Friday, June 29, 2007

More explanations on Mashups

MY husband found a great video on MSN that explains mashups. It would have saved a lot of time surfing the web if I had seen it sooner. O well. Check out the link. I also posted five other links that are helpful ways to learn more about mashups and how to make them. Some are a bit harder to understand that others (if you are more like me and not real computer savvy). I still think the Popfly program is going to be the best way to create mashups that will benefit us as far as an educational useage goes.
Joni you are awesome! Great job on figuring out the photoflip. Next step is just working on getting text in there, and then I think we will have digital flashcards! It will be so nice to do flashcards this way, no more writers cramp. I'm messing around with the program trying to figure that out, so hopefully we come up with something soon.

Gina (1hour)

Monday, June 25, 2007

Microsoft Popfly

We were having major problems with Microsoft Popfly the last time I wrote in, but I have managed to solve a few dilemmas. First off, we were attempting to use the ImageScraper application to pull the oral pathology slides directly from the website to Popfly, but that plan wasn't working. I decided there had to be a better way. My next attempt was to save the images from the website to my desktop and then upload them to Flickr.com. That plan was successful and I couldn't be happier. After uploading all of the Unit 1 images to Flickr I was able to write a short description of each photo which I hope I can figure out how to display on Popfly. So far I have only been able to get the key term to display with the image in the following applications: PhotoFlip (but some of the words get cut off. I need to figure out how to make the text smaller), PhotoSphere (but it's kind of annoying the way the images rotate and it's hard to click on the image of your choice, it kind of has a mind of it's own. It is nice that once you click and hold on a photo it finally will hold still and the entire title is displayed), PhotoStack (but the image is enlarged too much which makes it blurry and hard to see, and some of the words get cut off),PhotoTiles (Some of the words get cut off, but other than that it works),
So how did I do it?
1. I was invited to join Popfly and I completed the necessary registration.
2. I started my own Flickr account and uploaded all of the images that I had saved to my hard drive from the web. I also added titles and descriptions to all photos.
3. Using the mashup function in popfly:
a. Choose to add the flickr block to the design screen.
b. Click on the wrench and select the following--- Operations: GetUserPhotos, userName: I selected the username of my flickr account, number: 30 because I'm not sure how many photos I have, but it's less than 30. Click on the wrench again to get out.
c. Click Preview at the top of the design screen to make sure the necessary photos show up. If they do great, move on. If they don't, then you did something wrong somewhere. Check all steps again because one mistake can ruin everything.
d. Click customize at the bottom of the screen to return to the design screen.
e. Select the PhotoFlip block onto the design screen.
f. Connect flickr to Photoflip block.
g. Select Preview.
Make sure to save your work. I'll have to learn more about sharing my mashup another day when I have more time, but the video tutorial made it seem simple.

Joni
2 hours

Saturday, June 23, 2007

New Goal: Digital Flashcards!!

We were still trying to decide what to do with mashups when we met up today. Fortunately, we found Popfly.com (see links) which offers many different styles of mashups that should be simple to create. Popfly.com offers many useful applications that we need to explore futher, including:
Image Comment-Comment on a picture.
Image Scraper-Finds any images on a page and returns a list of their links. You can grab all of the photos from a website- We're thinking oral pathology lab pages.
Carousel-Displays pictures in an interactive carousel. This is really fun and easy to look at.
Page Turner-A book that flips through images.
Photoflip-Displays images on categorized cards in a flipping book. Digital Flashcards!! This application seems to be the most useful for our purpose. We need to figure out how to add text. Possibly Image Comment can help us with that.
One of the biggest road blocks we've found with this program is how to get the necessary slides from the WSU website to Popfly.com. So far we haven't been able to successfully display any useful pictures on the Photoflip, but we have high hopes that we will eventually figure it out. We attempted to drag the slides from the website to our personal album at Flickr.com (see links). For some reason Popfly won't display any of the slides that we transfered that way. Maybe we could upload photos to Flickr and give them all a random tag that no one else would use. Then we could just search for that tag. We have some other ideas that we need to try, but as of now we are at a stand still. If we can get this application to work for us, it could be great!
About Microsoft Popfly Alpha: You must create an account and be invited to join via e-mail. The process is quick, simple, and free, but they are only allowing a limited number of applicants. The most difficult part is figuring out how to utilize the applications. There is a tutorial to help you navigate through the lenghty process. We highly recommend using the tutorial before you mess with the program too much. It will save you a whole lot of time and frustration.

Gina & Joni
3.25 hours

Thursday, June 21, 2007

Audio Mashups

I've found that a lot of the websites about mashups are refering only to audio mixing. Audio mixing may be helpful for educational purposes, but videos would be more effective, especially for visual learners like me.
In order to find more about video mashups I'm going to start looking into video production software.

Joni
1 hour

Friday, June 15, 2007

Creating a Mashup

Steps Toward Creating Your Own Mashup:
These steps mostly refer to plotting markers on maps, but can be used for any mashup.
Source: Programmable Web (see links)
1. Pick a subject. Keep it simple to start. Ask yourself, “What is the simplest thing that could possible work.” Once you figure that out you can add to and build on that simple idea. Once you have a subject you can decide what APIs and tools you’ll be using.
2. Decide where your data is coming from. What is the source of your data? This can decide the APIs you’ll use.
3. Sign up for an API. This step only takes a few minutes.
4. Start coding.

I also found a simple way to make mashups at Youtube.com, but I can’t figure out how to download my photos and video to the YouTube Remixer. If I can figure this out it will make my life a whole lot easier.

Joni
2 hours

Wednesday, June 6, 2007

API's and more

I am trying to learn what everything is and how to go about starting a mashup. I wasn't sure what an API was, and that is what every site talks about with mashups. I took around 2 hours on May 23rd trying to figure out what an API is. API stands for Application programming interface. Wikipedia gives a full definiton, but basically it's and interface that is provided by a computer program to give functionality to that program. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Application_programming_interface. Some API's require royalties for access, but those that don't are considered "open" and can be used for creating mashups. The programmableweb.com/howto site gives a step by step guide in creating a mashup. At this site you can also find a Database of API's to choose form according to what type of a mashup is being created. I'm still figuring this all out, but I also found on this web site how to sign up for an API. One example is the Google sign-up page. I will try these sites, figure out more what type of a mashup we are going to make, and what API we need to use.
Gina

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Definitions

I spent over an hour on Tuesday May 22nd looking up what a mashup is. It has been hard to find an exact definition for a mashup. Most websites describe it as a mixture of any type of information, but most say there is no exact definition for a mashup. Wekipedia describes a mashup as the combination of information from any open API. This can include mashups of software, videos, or music. I have navigated through many websites and hope to learn more before I actually create one.
Gina