Exam is Completed

I just finished my exam for Network Media Production this morning. Yesterday I was in a panic not knowing what we are in for with the exam. I took the afternoon off work to revise my lecture notes and researched the internet to refresh my memory.

Got up early this morning and did the same. Went to the exam and yes no one else in the course knew what they were in for. Well I must say the first question threw my mind in a spin "What is a Blogroll?" Blogroll, I don't remember being taught about a blogroll. We were taught about blogs and blogging. So I thought it was a trick question and discussed in my answer what a blog is.

I must say I was pleasantly surprised when I finished answering all the questions with 15mins to spare. I know I had 15mins because a lady walked passed with a sign saying 15 minutes to go. I read through my answers to make sure I covered everything. Glad I did because I added information to some of the answers.

On reflection, I am very pleased with my answers and most of all it is over. No more butterflies and worms in the stomach.

Hope the rest of my class did just as well. I looked around at those who were doing the same exam and noticed we all finished at the same time, waiting for 10am to get out of the examination room. I also noticed a few smiles. This told me that yes we were all taught well.

Congrats to our lecturers and tutors they did a fantastic job. Thank you guys!!! Read more Entry>>

My Final Blog

I know this is a late post, but I asked Michael Honey for an extension which he approved.

We have reached the end of our journey(studies for Networked Media Production). I hope you all enjoyed it as much as I have. I have learned a lot of useful knowledge and things I had never heard of. So yes this subject has proven to be amazing. I give it 10/10.

The lectures and tutorials were motivating, captivating and informative. I couldn't wait to get home after the lectures and tutorials to research the things we were learning.

I linked my RSS feed to Googles FeedBurner which shows that at the start of this blog I had 4 subscribers and at the end it increase to 7. Here is a picture of the stats














Analyzing the stats from my Project B assignment, since writing articles for this blog the statistic have proven to be a successful way of generating traffic to my website. It is evident by the hits from Australia increased during the time studying Networked Media Production.

This subject has sparked an interest in researching Social Networking and finding new ideas to add to this new world wide web phenomena.

So for now this is a sad farewell to all my fellow students, lecturers and tutors.

The 3 blogs I have chosen are as follows:

We Are The Web
http://machinimamadness.blogspot.com/2009/05/we-are-web.html

Creative Journey
http://machinimamadness.blogspot.com/2009/03/creative-journey.html

Infomatics and Data Visualization
http://machinimamadness.blogspot.com/2009/05/inforgraphics-verses-data-visualisation.html Read more Entry>>

Project B Rationale (NMP)

This article is a rationale of my University of Canberra - Networked Media Production (NMP) assignment. Which I have decided to be Data Visualization using raw data to analyze any patterns or trends in the traffic flow of people visiting my website www.fandangle.com.au

Why I choose data visualization for this project.
If you have a website, it would help to know who is visiting you and what has attracted these visitors to your website.

This article will explain the advantages of using data visualization to monitor the traffic that flows to your website. It may even reveals trends and patterns that you didn't know about.

The Data
Most ISP's provide CPanel which is a Control Panel or file management system accessed via a web interface. Normally CPanel allows a website administrator access and permission to download Raw Access Logs of all visitors to their website. The logs record information such as IP address, date and time visited, browser used, pages, files and images accessed etc. Unfortunately my ISP at this stage is unable to provide access to the Raw Access Logs. Not to be put off, I have created a visual basic program to extract data from the awstats pages via CPanel.

Here is an excellent article explaining how to gather and analyze the Raw Access Logs - Harvesting cPanel Raw Access Logs

Joomla 1.5
The content (articles, images and videos) on my website is administered using the Joomla 1.5 CMS (Content Management System). Joomla is an Open Source CMS which has a large international following.

Searching the Google Trends service which will gererate graphs of the popularity of certain keywords used in the Google search engine. This graph shows the growth of some popular open source CMS applications such as: joomla, drupal, wordpress and typepad
















As we can see from this data visualization Joomla is the most popular CMS closely followed by Wordpress. Google Trends is an excellent tool in seeing graphically what the popularity or trends are for keywords.

Joomla 1.5 is an excellent CMS for people who are not don't have programming skills such as HTML, CSS, PHP using MySQL(Opensource Database), Apache(Web Server) and Linux (Opensource OS -Operating System)

Those who do have programming skills can create website templates(how the website looks) as well as extensions for Joomla(modules, components and plugins). I fit into this criteria and have created a module that will allow website administrators insert Google Adsense Ads on their Joomla website.

What am I looking for?
Remembering the basic rule of economics "Supply and Demand". I needed to find out what is the demand of my visitors in relation to the supply of articles I write. The only way I could do this was to analyze the statistic logs from my website and use data visualization to see if there were any patterns or trends. By following this method of analysis I can then experiment and develop constructive strategies to see if there is an increase in the traffic flow to my website.

Now I must admit I am not proud of the traffic my website is getting so far, which is around 1,000 hits a month. The website is only in it's infancy (10 months) so pride put aside the questions that come to mind are;

1) Who is visiting my website
2) What are my visitors looking for
3) How much and what type of traffic flow is the website attracting
4) What events, actions or changes have affected the flow of traffic
5) What strategies can I implement based on the analysis

Now that I know what I am looking for I can look for a way to visualize the data that may reveal some traits. The visualization tools I chose to use are the Google Visualization API's. They are free and simple to use. The great thing about the Google Visualization API's is you can store your data in a Google Docs Spreadsheet and link the data in the spreadsheet to the API of your choice. Which means if you add more data to the spreadsheets, the Google Visualization API's will reflect those updates because they are linked to the spreadsheets.

Who is visiting my website
I choose the Geomap to display what countries were visiting my website. I created two Geopmaps:

GeopMap Bandwidth of visitors
The bandwidth shows what countries have visited the website and the intensity of the color refers to the lowest to the highest number of bandwidth in Bytes or downloads.

Link to the Geomap Bandwidth of Visitors
















GeoMap Hits
The hits in this Geomap relates to how many pages were accessed by visitors and what countries they came from.

Link to Geomap of visitors Hits














What are my visitors looking for
This was a tough job extracting the data from the statistical web page HTML. I created a Windows Application using visual basic 2005 to make the job easier for future use.

Here is a table of the Most Popular pages

Pages Visited	Number of Hits
fandangle.com.au/index.php	6948
fandangle.com.au/	3723
fandangle.com.au/component/yvcomment/	1610
fandangle.com.au/downloads/mod_fandangle_adsense.zip	1153
fandangle.com.au/joomla-tutorials.html	773
fandangle.com.au/about-fandangle.html	645
fandangle.com.au/how-to-make-films/92.html	578
fandangle.com.au/joomla-tutorials/88.html	562
fandangle.com.au/machinima-films.html	546
fandangle.com.au/contact-us.html	495
fandangle.com.au/radio.html	451
fandangle.com.au/daryls-films.html	442
fandangle.com.au/fandangle-adsense.html	435
fandangle.com.au/fandangle-sitemap.html	413
fandangle.com.au/what-is-machinima.html	409

How much and what type of traffic flow is the website attracting
To see how much and what type of traffic my website is generating, I used a Motion Chart comparing Bandwidth to Hits and the chart animates the changes over a time period of 10 months. This chart proved to be very interesting because most of the countries had low hits but high downloads. But what interested me most was that the United States had the most hits and low downloads and Australia beat the US with the highest hits.

Link to Motion Chart

















What events, actions or changes have affected the flow of traffic
Having seen the results of the Motion chart I choose a Time Chart that focused on the hits from the United States compared to Australia.

Link to Fandangle Hits Analysis Graph











With this Time Chart I was able to note when the peaks in the time line happened.

A) I activated my website(put it online)
B) I created a Joomla 1.5 module that would insert Google Adsense Ads on a webpage
C) I started writing articles for my blog as part of my University weekly assignment
D) This was the peak of writing articles for my blog

What strategies can I implement based on the analysis
From the analysis of these Data Visualization tools I was able to ascertain information that has show what I need to do to generate more traffic.

Write, write and write some more
write at least one article a week for my website and my blog.

Get the word out there
get the word out there via blogs, forums etc, build more Joomla 1.5 modules that for free download on the website, and get my website links on more websites.

Monitor my results using data visualization
Keep analyzing the traffic flow of my website with these tools to see if I am making progress in generating more traffic.

Conclusion
I have realized, thanks to this University assignment that using these Data Visualization tools to monitor my website traffic is a far better approach to generate traffic rather than guessing and flying blind .

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References
Fandangle Website: http://www.fandangle.com.au

Fandangle Data Visualization Charts And Graphs
Geomap bandwidth: http://www.fandangle.com.au/networked-media-production/123-geomap-to-monitor-website-downloads-traffic.html
Geomap Hits: http://www.fandangle.com.au/networked-media-production/124-geomap-to-monitor-website-hits-traffic.html
Motion Chart: http://www.fandangle.com.au/networked-media-production/122-data-visualization-motion-chart.html
Annotated Timeline Chart: http://www.fandangle.com.au/networked-media-production/125-annotated-timeline-graph-to-monitor-your-wesite-traffic.html

Google Trends: http://www.google.com/trends

Google Visualization API's
Visualization website: http://code.google.com/apis/visualization/documentation/gallery.html
GeoMap: http://code.google.com/apis/visualization/documentation/gallery/geomap.html
Motion Chart: http://code.google.com/apis/visualization/documentation/gallery/motionchart.html
Annotated Timeline Chart: http://code.google.com/apis/visualization/documentation/gallery/annotatedtimeline.html

Harvesting cPanel Raw Access Logs:
http://perishablepress.com/press/2007/05/28/harvesting-cpanel-raw-access-logs/
Example Raw Access Logs: http://cpanelguide.net/RawLog.txt

Content Management Systems (CMS)
Google CMS Trends: http://www.google.com/trends?q=joomla%2C+drupal%2C+wordpress%2C+typepad

Joomla: http://www.joomla.org/
Drupal: http://drupal.org/
Wordpress : http://wordpress.org/
Typepad: http://www.typepad.com/

CPanel: http://www.cpanel.net/

Read more Entry>>

NMP Project B

I have spent a lot of time researching what I want to do for my Project B - Data Visualization. As a result I was able to use Google Maps API, Google Documents Spreadsheet for these visualizations

Google Maps of countries visiting my website

Motion Chart of what countries the visitors to my website are from, how many hits and the download bandwidth. Which has been very revealing in the analysis.

The statistical data is from my website www.fandangle.com.au. which means I am the copyright owner of this information.


Read more Entry>>

Project B Is Coming

This is not my Project B Rationale blog. It is just letting you know I am still alive and kicking and working on my project of course.

It has taken a while to decide what I am doing for my project. Originally I was going tell a story of the journey my Grandfather took when he enlisted to fight in WWII. Unforunately he died while in action in Crete. It is also really hard getting family history since my Father and Aunty are no longer alive.(No violins please) It would have involved a lot of research at the National Archives of Australia and the Australian War Memorial which would have taken up far too much time researching. So I decided to work on datavisualization.

The datavisualization will be based on stats from my website www.fandangle.com.au . Sounds great, except my ISP's CPanel doesn't have access to the Raw Access Logs to do a proper analysis of the data. But all is not lost. I can copy and paste stats from Awstats on the ISP's CPanel. Not as detailed as I would have liked.

To format the data properly I created a visual basic program to save a lot of manual copy/paste/edit etc work. The project will utilize Google Visualization API using Google Maps and Google Earth. Sounds easy. Not really. It will involve a lot of technical work. The first visualization will be a map displaying a number of pin point markers showing what countries visitors to my website have come from. To use the Google Map API, I have to provide the country names, country abreviation codes and latitude/longitude coordinates of the various countries. Then there is the HTML and Java codes I have to manipulate. I might make a visual basic program to do this automatically for me. It may lead to a tool I can offer on my website so that anyone interested in Google Maps as a datavisualiztion tool can generate the code to embed the maps on their website or blog.

When it comes to a project this size I don't want to do it just for the sake of my studies. There needs to be a reason why I'm doing this work. So the other reason for doing this project is so I can monitor my website traffic. I have Google Adsense ads (Call me a capitalist - we have to survive some how) on my website and need to increase my traffic to increase my monetizing chances.

I can see this project will end up being an on going venture, because I would like to eventually make a PHP application using MySQL on a LAMP (Linux) server to help in website log statistical analysis.

So that is the state I am in at present. Please stay tuned for the continuing story.

References
Google Visualization API: http://code.google.com/apis/visualization/
National Archive of Australia: http://www.naa.gov.au/
Australia War Memorial: http://www.awm.gov.au/
My Website: http://www.fandangle.com.au
CPanel: http://www.cpanel.net/
Google Maps: http://maps.google.com/
Google Earth: http://earth.google.com/
Google Adsense: http://www.Google.com.au/AdSense
MySQL: http:/www.mysql.com
PHP: http://www.php.net/

Read more Entry>>

Project B - Datavisualisation Or Not?

Project B is fast approaching. I'm still doing research on my project and starting to think I have bitten off more than I can chew.

After doing to research on Data Visualisation there is a heap of tools that will help you create various methods of displaying your data. Do a Google search for datavisualisation tools and datavisualization tools.

Here are some examples:

Data Visualisation: Tools and Examples - Written by Matthew Solle

Googles TouchGraph - a Java application that reveals the network of connectivity between websites as reported by Google's database of related sites.

IBM's Manyeyes application to create datavisualisation

New York Times Visualization Lab - has a variety of examples that will inspire you

Processing is an open source programming language to program images, animation and interactions. It teaches you computer programming within a visual context.

Here are some examples of what can be achieve using Processing

Prefuse Visualization Toolkit - Prefuse is licensed under the terms of a BSD license, and can be freely used for both commercial and non-commercial purposes.

Examples of what you can do with Prefuse

I hope this has been helpful to your Univeristy of Canberra Networked Media Productions assignment Project B.

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References:
Data Visualisation/Matthew Solle
http://web.fumsi.com/go/article/share/3619

Googles TouchGraph
http://www.touchgraph.com/TGGoogleBrowser.html

IBM Manyeyes
http://manyeyes.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/

New York Times Visualization Lab
http://vizlab.nytimes.com/visualizations

Processing
http://processing.org/
Processing Gallery
http://processing.org/exhibition/index.html

Prefuse Visualization Toolkit
http://prefuse.org/
Prefuse Gallery
http://prefuse.org/gallery/ Read more Entry>>

Inforgraphics and Data Visualisation

Data Visualisation is used to communicate statistical information in an efficient way so the observer can understand the meaning of data. Since its early development using computer graphics in the 1950's, a significant boost was given to the field with the appearance, in 1987, of the NSF report "Visualisation in Scientific Computing" edited by Bruce H. McCormick, Thomas A. DeFanti and Maxine D. Brown.

Infographics
Information Graphics or infographics as it is known is a means of displaying detailed information using images and in some cases animations in detail a simplified manner so the viewer can understand what the information is trying to convey.

Here is an animation that uses Infographics that expands and adds more detail to the Little Red Riding Hood fantasy story. It uses various forms of infographics which is very inspiring as to what creative approaches can be used to display information.

Slagsmålsklubben - Sponsored by destiny from Tomas Nilsson on Vimeo.

Data Visualisation
Computers have the capacity to assess, calculate, read and compare data at extremely high speeds. With the introduction of computer databases which can store a vast amount of data, computers can analyze, assess and calculate the relevance of that data to determine for example the affects of climate change, astrological research, financial growth, projections and down turns etc. Data Visualisation is a graphical way of communicating data to humans that is easy to understand.

For example Hans Rossling, professor of global health at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute had developed the breakthrough Trendalyzer software through his nonprofit Gapminder Foundation. This software was acquired by Google. Trendalyzer is able to visualise data from the UN (United Nations), and animate it which reveals a lot about the economic, birth rates, wealth and life expentancy of countries around the world.

Here is an amazing video where Hans Rossling explains the data visualization potential of Trendalyzer and how the world can learn more if data stored in various institutions, government organizations and businesses were made freely accessable.




Data Visualisation is part of my Networked Media Production University studies at the University of Canberra. Infographics and Data Visualisation has been a real eye opener for me. It just shows the vast opportunities available to media producers. As students we are constantly reminded that we are the future of new media production technologies that are evolving and advancing the communication potential of media on the internet.

References
Data Visualization Wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_visualization

16 Awesome Data Visualization Tools:
http://mashable.com/2007/05/15/16-awesome-data-visualization-tools/

5 Best Data Visualization Projects of the Year
http://flowingdata.com/2008/12/19/5-best-data-visualization-projects-of-the-year/

Data Visualization: Modern Approaches
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2007/08/02/data-visualization-modern-approaches/

Information Visualization & Visual Communication
http://infosthetics.com/

Little Red Riding Hood - INfographics
Vimeo link: http://www.vimeo.com/3514904

Hans Rosling
http://www.ted.com/index.php/speakers/hans_rosling.html
http://videolectures.net/google_rossling_dtwm/

University of Canberra:
http://www.canberra.edu.au
Read more Entry>>

We Are The Web

We Are The Web
I started reading this article "We are the web", which is part of our University studies. It is interesting reading the article "We are the Web", because it takes you through the history of the internet, it’s growth, the changes and new methods of using the internet. The article starts discussing Netscapes IPO. IPO refers to when a private company decides to go public, meaning the stock market. IPO means Initial Public Offering. This lead to reading another article I searched on the internet about Netscape called "Remembering Netscape: The Birth of the Web". I would recommend you read it. I remember a little about Netscape and it’s run in with Microsoft, so I read the article to get the right information on what really happened.

My discovery of Netscape and the Internet
Now I remember going to my local library about, 1994/95 doing some research on photography and filmmaking. In the middle of the library was a computer, just one computer. In my view it was just another toy to play with. I went up to the counter and enquired about the computer. The librarian took me to the computer and explained it could be used for research on the internet. I had heard from a friend a little about the internet but it was no big deal. I paused for a moment and asked her “What is the internet?” She logged into the computer and opened what she called a web browser. It was called Netscape and she went to a search engine called Yahoo. This was all new to me so I played around with the computer, putting in different search requests to see what this Internet thingy had come up with. In fact I visited the library quite a lot. Not so much to borrow books but to explore this new world called the internet. One thing led to another and I started borrowing books on computers and the world wide web. Next thing you know I’m creating my own website.

The article "We are the Web" then goes on saying that the internet was made possible by a simple HTML tag called the hyperlink we all take for granted now.

Why say We are the Web
As an example there was a time when the web was being categorized for search engines using the Taxonomy method.

What is Taxonomy
Specialist people were employed to categorize websites and their content in an effort to categorize the internet and make it more user friendly. They used the Taxonomy method. This is categorizing subjects into hierarchal categories. But to use this system you had to search through each category to find the information you were looking for. Sometimes the categories you search through don’t lead you to the information you were looking for so you had to back track through the categories and start through another category tree. This at times was very frustrating.

Folksonomy
Folksonomy is why we are the web. Rather than employ specialist people to categorize the internet, why not use the users themselves. This is where tags come in. For instance, if you have a delicious account to store your book marks, you write a description and create a tag meaning a word or list of words you would categorize the web page under. Not only does a search engine get a list of tags or categories of a webpage they also get a description. We folks are now the categorizers. That is what the term folksonomy means. These tags would then become what is called Metadata. We can also use Metadata in our websites which helps search engines categorize our webpage when their robots crawl websites.

Here is another example of why we are the web with Amazon.com. When a person purchases a product, they can also write a review about the product such as a movie. You are the reviewer of the movie and there are possibly many other people who have written a review on what they think of the film and if they would recommend it.

Then there is Social Networking sites such Youtube sharing videos along with MySpace, Facebook, Flickr, Delicious and many more. The user which is you are contributing to the internet.

We are the Web.
The virtual world or cyberspace of the internet is changing, evolving at a very fast rate. This is made possible by the contribution of content produced by millions if not billions of users on the internet. We as internet users now have the power to contribute and expand the knowledge, ideas, technical possibilities and the future of the internet.

What will the internet be like in the next 10 years? I’m sorry I don’t have a crystal ball to work that one out. We have to wait 10 years for that answer.


References
Wired: We are the web:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.08/tech.html?pg=3&topic=tech&topic_set=
Remembering Netscape – The birth of the Web: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2005/07/25/8266639/index.htm
Taxonomy Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxonomy
Folksonomy Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folksonomy
Youtube: http://www.youtube.com
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com
Flickr: http://www.flickr.com
Delicious: http://www.delicous.com
Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com Read more Entry>>

In Hindsight of Project A

Project A has been an interesting learning experience for me. On reflection, having organized two film festivals myself, I would use the curating an exhibition on a website differently. Now my suggestions relate to films since I am explaining what is involved in organizing a film festival.This can also be translated into the exhibition of music, photos, paintings, writing etc.

1. Search the internet for content you feel would be great for your exhibition (whether it is films, photos, music, paintings etc).

2. Subscribe to RSS feeds (that's where Yahoo Pipes is a useful tool) that relate to the content you would like to display in your online exhibition

3. Keep up to date with the RSS feeds on articles relating to competitions, exhibitions of the artists and the content you are looking for.

4. Keep a record of contact names, emails, websites etc mentioned in the RSS feeds.

5. Check the contacts website, get a feel of what they are into and saying with their art.

6. Contacting the producer/directors of the films (artist) and extend a personalized invitation to exhibit their work in your internet exhibition.

7. Get permission from the producer/director (artist) to show their films in your online film festival (exhibition).

8. Provide application forms on your blog or website, which includes copyright tick boxes confirming the producer/director (artist) has permission from copyright owners in regards to music, photos or any other media used in the film production (artistic content) and that the filmmaker (artist) gives permission for you to exhibit their work in your online film festival (exhibition).

9. That the producer/director (artist) gives permission for you to edit or alter segments of the production (work/content) for promotional purposes to promote the film festival (exhibition).

This will provide a means to over come copyright issues and gather content for your exhibition with permission from the artist.

From experience it will take 1-3 months to receive permission to display and finally exhibit the content you wish to display/screen in your online exhibition.

Creative people be they filmmakers, musicians, writers, painters etc are procrastinators. I am saying this from experience. You can't push them, but you can prompt them with a deadline. One thing you must take into account is to allow deadline of up to 3 months to allow the artists to wake up, smell the coffee and realize 'Oh.. Um.. that exhibition.. Better do it now'. They always leave it to the last minute. I know this because I am an artist and I have the same problem.

I hope this has been helpful for your future online exhibitions and that you can use these suggestions in developing your style or method of social networking.

Read more Entry>>

Daryl's Project A - Machinima Filmmaking

Hi all, if you subscribed to my blog you will get this update on my Project A called Machinima Filmmaking

Technical Desicions
When I first started creating the website, I choose Blogger as my canvas to curate the exhibition on machinima. But Blogger is limited when it comes to having one article on the first page and links to other pages. I know you can alter the HTML and CSS, which I tried and my blog had difficulties coping. So I moved to Google Sites. Google sites is a simple website using simple tools which was great as I was typing in the text. Next step add the videos?? Oh no! It only allows Google videos or Youtube videos. Which means I am limited in the videos I can show. Bugger I wanted to include videos from www.machinima.com Okay reassessment time. So I checked Youtube to see if the machinima.com channel had the videos I wanted. No! Okay is there an official channel of the producers whose videos I want to exhibit on Youtube? Yes but no! Not all the ones I want. My advise, when you do a project for your course start doing it on week 1. I know it's easy to say that when we didn't have a clue at the start what networked media production had to do with filmmaking.

Anyway, Google Sites works okay. Except when I want to display thumbnails of the Youtube videos I want to exhibit. Now here is an interesting thing, I have a website www.fandangle.com.au which I administer using Joomla CMS (Content Management System). The Joomla gurus say don't use tables if you want your website to be SEO (Search Engine Optimization) especially if you want to use Google Adsense ads on your website to generate a little money. Well guess what Google Sites uses tables. What the??? Anyway I had a problem with the tables. The online editing system put some of the HTML coding in the wrong place. I had to go in the HTML editor and clean it up and move it around. But I am getting there.

Creative Content
I would say that 1% of the worlds filmmakers get an invite to be a member of the Hollywood club. Most filmmakers have to struggle to dig up funding for their first feature film. It is because of this that I have considered machinima. I have been scouring the internet looking for examples of machinima films. Do a Google search for machinima films and you will get loads of listings of machinima films. But most of them are recordings of game play, with no narrative what so ever. But there are a select few machinimators who make really great films using video games and the tools available to achieve this. Finding a website that shows true machinima, telling an interesting and entertaining story is hard to find. That is why I decided to curate this exhibition.

My thoughts on this course
At first and I'm sure all my fellow class mates will resound the same sentiments. What does Networked Media Productions have to do with filmmaking? It didn't make sense at first but now it makes a lot of sense. Computer technology is moving at a very fast pace and so too is the internet and the technologies available for social networking. Everything is changing in the 21st century. For instance the Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd just announced that the government will roll out high speed internet which will be 100 times faster than what we have at present. 100 Mega bits per second which will be unbelievable.The television stations are getting worried because they know as new technologies emerg jobs are lost in the process. Television will be on the internet. No more TV stations. Just like television killed the drive in industry. So yes there is a future for us as Networked Media Producers who can create content to be distributed and screened on the internet. I believe that this assignment is nurturing our minds to develop innovative methods of constructing deeper and meaningful social networking systems and applications.
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References
Machinima Filmmaking: http://sites.google.com/site/machinimafilmmaking
Google Videos: http://video.google.com
Youtube: http://www.youtube.com
Machinima.com: http://www.machinima.com
Google Sites: http://sites.google.com
Fandangle: http://www.fandangle.com.au
Joomla: http://www.joomla.org
Google Adsense: https://www.google.com/adsense
Google Search: http://www.google.com
Australia High Speed internet: http://www.pm.gov.au/media/Release/2009/media_release_0903.cfm
Drive in theaters: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drive-in_theater
Read more Entry>>

NMP Tutorial Class Blog

Here we go another blog. I'm in the Thursday 4.30pm NMP tutorial class at University of Canberra. Here are links to blogs that my class mates have created. Just thought I would give them a plug for their hard work.

Shaun Cahill
Lauren Carroll
Luke Allred
Oliver Martinoski
Justin Donnelly
Shane Jensen
Matthew Ruth
Andrew Kominek
Jessica Wiedermann
Angela Crilley
James Willey
Dante Lusso
Geraldine Perrine
Shane Wintour
Ally Hunt
Elle Jasprizza-Quinn
Anna Clemson

Oops and of course you are looking at my blog Machinima Madness administered by Daryl Williams. That's me.

Have you subscribed to my blog rss feed yest?

I suggest you do it, especially if you are doing the NMP course and set up a feedburner account so you can check the stats on your blog. The stats part is a requirement of our course.

Dazza Read more Entry>>

Music Mashups

I came across this website called Mashuptown. They source the internet for songs that are mashed up from different bands. It's a different angle to mashup on the internet.

Here's an example of Ozzy Osbourne singing together with the Industrial Metalheads Pain

Black Sabbath I remember them well. Lets get Paranoid

It might be a good idea to turn the volume down PARANOIYAH! Read more Entry>>

Mashups and API's What Are They

The internet is an unfathomable resource with a wealth of information at your finger tips. Now a new technology is emerging. It is call Mashups. A mashup is a web application that combines information from various web sources and combine them into one. This is achieved by the use of API's (Application Programming Interface).

In fact you you can create your own mashups.

As an example here is a mashup using New York Times API and Amazon.com API. There is a list of books on Amazon.com and reviews of those books from the New York Times combined together into a website.

Here is an extensive list of API's you can play with.

Yahoo Pipes is a mashup tool where you can gather information from RSS feeds and combine them with other feeds creating one RSS feed. You can also select what articles you want to see in your pipe by using a filter using a word or tag.

To research Mashups and API's go to http://www.programmableweb.com/mashups

Read more Entry>>

How To Use HTML and CSS

My University studies require that we understand and can use HTML and CSS. Now we have all surfed the internet and it is second nature when it comes to search for a website or information on things that we are interested in. But have you ever wondered how the web pages are made?

Website Spying
As the subtitle says we can spy on websites using our web browser. Here is a neat trick that will show you the HTML code and other information that makes up the webpage you are looking at on your web browser.

View Web page Coding
Mozilla go to the top left hand corner next to file click View → Page Source

Internet Explorer go to the top left hand corner next to file click View → Source

A page will open with all the html code and references to CSS and Java scripts etc. I do this offen when I see an interesting method of displaying content on a web page. After a while you will be familiar with the html code and where to look for things such as movies, pictures or links to other sites.

To help you bet familiar with HTML and CSS I have provied a list of articles that will help you get started.

HTML Tutorials and Information

HTML 4.01 Quick List
List of HTML tags and their use

Overview of all HTML tags
A listing of html tags

Starting with HTML and CSS
HTML and CSS for Beginners. This article explains how to create a HTML web page and it using CSS. It is easy to understand. Just copy and paste the code in a text editor. Give the web page a .html extension and you can create your first web page.

HTML Document Tags - HTML Code Tutorial
Tutorials explaining how to use and create html documents that can be viewed in web browsers

HTML Tutorial
w3schools explains the use of html tags to create an html document

HTML element - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A list of tag elements used and HTML5. This is very informative list of elements that no longer exist and tags you may never had hear of. It is an excellent reference of html tags and their programmatic use.

HTML Character Entities Table
Ever wanted to display a symbol such as the copyright symbol or any other character/s that are not part of the alphabet in a html document. Here is a table of character entities and their & values that can be added to and displayed in a html document

CSS Tutorials

CSS Decorative Gallery
How to create a decorative gallery for your images. The article has a variety of options that are available to you and will inspire your creative energies.

Floatutorial: Step by step CSS float tutorial
This article explains how to use the float command in CSS. You can create 2, 3 column layouts and image galleries.

CSS Tutorial - Table of contents
This article explains how to use CSS. It is explained in simple terms and takes you through a lot of useful CSS tags that will set you on your way to CSS

CSS Tutorial - Introduction to CSS
Learn how to code CSS, easy to learn and understand tutorials. Taking you step by step, explaining the advantages and how to use CSS for you website/pages.

The Complete CSS tutorial
Tutorials explaining the use of css (cascade style sheets) to set the style of a html documents content

CSS Tutorial
w3schools explains the use of css to style the content of an html document

Cascading Style Sheets - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Description of CSS and its use

CSS-Tricks
Website design articles, tutorials and video tutorials. Excellent resource for learning how to design web pages using css

Introduction To CSS
A simple tutorial on how to use css such as controlling what information will be printed out when a internet visitor want to print your main content/article

Read more Entry>>

Social Networking Using a Blog

What is a blog? Well the word blog is derived from the term 'web log'. Take out the we and join the words together and you get blog. Basically a web-log or blog is a journal or a dairy of ones thoughts, ideas, criticisms, political opinions or simply a message. It is a document written electronically on an internet web page, in this case a blogging service on Blogger. You can learn more on what a blog is and all its history in this Blog Wiki.

Web log... Now that brings back some memories of the original television program 'Star Trek', where Captain Kirk records his ship's log with his famous words, “Captain's log, star date...”. In my case with my first blog... Daryl's blog, star date 2009.

So why have I started this blog? There are two reasons:

(1) Because I am studying at the University of Canberra ACT, Australia doing a Bachelor of Media Arts and Production. One of the units I am studying is Networked Media Production and the assignment I am required to do is to create a blog and write articles relating to media produced for the internet and explain how technology can be used to promote and display different forms of media such as text, audio, still images and video.

(2) Because I have a passion for filmmaking. I have been making short films since 1995, I have produced 2 community television programs in Sydney ('Simply Living in Sydney' and 'Fandangle') and now have been attracted to machinima. Machinima is a new method of filmmaking using video games and their SDK (software development kit) you can create your own sets or in gaming terms levels, control the in-game-camera and direct the actions of the actors ( npc's ) and in some cases have the actors speak in lipsynch (e.g. Half Life 2) and most importantly render the scenes in realtime. I have acquired all this production knowledge by personal research, experimentation and experience. A blog is a perfect medium for me to share and pass on the knowledge I possess that may be of assistance to other filmmakers.

In relation to technology, some of you have grown up with the internet and are familiar with its functions, services, information resources and its peculiarities. So to you it is nothing new, but your parents' generation will remember a time when computers, mobile phones, ipods, mp3 players, video and digital cameras, DVD's, CD's or even a simple electronic calculator didn't exist. They were the fantasy of comic books.

The modern technologies available to us today allows us to take digital photographs or videos of our friends, family, places we've traveled to, celebrations or events and upload them on the internet using social networks such as Youtube, Facebook, Myspace, Flickr and many more.

With this technology we have the opportunity to become filmmakers in a fashion unlike our artistic predecessors. We are not restricted or controlled by large motion picture studios who also control distributorship - deciding what films will and will not be shown on the big screen. There is no need for large budgets to produce our creative work. We have control over how, where and when our productions will be screened. Using the technology of the internet we are provided with a cinematic screen where our audience is limited only by the connectivity of the world wide web.

We are living in exciting times. Technology is moving at such a fast pace with new mediums and formats being invented that creative people can express themselves in many ways and develop their own individual styles.

Using a blog is one form of technology that filmmakers and artists can utilize to showcase their work, thoughts, messages and ideals to the world and build a social network with other individuals who have the same interests and curiosities.

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References:
University of Canberra ~ http://www.canberra.edu.au
University of Canberra Media Arts and Production ~ http://www.canberra.edu.au/courses/index.cfm?action=detail&courseid=985AA
Blog Wiki ~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog
Social Networks Wiki ~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_network
Youtube ~ http://www.youtube.com
Facebook ~ http://www.facebook.com
Myspace ~ http://www.myspace.com
Flickr ~ http//www.flickr.com
Machinima Wiki ~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machinima
Half Life 2 PC Game ~ http://orange.half-life2.com

Read more Entry>>