ARTBASE (2)
BIO
Jim Andrews does http://vispo.com . He is a poet-programmer and audio guy. His work explores the new media possibilities of poetry, and seeks to synthesize the poetical with other arts and media.
Enigma n code overhaul
Here's a DHTML piece I did in 1998 that has had a code overhaul. it's called
Enigma n: http://vispo.com/animisms/enigman .
Marko Niemi recently translated it into Finnish, and his Finnish version
works on Mac and PC. It works on Safari, Firefox, and IE for the Mac, and IE
6, Netscape 7+, and Opera for the PC. I made a copy of his Finnish version
and did noitalsnart on it back into English, so the English version now
works as well as the Finnish version. I haven't done noitalsnart on the
Chinese version by Dr. Shuen-shing Lee yet.
It seems like DHTML has come a long way since 2000 when it was more or less
a nightmare to try to make cross-browser/platform DHTML. You'd have to
browser-sniff till you were blue in the face and branch away to different
versions of the file depending on how many browsers and platforms you wanted
to support, or keep the functionality to a boring minimum if you wanted any
sort of cross browser/platform range. I moved to doing Shockwave work in
2000 for these sorts of reasons, and also because I wanted to do interactive
audio, which wasn't well-supported by DHTML. However, it seems like most of
the browsers on Mac and PC have, by now, standardized on a pretty good DOM
(Document Object Model) that let's you do more than mouseovers in a cross
browser/platform way. Noitalsnart is a gentle way for me back into some more
DHTML work, maybe. Marko's code is a good way for me to learn and re-learn
cross-browser DHTML.
The advantages of DHTML over things like Shockwave and Flash are that no
plugin is required, people can view the source code easily, if you want them
to be able to, and DHTML is not proprietary, so whether it lives is not
dependent on whether company x lives or dies.
The disadvantage is that although it's a lot better than it was in 2000, it
doesn't have much of an API for things like interactive audio. And things
like opening up new windows are now more problematical because of pop-up
blockers etc.
Also, maybe tools like Dreamweaver are OK for creating DHTML stuff, but by
and large it's a programmerly enterprise, and the debugging tools and IDEs
are still a bit primitive. Not sure what the state of the available
libraries is.
Coming from a writing background, I like that the paradigm of DHTML is the
document, not the 'movie' as it is in Flash or Shockwave.
With cross browser/platform DHTML being doable now, I suspect we'll see more
work of this sort over the next few years.
ja
http://vispo.com
Enigma n: http://vispo.com/animisms/enigman .
Marko Niemi recently translated it into Finnish, and his Finnish version
works on Mac and PC. It works on Safari, Firefox, and IE for the Mac, and IE
6, Netscape 7+, and Opera for the PC. I made a copy of his Finnish version
and did noitalsnart on it back into English, so the English version now
works as well as the Finnish version. I haven't done noitalsnart on the
Chinese version by Dr. Shuen-shing Lee yet.
It seems like DHTML has come a long way since 2000 when it was more or less
a nightmare to try to make cross-browser/platform DHTML. You'd have to
browser-sniff till you were blue in the face and branch away to different
versions of the file depending on how many browsers and platforms you wanted
to support, or keep the functionality to a boring minimum if you wanted any
sort of cross browser/platform range. I moved to doing Shockwave work in
2000 for these sorts of reasons, and also because I wanted to do interactive
audio, which wasn't well-supported by DHTML. However, it seems like most of
the browsers on Mac and PC have, by now, standardized on a pretty good DOM
(Document Object Model) that let's you do more than mouseovers in a cross
browser/platform way. Noitalsnart is a gentle way for me back into some more
DHTML work, maybe. Marko's code is a good way for me to learn and re-learn
cross-browser DHTML.
The advantages of DHTML over things like Shockwave and Flash are that no
plugin is required, people can view the source code easily, if you want them
to be able to, and DHTML is not proprietary, so whether it lives is not
dependent on whether company x lives or dies.
The disadvantage is that although it's a lot better than it was in 2000, it
doesn't have much of an API for things like interactive audio. And things
like opening up new windows are now more problematical because of pop-up
blockers etc.
Also, maybe tools like Dreamweaver are OK for creating DHTML stuff, but by
and large it's a programmerly enterprise, and the debugging tools and IDEs
are still a bit primitive. Not sure what the state of the available
libraries is.
Coming from a writing background, I like that the paradigm of DHTML is the
document, not the 'movie' as it is in Flash or Shockwave.
With cross browser/platform DHTML being doable now, I suspect we'll see more
work of this sort over the next few years.
ja
http://vispo.com
Re: embedding <img> in email
> You can edit the html in a text editor, then copy & paste it into
> a "plain text" email, so not allowing you to edit the html
> doesn't really stop misuse of the feature, it just makes it
> harder to use it legitimately (assuming there was even a design
> decision on this).
>
> - Rob.
tried that, sent myself such a msg, but you just view the html upon
reception, not the rendering. at least in outlook.
ja
> a "plain text" email, so not allowing you to edit the html
> doesn't really stop misuse of the feature, it just makes it
> harder to use it legitimately (assuming there was even a design
> decision on this).
>
> - Rob.
tried that, sent myself such a msg, but you just view the html upon
reception, not the rendering. at least in outlook.
ja
embedding <img> in email
i searched a bit on the internet for an email client that lets you edit the
html of emails but i couldn't find one.
which suggests that this is probably a dangerous tool. one doesn't like to
think of it in those terms, programming as weapon, but that's how it would
be and, well, is used, isn't it, as well as something to construct emails of
delight.
probably such email clients are available in the bowels of the net as
spammer tools.
didn't an early version of netscape have an email client that let you edit
the html of messages?
ja
html of emails but i couldn't find one.
which suggests that this is probably a dangerous tool. one doesn't like to
think of it in those terms, programming as weapon, but that's how it would
be and, well, is used, isn't it, as well as something to construct emails of
delight.
probably such email clients are available in the bowels of the net as
spammer tools.
didn't an early version of netscape have an email client that let you edit
the html of messages?
ja
Re: attachments and just plain images
> >what you say is what i would have presumed to be the case, ie, whether
> >images are attachments or not, the scanning program treats them as
> >attachments and strips them out. however, if you look at the bottom of
> >Manik's last email, you'll see some images; emoticons.
>
> unless you configure your email client not to process html (isn't the
> default). good to leave the html off to prevent some spam. i forgot
> to mention, some images are really linked images, not literally
> embedded. the server with the image can keep track of the hits that
> way. but by keeping track of which images were requested (when you
> open or preview that mail), they know which addresses were valid and
> can sell yours to other spammers.
>
> obviously not every spammer does this, but i went from about 200/day
> to about 10. gradually, your name goes out of circulation.
Yes, clearly if html is processed via the email client, spammers have the
ability to check whether the email has been read.
Oddly, perversely, sadly, whateverly, I cannot bring myself to limit my
email to plain text.
ja
> >images are attachments or not, the scanning program treats them as
> >attachments and strips them out. however, if you look at the bottom of
> >Manik's last email, you'll see some images; emoticons.
>
> unless you configure your email client not to process html (isn't the
> default). good to leave the html off to prevent some spam. i forgot
> to mention, some images are really linked images, not literally
> embedded. the server with the image can keep track of the hits that
> way. but by keeping track of which images were requested (when you
> open or preview that mail), they know which addresses were valid and
> can sell yours to other spammers.
>
> obviously not every spammer does this, but i went from about 200/day
> to about 10. gradually, your name goes out of circulation.
Yes, clearly if html is processed via the email client, spammers have the
ability to check whether the email has been read.
Oddly, perversely, sadly, whateverly, I cannot bring myself to limit my
email to plain text.
ja
"Digital Writing Circa 2004" on Noemlab.org
An essay I wrote for a talk in England this last summer is up at Noema in
Italy in the Ideas section (in HTML and PDF) of the site:
http://www.noemalab.org/sections/ideas.php . The essay is called "Digital
Writing Circa 2004". An excerpt:
"A friend once told me there are basically two types of power in this world.
There's power that can be bestowed on you by other people, and there's your
own power. As an individual, as a human being, as a moral agent, as an
individual witness. And this is basically the power of the artist and the
individual human being more generally. And it is important to affirm this,
even in the face of what most artists experience, namely worldly failure
but, at times, victory of the spirit. What is worldly success in the absence
of a victory of the spirit? It is empty. Art can go deeper into the
machinery of our destinies than journalism typically does. And it is really
only only in such a context that any victory is meaningful beyond the
concourse of atoms.
My own feeling about digital writing is that it is still in its infancy on a
societal level, but has been developed into something like a strong
beginning by digital writers. It is in its infancy on the societal level in
the sense that peoples' consciousness of writing as a polyartistic
enterprise through several media is not as widely prevalent as print-minded
literacy. People do not have much of a sense of composition in several
media, and their reading skills of such work
Italy in the Ideas section (in HTML and PDF) of the site:
http://www.noemalab.org/sections/ideas.php . The essay is called "Digital
Writing Circa 2004". An excerpt:
"A friend once told me there are basically two types of power in this world.
There's power that can be bestowed on you by other people, and there's your
own power. As an individual, as a human being, as a moral agent, as an
individual witness. And this is basically the power of the artist and the
individual human being more generally. And it is important to affirm this,
even in the face of what most artists experience, namely worldly failure
but, at times, victory of the spirit. What is worldly success in the absence
of a victory of the spirit? It is empty. Art can go deeper into the
machinery of our destinies than journalism typically does. And it is really
only only in such a context that any victory is meaningful beyond the
concourse of atoms.
My own feeling about digital writing is that it is still in its infancy on a
societal level, but has been developed into something like a strong
beginning by digital writers. It is in its infancy on the societal level in
the sense that peoples' consciousness of writing as a polyartistic
enterprise through several media is not as widely prevalent as print-minded
literacy. People do not have much of a sense of composition in several
media, and their reading skills of such work