This is where we post our projects, experiences, thoughts, and discoveries. The lab community is a great place to learn about the topics and techniques covered in the Creative Media Lab. Feel free to leave a comment!

I made a new montage

Hi Trevor,

I’m interested in knowing about SMASH Cast, because I would like to sign up for it and so that I could be better in computers and still be in contact with a part of SMASH.

Hi everyone.  We have recently been working with Flash as you may all know.  I stumbled upon a site the other day for you to be able to get a chance to win some money.  If you decide to do this, it has to be based on a global issue like global warming or pollution.  You don’t need a lot of experience, and you can try to take a chance at the first place prize, which is $2,000, second would be $1,000, third is $500, and the viewer’s choice is $250.  I encourage everyone to at least visit the site.  The Flash movies are really informative.  The next deadline is on April 1, 2008, so you still have some time between now and then to make something, and I’m sure Trevor or Simon would love to help you if ever needed.

Hello,
Turns out that I help out wikipedia, and I found out that the LPFI page is kind of empty. Give me suggestions, or I could also ask Ms. St. Roseman about it.

One more thing. I need ideas for the SMASH page, as there is no SMASH page…

For those of you still in need of some blog maintenance:

Missing montages, avatars, etc.

• A few of you have mentioned that your montages or avatar images were suddenly replaced by someone else’s image. This has happened, because you are uploading your files with generic file names (i.e. – montage.jpg) that are the same as your classmates’, and consequently, the older file gets replaced with the newer file.
• To avoid this in the future, please name your files with your name or initials at the end (e.g. – montage_tp.jpg), that way each of you should have a unique file name that does not replace someone else’s work on the blog.
• Please check your author pages to make sure that it contains all of the correct images. If not, re-upload your the correct images with a new filename.

Your profile picture is not an actual image (or near representation) of you

• Some of you still seem to be missing an actual image of you on your profile page — Danny, Francisco, Michael, Oscar.
• Please try to add an image of yourself as soon as possible. If you do not have access to a digital picture of yourself, you can use the photo we took of you in class last week. All of the images we have taken in class are available on the Smashcast Flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/smashcast
• If you’d like, you may also use your avatar image, just make sure to crop and scale your image down to 250 x 250 pixels.

Spelling & Grammar Corrections

• Everyone received spelling and grammar corrections for their page on Tuesday, and most of you have made those corrections by now. If you still have corrections that you need to make, please make those ASAP. Remember, our class website is a representation of SMASH. PROOFREAD and SPELL CHECK!
  
• Kudos to those of you who have used comments to remind your peers of spelling and grammar corrections!

Categories, Categories, Categories!

• Many of you still have posts that you have not categorized.
• Please check the Uncategorized section to see if you have any posts that are still not categorized. If you are unsure of which category to use, write a Help post, and I can give you some suggestions or we can even create a new category.

Hi Everyone,

I’m excited to see what you all put together for your podcast projects! Just a few announcements on Assignment #3 and podcasting in general:

For those of you who still need to get some recording done, we’ve posted the Microphone Reservation Chart to the assignment sheet, so please be sure to get the right mic on the right day.

As for podcasting, in general, anyone will be able to “subscribe” to our podcast once all of your reports have been recorded and posted. To subscribe to our podcast means that a subscriber will be able to have our podcast automatically downloaded to their iTunes (or other aggregator).

If you’d like to test this out in iTunes, here are some simple steps on how to subscribe to our podcast using iTunes:

1. In iTunes, Go to Advanced > Subscribe to Podcast…
2. Paste this URL: http://lab.smashcast.org/Tech1/wp-rss2.php, and click OK.
3. On the left, under the Library, select Podcasts, and you should see our podcast, Creative Media Lab.
4. Click the grey triangle at the left for a listing of all of our current podcasts.

If you’d like to learn more about the concept of subscriptions, and other related software, check out this article on wikipedia about Podcasts and, more specifically, its related section on Mechanics.

Hi everybody, I hope that you all like this montage. If you don’t see yourself in this montage, don’t worry because, I’m still working on it or I still haven’t found a picture of yourself.

Just wanted to send out a reminder about the homework for the weekend. I think everyone is on their way with Assignment #2, but I just want to make sure that you’re all clear about what’s expected for class on Tuesday:

Assignment #2 Due

• Post your What’s in a Name? montage representing the perception & reality of your name and identity.
• Answer all of the questions in the assignment, in paragraph form, as creatively as possible (use hyperlinks too!).
• Be sure to include your name somewhere in the montage and use at least 7 images.
• Categorize your post under “#2: What’s in a Name?”

3600 Seconds in Second Life

• Post your avatar image to the blog if you haven’t already done so.
• Crop and resize your image in Photoshop so that it fits nicely within the blog.
• Answer all of the analysis questions in complete sentences and paragraph form.
• Categorize your post under “Experiments” and “Second Life”

Blog Cleanup

• Proofread and correct (or rewrite if necessary) your Author bio.
• Upload an actual picture of yourself for your Author profile.
• Proofread all of your blog posts for spelling, grammar, and style.
• Resize all of your images so that they are no larger than 600 pixels in width.
• Categorize all of your posts.
• Delete any test posts you made during week 1.

Please try to make as many corrections as you can by Sunday night. We will be returing printouts of each of your author pages with comments and corrections on your assignments as well as some suggestions on what else you could do to improve your page overall. Your goal should be to make your page look as polished and professional as possible. We’d like to send out a link for our site to the rest of SMASH and LPFI by sometime next week.

Hey everybody, I just want to say Happy 4th of July, and that I hope you guys have fun today.

This is how you can embed YouTube videos in to your blog posts:

Just use the [video] tags around your YouTube video URL

Read more about how to use this plugin here