Arlen Thurber - art175 Fall 2005

wrapping up

2005-12-08T01:18:00.000-08:00

Acomplishments

I have been keeping a blog of my work through out the semester, which is a good thing because much of the work I did produced no tangible results. One of my greatest accomplishments this semester was to convince the SWITCH team to use the Mambo C.M.S. (content management system) instead of Plone. Plone is written in python, Mambo is written in php and SQL which are languages I am much more comfortable with, and by the way are highly sought after job skills. But I did not push for this change as a selfish act of not wanting to work in a new language; I pushed for the switch because it is a better system plain and simple. The modularity of Mambo allows us to create multiple issues of the SWITCH journal with a single C.M.S.. As part of my responsibilities this semester I also created an informative “how to” document to instruct future semesters how to build the essential elements required to create more issues. Aside from some technical troubleshooting and installation of custom modules, I also helped Aaron Siegel with the backend data base side of his Pacific Rim Visual Directory Project. I build a small application to store the data his visualization would run off of. I worked with him to get his project to submit data directly to the database and creating a text output file that his flash application would read its data from.

Over the course of the semester I have worked a lot with creating custom skins for the software I am working with. Skinning software, the practice of applying a customized style or interface to a program. It does not affect the functionality but it can increase effectiveness of a product to perform a specific task. Skinning software is kind of like changing clothes. Some are merely for aesthetic value, the kind you would wear for a night out on the town. Some skins promote a specific type of interaction, like a uniform the skin may help make the purpose of the program more apparent. Additionally some skins may alter the configuration of the interface and increase efficiency in the end user. The skin is proof of our culture effecting software development. There is a natural desire for variety, the software skin allows us to break the often drab and boring appearance of the software we have incorporated into our lives.

semesters acomplishments

2005-12-02T01:18:00.000-08:00

PLONE – python

C.M.S. – Content Management System

Bad interface for creating custom skins

The ability to support multiple sites or issues is not built in but has to be hacked

Switching to MAMBO – php

Allows a greater flexibility for creating custom skins

Creating MAMBO template from html template (provided by Ethan Hunt)

Creating custom menus and documentation

Creating “How To Mambo” guide for future semesters

Installing Plugins and modules (discussion forum, gallery)

http://switch.sjsu.edu/mambo

http://switch.sjsu.edu/mambo/administrator

Aaron Siegel’s Pacific Rim Directory

Small Data Collection Application with administrator area to add, edit and delete records from the database. Done in PHP and SQlite. Created a text output file that reads the db and feeds the data into the flash file Aaron produced.

http://www.arlenthurber.com/sjsu_art175

http://www.arlenthurber.com/sjsu_art175/admin.php

http://www.arlenthurber.com/sjsu_art175/textout.php

Other Projects this semester

Sonic Piano – My BFA gallery where I turned a gallery and it’s contents into an interactive musical interface. Review website

http://www.arlenthurber.com/agt_sonicPiano/

Visual Perception – Helped Brian Schwab with his BFA gallery. Hardware hacking, Actionscript, and a data collection application to gather the information created by the users of the system using PHP and SQlite.

Happy birthday to me!

2005-11-20T12:21:00.000-08:00

Well today is my birthday, woo hoo! 26 years old and still waiting to graduate from college. It is funny how time flys when your..., well I guess it's just funny how time flys. This semester has been pushing me to the edge of sanity, so i guess it's good I'm graduating. I would hate to have to commit myself to a mental institution before obtaining my degree. Cheers, have a drink with me for my birthday!

bugs bugs bugs

2005-11-17T16:12:00.000-08:00

Mambo is still a better solution in my opinion, depite the problems we have still been encountering. Menues are a little strange, but as long as the links are formed right it seems to work fine. Using the CMS takes some time to get used to. Thankfully Mike has worked with Mambo before and the work appears to be getting done smoothly. However I have heard thru the grapevine of emails that there are problems i have not gotten any complaints to me directly. I am unsire of the feelings of the rest of the SWITCH team, no one has had anything bad to say to me so I am going to go with my feelsings and say that the switch from plone to mambo is still the best thing I could have done this semseter. If I hadnt dont it next semester someone else would have.

Visual Perception

2005-11-13T15:06:00.000-08:00

This week was Brian Schwab's BFA gallery in the Herbert Sanders Gallery. It was titled "Visual Perception". How much visual data is required to recognize an object? The user was given a joystick controller that controlls the amount of the picture they get to see at one time. Initially the user is only given a small vertical bar of the image that moves to the right at a fast pace. With the joystick they can increase the width of the section of image they can see and change the speed at which their slice passes of ther image. Once the image has been recognized the user pulls the trigger on the joystick and starts over on a new image. Each image was acompanied by a new sound in the background. The image and the sound choosen are completely random, sometimes they would help and sometimes they would throw you off.
We hacked the joystick controller into a usb keypad so we could interact directly with the flash file as if the user was pressing a key. The flash file was also interfaced with a small php database application I wrote to collect the information that was being produced. I think it was a very good show and was happy to be able to help him pull it off.

mambo discussion forum

2005-11-10T18:24:00.000-08:00

I have been researching many forum components for the mambo CMS and to be honest most of them suck. James had a request to create some sort of threaded discussion. I know what he is talking about but there are so many options it is hard to decide what one will best suit our needs. I have installed several but think that the one called "simple board" seems to work the best. it has options to view the topics as a traditional message board but also as a threaded discussion. I have been trying to communicate electronically due to scheduling restrictions but it seems that my messages are being lost in the ether. Hopefully we can get a conclusion on this soon, but regardless of the outcome I have been putting in my hours. This class has been a challenge due to it's unstructured nature. I have been doing my best to accomplish all tasks regardless of the lack of interaction I have receieved from my group members.

Upgrades

2005-11-06T14:08:00.000-08:00

I bug in Mambo was found in the newest version of php 5. It causes an error when trying to add or edit content items in the cms. ouch. Not a horrible fix though, just need to upload one file according to the mambo forums and it should work fine again.

Things like this are deffinatly unavoidable when working with the latest versions of anything that could possibly still be in Beta. It is becuse we are riding the learning curve as it is being created so we are obviously going to stumble and hit some problems that were not anticipated. If this were going to be a stable environment that would not be an acceptable learning environment in my opinion because the real world always gives unexpected results

Navigational awareness

2005-11-01T21:37:00.000-08:00

I have been working with Ethans design and turning it into a Mambo template. I have to say they are soooo much better than Plone it makes me very happy. For now I decided to use Ethan's design for the navigation as hard code rather than customizing a menu for it. Once it is running smoothly I can go back and give it a few more features, but for now my main goal is to create a working version of the issue.

Most of my work this semester went down the drain with Plone, and although I feel it was a tremendous waste of time it did give me experience to speak up when I think that an inferiror product is being utilized.

I now have a working tempate created from ethans design. I need to get the error in the content editor fixed before I can go much further. Still researching on that.

Data Collection

2005-10-27T15:38:00.000-07:00

As I look for ways to proove I havn't been neglecting the responsibilities of this class I was able to produce this small data collection application for Aarons Pacifi Rim Project Mapping visualization

the sign-up form
http://arlenthurber.com/sjsu_art175/

the small admin application for editing and deleting projects
http://arlenthurber.com/sjsu_art175/admin.php

the dynamic text file created from the db
http://arlenthurber.com/sjsu_art175/textout.php

Aaron loves it and is very greatfull for the help. I am also going to be working with him to get this information formatted to be read by his flash file. Not exactly sure what he is doing but I am doing my best to provide assistance where I can.

Team Meeting - Making the SWITCH to Mambo

2005-10-25T23:02:00.000-07:00

It's official, I have plead my case and gotten approval to use Mambo for the CMS that will controll this and future issues of the Journal. I believe this decision is the best option available, considering it supports the features we need to organize a multi issue instance that will be upgradeable and provide a stable platform for which the Journal can grow. In our meeting tonight we saw a mockup made by Ethan and I am very happy with it. It looks like a simple layout which will make setting up the template a sinch, especially now that we are using Mambo!!! I am very happy we all agreed, and this will be a good thing for the future semesters as well. PHP is a marketable skill that would be good for anyone with web development experience to konw. Not that this department tries to train you for any type of job, but it might be nice if the skills we did need to learn to make it through the classes are also good for things that could pay some bills.

Setting up small data collection app

2005-10-22T21:14:00.000-07:00

Aaron needs to start collecting data for this visualization project he is working on. I have created a couple small contact manager apps and I have volentered him my services to help get this set up. This way he will not have to wait untill the project is ready to begin collecting data, and the experience for visitors upon the launch date will be more interesting.

Good Responces!

2005-10-16T20:47:00.000-07:00

I have mentioned my idea of switching CMS's and it has been getting some good backing. Everyone seems to hate plone. I know I do. I hate it alot. SO I think we will be able to get the approval with in the next week. It sucks that I have spent this much time and have nothing to really show for it but it has been well worth it if we will be switching to a system that will take less than half the work to get set up and running.

In speaking with my buddy Aaron, who is also working on SWITCH, we have discussed the possibility of me helping with some php and sql backend stuff for a project he's working on for the next issue. more on that to come...

the woes of plone

2005-10-13T23:06:00.000-07:00

The date the server will be ready is still TBA. I have been working on my on instance of plone but every small victory i have seen has been meet with a more overwhelming feeling of doom. How can templates break by merly looking at the code??? I have been spending many hours in frustration reading and coding and trying to get a configuration to work. To say the least, I have to hack the plone CMS to get it to do what I need it to acomplish. I think I need to begin planting the idea of switching CMS platforms.

This is where my professional experience in the web development industry is coming in very handy. I am very familiar with a CMS system called Mambo that uses PHP and SQL. We did alot of research at my job to decide to work with this CMS and I believe it is the right tool in this case as well. The clencher for me that put Mambo over the top is that it has an easy to use template chooser, that lets you assign any template you have installed to any page, best of all it's built in! That means we get to make a new template for each issue and assign them with no fussing with access rules and caching issues, yuck.
Mor

More than one way to skin a plone

2005-10-09T20:33:00.000-07:00

I have had some time to work with and learn plone. HOwever all my experience comes from the newest version of plone and SWITCH V20 is running on a much older version. Once I was able to gain access I relaided just how differant they are. Luckily Bruce is working on upgrading Plone on another server so we will be able to make it do what we need. This should be completed soon. I have not yet recieved word if it is done or not yet, but now that my BFA gallery is complete I can devote much more attention to this project. This new version of Plone will allow a much easier interface for adding future issues and more features for commenting and private discussions. I will be documenting my progress and creating a manual for future semesters a basic "how to" add a new eddition of switch to Plone.. My next task is to work closer with skin's and the ability to make one issue appear differant from another.

Asside from the technical aspects Skinnig is quite an interesting concept. You can skin an application to appear differant even though it serves the same function. It is purely an aesthetic feature but much time is spent on getting things to look right. With the integration of skins to the Plone which runs SWITCH we can make many issues and each one can utilize a differant skin that will be cohesive with the content matter. Ethan and I are also creating a skin for the next issue. I look forward to being able to concentrate harder now that my gallery is over. more updates coming soon.

Sonic Piano Gallery Complete!

2005-10-07T11:35:00.000-07:00

Ahhh, it feels good to be able to exhale again. For the past week I have been locked away in the confines of my gallery space. I have to say it went very well. I got many great comments from people and once they saw what it was doing most of them got it right away. Others were a little slower to realize they had entered an interactive musical interface, but I explained it about a million times so everyone got a chance to understand the system I created. I have great hopes for submitting this piece to ISEA and to places like the exploratorium. I am really happy I follwed through with this idea and do not see it stopping here. I have had so many new ideas for things my lil invention could do that I could continue working in this medium for a long time to come. But for now it's time to take a break and get back to being focused on completing my last semester here at SJSU. That means back to plone and the SWITCH tech team. Please visit my site at www.ArlenThurber.com and leave comments if you have any more comentary or questions on the Sonic Piano.

Thanks to all those who stopped by to participate in my madness, I hope to do it again someday in the not to distant future.

Thanks, Arlen

The Sonic Piano

2005-10-03T18:58:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone, please stop by the herbert sanders gallery in the industrial design building at SJSU to see my interactive gallery titled "The Sonic Piano". THis piece turns the room and it's occupants into a musical interface. I am really quite excited about it and cant wait to see the reactions I get from the participants. visit www.arlenthurber.com for more information

Team meeting

2005-09-27T23:46:00.000-07:00

I spoke with Mike last night and we arranged a meeting of the SWITCH - tech team to meet on thursday after 5:30pm. I believe we will discuss the plugins I have found and how to upgrad plone to version 2.1. I have been running plone off of my desktop at home recently but would like to get a login to the instance on the school server so we can begin to get things underway. Still trying to figure out what is wrong with ploneboard, for some reason it is still broken and will not install. Searching online forums for answers, I will post more info as I find it.

stop spamming my blog!

2005-09-27T12:25:00.000-07:00

I dont know who is responsible but every post I make there is a person who seems to enjoy posting unrelated comments and spamming links in responce to my blog entry. I want this to stop. This blog is for a class of mine at San Jose State and unless you have comments related to the content of my postings please do not spam my blog with useless comments and links to places no one cares about.

TeamSpace - plone plugin

2005-09-24T19:04:00.000-07:00

I had a few problems durring the first attempt at installing my plone plugins, and it was primarily due to the fact that i needed the latest version of plone to be able to run the plugins. Once I upgraded to plone 2.1 I found that teamspace had a dependency that i needed to install first called "CMFMember". Once I got around that I was able to get teamspace installed successfully. I am still tinkering around with it but i believe this is the functionality that Mike was requesting. Plone board is still giving me problems however and I am not sure why. I will have to continue researching to find a solution.

Plone research

2005-09-21T12:11:00.000-07:00

I have been looking around the plone website in search of plugins and modules that will allow me to facilitate the requests of Mike and the SWITCH team. I have come across two plugins that I believe will come in quite handy. TeamSpace allows administrators to create groups and add members to those groups. This way only members of specific groups are able to access content is if their group has permissions on the content in question. Also ploneboard adds a message board functionality to the plone interface to allow discussion of many topics. My first attempt at installing these plugins was unsucessful. I will try to do some troubleshooting and see if I cant get them installed this week.

Plone Private Discussion

2005-09-18T18:18:00.000-07:00

I met with Mike and he says he
deffinatly has 3 untis of work for me this semester. I
have installed Plone CMS on my laptop and have been
given the task of figuring out how to implement a mod
that allows a multi threaded private discussion. I am
not sure exactly the intentions that Mike has for this
but that is not imperitive to me getting the work
done. I have been brushing up on some python because I
have not written in python since I took art 103 a year
ago. I will also be part of the tech team that aims at
creating a SWITCH quick start guide and template for
future versions of SWITCH so future groups do not have
to start from scratch every issue.

2nd SWITCH meeting

2005-09-14T17:36:00.000-07:00

I came to the CADRE lab last night aroud 8:45 hoping to get to the SWITCH meeting a little early so I could catch Joel anddiscuss my BFA gallery with him. However when I got there everyone was already packing up and getting ready to go. mike told me that they are now moving the SWITCH meetings to Tuesdays from 5 - 6 insdead of 9-10. Thisis a problem for mebecause I work from 9-5 and a commute to school after work wouldn't allow me to get here much before the meeting would end. So we discussed it and decided that I could telecommute to the meetings and still be an active member.

I got to ask Joel if he got my email and he said yes, didn't have much feedback but said that it looks good. After that Mike and I spoke briefly about the types of modules that I will be working with for the PLONE CMS and also told me the aims of the technical group this semester. His vision is to set up a template for futer seemsters to use so each SWITCH edition didn't have to start form scratch. I am very excited about helping with this project.

This month will be a little hectic for me because my BFA gallery is coming up soon, but I dont see any problems with keeping up on all of my responsibilities. If you havent already please take a look at the website I have constructed for my BFA gallery athttp://www.arlenthurber.com/agt_sonicPiano/

Semester Activities

2005-09-10T14:18:00.000-07:00

I have been researching Plone, a CMS (content management system) written in python. Durring my research I am finding out that this software is more to form online communities rather than just manage content dynamically. There are many modules and plugins that can be added on and from my discussion with Mike at the last SWITCH meeting I believ this is what I will be working on most of the semester.

Creating a Plan For The Semester

2005-09-07T01:18:00.000-07:00

Tonight at the SWITCH meeting we all got acquainted with the theme of the next issue which will be focusing on the Pacific Rim and it's influence in new media art. I got a chance to speak with Mike about what types of projects we could work on this semester and we came up with a few ideas. He suggested that I investigate Plone, the CMS system they began working with last semester. So I think my job this semester may involve more behind the scenes work on Switch than a tangible element in the issue but none the less still just as important. I would like to get a small article in there about the personal space gallery from last semester in which Brain Schwab and I gave the sense of personal space to a computer.

SWITCH meetings are every Tuesday night and I propose attending those as an alternative to attending the classes durring the day tuesday and thursday. I will be keeping my progress posted on this blog and updated frequently.

Attending the SWITCH meeting tonight

2005-09-06T20:39:00.000-07:00

Hello, thanks for visiting my new blog for art 175. Tonight I am starting my blog and attending a meeting for SWITCH, the online journal run by the digital media department. Hopefully I will have a better idea of what I will be working on this semester and be able to plan accordingly. Other than that, I have been busily finishing my BFA gallery which is set to go live October 3th - 7th. It is titled "The Sonic Piano"and I describe it as an environmental instrument. It changes the gallery space into an interface for creating music, and the occupants become data representing notes. More info is available at www.arlenthurber.com