Archive for the ‘openonline’ Category

 

Now it’s for real

Sunday, July 1st, 2012


At the outset of episode 7 of the Totally Fun and Good podcast, which is currently in production, I mentioned that I’d just submitted an application with iTunes and set up a Feedburner account for the podcast. The recording was made last Thursday and since then the application has been approved. That means that you can subscribe to TF&G directly through iTunes (click the link above to test it out). Subscribing is one of several ways you can lend a hand to this endeavor.

In addition to subscribing in iTunes, you should also post a review and rating for each episode. Foremost among the several goals I’ve set for this project is to attract an audience of substantial size. According to Karamoon, such reviews and ratings really make a difference in terms of attracting new listeners.

All of this is to say that for the foreseeable future, I shall endeavor to use Totally Fun and Good to once again re-define podcasting. All you have to do to be a part of what promises to be a momentous journey is subscribe.

Postcards–A Legoland/Minecraft Mashup

Sunday, July 1st, 2012

So, after nearly three weeks away for a conference (and panel comment), a new talk for a Civil War Round Table, and a family trip to California, I’ve finally returned to DS106 work.  These means that I’m woefully behind as the rest of the class has moved into audio assignments.  I’ll catch up as I can, first by doing some of the Design Assignments from Week 4.  This one is for Postcards from Magical Places.

The assignment reads (corrected for typos because I can’t help myself):

Design the front and back of a postcard that might be sent from the location of a movie or a work of fiction. Both sides of the cards must be created as graphics.

The front should use graphic design elements that provide a sense of place or use the classic motifs of old postcards (“Greetings from ______”), both pictures and text. The back of the post card should contain a stamp and postmark that fits with the theme of the movie, as well as an addressee and a message that fits the plot as well.

The modification that we had from Alan and Martha was that the image was supposed to come from the DS106 Minecraft server where there is some absolutely amazing stuff created by DS106 participants.  Unfortunately, the server was down when I went to it, so I ended up taking an image from a regular Minecraft instance.  But that was pretty boring, so I added an image I took on a recent trip to Legoland California.  [I took the Minecraft image as the background, and then, using the Quick Selection tool in Photoshop, removed the material in the upper right of the Lego version of Mount Rushmore, allowing the Minecraft background to show. This is all after some resizing of the two images so they matched.]

I then added some text, using a phrase that should be reminiscent on one commonly seen these days to those of us in Fredericksburg, and is an approved font from that institution.  The result was this:

 

Minecraft postcard--Side 1

For the second side, I created the stamp from the image of Lego Jefferson.* The expensive postcard price is an homage to the founding of UMW (as well as a tease to a relative who always scolds us when we spend more that the needed price on postcard postage).  The postmark is a stylized font in Photoshop and refers to the location of Legoland, as well as UMW.

 

Minecraft Postcard--Side 2

There are a few other nods, if not homages, in the letter and address.

 

* I think the thing next to his eye is supposed to be a Q-tip cleaning Washington’s ear, but given the past month at Mr. Jefferson’s University, I’m interpreting it as something wiping away TJ’s tears.

 

 

 

Oh yeah the Selleck Slide.

Saturday, June 30th, 2012



Oh yeah the Selleck Slide.

Creepin on Sean Penn.

Saturday, June 30th, 2012



Creepin on Sean Penn.

A short excursion into code

Saturday, June 30th, 2012

A few posts/couple of weeks ago I installed the oEmbed HTML5 audio plugin here. This allows me to upload mp3s and other audio files, the plugin takes care of presenting the audio using the html5 audio tag with a flash fallback for browsers that do not support the type of audio: This plugin converts URLs to audio files (MP3, OGG, WAV) into HTML5 audio with Flash-based player backup
This seemed to do the trick. This morning I noticed that none of my audio was showing in FireFox. I right clicked on the space where I expected to see the player and saw the the Flash file was not loaded.

Looking at the source it seems that it is using a swf file belonging to google:
http://www.google.com/reader/ui/3523697345-audio-player.swf

and that is Error 400 Not found.

Using Cyberduck I had a look at the plugin’s code.  Part of this check to see if the file is an MP3 and the browser FireFox. firefox does not support playing of MP3 via the audio tag so the plugin uses the google Flash file, which is of course missing.
$embed = sprintf( '<embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" flashvars="audioUrl=%1$s" src="http://www.google.com/reader/ui/3523697345-audio-player.swf" width="400" height="27" quality="best"></embed>', esc_attr($matches[0]) );
On my ‘real’ blog I usually embed audio using dewplayer so I decided to edit the plugin to use that.

I uploaded the dewplayer.swf file to the top level of my site and changed the code, I need to change the name of the var from audioUrl to mp3 and the url of the google swf to /dewplayer.swf.

If you are viewing any of my audio posts in fireFox you should hopefully be less puzzled.

Update: the plugin has been updated: WordPress › oEmbed HTML5 audio « WordPress Plugins

1.1

  • Google removed their MP3 Flash player from their website, so we include it in the plugin itself now (it’s still the same player)

Before Ryan Gosling became Ryan Gosling, He was Lars.

Saturday, June 30th, 2012



Before Ryan Gosling became Ryan Gosling, He was Lars.

No Letter Home This Week I’m Afraid

Saturday, June 30th, 2012
Not a Toy Car
The Daily Create 171 – An object that’s hard to find or recognise

I am running out of time before I start packing my suitcases. I am afraid I haven’t got time to record a weekly letter, so instead I will just share this week’s Daily Create assignments.

Above you can see a toy car that is not really a toy car, but my favourite USB stick.

This creepy crawly critter is what I would be terrified of if I saw it in my bunkhouse:

Scary Spider
The Daily Create 172 - Sketch the creepiest crawly critter you can imagine

By the way – to create the web-like lines I used Scribbler 2.

Finally, the sound of summer rain after a long period of very hot weather:


The Daily Create 169 - record 30 seconds of ambient sound in your environment

And now I will say goodbye to my friends from the camp and everyone else who is reading this. I am going to a spa and I promise I will come back with a lot of photos and stories to tell.

See you in a week’s time.

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My Five Minutes of Fame

Saturday, June 30th, 2012


cc licensed ( BY NC ND )  flickr photo shared by ~FreeBirD®~

As I said in my previous post, we are expected to collaborate on a group radio show project within our bunkhouses. In Slaughterhouse 4 we chose travel as our main topic and the title of our show is A Tourist’s World. I chose a story I often tell – the one about how I visited India and saw the Taj Mahal.


cc licensed ( BY NC )  flickr photo shared by betta design

I am not sure whether I am supposed to share my part of the show on my blog or not, but since I am travelling on Sunday and will not be here next week when the show is broadcast, here’s my five minutes:

Looking forward to your feedback.

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Your Magic Carpet Is Here

Saturday, June 30th, 2012

cc licensed ( BY NC )  flickr photo shared by Heart Industry

It is Week 6 in Camp Magic McGuffin and I am running out of time, since I am travelling on Sunday and will be away during Week 7. Still, I have managed to finish my main assignments. I have created a radio bumper for the show I am collaborating on with other members of Slaughterhouse 4. I have also finished my 5 minutes of the show. I wish I could have worked more on it, but there was no time.

At my bunkhouse we chose travel as our main topic and the title of the show is A Tourist’s World. That’s why I decided to play with the magic carpet metaphor. I recorded my voice in Audacity, then used sound effects to make my speech faster and my voice deeper. My idea was to sound a little like a British butler. Then I uploaded the Audacity files to Myna and continued editing the bumper. I chose the tracks from the Adventure section in Myna and I almost happy with it. At least, I like it much better than my last week’s bumper, but then that means that I am learning. Here it is:

So, fasten your seat-belts and listen to Slaughterhouse 4.

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Careful…

Friday, June 29th, 2012



Careful…