Rationale - Project B

My Project B is based on Geo-Narrative but also include pictures that show data visualisation. I chose to do geo-narrative because it seems easier to do than data visualisation on its own, and so I can explore the world of Google Maps. In this project I would like to show how data visualisation could also be added into geo-narrative. The collaboration between the two makes this project look interesting.

This geo-narrative that I have created is about comparing the success of Disneyland theme parks around the world with other theme parks such as Warner Bros and Universal Studios. In the map, I have used different color coordination to represent theme parks. I used blue to represent Disney, yellow to represent Warner Bros, and green to represent Universal Studios.

Each color I have chosen has special meanings to the theme parks. I assign Disney with the blue to match up with the color of its logo which is a castle on top of the cloud.

Warner Bros on the other hand, got yellow to represent itself on the map because their logo is yellow and it has a bright vibrant to it. Even though it also got the blue color but yellow is more dominant.

I have chosen green to represent Universal Studios on my map just because green is an enviromentally friendly color and also because the universal logo is earth.

All these mentioned entertainment companies have extended their wings all around the world. Disney has extended to many different cities and the extension goes from California to Orlando (Florida), Tokyo (Japan), Hongkong (Taiwan) and Paris (France). Disney also has some ongoing project in Honolulu (hawaii) which will be completed in 2011 and Dubai (Middle East) which is planned to be complete by 2020. Warner Bros extended from Los Angeles to Gold Coast (Australia), Madrid (Spain) and Essen (Germany).Universal had also extended from Los Angeles to Orlando (Florida), Osaka (Japan), Singapore and has one on going project in Seoul (South Korea) which is planned to be complete in 2014.

On the map I attached graphs in the individual text balloon. The first graph is visitors statistic and the second graph is Google Trends map that shows how often people are searching information for theme parks each year. I created the visitors graphs on Microsoft Excel and upload the graph image onto Flickr. After all got uploaded, I copied the HTML codes for individual image and paste it to HTML box on the map. The same with Google Trends graphs, I print screen the page and crop the print screen image using Photoshop. After that, I uploaded the image to Flickr and followed the same process above.

Although it is interesting and seems easy, I found some difficulties in making this project happened. When searching the number of visitors of each theme parks, it was really hard to find the official website that shows theme parks visitor's statistics. After long process of searching I finally found the annual report of TEA/ERA (Theme Park Attendance) report. Unfortunately, after looking at it did not find all the information I need. TEA/ERA only have Disney and Universal cisitor statistics and not Warner Bros. So I went back onto Google and start searching for Warner Bros visitor statistics. After hours of searching I finally found the official website of Village Roadshow Limited that has lists of Time Warner Annual Reports. But again not all the Warner Bros theme parks are listed in the reports. So I did another research on Google and after all the struggle I found a report of European Theme Parks Report. That is how I got all my data for theme park visitors and as you can see I did not get them easy. :(

Move along to Google Trends, it was also not easy to find the information I want even though it looks simpel. When I type my individual theme park onto it, it did not all come up with the result that I want. Some theme parks such as Dubailand (Disney Dubai), Aulani (Disney Hawaii), Warner Bros Studio (Los Angeles), Warner Bros Gold Coast (Australia), Universal Studio (Japan), and Universal Studio (Seoul, South Korea) just did not come up on Google Trends. I understand some of them might not come up because it has not operated just yet, but how about the others? I just don't understand and this makes me sad! :(

Despite all the difficulties I faced throughout the making process, in the end I am pretty satisfied with my project. I hope my informations will be useful to the public and it will also bring a good mark for this class. I hope you enjoy my "Famous Theme Parks Around the World Map"

Project B - on the making part 2

This week I have done placing tags of theme parks and studio on many different countries around the world. It has shown that all the theme parks I have chosen to compare are from the United States. Next thing that I'm going to do is to attach graphs in each pop up balloons on the map. I'm thinking to use google trends graph to show how many people are actually interested on finding information of these theme parks. I'm also going to make a graph of how many people are visiting these theme parks each year.

So I guess I'll tell you more in details about my awesome project in the next blog which is going to be a BIG FAT rationale (no, I don't think it's going to be that big).

Media Portrayal of Women: Female Stereotypes in the Media

Media Portrayal of Women: Female Stereotypes in the Media

project B - on the making part 1

On this Project B, I have decided to create a geo - narrative that will also include some data visualisation. According to Stephen the combination of the two would be interesting to look at and also challenging.

This project is going to be based on comparisons between Disney, Warner Bros, Universal and MGM theme parks all around the world. The comparisons between them will be shown in Google Maps. Currently, this Project is still under construction, so I'll update you with the latest news of this project later.

bye now!

data visualisation

There are many ways you can visualize data. It can be through colors, shape, size, thickness of a line, and many more.

In the tutorial today, we discussed many different example of data visualisation. One of the example that catches my attention was a video made out of many different information about the use of internet around the world. The use of size of globe that represents different numbers of people using internet each year worldwide and it starts from as little as 45.1 million in 1995 and the globe just keeps on growing up to 1.73 billion internet users worldwide.

Different colour coordination shown on how many spam messages you'd received each day in your mailbox and this was represent as red mails and taller piles, and normal mail was represent in white. I think this is a good way to demonstrate and really put a pressure on the message that they try to deliver.

The way they present the video is really unique i think because they have used the actual logos of particular websites. For example Twitter, they have used Twitter bird to describe how many tweets are going into twitter each day. They also use Asthon Kutcher as an example and attached his picture on the slide to show 4.63 million people are actually following him on twitter.

The same with YouTube, they presented the slide as if it was one of the video from youtube site that looks like a little television screen with navigation button underneath. They also associate the colour background accordingly with the colour theme on each websites (Twitter: light blue, YouTube: red)

collective intelligence, multiplicity week 10

This week lecture and tutorial topic is Multiplicity.

Our tutorial group come up with the idea on creating a City Car Tracker that can track all the cars in the city using the microchip that attached to every single cars in the city to feed GPS tracking signal.
This microchip will be aggregated through a database and the live feed shown on a web map, with cars represented as white dots. This map will give you an access to a data that shown the traffic in certain hours, rush hours, events and incidents that effected the traffic. Therefore, people could choose other directions to avoid traffic.

this microchip will also provide the governments with data to reassess where to build traffic lights, new road, roundabouts and adjusting the speed limits on certain areas if there are many accident involved in those areas.

If you like our ideas please support us on sending this great idea to the Australian government in order to get a better day on the road!

week 9

This week we were talking about Web 2.0.

In tutorial we were given a group task to identify the collective intelligence between blogger.com and wordpress.org.

By using google trends we found that using the search engine in google, wordpress is more popular than blogger. The reason was that wordpress is used by many companies so it is more corporate. Therefore, when you type in the company name into google search engine it will automatically comes as with wordpress URL.

Whereas under websites visited by the population, google trend showed that blogger is the most visited website than wordpress. The reason why is because blogger is more personal and easier to use than wordpress. The statistic shows that in 2002 there were 41,000 people registered with blogger.

The difference collective intelligence between blogger and wordpress is that blogger's blog roll is used to share information to other people and recommends other websites. Whereas wordpress blog roll is used to advertised the company's products so instead of driving the viewer's attention to other websites it actually keeps the viewers attention to the products the company sells.

http://www.google.com/trends?q=wordpress%2C+blogger
http://trends.google.com/websites?q=wordpress.org%2C+blogger.com&geo=all&date=all&sort=0

Holiday!

Just finished my assignments and project for mid semester and will have one week break of uni. What am I gonna do? Study, work and study. Oh and work again! :(

Oh well, at least I can eat as much chocolate as I like when I work this weekend! :D

Have a good Easter holiday you guys. Keep safe and see you all again in a week!



Love, Nisa

Project A - rationale

For my first Networked Media Production Project I have chosen to curate an exhibition on Candi Prambanan Architecture. I have chosen to do a blog post in order to curate this topic. The reason why I chose to do this topic is simply because the legend behind Candi Prambanan was really interesting. It tells you the reason why they had built 1000 temples and how it related to the Hindu's Gods. These largest, grandest, most beautiful Hindu temples in the world have attracted people's attention from all over the world.

On my page I have customised the header and attached an edited batik pattern image with the name on my blog on it using photoshop. Batik represents Indonesian culture and also came from Java Island so I thought it would be suitable to put it as a header background. I also edited the HTML tags and deleted the outer and inner borders to make the header image more stand out. Below my header I have attached a configure search blog, just because it was a new thing in gadget option :)

On my top right side bar, I have a chat box that I found from other people's blog. I simply copied the html code and just paste it under configure HTML/JavaScript box and it works! Please feel free to chat on my page! :)

I have one RSS feed underneath my chat box because I could not find other RSS feed to match my topic. :( But I put some URLs in my blog post as references and if people are interested to read and learn some more about Indonesian legend / history it is just a click away.

Lastly I have attached Blogger logo just to fill my footnote.

Enjoy!

architecture of Candi Prambanan, Java Island - Indonesia

Candi Prambanan is the grandest temple in Java apart from Borobudur. Candi Prambanan or often be called Candi Loro Jonggrang complex is a Hindu temple complex estimated to have been built during the late 9th and early 10th century. Located on the Prambanan plain, this sprawling temple complex sits majestically at the end of the Central Java period and somewhat later than Borobudur temple in an open area about 20 km south of Mount Merapi, which dominates the horizon. Its refined beauty as a crystallization of the various kinds of technical achievements that had been made up to then make it every bits as representative Hindu Java arts as Borobudur temple. This candi complex can be said to be the highest level of ancient architecture in the world.

Candi Prambanan is the largest, most dignified and beautiful Siva monument in the world. Its obvious greatness reflects the glory and grandeur of an ancient Kingdom once reigning over Central Java. Its architecture and ornament bear witness to highly developed techniques and masterly skill once belonging to Indonesia. Prambanan is a Siva complex and represents the largest historical remains found in the Prambanan area.

The Legend of Loro Jonggrang

Loro Jonggrang was the daughter of the cruel, powerful King Prabu Baka who ruled the ancient Javanese kingdom of Prambanan. She had a proposed from a young noble, Bandung Bandawasa who was the son of the generous King Bandawasa who was too, the powerful king of Pegging kingdom. Bandung Bandawasa was handsome, wealthy and powerful, but Loro Jonggrang didn’t want to marry him just because she found out that Bandung had killed her father in the battle. Loro Jonggrang gave a task to Bandung Bandawasa to make her 1000 temples in one night, to prepare his marriage to her.Bandung used his supernatural power to call the genies and they made the temples with unbelievable speed and tell them to finish it before sunrise. Loro Jonggrang saw the task was almost complete. Then, she ordered her servants to help her hit the rice using the rice puncher and made the sound of cooking. Her actions made the genies think that the morning had come and they left the temples undone. At this time, Bandung Bandawasa was left with 999 temples made. He was so angry at Loro Jonggrang actions and so he finished the 1000th temple and he cursed Loro Jonggrang into a stone statue to fill in the 1000th templet.

Cited from:

• http://fi2cahimoet.blogspot.com/2009/05/legend-of-roro-jonggrang.html
• http://indonesianfolklore.blogspot.com/2007/09/loro-jonggrang-folklore-from-central.html

Architecture Side

The entire Candi Loro Jonggrang complex is divided into three squares. The main square which in the center, the second square in lower (middle yard) and the third square which in the lowest (the out side yard). All the three are each surrounded by walls and are connected with one another by entrance.

The Main Square is surrounded by a stone wall and forms the first square of the Candi Loro Jonggrang complex.There are 6 big temples in the main square standing two rows from North to South. At the west side we find three bigger temples, the Siva temple as the main temple flanked by the Vishnu temples (north of it) and the Brahma temple (south). All are facing east.On the east side there are three similar temples, which used to be called the Candi Vahana (the carriage) and which are facing west. At the north end and south end of the square between the two rows of temples mentioned above, there are the two candi Apit. In each corner of the square and exactly in front of each entrance, there are small temples, the corner is called Candi Sudut and the temple in front of the entrances is the Candi Kelir.

Noteworthy is the fact that it is not the main temple – which contains the status of Siva Mahadeva – that forms the most sacred place of the candi Loro Jonggrang complex, but the candi Mehara Sudut, which stands south of the eastern flight of stairs of the main temple are each flanked by a pair of them. Inside the temple we find a base with a hole under which there is a tube which contains three rock stones shaped as a parallelogram. This tube is not visible from the outside. There is line drawn on these stones indicating the sacred spot in the center of the square. In the other words, the main statues do not stand exactly on the sacred spot, but a little to the North West.Candi Loro Jongrang is a replica of Mount Mahameru. It is the burial place of the Kingdom, though essentially a temple of Siva, it is also considered as a temple of the Kingdom. The candi Perwara represent the sub district of the Kingdom.

As the dwelling place of the God, Candi Loro Jongrang is a replica of Mount Mahameru. In the center rises the main temple, symbolizing the top of mountain, home of Siva, the two top right and left it are for Brahma and Vishnu, while the other tops symbolize the places of the lower deities.In the Candi Loro Jonggrang complex this outer yard is for more spacious than the other two. In this place there are no traces of ruins. These used to be buildings there but not traces of them can be found now.

For more information on Prambanan Architecture Please visit:

• http://www.orientalarchitecture.com/indonesia/yogyakarta/prambanan.php
• http://www.borobudurpark.co.id/en-philosophy2.html

ASS-ignments!

I was 10 minutes late to submit my essays today. Running like a crazy woman from the bus stop to building 20, tried to find box number 35 and found it. Ha! She hasn't collect the essays yet, and I thought "I'm safe!" But it didn't end just yet. I had to rush to building 1 to submit my other essay (man, uni life is tough!). Tried to find box number 27. NO, I couldn't find it!!!!! Guess what? The box was right in front of my eyes. I guess that's what happen when you stressed out too much. YOU'LL GO BLIND! Anyway, check the box and again, He has not collect the essays (thank GOD). I thought I must be so lucky today! Lesson to be learned, never rush your assignments ever again in the future. At least have them finished 12 hours before submitting them. :)

HTML stands for HyperText Markup Language. HTML is so good because it is easy to understand and anyone can use it anywhere. There is no need to buy a special software to create HTML because it is just a text and it can be created by using notepad or text wrangler (for apple computers) for free. HTML is all you need to put anything online.

CSS stands for Cascading Style sheet. CSS is created to instruct your webpage browser to how to draw. CSS is used to allow you to style your HTML data with lots of different colour codes, font styles, sizes and many more.

Semantic markup means using the correct tag to accurately describe the type of content. this includes heading tags, paragraphs and lists. The used of semantic markup is important because it makes reading code much, much easier because you can see and understand what is happening.


Censorship is the suppression of speech or deletion of material which may be considered harmful, sensitive of inconvenient to the government or media organisation as determined by a censor. The Australian government has come up with a plan for the mandatory internet clean-feed to prevent child's pornography. Stephen Conroy announced the federal government to introduce an ISP-based filter to censor "inappropriate material" from the internet to protect children.

Having said this, I agree that the government should start putting filter to censor all the inappropriate material not just from the internet but also from all media around Australia. Child abuse and pornography do not just come from the internet. It comes from video games such as Grand Theft Auto and other games out there.

When it comes to responsibility and decision making, it is not just the government responsibility and decision to protect children from what they shouldn't have seen. The parents responsibility comes first in this point. But, it is government responsibility to make parents aware about moral damage that child pornography could cause now and in the future.

Privacy is the most important thing you need when you make a webpage or even just entering your personal details on the internet. By having privacy, it will keep you personal details save and secured.

APIs. I haven't really got to know what it is.. :(

week 4 lecture (crazy using the marquee tag) :P

This week in tutorial, I continued editing my page. We learnt how to add footer, header and creating new tags. It is fun because I can make the texts move by using marquee tag and my page looks great.

The things that I don't really get is to make a side bar and somehow the color that I've chosen in CSS file doesn't match up with the one in HTML. I don't know why. :(

Please someone tell me what i did wrong so I can fix it because at the moment the background color would not appear. :(

thx!

week 3 lecture

Dear blog,

Our topic of discussion in class this week is HTML and CSS.There are two Mark-ups Language that can be used. Firstly, HTML stands for Hyper-text Mark-up Language. It is created to make the text more clear and easy to understand. It is also a limited subset of XML. Secondly, XML that stands for Extensible Mark-up Language. It is designed to be extensible and goes beyond what you can think at the time. XML is meant to be the human and machine readable. It could extend your codes into a picture. CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets.

So, why is HTML so good? HTML is easy to understand. It enables you to interface with the coder and you can see how it works easily on a website by selecting view codes on the view tab. It is all you need to put everything online. HTML is just text so you don’t need to download expensive software to create a webpage. You can easily use notepad or Text Wrangler to create your HTML codes.

CSS is created to instruct your webpage browser to how to draw. CSS is used to allow you to style your HTML data with lots of different colour codes, font styles, sizes and many more.

17 Feb 2010 - First day, First Blog

Dear Blog,

This is the first time I've ever made you. For school purposes of course.

Today is the first day of Networked Media Production tutorial and we are asked to create a blog. Yesterday at Lecture we talked about what blog is, why do people use it, and different blog websites. From what I heard, the word blog is actually came from weBlog which means a piece of document or journal of ongoing event that is posted on website. People use blog because it is the easiest, cheapest and fastest publishing tool ever invented. Blog also allow people to have a voice they didn't have before. In blog, people mostly use text but you can also add images, sounds even videos. How amazing is that!!! I can't believe technology these days has made life so much easier. It is no longer writing about your personal life in a diary book with boring looking book but more interesting looking with pictures, videos and sounds. You can also share stories with your friends or other people around the world! Wow, I guess I'm gonna get addicted to blogging now!

That is it for now. Gotta add my blog URL to moodle! :)