der hess » Allgemein http://blog.derhess.de am medialen werkeln Mon, 26 Jul 2010 12:07:27 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 Collaboration Tools for your projects http://blog.derhess.de/2010/03/09/collaboration-tools-for-your-projects/ http://blog.derhess.de/2010/03/09/collaboration-tools-for-your-projects/#comments Tue, 09 Mar 2010 13:30:40 +0000 admin http://blog.derhess.de/?p=1259 In the last months I worked with people from abroad or with big physical distances. The first time I thought, yeah that is not a problem. Everybody has got an internet connection and that is all what we need. In my old company the Liip AG - who I worked for - their whole project management and file management systems were almost accessible over an internet connection. For this reason I could work from everywhere I want. I thought, that would not change in my future time, because the internet has solutions for everything. Yeah, I have to say that is true. But it was not easy to find the right tools and services for exchanging ideas, files, time schedules and other stuff for free. My projects are not so big that it makes sense to implement this infrastructures by my own. I found some free or at least some cheap services which you can use for working together with friends or other small projects.

Idea Development and Sharing

Creating and developing ideas with people, who are not physical available, is not very easy. Maintaining and extending are also two not very minor problems. In the last time I found a very good workflow for me and my friends. We do a telephone conference via skype and in the same time we use the service Mindmeister (Online Mindmapping Tool) and the tool Balsamiq MockUp. At the moment our solution works good and it is totally free with some limitations. A more professional solution for idea development and exchange may be the Service ProtoShare. Unfortunately, there is no real free pricing model available, therefore I never tested this service.

Planning and Schedules Services

Sometimes you and your project members have to make choices or just finding the best time for an appointment. The services Doodle and WhenIsGood solve this problem very easily. I like the service doodle very much, because you can use it without any registration and you can make different kind of choices (timebased or any other).

Project Management Services

To arrange meetings is not everything. In most and even in small projects you have a rough imagination of a time schedule. This time schedule should be accessible for every project member in technical and visual form. Additional to this time schedule every project has got some documentation papers and project member information. All this information should be managed by a project management tool. A couple of project managment services are available on the internet. I am using huddle at the moment and I am quite satisfied with it. It has one free pricing model and the features are good enough for small projects. The project management services Basecamp and activeCollab are looking more professional and delivers some useful extensions (e.g. a Mobile Client Software). Unfortunately, there is no free pricing model available, only a fix testing period.

Coding and design file Hosting

In my case, we did many visual coding projects. For this reason we are using Version Management for Coding and even a Version Managment for Adobe Photoshop files. Richard Davey wrote a small blog post about it. I think the very well known free services are Google Code, GitHub and SourceForge.net. Using the SVN service Beanstalk in relation with the PixelNovel (Adobe Photoshop Version Management service) is a very powerful and simple tool, I guess...

(Short) temporal data storage

Sometimes you have to exchange some data files. That could be a file transfer from your university computer to your home computer or sending huge files to other friends (or project members). For private purposes, the service Dropbox seems to be nice. For data, which should be only available for a short time and the data is not top secret for other people, I recommend to use the common upload file services (thx Hugo and Anca for the links):

The End

I hope you liked my short list of collaboration tools and services. If anything missing for you, check these two articles Work Together: 60+ Collaborative Tools for Groups and 10 Free SVN & Project Hosting Services, and a very good mindmap, or check my links for collaboration and project management. And of course, feel free to add a comment. :-)


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]]> http://blog.derhess.de/2010/03/09/collaboration-tools-for-your-projects/feed/ 4 My most important Twitter Messages #5 http://blog.derhess.de/2010/03/04/my-most-important-twitter-messages-5/ http://blog.derhess.de/2010/03/04/my-most-important-twitter-messages-5/#comments Thu, 04 Mar 2010 09:15:37 +0000 admin http://blog.derhess.de/?p=1235
  • My most important Twitter Messages #6
  • My most important Twitter Messages #4
  • My most important Twitter Messages #3
    • ]]>

    Twitter von der hess
    A small summary of my Twitter messages from Januar - February 2010:

    Allgemein (General)

    Generative Art:

    Info Design and Visualization

    UX and Interaction Design:

    Projekte und Experimente (Projects and experiments)

    Neue Technologie (new Technologies)

    Programmierung und Software Design (Programming)

    Game Developing:

    Flash and Flex

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    1. My most important Twitter Messages #6
    2. My most important Twitter Messages #4
    3. My most important Twitter Messages #3

    ]]>     http://blog.derhess.de/2010/03/04/my-most-important-twitter-messages-5/feed/ 0     Mein Fazit zum Medienfestival Transmediale in Berlin http://blog.derhess.de/2010/02/20/mein-fazit-zum-medienfestival-transmediale-in-berlin/ http://blog.derhess.de/2010/02/20/mein-fazit-zum-medienfestival-transmediale-in-berlin/#comments Sat, 20 Feb 2010 19:02:33 +0000 admin http://blog.derhess.de/?p=1224
  • Mein Fazit zu Flash Lite
  • Mein tägliches Blogging Brot
    • ]]>     Transmedial Medienfestival Berlin 2010

    Vom 2. bis zum 7. Februar fand das Medienfestival Transmediale in Berlin statt.  Das Festival stand ganz unter dem Motto "Futurity Now", sprich was ist und wie gestalten wir unsere Zukunft. Gemäß aller Vorträge und Diskussionsrunden soll dabei das Internet und die kreative Klasse die wichtigsten Rollen für unsere Zukunft übernehmen. Vom meinem subjektiven Gefühl her stammten die meisten Besucher auch aus dieser sogenannten kreativen Klasse. An sich eine gute Sache, nur wandelte sich genau dieses Publikum in einigen Diskussionsrunden zu einer wahren Selbstbeweihräucherung, wie toll und kreativ und innovativ man doch sei. Besonders negativ ist mir die Diskussion am Ende  zum Thema  Creativity as an Economic Resource aufgefallen. Nun gut davon wollte ich mich mir freilich nicht die Stimmung vermiesen lassen und besuchte die Transmediale Ausstellung. Viele Kunstwerke gab es zwar nicht zu sehen, aber das war für mich schon O.K., denn das A Parallel Image, die Paparazzi Bots und der Artvertiser haben mich ziemlich überzeugt und waren sicherlich auch einer der Highlights der Austellung.

    Die restlichen Tage habe ich eigentlich dann nur noch verbracht irgendwelche Vorträge anzuhören. Leider waren diese vom Niveau her sehr unterschiedlich. Teilweise sehr gut und unterhaltsam (siehe Bruce Sterling und Richard Barbrook), aber es gab auch Vorträge, wo einfach nur ein Text vorgelesen wurde. Im nach hinein habe ich erfahren, dass sowas normal sei bei philosophischen Vorträgen. Nun gut, nur zu dumm wenn die Stimme sehr monoton wird und immer schneller... Naja bei diesen Vorträgen war meine Aufmerksamkeit nach mind. 10min total hinüber. So ging es mir ziemlich häufig bei den Vorträgen. Ich hatte es bisher noch nie, das sich die Themen so gut anhören, aber die Vorträge so träge und langweilig sind. Also an dieser Stelle weiß ich wirklich nicht was sich die Veranstalter gedacht haben. Man sollte sich schon überlegen wen mann vorne ans Mikro stellt... Hin und wieder gab es auch ein paar Filmscreenings, wo es das ein oder andere gute Videokunstwerk zusehen gab. Leider wurden auch manche Filme einfach ohne weitere Vorstellung und Nachbesprechung gezeigt, wie z.B. das Video über einen Kriegseinsatz mit sehr schlechten Ton und spanischen Untertiteln und am Ende hieß es: "Ja das Video haben wie gefunden und fanden es interessant, deswegen haben wir es heute hier gezeigt"  Das wirkte dann manchmal wie ne lieblose Zusammenstellung und ehrlich keine Ahnung was sich dabei der Kurator gedacht hat...

    Fazit: Eins, zwei Tage nach der Transmediale hat sich dann meine Meinung zum Festival ein wenig gesetzt. Leider muss ich sagen, dass mir von den Vorträgen nicht mehr viel im Gedächtnis war, eigentlich habe ich fast keinen einzigen Punkt für mich mitnehmen können. Aus dieser Sicht war die Transmediale eine fast große Enttäuschung für mich, da doch die Infrastruktur und der Veranstaltungsort schon ziemlich super war. Auch das Thema und die Überschriften der Programmpläne war viel versprechend. Aus meiner persönlichen Sicht wurde das Meiste nur sehr oberflächlich angerissen... Vielleicht lag es auch an den überwiegend fashion-victim orientierten Besuchern, die einfach n bissl was von dem Künstler Flair abhaben möchten. Ganz nach dem Prinzip: Ich kauf mir n Mac also hab ich Geschmack. Ich geh auf ein Medienfestival, also bin ich kreativ and cool!

    So wie es aussieht bin ich auch nicht ganz alleine mit meinem enttäuschten Bild über das Festival, siehe dradio.de Fazit.

    Sehr schade alles, aber zum Glück gabs auch noch Parallelveranstaltung zur Transmediale, wie z.B. vom betahaus und deren Workshop und Vortragsreihe zum Thema How are Social Media changing Design? Danke an dieser Stelle noch an Daniela für die Führung durchs betahaus und fürs Bier ;-)

    Am Ende gibt kann ich nur den Rat geben: Wer knapp bei Kasse ist und einen Austausch in Sachen Medienkunst möchte, dem sei das Ars Electronica Festival in Linz empfohlen (auch wenn das Hinkommen nicht so leicht ist).

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    2. Mein tägliches Blogging Brot

    ]]>     http://blog.derhess.de/2010/02/20/mein-fazit-zum-medienfestival-transmediale-in-berlin/feed/ 0     My most important Twitter Messages #4 http://blog.derhess.de/2010/01/05/my-most-important-twitter-messages-4/ http://blog.derhess.de/2010/01/05/my-most-important-twitter-messages-4/#comments Tue, 05 Jan 2010 14:03:16 +0000 admin http://blog.derhess.de/?p=1188
  • My most important Twitter Messages #6
  • My most important Twitter Messages #5
  • My most important Twitter Messages #3
    • ]]>

    Twitter von der hess
    A small summary of my Twitter messages from November - December 2009:

    Allgemein (General)

    Generative Art:

    UX and Interaction Design:

    Projekte und Experimente (Projects and experiments)

    Neue Technologie (new Technologies)

    Programmierung und Software Design (Programming)

    Game Developing:

    Flash and Flex


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    1. My most important Twitter Messages #6
    2. My most important Twitter Messages #5
    3. My most important Twitter Messages #3

    ]]>     http://blog.derhess.de/2010/01/05/my-most-important-twitter-messages-4/feed/ 0     Flash Indie Developer Part 3: Short list of risks http://blog.derhess.de/2009/11/17/flash-indie-developer-part-3-short-list-of-risks/ http://blog.derhess.de/2009/11/17/flash-indie-developer-part-3-short-list-of-risks/#comments Tue, 17 Nov 2009 13:00:00 +0000 admin http://blog.derhess.de/?p=1124
  • Flash Indie Developer Part 2: Requirements and Idealism
  • Flash Indie Developer Part 1: Check your talents and skills!
  • Independent (Flash) Developer: Is it possible?!
    • ]]>     The last blog post Flash Indie Developer Part 2 dealt with idealism and requirements. In this blog post we will discuss the most dangerous risks for your daily life.

    Gefahren-Mind Map (Flash) Interaction Developer

    Risks-Mind Map (Flash) Interaction Developer

    A smaller or a bigger problem could be diseases. If you get sick you might not be able to work for short or longer periode. You have to pay some bills for the treatment and your income will normally decrease. You can reduce this risk with a health insurance. In Europe it is quite normal or it is even obligatory to have a health insurance. I think health insurances are the most important insurance you should have! For other important insurance please check some web-portals about "how I should start my own company" or something similiar.

    OFF TOPIC: Everytime take care if the goverment would support your new business!!!

    Furthermore,  a creative trough can become also a serious problem. You as an (Flash) Independent Developer have normally a great creativity and this is one of your strong USPs compared to a normal Flash Developer employee. But what should you do if you run in a creative trough?!

    1. Keep cool! It is normal to have lack of creativity for a moment
    2. Relax! Do other things which don't have a strong connection to your work
    3. Try and use some creative methods (Brainstorming, Roleplaying or Six Thinking Hats)
    4. If you are still in a creative trough -> Keep cool!
    5. Find other opportunities which generates a new income, for instance: doing lectures!
    6. During the process of preparing a new income possibility, talk with many people.
    7. I am sure your creativity will come back after a while!

    For me it is totally normal to have high creative periods and very low creative periods It helps me a lot to write down all my ideas in a book, and everytime I have a creative trough I can look in my book of ideas and get some new inspiration. That is the reason, why I highly recommend to manage your ideas. In this way you will be able to use perfectly your high and low creative periods.

    The last and in my opinion a very often underestimated issue is the  topic of inefficient working. Nobody or no person put a real pressure on you, and because of this situation we can easily appropriate  inefficient working routines. Especially, for doing a research in a special topic, we can easily lost in the huge space of the web. Another point is the managing your daily life. For instance, you have to go shopping (buy some food or something else), after this you do a sleep, because shopping was so exhausting ;-) . After the sleep you are little bit tired and you decided to watch a movie or a episode of nice TV-serie. Finally, after all these nice chill activities you realize, that almost nothing is done and the day is also almost gone... That is one example, the pyramide of digital distraction describes very clearly one of our other biggest risk of inefficient working. I don't say that you should not use social communities or chat systems (skype, twitter), but please define a outline for you! For instance, you spend the first hour of the morning for reading blogs and answering / writing e-mails. Then you started programming or working on complicated tasks. After that you will go to lunch. After lunch you start checking your e-mails for 30-60 minutes ones more and after that you go ahead with your complicated or less complicated tasks... Porter wrote a nice blog post about being your own boss and the problems with the motivation. Please feel free to read it!

    Thanks and congratulation, who stayed until this end of the blog post. The next blog posts discuss the really interesting topics of an (Flash) Independent Developer life. Therfore, the next article will discuss our product portfolio and what is possible with each product. The blog articles after this article describes the topic  "how you can use these products for generating  your income" in a more detail. So stay tuned!


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    1. Flash Indie Developer Part 2: Requirements and Idealism
    2. Flash Indie Developer Part 1: Check your talents and skills!
    3. Independent (Flash) Developer: Is it possible?!

    ]]>     http://blog.derhess.de/2009/11/17/flash-indie-developer-part-3-short-list-of-risks/feed/ 2     My most important Twitter Messages #3 http://blog.derhess.de/2009/11/06/my-most-important-twitter-messages-3/ http://blog.derhess.de/2009/11/06/my-most-important-twitter-messages-3/#comments Fri, 06 Nov 2009 20:03:47 +0000 admin http://blog.derhess.de/?p=1144
  • My most important Twitter Messages #6
  • My most important Twitter Messages #4
  • My most important Twitter Messages #5
    • ]]>

    Twitter von der hess
    A small summary of my Twitter messages from September - October 2009:

    Allgemein (General)

    UX and Interaction Design:

    Projekte und Experimente (Projects and experiments)

    Neue Technologie (new Technologies)

    Programmierung und Software Design (Programming)

    Game Developing:

    • Great news. The unity Game Engine is now free for Indie Game Developer
    • Do you need sounds for your (Flash) Game? Then check this cool app Thx to 8bitRocket.com

    Flash and Flex

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    1. My most important Twitter Messages #6
    2. My most important Twitter Messages #4
    3. My most important Twitter Messages #5

    ]]>     http://blog.derhess.de/2009/11/06/my-most-important-twitter-messages-3/feed/ 0     Flash Indie Developer Part 2: Requirements and Idealism http://blog.derhess.de/2009/11/03/flash-indie-developer-part-2-requirements-and-idealism/ http://blog.derhess.de/2009/11/03/flash-indie-developer-part-2-requirements-and-idealism/#comments Tue, 03 Nov 2009 09:23:04 +0000 admin http://blog.derhess.de/?p=1114
  • Flash Indie Developer Part 3: Short list of risks
  • Flash Indie Developer Part 1: Check your talents and skills!
  • Flash Indie Developer Part 3: Gefahren
    • ]]>     After the first blog post of the blog (Flash) Independent Developer was a little bigger, this article will be smaller and I will discuss the requirements for an (Flash) Independent Developer. These requirements are not very Flash oriented, they deal more with the idealism attitude of the new way and what do you have to consider in the beginning phase.

    When you decide to work as an Independent Developer, you will risk a lot. And this high degree of risk is, of course, strongly connected with a high degree of  uncertainness in your working life. You should be able to handle this risky life, otherwise you should not choose the way as an (Flash) Independent Developer.

    Mindmap - Requirements (Flash) Independent Developer

    Mindmap - Requirements (Flash) Independent Developer

    Another very strong point , if you can become an (Flash) Independent Developer is, which degree of responsibility do you have?!  Do you have a family?! Do you have a loan?! Which kind of obligation do you have towards other people?! All these responsibilities could be some obstacles, but it is dealable. All the things you have to do, prepare you for this independent life and consider that your income and your spare time will be very very low in the next one or two years. So you should spare some money for this time and prepare your friends and family for this way. So that at the end of your preparation time all people in your familiar surroundings know what is going on in your life and expection not to much from you in your business start time.

    Last point and in my mind the most strongest point is the degree of idealism. Do you really want to do it? Yeah, it sounds very cool to be an Independent Developer, but it is a hard life (and of course one of the interesting life forms in our digital age). You must have a very high degree of idealism and love the things you do, so that you survive the pressure of learning new things all the time and work a lot. Maybe your usual standard of living will decrease, a car can become a luxury good or other consum goods like a big Flat-Screen can as well as become a luxury good. I think the lifestyle of an (Flash) Independent Developer has lot of similarties with the german movement of digitial bohemianism (German Homepage).

    I think or I hope the opening stages is the hardest time and when you pass this period, your life should become more stable. In general, I think you should have a few years (working) experiences before you start such a big project. If you are studying at the moment, try to get some experience and prepare your for this way. The years of study are very good, because you have an amount of spare time, you meet a lot of people (for doing networking) and you are familiar with a low standard of living. In this period of life it is easier for you to make sacrifices. ;-)

    The next blog post will deal with the risks of an (Flash) Indepentend Developer life. We will discuss which risks exist and how we can manage these risks :-)

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    1. Flash Indie Developer Part 3: Short list of risks
    2. Flash Indie Developer Part 1: Check your talents and skills!
    3. Flash Indie Developer Part 3: Gefahren

    ]]>     http://blog.derhess.de/2009/11/03/flash-indie-developer-part-2-requirements-and-idealism/feed/ 0     Flash Indie Developer Part 1: Check your talents and skills! http://blog.derhess.de/2009/10/13/flash-indie-developer-part-1-check-your-talents-and-skills/ http://blog.derhess.de/2009/10/13/flash-indie-developer-part-1-check-your-talents-and-skills/#comments Tue, 13 Oct 2009 12:45:08 +0000 admin http://blog.derhess.de/?p=1064
  • Flash Indie Developer Part 1: Skills und Fähigkeiten
  • Flash Indie Developer Part 10: Abschluss
  • Flash Indie Developer Part 2: Requirements and Idealism
    • ]]>     For every project you should check your skills before you start. It helps a lot for preventing possible problems and makes the life easier. Thus I highly recommend to do a self-assessment before your start as a Flash Independent Developer. After this self-assessment you should have a very clear picture about your abilities, skills and of course your weaknesses. It is very important that you know your weaknesses because you can outsource some of this problems to your network buddies.  An independent team-oriented working approach works in this case very well, because it replaces your weakness with a strength of another person. It works like the Captain Planet or the A-Team metaphor ;-)

    Skills-Mindmap Flash Independent Developer

    Skills-Mindmap Flash Independent Developer

    On the mindmap you can see the 4 core skills: Design, general knowledge about New Media, Programming (Computer Science) and soft skills. As an employee it is not so important that you have skills in each of these core skills, but as an Independent Developer you have to be an allrounder. gSkinner wrote a nice post about the must-have qualifications as a Flash Developer. I would like to add the points doing project management and creating networks to this list. An (Flash) Independent Developer has to be fancy to do project management tasks and get in touch with other people. If you don't like it, then you should not become an (Flash) Independent Developer! But I think the completely different charakter of the tasks make the life of an (Flash) Independent Developer so much more interesting.

    Development & Programming

    For me is programming != programming and developing != developing. There exists a lot of difference. All subject which has to do with code belongs to the subject of programming, the other stuff, for instance, defining my personal workflow, defining my testing approach, dividing my complex tasks in smaller issues etc. belongs to the topic of software development.

    When you write code it is important, that this code is well structured. So you have to know and use(!) the advantages of an object-oriented programming language. Your code have to be clear structured and well readable. Coding conventions helps a lot in this case. So take care about this conventions for every language you will use. Furthermore the most projects requires more than one kind of a programming language. So you should be able to use a client-side oriented programming language like ActionScript and a server-side oriented programming langauge like PHP or Java.

    I have already mentioned it above,  finding a good object-oriented structure is absolutely an essential requirement for your apps and games. You don't must be a Senior Software Architect or Software Engineer, but a basic understanding of Design Patterns simplifies your future life. Because you will be able to reuse code fragments, management of old code becomes easier and more stable, and you can offer very easy different versions of your software (e.g.  Lite and Premium Versions).  Or you sell some parts of your applications as components at the FlashDen marketplace. There exists some more use cases where object-oriented structure makes a lot of sense!

    Project Management and Software Development

    If you want to realize a bigger project (over 1-3 months or longer), it is essential that you know some basic project management tools for Software Products and some basic workflows principles for Software Development.

    Personally, I prefer Scrum or Agile Project Managment methods for bigger projects. I like the approach with the user stories and the sprints. And of course comparing your time with the schedule. If you are new in this kind of topic you should read some articles about creating user stories and sprints or just read the Head First Book about Software Development.

    The same recommendation is valid for the basic workflow principles. Using a Version Management System for your programming code is absolutely obligatory. There exist some nice (free) services for this issue, for instance, Google Project, assembla or GitHub. The other big thing for me is Test-Driven Development. In my mind if you use this kind of programming method,  you will benefit from a better quality and stability of code. But sometimes it needs to much time and the initial training is not so easy. Especially for small projects it makes not a big sense. Therefore I propose to use this kind of development approach only for your library or framework classes.

    Design

    Design plays a big big role for digital products. But Design is very far reaching and  vague word. When you are talking about Design some of you mean just Graphic Design, the other one means Interaction or Interface Design or something else. I don't care about what special discipline of design you are talking. The only thing I surely know is, that you must understand the whole bunch of design discipline. That means you have to know some stuff about creative techniques, for instance Brainstorming, Roleplaying or Six Thinking Hats methods. You can use these methods for finding new ideas for your games or applications. In my mind creative techniques belong to the base knowledge of all design disciplines!

    After this more abstract creative process you have to visualize your product. Every product presentation needs a nice face. So you must have knowledge in the topic of User Experience, Information Design, Interaction and Interface Design, Game Design, Motion Design and at last Graphic Design. Usually, it is almost impossible to have great skills in all of this design disciplines. Maybe you have some talented designer in your network, who can do some stuff for you. In return you can do some programming stuff for him or them! If you are not able to outsource some tasks which you are not able to do, please buy a book for your self-study in this kind of topic.

    Everytime take care that design is a unique selling point for your products!!!!

    Soft skills and general knowledge

    Uh soft skills is such a big buzzword in Germany... I don't like this word. For me it is not possible to learn soft skills. I think, soft skills are directly related to your personal life experience. The best approach to improve your soft skills is to do a long term trip at a foreign country or do something, where you must be act independently (as an Independent Flash Developer ;-)

    Anyway, you should create a network with your friends or some other colleagues. So that you can support each other. That is very important! Or participate in some special online communities and gain the friendship to the members of this community. Try to talk at some conference and User Groups or do something else! The worst thing you can do is nothing! It makes so fun working together with friends and other people, who supports each other!

    Furthermore, didactical skills also belongs to the subject of soft skills. I have enumerated a lot of technic-based knowledge above and this knowledge could be very useful for other people, too. So it is quite possible that you can teach people in this kind of stuff. Read the blog article Getting Involved in Higher Education by Tom Barker. I completely share his view in this subject. I did the last 6 years some snowboard courses in the Swiss and Austrian Alps. In this time I learnt a lot of snowboarding and about myself(!). So if you don't have problems to speak to a smaller audience, you should do some lectures at schools, colleges or something similar. Additional to the already mentioned points, being a teacher delivers mostly a nice stream of income. Especially, if you have a creative trough and your are unproductive at the moment.

    O.K. the name general knowledge is not so well chosen from me. What I mean is some general knowledge about the economy of the new media branch. You have not to be an expert! But you should know how this branch works and how you can identify some new trends in this area. That 's all!

    Conclusion:

    You can see, you have to know a lot of stuff. But I think if you have got a good education in this new media stuff, then the most points are familiar for you. It is very important for you, that you know where you have your strength and talents. Use these abilities and improve them. At the same time analyze your weaknesses and try to find people in your network, who is/are able to solve your weaknesses a lot of better than you.  After this step of self-assessment, you will be a step further in becoming an Independent (Flash) Developer :-)

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    1. Flash Indie Developer Part 1: Skills und Fähigkeiten
    2. Flash Indie Developer Part 10: Abschluss
    3. Flash Indie Developer Part 2: Requirements and Idealism

    ]]>     http://blog.derhess.de/2009/10/13/flash-indie-developer-part-1-check-your-talents-and-skills/feed/ 0     Meine Masterstudiumwahl: Interface Culture in Linz http://blog.derhess.de/2009/09/14/meine-masterstudiumwahl-interface-culture-in-linz/ http://blog.derhess.de/2009/09/14/meine-masterstudiumwahl-interface-culture-in-linz/#comments Mon, 14 Sep 2009 09:36:36 +0000 admin http://blog.derhess.de/?p=989
  • Zurück von der Bewerbungstour (Zürich-Linz-Wien-FFM-Berlin-Freiburg)
  • Meine wichtigsten Twitter Messages #2
  • Meine wichtigsten Twitter Messages #1
    • ]]>
    Die letzte Runde im Projekt Masterstudium ist erreicht. Alle Bewerbungsbedingungen und Aufnahmeprüfungen habe ich mehr oder weniger erfolgreich absolviert, und die Ergebnisse sind nun auch schon alle eingetroffen. Erste Wahl war eigentlich die FH Potsdam, danach das HPI in Potsdam. Das lag zu einem an deren beidem guten Hochschul Ruf und an der sehr facettenreichen Stadt Berlin zum Wohnen. Leider fand ich die Aufnahmeprüfung an der FH Potsdam nicht so cool, und die ganze Kommunikation rund um die Bewerbung war mir nicht wirklich sympathisch. Daher ist es vielleicht sogar gut, dass ich von der FH Potsdam eine Absage bekommen habe und auch vom HPI... Mit diesen Absagen war Berlin für mich erledigt, und es blieb mir noch die Kunstuni in Linz und die Uni Konstanz übrig. Da fiel mir die Entscheidung am Ende nicht mehr so schwer. Da ich über mehrere Wochen hinweg ein gutes Bauchgefühl von der Kunstuni in Linz hatte.

    Somit ist der ganze Prozess rund um das Finden eines Masterstudiumplatzes erfolgreich abgelaufen. Ab Anfang Oktober werde ich dann in Linz mit dem Studiengang Interface Culture an der Kunstuni Linz beginnen. Wer sich unter den Namen Interface Culture genauso wenig vorstellen kann, wie ich am Anfang. Hier eine Beschreibung:

    Acting as creative artists and researchers, students learn how to advance the state of the art of current interface technologies and applications. Through interdisciplinary research and team work, they also develop new aspects of interface design including its cultural and social applications. The themes elaborated under the Master's programme in relation to interactive technologies include Interactive Environments, Interactive Art, Ubiquitous Computing, game design, VR and MR environments, Sound Art, Media Art, Web-Art, Software Art, HCI research and interaction design.

    The Interface Culture program at the Linz University of Arts Department of Media was founded in 2004 by Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau. The program teaches students of human-machine interaction to develop innovative interfaces that harness new interface technologies at the confluence of art, research, application and design, and to investigate the cultural and social possibilities of implementing them.

    The term "interface" is omnipresent nowadays. Basically, it describes an intersection or linkage between different computer systems that makes use of hardware components and software programs to enable the exchange and transmission of digital information via communications protocols.

    However, an interface also describes the hook-up between human and machine, whereby the human qua user undertakes interaction as a means of operating and influencing the software and hardware components of a digital system. An interface thus enables human beings to communicate with digital technologies as well as to generate, receive and exchange data. Examples of interfaces in very widespread use are the mouse-keyboard interface and graphical user interfaces (i.e. desktop metaphors). In recent years, though, we have witnessed rapid developments in the direction of more intuitive and more seamless interface designs; the fields of research that have emerged include ubiquitous computing, intelligent environments, tangible user interfaces, auditory interfaces, VR-based and MR-based interaction, multi-modal interaction (camera-based interaction, voice-driven interaction, gesture-based interaction), robotic interfaces, natural interfaces and artistic and metaphoric interfaces.

    Artists in the field of interactive art have been conducting research on human-machine interaction for a number of years now. By means of artistic, intuitive, conceptual, social and critical forms of interaction design, they have shown how digital processes can become essential elements of the artistic process.
    Ars Electronica and in particular the Prix Ars Electronica's Interactive Art category launched in 1991 has had a powerful impact on this dialog and played an active role in promoting ongoing development in this field of research.

    The Interface Cultures program is based upon this know-how. It is an artistic-scientific course of study to give budding media artists and media theoreticians solid training in creative and innovative interface design. Artistic design in these areas includes interactive art, netart, software art, robotic art, soundart, noiseart, games & storytelling and mobile art, as well as new hybrid fields like genetic art, bioart, spaceart and nanoart.

    It is precisely this combination of technical know-how, interdisciplinary research and a creative artistic-scientific approach to a task that makes it possible to develop new, creative interfaces that engender progressive and innovative artistic-creative applications for media art, media design, media research and communication.

    Nach dieser Entscheidung sendete ich dann noch die fehlenden Unterlagen zu und suchte nach einem Zimmer in Linz. Leider ist die Zimmersuche bei mir aufgrund des sehr geringen Angebotes an WG-Zimmern ein wenig stressig abgelaufen. Wer immer noch auf Wohnungssuche in Linz ist, dem kann ich folgende Portale empfehlen:


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    1. Zurück von der Bewerbungstour (Zürich-Linz-Wien-FFM-Berlin-Freiburg)
    2. Meine wichtigsten Twitter Messages #2
    3. Meine wichtigsten Twitter Messages #1

    ]]>     http://blog.derhess.de/2009/09/14/meine-masterstudiumwahl-interface-culture-in-linz/feed/ 0     Meine wichtigsten Twitter Messages #2 http://blog.derhess.de/2009/09/09/meine-wichtigsten-twitter-messages-2/ http://blog.derhess.de/2009/09/09/meine-wichtigsten-twitter-messages-2/#comments Wed, 09 Sep 2009 09:51:21 +0000 admin http://blog.derhess.de/?p=983
  • Meine wichtigsten Twitter Messages #1
  • My most important Twitter Messages #6
  • My most important Twitter Messages #5
    • ]]>     Twitter von der hess
    Hier eine kleine geordnete Zusammenfassung meiner wichtigsten Twittermeldungen:

    Allgemein (General)

    Projekte und Experimente (Projects and experiments)

    Neue Technologie (new Technologies)

    Programmierung und Software Design (Programming)

    Game Developing:


    Mobile and Flash Lite

    Flash and Flex


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    1. Meine wichtigsten Twitter Messages #1
    2. My most important Twitter Messages #6
    3. My most important Twitter Messages #5

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