6. The Missing

So, another Thursday …. Come and gone. Made some progress today, website wise. By Monday, I shall have a totally awesome website and you will all eat dust (haha … I’m all talk) but seriously, I am getting somewhere, I actually understand the whole CSS thing now, I just have to sort some things out.

The first mini-site is due next week (hopefuly on the friday) but I have no idea what content to put on it. We haven’t really been told anything. I have no idea how they expect us to do it. Must we use XTML or XHTML? Is a CSS neccessary? Can we use Dreamweaver (or equivalent)? Does it matter the method we choose to go about doing it? And what information do we need to display? Our idea? The results of our survey stuff? Drawings? Maps? Figures? (Okay, yes I know the last three are dependant on what it is they want us to present … but you get the idea.)

I have been … advised (“A word!” For those of us playing at home!) to E-mail Rob and ask him. But tomorrow is friday, So I might just ask him then, and if I get no answer? Then I’ll create a webpage on something that truly matters. Me. (Yes, I am kidding!)

I was kinda looking at everyone’s pages today and reading thier sources (research) and I must admit that I am quite impressed. I really am amazed by the amount of creative energy that flows within the 1200 students (and at how so much of it goes wasted a lot of the time.)

Anyways, I’ll shut up. This thing is meant to be more for IDEA development, not WEBPAGE development. So, idea? I got nothing! To be perfectly honest, I have no interest in the iPhone or any of its applications. I think its stupid, and it was outdated before it was even released. I still would have liked to have used my Ariel TV idea … but thats not “interactive.” That’s the whole point of TV. Its not supposed to be interactive. You’re supposed to be able to turn it on to inform or entertain you and keep you away from the real world where people are constantly demanding things from you. So yes, the one idea I actually liked went down the drain.

And although it may not appear to some, I have put a lot of thought into this assignment. The one question that’s on my mind? What application can I develop  that will make me (and others) want to purchase an iPhone. ‘Cause come on, if I am in a position to design applications for the iPhone, I either work for Apple, or I’m in DECO1200. I don’t think Apple is going to pay people to come up with applications that no one has a use for. So, (and this is just my opinion) if any of the presenters of last week (especially myself) were working for Apple … they’d be out of a job. It’s all useless and no one in their right mind will purchase a phone for those applications. Actually, I liked 2 whole ideas that were presented last week, that I thought were practical and could eventually become an ‘essential’ part of our lives. It was originaly 3, but one of the people that presented left a gaping huge flaw in their idea which made me dislike it. The flaw was pointed out in a question addressed to the presenter (whoever they may be) at the end of their presentation. If they can find a practical way to solve that problem, then I think that that idea has the potential to do well.

That was the process of thought when I was coming up with ideas. And the reason for their lack of. Kaz asked me before the presentations what would make people want to buy the iPhone if it had my TV idea in it. I believe I answered that “because it will provide you with information (news) and entertainment for free” and (and this was the main point for me) give people who spend a lot of time travelling to and from work (sleek suit men and ladies working in the city that travel on trains etc) something to kill time with rather than staring awkwarly around trying to avoid gazes. Also you could catch ur fave shows and things on the go … Like on Thursday morning I have a show that I like to watch at 9am … but I spend that time travelling to uni (getting to deco1200) I would love to still watch it while being dragged around in an uncomfortable, oversized sardine can. But then it was questioned ‘Why not just get a seperate portable TV?’ And I rally had no answer for that other than ‘Its inconvinient to carry a lot of things.’ Which sounded stupid, even by my standards. So I changed my presentation pretty last minute. Hoping to get something that made more sense … but alas, it was not meant to be. However, after watching everyone else’s presentations, I became aware that almost all of the ideas presented can be purchased as separate pieces of technology. Why were they not questioned about what would be the purpose of having it on a phone? But I see it as irrelavant anyways, the iPhone is more of a PDA than it is a phone. My fear of public speaking sprung through quite well too.

(Is there a way to stop this thing from auto-saving? It’s throwing off my thinking.)

So I did the paper thing that I mentioned in my last blog. I carried the pad of paper all day and tho thoughts I collected were as follows:

- I should download (legally, of course) Lennon’s ‘Stand By Me’ … It was on the radio

- I wish I had a dream interpreter … I remembered a strange dream I had while riding the bus (not watching anything) actually I might look up what that means now!

- I need to sort out my priorities and stop promising people I’d do stuff and then forget and then make other plans

- I wish I still kept a diary like I did back in year 9

- I want to be super good at Maya

- How funny is theatresports?

- I need to look up the history of the exclaimation point (Justin’s Lec)

- I need to play lotto … it might increase my chances slightly (It’ll be higher than 0)

- I miss my family, I wish they were here.

- I wish Emma’s telepathy thing worked hahaha

And that’s about it. My random thoughts, needs, wishes, desires etc during the day (Well, some of). Didn’t really inspire me with anything,  except I now wish I could teleport myself overseas … and turn back time. But I think I’m still a little way off from such technology. So tomorrow morning, I’m trying a new approach. A method I like to call mix and match. I’m pretty sure it has an actual name though, Rob was talking about it one day. During the coming up with ideas lecture.

And that’s all I have to say right now. I am tired and wish to be in bed … asleep. And I am off to do that now. I will leave you with a random thought.

I was reading the paper earlier and I came across an advert for a Casey Donnavan concert, and the maths I came up with is; you can either go see Casey SEVEN times, or see Justin Timberlake ONCE for the same money. I think I made the better choice.

5. The Notebook

Okay this blog isn’t really about any sort of iPhone thing. Just a rant really. First off …

I have a genius hammer! Yes, Maya and I are getting along these days. Sure its not great compared to everyone else’s masterpieces that I have seen, but it resembles a hammer … So I’m pretty happy.

Secondly, my thinking about the iPhone is getting me nowhere … and I’m on an express train! So, tomorro I’m going to carry around notes like a nerd and note down everything I feel like doing. Then, I’m going to try and work that into what I’m gonna do … Sure it sounds stupid, but stupids all I got at the moment. And like Mr. F Gump always says “Stupid is as stupid does.”

So, it’s thursday tomorrow. Deco1200 time again. Thankfully, our scare that the website is due tomorro was a little premature and I still have a while before the realisation that it is due the following day dawns on me.

Anyways, I’m missing out on much beloved sleep! I’ll see you peeps tomorrow!

Suna

4. The Neverending Story

So, it’s approximately 4pm on friday. I did my presentation … roughly an hour and a half ago (thats 1.5 OC Episodes, for those of us playing at home)

 I learnt a few things today.

 1. The wall in Lab313 is dead set on killing someone.

2. I am terrible at public speaking (suprise!)

3. Deco people are full of ideas!

4. I made an ass of myself.

 Okay, So … My idea changed a lot yesterday and (If I can still do it) is likely to change again … soon. I had a little bit of trouble expressing myself, which might come as a suprise since normally, I don’t prectice the art of ’silence’ too often.

My new idea was, rather than having the TV on the iPhone (I dropped that ’cause Kaz didn’t like it too much) it was like having a kind of network of film/music reviews.

The idea is that you can download music/movies/TV shows onto your iPhone (as mentioned in a previous blog) and watch it. But your iPhone will let people around you, your friends, family, stupid people riding the train … anyone, know what it is your watching or listening to by displaying like a feed thing that says ‘Suna is watching The Swan Princess’ (Which I will be doing later!)

And people can see that, and they can also browse your library of other things that you have in there, and you can write reviews or give ratings to things that you’ve already seen. So people looking for new material to watch or listen to can then in turn go to their iTunes store (or other alternative [LEGAL] download source) and check out music/video that they have discovered through others.

So, it’s really just a way to share music and movies and stuff using your phone. The target audience would be pretty much everyone whos into the whole TV or music phenomenon and wants to increase their knowledge and collection and also share their new stuff they found. This would be good for bands who want to promote themselves as well.

 But, yeah. It’s really not a complicated idea.

It came from the whole having TV on your phone thing, which I still think is brilliant … but not ‘interactive’ so its not really a web 2.0 thing.

 And class time is almost over, so I better prepare to head off and spend the night like old people do … being old.

And hopefully, by next week I’ll be a genius at Maya and would have got a fair bit of this stuff done as well.

 Now I’m going to talk about totally unrelated crap just because I need to vent. So you can stop paying attention now (Told you I’d do that Rob)

Anyways, I got Justin Timberlake tickets today! I almost dies cause stupid tiketek had busy servers from like 9 to 10 and I was just about to give up and go to Rob’s lecture when it finally let me in! So yeah, I got my tickets! I really really seriously dislike speaking to large groups of people.

Like, hypothetically speaking if I had to choose between public speaking and facing a hungry shark … I would pick the shark. Everytime!

I think that maybe by next presentation we can come in the labs and go in a chatroom lol and I’ll type out what I wanna say and everone can just read it, theyd also have the option of ignoring it which would work way better for me.

On the other bright side (besides my justin news) my phone and I have finally been reunited after 5 days! I had no idea how dependant I was on it until then. It kinda made thinking of things for the stupid iPhone thing a lot harder because my way of thinking was ‘What more do I want my phone to do?’ But with the phone missing my only response was ‘keep me in touch’ … which it kinda already does right now.

To do for the weekend:

Maya, CSS, iPhone thing and then Suna time! Yay! Well, not in that order, but hopefully I’ll get it all done!

And thats the end of presentations and the end of my jail sentence (kidding it wasnt all that bad)

Keep on keepin’ on

I’ll see you peeps next week

Suna

xxx

3. The good, The bad && The ugly

Okay, so who ever said that TV kills your brain?

Yesterday, for some reason still unknown to me, I fell ill, and as a result threw up and slept the day away. So today, I gave myself a well deserved day off. What more is there to do in this time than to study? … Watch foxtel of course! And suddenly, a love of TV is reborn within me!

And I got thinking, Why the hell doesn’t my phone have TV? So that this time next week when I’m stuck on a train for an hour I can watch some good time TV?

So I looked into it! Turns out this already exists! And I’m not talking about watching TV through interned feeds (thats kinda expensive for broke people like me) I’m talking about tv … free TV. LG had announced way back in November 2004 that it has developed a mobile phone which has a reciever and can stream TV straight to your phone. Which then made me wonder if it could only broadcast free-to-air TV or whether it could by some form show your favourite FOX channels as well.

The answer was just as I thought. Yes, it can show it all. MobiTV was launched by idetec a Californian company and it allows you (for an additional US$9.99/month) to view 14 selected channels (including ABC News, Discovery, and CNBC) unlimited from your mobile phone. This is available on 9 handsets by LG, Sanyo, and Samsung.

 However, some problems do arise. The phones can only play up to about 3 hours of video data before the battery dies. This isn’t very handy for those of us that have to travel for about two hours in both directions everyday. Not only would you not have enough power to watch ur TV the whole way, but you wouldn’t be able to use your phone for anything else either.

The second problem arises in the fps that the phone allows you to see. A regular Televison program is run at 30fps, whereas these phones only allow you to run about 2-4 fps.  And the screens?? Far to small to allow any sort of enjoyment.

This is where I think that the iPhone would come in handy. The iPhone is more able to support this idea than any other phone. Why? Because the iPhone allows up to 7 hours of video playback. Because the iPhone does allow for 30fps and finally because the iPhone’s screen is bigger than most other mobile phones.

I then began to think that you should also have some ways of getting TV shows that you like onto the iPhone so that you can watch what you like instead of whatever happens to be on at the time. And it would appear thay Apple is way ahead of me with that one. iTunes (American, not Australian Store) Allows you to purchase movies and TV shows to play on your iPod/iPhone. ($1.99/episode and $9.99/film.) Which sounds like a brilliant idea, but I think is kinda limited by the iPhone’s 4 or 8 Gigs or memory. Apple should consider external memory forms or else highly (and I mean highly) increase the iPhone’s storage capasity if they want this idea to work.

 So anyways, My idea thus far??

 TV on the iPhone, and I’m thinking maybe even develop ways for your iPhone to record your fave shows and stuff (Kinda like Foxtel IQ) and play them back to you. I think at this stage, the only holdbacks for this idea that I see are the iPhone’s memory capasity and its battery life (although techinically speaking 7 hours should be enough)

Now, I need to see what else I can do to better this idea and make it work. And I need to know it its adequite enough to present on Friday (I think it’s pure genius) as it has been kinda thought of before.

Anyways, my adoring fans.

Comment me with any thoughts, ideas, news, hints … anything! It would be greatly appreciated.

 Dreading seeing you on Friday (I hate presentations)

Suna

xxx

2. While you were sleeping

Okay, So this one isn’t referencing the movie either. But again to myself.

 So, somehow, I don’t know how. I came up with another idea while I was sleeping. What if the tablet can be used in conjuction with OCR software. That way you can scribble out your e-mails, text messages, notes, etc … and the iPhone will convert it into text. Wouldn’t that be super neat, and speedy?

Except of course, I’d have to think about whether the OCR software will actually be able to read most peoples handwriting. Will it be functional? Will it just annoy people? Would it even work? As you can tell, I’ve put no effort into researching yet, it’s still only morning. I’m suprised I even remember it from last night.

 Well, I’ll be off now, to think of more of my genius ideas.

Keep watching this space.

Suna

 xxx

PS – This is my second blog entry.

1. Clueless

No, the title of my Blog is not refering to the movie. Rather, it refers to my state of mind.

 I have no idea what to do for this iPhone thing. I hadn’t even thought about it until today, really. I was sick last week so I missed out on the excitement of first week of semester.

 I figured since everyone else has about 50 blog entries already, that I had better start too. Thursday night. I went Westfields with my cousin. So, I figured to get a start on the assignment, I’ll ask her what she thinks of the iPhone, and if she has any suggestions for improvements. Her response was worse than I feared:

“What’s an iPhone?”

I would explain it here … however, I am quite sure that everyone has had enough of reading iPhone descriptions on everyone’s blogs. So, assuming we all know … I concluded today, during Justin’s lecture, (Which was brilliant, by the way. – Bonus marks??) that I was going to conduct a survey of the said iPhone, to find out what people know, like and hate about the iPhone. I’ll do that on my long train ride into the city tomorrow.

Anyways, I got a sort of an idea tonight, which means that my blog title is very decieving. But, its so lame that it doesn’t even count.

I’ll start from the beginning. (Yay! Story time!).

Tonight I met Joel. Yes, Joel from Big Brother (I know you don’t care, I didn’t care either.) And I was thinking that people don’t normally carry around pen and paper for no good reason … do they? So what if, instead of Joel … I happened to meet someone worthy. Perhaps my future husband Johnny Depp?

This gave me the idea to have like a graphics tablet like feature. Where you can write and draw freehand onto your iPhone? That way, in case you do find yourself in a situation like that, you can at least get your autograph in digital form.

Yes, I am aware that that’s a stupid reason to add a feature (although it ws initially those ads with meeting David Beckham in a fruit market that convinced me that having a camera on your phone was a great idea - Just incase.) So, I figured, I’m sure that if you were to adapt this tablet feature, you can make some other sort of uses for it.

You can perhaps have games on it (Nintendo DS style), or … well, to be honest. I have no idea what else. I said I was clueless. By the way, any suggestions at all are welcome. I’m quite happy for someone else to do my heavy thinking.

Oh, and I hope that the iPhone doesnt already have this … I don’t remember coming across it … but it’s possible.

Well, I’m gonna head off now. I got nothing else to say, and we just reached the bewitching hour.

Keep watching this space for more ingenius ideas. (Why isn’t ingenius the opposite of genius?)

Suna

xxx

PS – My blog now has writing on it