05.24.01
Posted in General
at 1 pm
This is another set of notes regarding questions that I’ve used for scoping out a site. This is very very rough.
Questions:
Client and Audience
Client Profile?, Client technologies?, Audience profile?, Audience non-profile?, Audience technologies?
Objectives and Goals
General concepts to accomplish, Suggestions: Sales/Income, Branding, Marketing, Customer Support, Employee Support, Client support, Collaboration, Community Building
Content and Functions
Specific Goals and Content, Suggestions: Catalogs, Shopping Carts, Product Specs, PDF Specs/Brochures, Videos, Contact Info, Portfolios, Message Boards, Newsletters, Press Releases, Mailing Lists, Web Mail
InfoArch and Tool Flow
Classifications, Organizations, Labels and groupings, Divisions and subdivisions
Navigation and Interface Elements
Flash, Page Template Elements, Java/JavaScript Elements, Side Bar navigation, Search Tools, Indexes, Ads, Frames, Site Maps, Domain Name
Visual Design
Colors, Fonts, Logos, imergry, Screen Dimensions, Color Depth, Connection Speed, Browser Compatibility
Site development
Server Hardware platform, Server Software platform, Datebase Software, Programming Tools
Answers
Time Lines, Development Costs, Ongoing Costs: Hosting, Site Maintenence, Mail Hosting, Connectivity.
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Posted in General
at 1 pm
Just some notes to myself that I wanted to get down on a more accibile place. These may eventually develop into articles.
Steps:
- Write the Project Summary Statement
- Survey the assets and list them
- brainstorm additional assets
- Sort each one vs REVC: (Revenue, Efficency, Value, Cost)
- Organize into a “distance-recongizable” set of groups.
- label the groups
- scope out and list each page
- Corrolate with initial estimate/budget
- itemize the deliverables, page by page
- create site map image
- identify pre-production issues
- establish timeframes/schedules
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05.23.01
Posted in General
at 8 am
My Inbox is up to 122 pieces of unresponded-to correspondence. I have a cold sore just in front of a poorly angled canine.
But I’m happy. I’m in the midst of a project that is deep, and has a large knowledge space, where so many variables are playing off each other, with people thrown into the mix. Time, money, computers, risks, responsibilities, organization are all at stake.
And I get to put the user at the center of the development. Not for this round, but for the next. Needs, use, methods that are centered around the user. Damn the engineers, damn the designers. The user, the guest, the person that this is really here for will be on center stage.
Once the next revision starts.
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05.12.01
Posted in General
at 10 am
Wow, I woke up this morning, checked my web sites and found 3 sites all pointing a BBC article noting the death of Douglas Adams. I’m one of the many many who have enjoyed his books, both fictional and non-fictional. I certainly can’t say that the books were an influence in my life, but I can say that they are one of the net.culture’s books of holy scripture.
Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy is referenced all over the place. H2G2 was transformed into one of the first commercial “interactive-fiction” pieces by Infocom, the people who made Zork. I remember H2G2 references in Tradewars, an online BBS-based game in the mid/late 80’s. A lot of Fidonet lists and boards had conversations liberaly sprinkled with Zaphod quotes.
H2G2 and William Gibson’s Neuromancer are a part of the culture I was raised on electronically. In that way DA’s books, works, words, thoughts will never be lost. They are part of the bedrock, the foundation of this new culture.
So long Mr. Adams, and thanks for all the fish. You will not be missed – you will be remembered.
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04.27.01
Posted in General
at 10 pm
Well that was a month. Let’s see if I can wrap this up:
Boy meets rock god, boy looses job. Boy gets unrequested job offers, boy chooses between one job that offers financial security, and one that offers very cool projects. Boy chooses very cool projects. Boy gets job for 93 minutes. Boy’s boss tells boy that job has been taken away for budget issues. Boy gets depressed, freelance work piles up for boy. Boy ends up taking financially secure job which starts May 1.
This past month I’ve felt like a balloon in a hurricane. Down drafts sending me straight for the rocks, up drafts sending me to the stratosphere. I don’t have a very moody personality normally. Sure I have my moments, but this month has been nothing quite like I’ve felt before.
Hence, no journal updates for the past 28 days. 28 days since my life became a weather phenomenon. It feels like a year has passed. It hasn’t helped that I’ve lost most of my sense of time. 5 weekdays and 2 day weekends mean very little when you’re unemployed. But worse yet, my sleep schedule has gone utterly haywire. I’m staying up till dawn, sleeping through naps caught during the odd hour. It’s hellish on me and doesn’t do much for Amy either.
Wow, she’s done so much for me and my emotional stability this past 4 weeks. She’s supported me in ways that she doesn’t even recognize. She is, was and will be my touchstone, my contact with that reality that exists outside my ever-more-cramped mind.
“Baby, when you’ve got to sleep
lay your head down low
don’t let the world lay heavy on your soul.
cause when you’ve got to sleep, you’ve got to sleep.” – Spz.
Thank you Love. Oh, did I forget that part? The boy gets the girl…
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03.31.01
Posted in General
at 3 pm
That Morning, to get in the mood, I put on “Two Lectures” Nick’s spoken word release which is punctuated with solo versions of a wide range of his back catalogue. West Country Girl comes on first.
“With a crooked smile and a heart-shaped face
Comes from the West country where the birds sing bass
She’s got a house-big heart where we all live
And plead and council and forgive.”
It’s angry, ugly and worn down to the shaft. Nick says “I have seen it grow and mutate with time.” It’s evolved into something new.
By the time our drive from Portland to Seattle ended, it was 6:00pm, and Amy and I went off to forage for food in the rain. It was that light Seattle rain that mostly hangs in the air waiting for you to fall on the drops, not the other way around.
We returned to the theater area and tried to meet with Leslie and the Coil fans but the Cloud Room had been closed because of over-crowding. Having never been to the Paramount Theater, I had no idea that it would hold such a large crowd. For me, Nick Cave has been packaged up in little plastic discs, or presented as pixels. He’s never had a physical presence. 8 years of listening to a ghost. Ghosts are lonely. Listening to ghosts is a lonely experience.
“Who is this?” my co-workers ask. “Nick Cave.” “Who?”
Seeing the crowds in front of the theater spooked me. I figured that it would be me, Amy and Leslie and a few people she met. About a dozen of us in a small bar sitting around listening to Nick and a few people he met.
Scalpers. There were scalpers. Like a fun house mirror, my view was mutating, warping. I couldn’t believe that Nick Cave, a plastic pixel man was having his tickets scalped. That only happens to acts that have a large enough draw to be profitable.
Walking inside, I realized just how lucky I had been. 50 rows in the theater, another 30 in the balcony. 40 seats across. 3000 people? There must be some mistake. Amy and I find our seats at the front row.
After the opening act, Neco Case, the lights begin to dim. 8 years of listening to a ghost. And then the song became flesh. Nick stepped out on to the stage, winced from the spotlight and waved. He quickly sat down with his note-stuffed copy of King Ink II and launched into West Country Girl. Heavy chords began the concert.
Clearly I had missed the other dimensions of this man. I’ve read transcripts, heard bootlegs and retyped interviews till my fingers smoked. This was something far more interesting.
Moving on, Sad Waters and Henry Lee graced the ear, soft. Then… The Mercy Seat.
Shivering goosebumps.
God Is In The House gave a much lighter touch to the concert. Wild World was unrecognizable, but Warren playing Rowland playing lead guitar was perfect along with the aggressive lighting. Papa Won’t Leave You Henry, Do You Love Me Part II blew through too fast for my poor heart to take.
No More Shall We Part followed by Stagger Lee provided ample time to look at the ornate ceiling and walls of the theater.
But then it was back into the fray with Into My Arms and Love Letter. Melodic and hypnotic.
People Ain’t No Good and Ship Song were the first encore. Of course Amy and I had been waiting for the dogs and the moral grounds.
The second encore was a quick little spin through Empty Little Boat and Nick was gone.
—
Amy waited patiently with me at the back door of the theater. An hour later, Nick and Warren came through the door, waiting for the van to be ready. He took the time to sign everyone’s materials. I had brought nothing. I simply walked up to him to shake his hand. I looked at him, that one second magnified into hours, and stuttered a ‘Thank you.’ He nodded. Amy took a few pictures.
Thanks Nick.
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03.18.01
Posted in General
at 12 pm
Today will be such a fun one. I’ve got to get a start on my taxes. It’s about time that I really dug into them. I’ve been putting them off until I got my PSU check, which arrived Friday, so now I have no excuse. Today I want to get those at least partially taken care of, and I want to get some of my archives from previous years available on the site. Both of these should be pretty easy to accomplish, though they’ll probably take all day no doubt.
Not that the skies are beckoning me outside. It’s all cold and grey at this point.
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03.17.01
Posted in General
at 1 pm
Well, it’s been a fast week around here. Work has been moving along with our new hire, K. He’s got initiative, I’ll say that. He’s got a lot of good experience at some larger firms, and is really interested in getting our processes more cohesive and encompassing. I think it will be very interesting to see how things shape up from this point moving forward. I really hope that this will give me the chance to define my role more accurately.
Ever since D. left a gaping hole in the leadership position, I’ve been drifting in and out of that role, along side A. It’s been tough, and a bout of depression in the past few months has done nothing to help it. Had I been a bit more stable, I probably could have handled things a bit better, and ended up in a stronger leadership position. But I never really wanted to take that on fully, never really put my heart into it, for a number of reasons.
I won’t be teaching a class this next term, and that’s kind of strange. But I did get my check for this past term. Now I’ve got to see how much of it will go to taxes. After that’s paid off Amy and I can look at socking it away for a EuroTrip this summer.
—
I think I’ve finished with version 0.9 of Aim and Fire. A&F is what I’ve named this pair of scripts that I can set up easy to modify web pages for clients. It grew out of a project for one of Amy’s recent clients. I’m really quite happy with it. It may not be the most robust system, but I think it will work pretty well for most cases.
—
I’ve been feeling a bit more creative of late. I really want to work up some more design. I did a new desktop image at work. These things are my most common method of doing something visual, graphical, creative. My journal entries give me the chance to do some self-directed writing, but they aren’t a real creative forum for me. I’d like to expand more in that area. Yet another thing to add to the “I want to” list. Still got to get through my French lesson as well.
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03.14.01
Posted in General
at 6 pm
We’ve got a new employee at work now. Person number 6 in our little crew. It will be interesting to see how my role changes now that he’s here. I’m sure once he get’s going, he’ll be taking on a lot of the management stuff for the group as a whole, which is fine by me. I’ll be glad to have someone dedicated to that sort of thing.
—
I’ve been listening to “All that You Can’t Leave Behind” nearly non-stop this week. ‘New York’ and ‘Elevate’ are two standout tracks.
—
My class at PSU finished off last night. I’ve passed that class onto a new instructor, so I can zip up and file away all those files, I guess. It really felt like this class has been a struggle for me. I don’t think I’ve given the very best class for the students, though the reviews that I get are fine. But it did push me in a few different places and made me examine some of the approaches that I bring to this digital media realm.
I’m thinking of dealving into Flash far enough to teach a class in it. Looks like there are a number of openings in that area. I’ve played with Flash but never to the point that I felt comfortable in the environment. Perhaps if I put some more focus into it I’d do a bit better. (But I suppose that could be said of many thing in life, eh?)
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03.12.01
Posted in General
at 4 pm
Amy and I were at Powell’s last night, she looking for Holocaust literature, me in search of French instructional materials. After a couple hours there, we began walking to the check out. Out of the corner of my eye I see a display of maps and atlases. As I’m walking by and scanning the State atlases, I see the name ‘Peter’s Projection’ printed on a rolled up map.
I think, “Hmmm, that’s interesting.” I begin to recall the number of different projections of world maps that are available. But thought is fleeting and I’m onto another trickle of conciousness. No streams, just trickles.
—
So this morning I’m at work and we’re having a conference call with a client in New York. They’re a world-wide health-oriented non-profit that we’re building a web site for. Towards the end of the call, one of the guys on the client’s side says, “On the Regions page, what map are you going to use?”
I replied, “We’ll pull a piece out of our clip art files. Is there something in particular we should be thinking about?”
“There’s a particular kind of map that our group and other groups use…” he trails off. “I can’t remember the name of it, but…”
I ask, rather innocently, “Do you want something like the Peter’s Projection?”
“Yes, that’s the one, exactly.”
http://www.petersmap.com/table.html
http://www.diversophy.com/products/use_peters_map.htm
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