its arrival was fast approaching. Well…CL2 was launched tonight (the 12th of April). Create your calendar here. My initial opinions are as follows:

Its great. The interface is pretty darn snazzy…very Gmail-like with its layout; which is great to see as this just screams the at coming full integration between CL2 and Gmail. Everything is Ajax-ified as would be expected with any of Google Services and they do the whole event creation thing right. Its quick, its easy, and fairly intuitive while screwing with advanced event options. Whats really great are the options for repeating events; they have the standard weekly, monthly, bi-monthly, etc…but they also have very student friendly time slots: events that occur on Monday/Wednesday/Fridays, on Tuesday/Thursdays, and on every weekday.

Another huge win is the social aspect that is delivered at launch of CL2. You have the ability to add guests to events and calendars. Oh, and thats another thing! You can create multiple calendars and make them publicly viewable or make them private (you can restrict viewing to just yourself or open it up to certain people). A nice thing about the multiple calendar stuff is that you can view all your available calendars on a single calendar page where it combines events. Very cool stuff.

Other cool features are:

  • Notifications for events can be sent via E-mail, popups, and by Cellphone!
  • Discussion threads on events
  • Event integration with Google Maps
  • Ability to add other public calendars to your own…
  • A number of country specific holiday calendars are available for adding into your list of calendars.
  • Importing from csv and ical

I’m a happy camper.

Posted by Matt | Filed Under Blog, Random News, Technology 

Multimedia Final Projects

April 11, 2006 | Leave a Comment

According to our Final Project document, your first Planning Report was due today. I have pushed the due date off until next Tuesday (4/18) so as to give more ample opportunity for you to ask questions. Here’s the exerpt on what you will need to do:

Description of 1st planning report:
Each of the following items should clearly labeled in the report:

  1. A description of the topic of your project.
  2. A description of the measurable objectives of your project. I will be using the objectives that you indicate that you have for your project as my evaluation tool for the project.
  3. An indication of the authoring program you will use to put your project together (Flash, PHP, Powerpoint, some other tool like Java or Javascript).
  4. An indication of the software applications that will be necessary for you to complete the project.
  5. A beginning storyboard of your project. Note that this is the beginning of your project planning. The storyboard should lay out all the “pages” in your presentation, indicating what will be on each. This documentation must be reasonably complete. You can find more information on Storyboarding here.
  6. A description of how you will be using each of the cells in the 2D multimedia taxonomy from the Project Planning slides and why it makes sense for you to be using the cell that way. For example, for sound abstraction, you might indicate that each time the user presses a button, the sound of a bomb going off is heard. You must then explain why that choice makes sense given the goals of your project. If there is a particular cell from the taxonomy that you will not be using at all, you must explain why you will not be using it. This part of your report should be clearly linked to your stated objectives.

Posted by Matt | Filed Under Blog, Technology 

XMLHttpRequest Object W3C Working Draft

April 10, 2006 | 1 Comment

I found this article over at Ajaxian. W3C has taken notice of the use of the XMLHttpRequest and has decided to standardize it! w00t! W3C says:

The XMLHttpRequest object is implemented today, in some form, by many popular Web browsers. Unfortunately the implementations are not completely interoperable. The goal of this specification is to document a minimum set of interoperable features based on existing implementations, allowing Web developers to use these features without platform-specific code. In order to do this, only features that are already implemented are considered. In the case where there is a feature with no interoperable implementations, the authors have specified what they believe to be the most correct behavior.

This is pretty exciting because we can now see a proposed consistent method for using the object will be solidified in future browsers! Now...lets hope the browsers implement it quickly :) Oh, and here's an example of setting a Request Header:

PLAIN TEXT
JavaScript:
  1. // The following script:
  2. var r = new XMLHttpRequest();
  3. r.open('get', 'demo.cgi');
  4. r.setRequestHeader('X-Test', 'one');
  5. r.setRequestHeader('X-Test', 'two');
  6. r.send(null);
  7.  
  8. // ...would result in the following header being sent:
  9. ...
  10. X-Test: one, two
  11. ...

Posted by Matt | Filed Under Blog, Random News 

Multimedia - Flash (Lab 2)

April 4, 2006 | Leave a Comment

This week's lab (which is due 04/14) is more free-form where you have the opportunity to really explore Flash and see what it can do. With this lab, you'll experiment with more complex animations. I highly suggest you do the flash tutorials that come with the application - you can find them by clicking on the Help menu. In addition to working with nicely timed animations, you will be scripting in Flash's ActionScript.

Create a navigation page (similar to a DVD menu) that allows the user to choose from at least 5 buttons/icons/links. Four of these icons should send the user to 4 separate animations (complete with sound). The 5th icon, when clicked, should send the user to my blog BorkWeb.com. At the end of each animation, give the user a navigation menu allowing them to view the other animations or return to the first screen. The 4 animations should be more in-depth than what we did with the previous Flash lab and can include graphics from other sources (i.e. you don't need to do all the image creation right in flash...you can get pictures or make your own in Photoshop). Here are some animation suggestions:

  • Two balls that bounds around a room, bouncing off of each other.
  • A presidential spoof
  • A kid being attacked by a giant mosquito
  • A monkey dancing across the screen
  • ....be creative

You can add to the above requirements to suit your needs (but don't detract from them). Have fun with this one. Here are some suggested sources for learning about more complex Flash animations:

  • Here are some simple tutorials at W3 Schools
  • Flash Kit has an awesome set of tutorials on a crap ton of topics

Now, in order to create the menus and navigation; stopping and starting movies and playing from various locations needs to be done with some ActionScripting. Here are a few resources to get you started:

  • ActionScript.org has some great tutorials on ActionScripting
  • Here's some documentation very similar to the Java API
  • Check the help in Macromedia Flash (the application for simple start() stop() and loop() commands for controlling the movie)

And don't forget about the quiz next Tuesday (4/11)

Posted by Matt | Filed Under Blog, Technology