Pitich

We Have had to do some work on our pitch for this project. I have created a a wire frame of the site with a flow diagram to see how the navigation works.

5th version of my navigation and flow diagram

The main gate way to the site is through the introduction, this set the site up giving access to all other areas of the site.

Animated wire frame

I have created some wire frames to help me understand the page layouts I only a faint idea of how the pages should look and have generated one page as a design in motion or starting point.

Design look work in progress

These are some of the element that I presented to my tutor this week.  We had an interesting discussion on the menu and the merits of a home page, idea that I will have to consider for the future development of the site.

Joomla the next step

Joomla the next step

After careful consideration I have decided to use Joomla for this project. The key deciding factor is the need to input data by a form. This will allow visitors to the site to post more than just a blog entries and the site have control over the postings.

CMS are different to website that I have created in the past. I have to create a data base on my web space to which Joomla can be up loaded to. At this present moment I want to have the data base on independently on my laptop.

First I have to install Mamp. This is a local server environment running Apache and Mysql, PHP.

 Mamp 

 A database is at the heart of every modern, dynamic website. MAMP comes with MySQL which is the most commonly used relational database system. There is a MySQL interface for nearly every programming and scripting language available. Thanks to MAMP you can easily develop complex MySQL database applications on your local PC and upload them afterwards on to your live system. For easy configuration MAMP PRO comes with phpMyAdmin and Sequel Pro (Mac).

Joomla administration area

Joomla

After installing Mamp I then downloaded Joomla. After install in it through Mamp I removed the installation files, Joomla was up and running on my Laptop. This process had loaded version 3.2. now I have start to understand how to use it.

I have started with this guide to get me up and running with Joomla.

Content Management Website.

The website will be different to the others that I have created before. We have had restraints as to how we created these site. All had to be had code using nothing more than a text editor. One site had to be one page another was a live client based site and lastly a responsive site.

This site will be a content management site, data will submitted by visitors to the site and this will become a searchable asset.

WordPress V Joomla

I am only highlighting two of the CMS, WordPress and Joomla

WordPress has been described as a blog type of website. It uses templates and can be easily updated with out any knowledge of HTML or coding. Post and pages can be created, with addition of plugins you can add functionality that come as standard with Joomla. It is possible to create content and using categories ans sub pages within two hours.  Being a blog-based system it has a strong presents for search engines like Google. It is an easy system to understand and using guides like WordPress for dummies will save you time. Having some understanding of CSS will allow you to adapt the templates. The set of WordPress allows it to be listed quickly on Google normally with in two days as opposed to fourteen day with Joomla. WordPress is very good at handing large volumes of traffic.

There are some disadvantages in using WordPress. Editing post dates need to be changed in design mode and requires knowledge of WP scripting. Reordering pages and categories and has to be done on a page-by-page bases. Changing the structure of the navigation, which is determined by the templates also requires knowledge of WP scripting, unlike Joomla where menus, attributes like dates, author name can be turned on and off by a control panel.  

In conclusion WordPress is simple and more blog based. Adding more functionality via plugins can run into problems and plugins may require more specialised knowledge.

Joomla is ideal for creating a community or a network with a login area, newsrooms, forums, articles, and contribution from external sources. The navigation structure is easy once you understand it and does not require an understand of HTML. Articles can be set to expire after and then are no longer displayed on the site. One of the great strengths of Joomla is the administration and who has permission to places and view content. Superficially adapting the templates is easy, changing some colour and logos.  Getting use to the structure of the layout system can be a steep learning curve and is different for the templates that you choose to use. Joomla has an in-built multilingual capability. There is a growing community of people who offer free templates if you don’t want to go down the route of buying a premade one that may have all the functionality you require.

As with all systems there are disadvantages with Joomla. If you need to import article from another website is not always easy. Joomla has a complex core, which requires a lot of resources from the server, migrating between versions is not always easy especially when you used complex setup with membership systems.

In conclusion the strengths of Joomla are it is great for community sites it has a deep level of navigation, section in sections, its fixed pages and its posts.

Ref  Rudolf Boogerman

        Joomla Forum

Starting point

For this independent project I wanted to highlight some of the new skills that I have gained over the last couple of years. Websites and web design are two such skills. I enjoyed the web project we have undertaken, however I still feel I need to learn more and strengthen my understanding of website and web designs.

I enjoy family history and in resent years I have discovered that an unknown relative had fought and died in World War One.  Walter was the brother of my great grand father and as a child we live with. I was lucky to find an old photo of Walter so I could put a face to the name. I wondered how many others out there where in the same boat, having discovered that they had an old relative and had no idea what they look like. I have no contact with my great grandfather side of the family partly due to distances and also due to time.

With the anniversary of the out break of the First World War I want create a website that put a face to the name of a solder and connects families who have lost contact with each other.

 

Walter Hunt 1898-1917

Walter Hunt was born in 1898 he joined the Royal Naval Division in June 1917 and died in France on December 30 1917 aged 19.

Choosing an independent project

As part of this independent project we were given a choice of seven starting points. 

1.     “It is a truism to day that we live in a “remix culture.” Today, many of cultural and lifestyle arenas - music, fashion, design, art, web applications, user created media, food - are governed by remixes, fusions, collages, or mash-ups. If post-modernism defined 1980s, remix definitely dominates 2000s, and it will probably continue to rule the next decade as well.
Manovich, Lev. What comes after Remix?

2.     “We live in a world where there is more and more information, and less and less meaning.”
Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation

3.     “To practice space is thus to repeat the joyful and silent experience of childhood; it is, in a place, to be other and to move toward the other...Kandinsky dreamed of: 'a great city built according to all the rules of architecture and then suddenly shaken by a force that defies all calculation.”
Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life

4.     “...Fan fiction is a way of the culture repairing the damage done in a system where contemporary myths are owned by corporations instead of owned by the folk.”
Henry Jenkins

5.     “This is the postmodern desert inhabited by people who are, in effect, consuming themselves in the form of images and abstractions through which their desires, sense of identity, and memories are replicated and then sold back to them as products”
Larry McCaffrey

6.     “Do stuff. be clenched, curious. Not waiting for inspiration's shove or society's kiss on your forehead. Pay attention. It's all about paying attention. attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. stay eager.”
Susan Sontag

7.     “By the late twentieth century, our time, a mythic time, we are all chimeras, theorized and fabricated hybrids of machine and organism; in short, we are cyborgs.”
Donna J. Haraway

We could use any of the examples to inspire a starting point. It is up to us to chose the media to execute the inspiration from the above examples. We were given a opportunity to create our own project. I have chosen to create website based on the idea of putting names and stories to those who fought in World War One. I was inspired by the discovery of family members who had fought in WW1 some know and others unknown to me, and through this website the possibility of making contact with distant members of my family. As part of the fulfillment for the college. I have submitted a brief and a reading list. As this website allows users to post information and after discussion on the merits of using WordPress or Joomla I have decided to use Joomla as this will allow more security measures in the posting of content to the site.

Independent Project

Assessment Rationale / Aims:

This module is intended to test my ability to work independently. The successful synthesis of all modules delivered throughout the course promotes the ability for self-directed study. One substantial assignment brief is set, typically eight-weeks in duration, giving scope for interpretation using the underlying themes of the course as described in the course rationale. 

By this point in the course, I have experienced sustained practical and theoretical elements of study and become progressively used to self-initiated work. It is expected that I have achieved a personal balance of all of the separate course elements and combined these into a personal visual language that can be applied to a given brief reflecting an expression of individual interests, beliefs and opinions. As the course progresses, more of the nature and content of work produced is my responsibility. 

The ability of you to cope with this responsibility is tested by this module. It is not the final assessment tool of the course but it is a useful guide to demonstrate how much I am capable of tackling independently a set of given constraints. I have been encouraged to follow relevant individual paths, and to develop high-level skills and test progress against my own criteria. I will have access to tutors’ guidance throughout the duration of this module, though the nature of this is fundamentally different to what might be expected at the beginning of the course and certainly in comparison to FDA Level. Discussions with tutors are primarily conducted with reference to concepts, the architecture of proposed projects and possible research contexts. 

Time table 

Friday March 7^th 1pm for proforma/proposals 1pm (email)

Wed 26^th March pitch independent pitch / ideas / plans / storyboards / research reading lists - assessed

Wednesday 7^th May all day – Deadline & Pitch for independent projects