principles and practices, project management (Jan 28)

Goal | Class Archive | Video | Challenges | Related Classes | Class Notes | Review Materials | Assignment

Goal

This first week there are three goals. The first is to plan and sketch a potential semester project. Next, we must practice the mercurial workflow. Third, we should start the build out of a personal website to host on Fab Academy.

 

Video

 

Challenges

Choose a platform for web development

I detailed steps that I took for local web development in the following posts:

Install and get use to version control, Mercurial

Notes from our guru, Terence Fagan:
To use Mercurial is a different story, Neil said there was a stiff learning curve and there was anticipated mistakes the first week. I wanted to make sure this did not happen, neither did Francisco Sanchez Arroyo, our instructor. So, he gave us a small tutorial below. It worked without a hitch.

Standard Workflow – In case no one is pushing/pulling at the same time, this will happen:

hg pull
hg update
hg addremove
hg commit -m “describe your changes”
hg push

Merge workflow – The following happens when you have pulled the archive, but before pushing, someone -Quick Billy- pushed his changeset. As time tends to zero, probability of this situation to happen tends to infinite. Do not worry. This is how it happens:
hg pull
hg update
hg addremove
hg commit -m “your changes”

NEVER FORCE PUSH or you will receive the email that you do not want to receive from Neil. So do the following:
hg merge
hg commit -m “merge”
hg push
Successfully uploaded without merge command this time!

 

 

Class Notes

this is text

 

Review Materials

this is text

 

Assignment

Week One Objectives

Sketch a design idea on paper and in the computer

For a few generations, my family has served as keepers of the ways of my tribe. We hold our story and song tradition close. Over the past year, I have participated in a couple conferences to gain insight on the role of technology in language and culture preservation.

Background

There is a wealth of classic media that exists documenting tribal culture, both oral and material. Much of the resources require efficient digitization and curation. These resources serve to inform language and culture preservation and revitalization initiatives.

Costs of object-centric digitization, analysis and curation can be prohibitive. At The University of British Columbia, the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre hosts a collaborative project known as “Indigitization.” The project seeks to clarify processes and identify issues in the conservation and digitization of First Nation community information resources.

I learned about Indigitization by attending the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association. During that meeting, I learned of the Indigitzation Toolkit. Similar to Fab Lab technology, the toolkit supports community efforts at digitization taking analog communication (language and texts) and curating it as bits.

Access to curated information presents another challenge for community preservationists. Instead of a publicly open and accessible system, proper consideration must be given with respect to community set guidelines. Some information can be deemed sensitive based on age, gender, and whether or not the person accessing is a community member.

indigi case

Proposal

I chose the form of a brief case in reference to Pop Fab, designed by Ilan Moyer and Nadya Peek. I want to create a portable device for digitization and curation. I chose the name Indigi-Case to be descriptive and allude to the fact that I base the proposal on the Indigization toolkit.

The case itself is a cross between a netbook and a Nintendo 3DS. It features a cassette deck “drive” for digitzation of classic media. I added two jacks for headphones and speakers. Two usb ports for devices. I plan to embed a keyboard in one side of the case. Facing opposite, is an LCD screen with two internal speakers. Above the screen is an internal camera. On the outside of the case, I have a stereoscopic camera for 3D pictures and video of material culture or subjects/informants.