Elmwoodstrip.org is a community dataspace based in the elmwood strip community of Buffalo, NY. This digital public space brings local residents together by allowing them to digitally share and embed their local experience within the data structures of the site.

Elmwoodstrip. org recreates a public sphere in a place where public meeting places have been largely commodified (e.g. Spot Coffee), by providing a cost free place to exchange ideas. By using open source software in the programming and design of the site, I have been able to keep the cost at such a minimum as to provide this service free of charge to the public within this community. There are currently there are about 200 users and hundreds of local readers with a daily data consumption of about 200-500MB shared between around 200 unique visitors/day.

Users can embed text, sound, animation, and video without any previous web programming experience and without the use of any expensive proprietary or commercial software. After a user finishes click-publishing their media, the embedded data becomes immediately available to the public via the elmwoodstrip.com interface.

By lowering the learning curve for publication to the web, and tying the publication process in with a dedicated local readership, elmwoodstrip.org opens up this digital documentation process to a segment of the population that typically does not produce their own media or record their own historical experience. As with swatches in a quilt, the embedded media files are "sewn" together using MySQL, an open source database software package, and delivered to the public with PHP, another open source scripting language, to form a digital quilt of the elmwood experience from 2003-2005.

Elmwoodstrip. org is intended to counteract the negative effects on local community that have resulted from globalized communication on the internet by creating an immersive local web experience. Time spent at the site focuses the residents on communicating with each other and revitalizes the sense of local community. As the project site continues to grow, a people's history of this community begins to emerge and the interpretation of the local experience becomes more colorful and accurate.

Elmwoodstrip.org is based on open standards technologies such as HTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP, MySQL, RSS, and XML. User to user communication is handled via journals, cell phone SMS messages, site posts, integrated AOL AIM, integrated yahoo YIM, and email. Users can view the site from computer web browsers and even read the site, post and receive reader feedback from their mobile phones.

Although all users are essentially writing public journals, reader initiated comments are allowed only on the readers journals, as to promote a sense of responsibility when interacting with other users. By creating a method for inlinking between the writers and the readers journals, other readers can follow along the logical path of a discussion while avoiding the problem of spam that plagues many other online forums and journaling sites.

In the written segment of my thesis I will be exploring necessary technical and developmental decisions in the construction of such a data intensive and highly interactive web site, as well as, addressing issues of privacy, security, and public image in relation to elmwoodstrip.org and its users. Furthermore, I will be investigating and contrasting elmwoodstrip.org to other online communities that focus on the interaction of local residents such as the famous WELL online community in San Francisco, Craig's List, and others.

When I said I learned nothing useful at UB I lied. I learned to solder in my electronics class and tonight I needed to recharge batteries so that I can test the GPS for the web tracekr project I am working on. Unfortunately, the battery charger was broken. So I opened it up with the new found courage I developed in electronics class and soldered the power supply back onto the circuit board where it was severed. It worked and my batteries are recharging happily ever after.

Of course, I did this in a totally unventialted area and inhaled a bunch of chemical that are known to cause cancer in the state of california. I am so glad I don't live there. It seems like everything is so much more dangerous on that side of the country. Here I can safely inhale spray paint, right? I wonder what about the california environment makes everything so much more toxic to use there. lol.

Just when I am ready to never see another form again, I find more forms to fill out and more signatures to chase after.

In Paul's class today I finally learned how to make the machine I promised to make for (e:matthew) . Now I just need some transistors and a relay, a motor, etc. I am sure he will be pleased. But that is on hold until I get all this stuff worked out.

I also met with arzu? today and the project seemed pretty interesting. She had a GPS for me to test with, so we will see how that goes. When talking with her she informed me that in Fine Arts they don't need to write a thesis, they only have to have a final project. I have worked on my project for 2 years probably about 30 hours a week, so it is really annoying to now have to write a 60 page thesis on top of that only to get the same degree they get. I feel like I should get a higher degree with the added written thesis requirement.

I made such a mistake choosing media studies at UB. I guess its almost done now, and it wasn't hard really. Just a big waste of time and really costly. I wish I could say that it really taught me anything but in actuality it just set me back like a year in the devlopment of my projects. I guess I will have the paper to prove I can jump through hoops. To bad it cost me like $20,000.

I am out to dinner with (e:twisted). I love it. We ate at Casa Di Pizza.

Well, the Buffalo news wrote another article about blogging as (e:metalpeter) reported [inlink]metalpeter,276[/inlink]. This time they had this quote that is totally consistent with our statistics here.

[size=m]Blog creation and readership jumped in 2004 [/size]

Though blog readership jumped, the percentage of online Americans who write blogs grew only slightly - to 7 percent in November, up from 5 percent early in the year. Blog creators tend to be male, affluent, well-educated and young; 70 percent of them have high-speed connections at home, and 82 percent have been online at least six years.

Let's try and make that change otherwise blogs are just going to end up re-enforcing the status quo. It is so crazy that so many people ar enow being provided with the utility to publish themselves and to have a public voice and are just rejecting it. I think it is just another example of the American consumer attitude.

Today we went to go see Paul Vanouse in his studio downtown. I followed the instructions wrong and ended up going way far the wrong way down sycamore. By the time I almost got to the galeria, I decided this can't be right because he would have said to just take the 90 instead of the 33 to get there.

He is building this giant button response platform using basic stamps and max/msp . It repsonds with information taken from a an enormouse world wide census taken in 2004. Sometimes I really want to get into this type of installation artwork, but another part of me says to stick to communication programming.







This one is a sonar sensing bra that alerts the wearer when someone approaches by flashing the nipples and making noises and was commisioned for an art show about the bra.



I kind of wish I had a giant studio space, although, I would not like to live in one. I am not saying I don't love my new home office that I share with tortoises, just that it would be great if me and (e:matthew) could share some larger space for making larger stuff and keeping stuff all over the place.

The carriage house at our mansion is perfect and for rent but we really can't afford to pay another $750 per month. Maybe next year :)

I just spent like $50.00 on printer ink for these stupid forms. I'll just add it to my $80,000 in student loans. Eventually, I am just going to have a nervous breakdown.

I wonder if I will ever be not in debt. As soon as I am done with these forms and fixing the test server I am going to make a debt calculator for the site so we can get a general tabulation for people willing to input their total debt. I am so curious to see how much it could be, a million dollars or five million dollars?

Quoted from SecurityFocus

A sophisticated computer hacker had access to servers at wireless giant T-Mobile for at least a year, which he used to monitor U.S. Secret Service e-mail, obtain customers' passwords and Social Security numbers, and download candid photos taken by Sidekick users, including Hollywood celebrities

Hodown has them on her journal [inlink]hodown,123[/inlink]

Paris Hilton got her sidekick II hacked and then all her celerbrity contact numbers and photos have been spread aroudn the web. Apparently the ultra private numbers of celebrities like Eminem, Christina Aguilera, Victoria Gotii, Anna Kournikova, etc got leaked. I can only imagine the pictures were also scandalous. But I have no idea as I have not seen them.

This is quoted form slashphone

Twenty-one year-old Nicolas Jacobsen was quietly charged with the intrusions last October, after a Secret Service informant helped investigators link him to sensitive agency documents that were circulating in underground IRC chat rooms. The informant also produced evidence that Jacobsen was behind an offer to provide T-Mobile customers' personal information to identity thieves through an Internet bulletin board, according to court records.

Jacobsen could access information on any of the Bellevue, Washington-based company's 16.3 million customers, including many customers' Social Security numbers and dates of birth, according to government filings in the case. He could also obtain voicemail PINs, and the passwords providing customers with Web access to their T-Mobile e-mail accounts. He did not have access to credit card numbers.

T-Mobile, which apparently knew of the intrusions by July of last year, has not issued any public warning.

This whole thing does raise an issue. Why is phone picture data stored on the telco server instead of on your phone. I also have a sidekick II and it clearly has enough memory to store the 36 pictures locally as you can still take them when you are off the network. I realize they probably think it is for safety reasons so that they can be restored if your phone dies but I personally would rather take the risk that the photos just got erased when something happend to the phone, then take the risk that someone else is accessing them. Well, at least I would if I was Paris Hilton. If anyone want my toroise pics they can have them. Maybe t-mobile should be more concerned about hackers.

(e:lilho) 's phone is even worse. It doesn't even send picture anymore. It simply uploads them to the server host and then recipients get an html link to the photos. I know it cuts down on bandwidth for the telco but it is really questionable if they are also using this for tracking, etc. That makes it pretty much useless for any application where you send photos, not that I can't write something to rip the photos off the web pages but it annoying that she can't send them to her journal.

Right now I really want to be working on the site and studying about social networking patterns and the development of computer mediated communication. That sounds pretty reasonable for an MFA student in Media Studies, but instead I spent the last three days trying to get my new laptop even close to the way the old one was set up. Then when that is all done, I have to fill out like 300 forms for graduation all due by feb 24th.

Seeing as their whole grading and transcript system is online, I can't believe that UB still leaves this to hand writing and paper forms. It's actually shamefull on their part considering the department is media studies. If I had known most of the stuff I would be dealing with at that school was so behind the times I would have never gone. From the technology I worked with down to these paper forms, UB just set me back 3 years for a piece of paper. I mean it will probably be worth it but school actually inhibited me from learning.

My favorite example of this is still the fact that I wanted to take the more advanced electronics class in my department, but I couldn't because I "needed" credits from an outside department so I ended up taking electronics in the art department. I probably should have just boughta degree online ;)

Maybe I am just cranky because I miss (e:twisted)

I am sick of it already. I am writing this from back in windows, but I can't say that I didn't give it a good try. I will eventually move back to linux and am keeping it installed but in the meantime 150 fps 3d gears is not acceptable on my new fancy laptop which should be getting like 1500fps.

If I wasn't doing 3d too, then it would be eveerything I ever wanted. Wireless works, bluetooth works, 2D graphics are amazing but 3D is necessary. I am willing to give fedora a chance but I really can't dedicate that much more time to it this week.

So I am thinking of dividing it like this. I will do my programming in Linux and my artwork in windows where the programs exist and better access the graphics card for now.