Category: Class business

As mentioned in class, we can extend the deadline for the final projects if we can set-up a meeting time during exam week, preferably early in the week. There won’t be any class meeting on Thursday the 8th, and most of Tuesday the 6th will be open work time.

Please post any conflicts that you have for Mon – Wed, May 12-14, over the next couple of days and I’ll try to propose a time to meet for around 1.5 hours to share final projects, and celebrate the end of the semester.

And as inspiration for your final projects, check out this blog post about last year’s class, with a number of links to projects.

Here’s a thread for you to post ideas for your final projects, getting feedback from the class (and me & Joe) and potentially finding partners to work with. What are you thinking?

I’ve posted the step-by-step instructions for creating the Flash movie on the Flash Interface page. In addition, there are instructions on how to publish the flash object in a webpage.

Please feel free to bounce ideas for your project off of me! There is more than one way to accomplish the same goal, and I can show you which one will give you the least amount of headaches.

The link to Jonathan Lethem’s “The Ecstasy of Influence,” on the harper’s magazine website requires a subscription. Does the school have a username and password? If not, anyone know of another place to find it? Thanks.

Have you ever sat down at a computer, put on your headphones and heard nothing? You swear you turned up the volume the last time you used them, yet now there isn’t even a hint of static.

Now imagine you are sitting at a computer that is being used continuously by many people, and you are left to the mercies of the last person who sat in the chair. Public computers take every challenge and multiply it exponentially.

Here is a checklist to help you figure out how to get your sound back if nothing is coming through:

From the Computer

• Click on the Increase Volume Key, speaker with three lines, and make sure the volume is at sufficient level. This will also turn the sound back on if it has been muted.
• In System Preferences choose Sound -> Output tab and test Line Out and Digital Out. The line that works depends on which audio port your headphones are connected to.

Application

• Turn up sound in volume slider.
• [Application Name] -> Preferences, make sure any sound settings are set to Line Out or Digital Out, whichever you have selected in the System Preferences.
• In iMovie HD -> Preferences -> Playback, make sure “Play DV project through to DV camera is NOT checked.”

Headphones

• If the headphones have an ON/OFF switch, turn headphones on.
• The box is connected to the computer.
• Headphones are connected to the box.
• Master volume is turned up.
• Volume is turned up on the channel where the headphones are plugged in.

We mentioned that the blogging platform we are using is WordPress MU, the same application that runs WordPress.com. It is a flexible system that seems to have a better learning curve than most blogging platforms.

One of the advantages is that we can change the look and feel of a blog in real time by applying a theme. The theme defines the layout of the page (2 or 3 columns, full or fixed width), font types and colors. Some even come with background images. Content, like text and embedded videos stay the same, what changes is how they are displayed.

The limited number of themes available in our version of WordPress were pulled from a list, where people have created thousands of custom themes. Here are two lists that I use:

http://themes.wordpress.net/
http://www.wpthemesfree.com/

Jason and I are not fond of the theme we are currently using and we want you to choose a new one. The only criteria is that it must be 2-column, widget ready, and display sub-pages. Check out these lists, or others, and let us know your favorites by commenting to this post. In fact, I’ll take the top 10 choices and make them available to everyone who makes a blog with our WordPress.

International phone cards had become almost daily purchases by my second week away from home. Any semblances of normalcy were interrupted by a pitiless female voice droning, “one minute remaining.” Hurried goodbyes gave way to silent waiting while precious seconds wasted away. There was no playful tag-teaming to decide who should hang up first. There was only the hurry to end properly and then the waiting, before being cut off once more.

One day after answering my phone, I was greeted by a familiar lull, a familiar kind of waiting.

“There’s a delay.”

My father shouted this as though he would, by his own power, make himself be heard across the ocean and deep into this continent. There was a delay. A three second delay that often involved the vocal equivalent to a twelve-car pile up on a freeway. Regardless of the delay and the fact that I developed a kindred but vile echo, the Yap Jack made calling Montego Bay less expensive and a lot more fun (…in retrospect). My family and I had to learn the rhythm of this new technology and after mastering it we had many long and meaningful conversations deftly negotiated through dissonant echoes and 3 second rests. Though we seldom even think of it now (we use Netstream Global Voiceline), the Yap Jack allowed my family the invaluable opportunity to stay in touch from a distance and shortened the goodbye wait to 3 seconds.

Hi all – this is the class website for FMMC0246. We’ll be using this as a hub for all of our work, so poke around at the syllabus and material emerging as the semester progresses.