Monday, August 25, 2008

Persona










Name: Dexter Hogarth
Age: 29
Occupation: Internet Surfer
Hobbies: Dungeons and Dragons, World of Warcraft, Surfing the Internet, Porn, Comic Book and Star Trek Conventions.

Dexter stays glued to the computer just about every waking minute. He is usually online making upgrades to his Ogre Mage which has reached an unspeakable level. He also plays online D&D with his Mega5k Headset. The only times he isn't at the computer he is dressing up as his favorite Super Hero or Star Trek cast member, which are Superman and Data. 



Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Final Project Proposal - Revised

Revised Revised Concept
I did some thinking and decided instead of doing something that has been done a billion times to do something unique. I am going to make an interactive book review site. Using the same technologies as previously described.

Revised Concept
My revised idea is to focus just displaying video's through flash. Allowing people to post comments and rate videos, but through flash with some PHP & MySQL helping to store data.


My Original Concept

My idea for my final project is to make my portfolio site more interactive. I would do this by adding interactive navigation and adding interactive elements when viewing my work. In the process my site will change slightly to incorporate the new interactive elements. I have a few ideas brewing on how the site will change with the new additions. The site will be more static meaning there will not be as many moving elements.

The biggest thing I want to have more interaction with though is my work. This includes the section displaying the websites and videos.

My revised idea is to focus just displaying video's through flash. Allowing people to post comments and rate videos, but through flash with some PHP & MySQL helping to store data

Scope

  • Updating/Refreshing my portfolio site.
  • Keeping people entertained while visiting site.
  • Creating stickiness for my site.
  • Refreshing my skills with different technologies.

Functionality

I haven’t really come up with the precise functionality of the elements involved. I would though like to make the video’s section to have some interesting functionality. Also I would like to make viewing the websites I have posted more interesting possibly with a different way to display them.

The three main things I want to focus on though is:

  1. changing the layout of the site a bit,
  2. changing the way my work is displayed and view, and
  3. new pre-loader with intro transition.

Content/Materials

The content I need is everything that is already included in my portfolio site the following is a quick list of the items:

  • .fla of my site
  • Video Work
  • Websites

Materials needed are things to assist me with creating the elements I want to incorporate into the site: peer help, tutorials, access to computer with programs for me to create what I need to create. This may include Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, TextMate or a comparable text editor, FTP program.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Media Integration

I decided to make a little site for a short film I made in an Editing class called Social Dissonance. I wanted to try communicating with Flash through JavaScript and I ran into some pitfalls along the way.

The big thing I ran into that I finally figured out was taking out the <noscript> </noscript> tags surrounding your flash movie if you embed it using Dreamweaver.

There is another way to go about doing this with some simple code within Flash, but I did it this way because I think you can do a few more things more easliy. Below I am going to post the code to get this to work properly.

JAVASCRIPT CODE
<script language="text/javascript">

function getFlashMovieObject(movieName)
{
if (window.document[movieName])
{
return window.document[movieName];
}
if (navigator.appName.indexOf("Microsoft Internet")==-1)
{
if (document.embeds && document.embeds[movieName])
return document.embeds[movieName];
}
else // if (navigator.appName.indexOf("Microsoft Internet")!=-1)
{
return document.getElementById(movieName);
}
}

function StopFlashMovie()
{
var flashMovie=getFlashMovieObject("myFlashMovie");
flashMovie.StopPlay();
}

function PlayFlashMovie()
{
var flashMovie=getFlashMovieObject("myFlashMovie");
flashMovie.Play();
//embed.nativeProperty.anotherNativeMethod();
}

function RewindFlashMovie()
{
var flashMovie=getFlashMovieObject("myFlashMovie");
flashMovie.Rewind();
}

function NextFrameFlashMovie()
{
var flashMovie=getFlashMovieObject("myFlashMovie");
// 4 is the index of the property for _currentFrame
var currentFrame=flashMovie.TGetProperty("/", 4);
var nextFrame=parseInt(currentFrame);
if (nextFrame>=10)
nextFrame=0;
flashMovie.GotoFrame(nextFrame);
}


function ZoominFlashMovie()
{
var flashMovie=getFlashMovieObject("myFlashMovie");
flashMovie.Zoom(90);
}

function ZoomoutFlashMovie()
{
var flashMovie=getFlashMovieObject("myFlashMovie");
flashMovie.Zoom(110);
}


function SendDataToFlashMovie()
{
var flashMovie=getFlashMovieObject("myFlashMovie");
flashMovie.SetVariable("/:message", document.controller.Data.value);
}

function ReceiveDataFromFlashMovie()
{
var flashMovie=getFlashMovieObject("myFlashMovie");
var message=flashMovie.GetVariable("/:message");
document.controller.Data.value=message;
}</script>

FLASH EMBED CODE
<object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=9,0,28,0" width="550" height="400">
<param name="movie" value="integration.swf">
<param name="quality" value="high">
<embed name="myFlashMovie" swliveconnect="true" src="integration.swf" quality="high" pluginspage="http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="550" height="400"></embed>
</object>

The things highlighted in red are a must to have if you want to pull this off.


HTML CODE
<form name="controller" method="POST">
<p>
<center>
<b><font color="#0099CC">JavaScript Controller<br>
</font></b>
<input type="button" value="Play" name="Play" onClick="PlayFlashMovie();">
<input type="button" value="Stop" name="Stop" onClick="StopFlashMovie();">
<input type="button" value="Rewind" name="Rewind" onClick="RewindFlashMovie();">
<input type="button" value="NextFrame" name="NextFrame" onClick="NextFrameFlashMovie();">
<input type="button" value="Zoomin" name="Zoomin" onClick="ZoominFlashMovie();">
<input type="button" value="Zoomout" name="Zoomout" onClick="ZoomoutFlashMovie();">


<br>
Form Data:
<input type="text" name="Data" size="20" value="Enter message">
<input type="button" value="Send Data" name="SendData" onClick="SendDataToFlashMovie();">
<input type="button" value="Receive Data" name="ReceiveData" onClick="ReceiveDataFromFlashMovie();">
<br>
</center>
</p>
<p> </p>
</form>

This code is easy to manipulate and customize it any way you want. The thing you need to keep in there is the name of the form which communicates with the JavaScript.

That is pretty much it. Here is link to wha I have working so far:
http://www.jamieweber.com/AI/entertainment/integration/

If you have any questions feel free to post a comment or email me :)

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

JQuery Accordion

I recently tried to make an accordion much like in Spry or scriptaculous, but with JQuery and it was a pain in the buttocks. With many hours of agony I finally figured it out. You have to link to 3 different JS files, plus edit a few things. The hard part was figuring out the animation for the bounce when you hover over a section thats above the open one. Hopefully I will use this for my homework site.

I think I might post a better tutorial then I have seen around for people that just want to get something like this working

Below is the link to test it out:
http://www.jamieweber.com/AI/entertainment/transition/

Saturday, March 8, 2008

Tony Chu Persona


Name: Maria
Age: 28
Occupation: Lawyer
Location: San Francisco, Ca

Maria is 28 and lives in San Francisco. She is a Lawyer at a local firm. In her spare time she plays tennis, and goes to the gym. She enjoys reading and the occasional night on the town with her girlfriends. Her favorite food is her mom’s cooking who still lives in Italy.

She has been dating Eduardo for 3 years who just recently popped the question to her at Celestino’s the restaurant they had their first date at. Maria is planning to get married on March 20th f 2009 which is the first day of Spring. She is looking for a Great Photographer with past experience shooting at Weddings.

Good Web Design & Practices

Good Web Design

Good Web Design apart from the visual aspect of it, is using good practices. For example creating clean code is a very important aspect of creating a website. Whether it’s html, css, javascript or even if you implement flash into the site our actionscript should be clean and easy to understand. On top of cleanliness of code, user friendly is very high up on the list of what makes good web design. Don’t use odd navigation unless you know your clients or people viewing your site will understand how to use it. Lay out your content in an easy to understand. Though with the implementation of flash a lot more these days this isn’t the case. Finally I think graphics come into play because you can have a nice looking site but if it’s hard to navigate and hard to understand no one will want to be on your site for very long.


My Web Development Process

The first step for anybody should setting up a flowchart, so you get an idea of the flow of the site. You can also gain a sense of how many pages are involved in the final site. The next step would be creating a layout. Though I normally only have a small notion of what the layout is going to look like. I build upon my original concept and sometimes I don’t even like it and will start from scratch until I come upon something I am happy with. This for me all takes place in Photoshop. The next step for me is to start creating the html and css.

Tony Chu Style Guide

Easy to Navigate
Simple Layout
Using Minimal Colors
Photos are the Focal Point of Site
Center Aligned


Color Palette



Background Color




Accent Color




Font Color





Fonts Used

VladimirScript for Navigation
Arial for Content

Monday, February 25, 2008

Funniest Thing Ever

I was watching Jimmy Kimmel the other night and I saw this. If you have been following the Sarah Silverman and Matt Damon thing then you will know about this. If you haven't go look it up it's funny, but Jimmy Kimmel's response is even funnier. It is the funniest thing I have seen in a long long time.

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Portfolio Site Progress

So far so good. Below is what I have so far with my portfolio site. Most of the interface and functionality of the site is done. I should be able to start adding my content next week. I am actually very please with what I have so far. I think this is as far as I have gotten to finishing a portfolio site so far. Normally I quit about half way through because I either get frustrated or bored of the design of the site. This site I haven't gotten bored with and haven't really gotten frustrated with it either. Kudos to Sebastian because he should be a little equation for the movement and easing. I will have a functioning site uploaded soon so be patient.





The Highway to MySQL Hell

It was a long journey of trial and tribulations. I started two weeks ago trying to install MySQL on my iMac and I just now got the root level to work. I don't know what made it work I tried everything. Reading and trying new things for hours on end. I reinstall MySQL probably 5 times before I could get it to work and all it took at east I think that is all it took was to restart my computer and then restart the MySQL server. I wish someone would have said that instead of locate this file or locate this file and put this command line in. For one I couldn't find the damn file cause it didn't install it in the first place and on top of that the FAQs and manual on mysql's site is so damn confusing, especially for newbs like myself. Any ways after about 3 weeks and many hours in front of the computer I finally got MySQL to work properly so ha!

If any one is having trouble getting into your root level first restart your computer and see if that works before suffering for 3 weeks.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Boreal Trip

This weekend I made it up to the Boreal to snowboard for the first time in a long time. I had a blast. There are some photos below. On the way back the sun was setting and I was inspired to create something to express what I saw since I didn't have a camera.


This is what I came up with. I needed a quick site to post a few sites before my real portfolio site is up for employers when I send out my resume. I think it came out pretty well. If you want to view the functioning site go to http://www.jamieweber.com



Tuesday, January 8, 2008

First Post

This is just a test. this is just a test.