Public Exposure

Believe it or not, I am totally taken in by Facebook. It is delightful! It is definitely a different world, one I'm not used to being in because I come out of a past that didn't include advertising yourself for everyone to see.

I am fascinated by the concept that the kids today won't know what it's like to live a local life. Today's kids are taking for granted how public they are. With websites like MySpace and Facebook giving them places to publicly expose themselves, they will never truly have privacy.

But they won't care because it's just the way life is for them. It is the air they breathe...they aren't aware there is any other way to be.

Fascinating.

Yay! I Got It To Work!

I finally figured it out. The workaround was a pain, but I did it. I got my SWF file converted to a MOV then uploaded it to YouTube. I can't believe I posted on YouTube. What is the world coming to????



Here's what I had to do. Flash 8 wouldn't preserve the transitions so I had to revert to Flash 5. Flash 5 didn't want to maintain the audio so once I exported it as an MOV, I opened it in QuickTime then saved it as a DV. I imported the DV into iMovies where I added the audio back in, having to re-edit it. Then I saved it again as an MOV.

In the process, it kept getting compressed. I'm not pleased with the quality, but what can I say? The SWF looks clean and sharp and for what I will eventually be using this for, I won't have to compress it. Thank God!

My first Flash project, done.

Public Vulnerability

Photo of Dezra taken at MacNiven's. How I want the public to see me--reflected through three sets of glass and reversed in a mirror. Safe.

I sent this post to a friend:

Aaaaaack! I just joined Facebook. I hate it! I hate it! I feel exposed and vulnerable.

So why did I join? Damn it! I'm a New Media grad student. I should understand these kinds of things. I should be up on this type of stuff.

Ick.

I just want to go wrap myself up in a blanket and hide in a closet.

But I figure if Beth H. can do it, then I can. She said that she thought she should be connected to the students using current technology, so that's why she joined. She has approached it professionally, which is the only way I'll approach it.

But I hate being "out there" where I'm on display to people I don't know. Gaaack! God, I can't believe what I've done to myself. I have a blog...that I don't advertise, but I keep it current. I have a photo account on Flickr, that I don't advertise but I keep it current. (And I was pinged on that one within minutes of uploading a specific photo...someone wanted to add it to his Flickr account...and I said YES...ugh, can you believe this???? After that guy pinged me, I had to go for a walk...I hated how I felt...exposed and vulnerable.) And now I'm on Facebook. I feel like I've set myself up to be invaded.

I hate it.

And I will probably join Second Life, which I abhor on so many levels.

But I can't get past the fact that this is our life and culture currently and if I'm to be part of it, I need to understand it. And if I'm in New Media, I should understand the new media social life. I have lived so long on past traditions, never being the one to embrace what is current. I don't want to do that anymore. I want to be forward-thinking and -living. Sigh.

So I've put myself out there in cyberspace where anyone and everyone can see me. I just need to make sure that what they see doesn't truly invade my privacy.

-d

Flash Movie

I have been playing around with Flash 8. Check out what I did. It's a link on the sidebar under "Check This Out." It's called, "My First Flash Attempt." (Forget it, it didn't work. I can't ever keep a link to my Yahoo group and that's where it's living. Yahoo is one of the only places I can find that supports SWF files, but the link keeps breaking.)

I'm trying to create a template in Flash where all I have to do is switch out the photos. In November I will be photographing an event. I have been asked to create some kind of slide show presentation that they can run daily with photos taken from the previous day. I considered creating a Power Point presentation, but I was asked to do it in Flash, if at all possible.

I don't know Flash, so I've been reading everything I can about it then playing around. The Flash file I created looks wonderful on the outside, but the file itself is a mess! I have so many different symbols in the library that I have no idea what they do and everything is so scattered, it's pathetic. There's no way I could swap out the photos in any timely fashion. I have Movie Clips and Graphics and when I scrub, some things "work" and others don't.

I have since figured out a lot of the screw ups and I think I can do what I want to do for November, which is to make a template. The movie I tried to post here took me three days to make. Today I made one in a third of the time and its library is filed nicely with all the dewey-decimals filed and in place. :)

I've joined the ranks of YouTube users hoping that I can upload the SWF file there. Ugh! I hate that. I am extremely private to the public but very open in private. I do not like having stuff just sitting out there for others to see and I'm not aware of it. I feel vulnerable.

...later...

Ok, the video I thought I'd be able to upload to YouTube and link here didn't work because it's an SWF and YouTube doesn't support SWFs. I have tried exporting the SWF as an MOV but I used a lot of transitions that my QuickTime player doesn't support so it looks crappy.

Just enjoy the flowers. The Flash presentation was all about flowers.

Grrrrrr.