Pretty soon my site is going to see a "split". That is, dxprog.com will be home to my personal blog whereas matthackmann.net will be the home to my professional blog, resume, and other stuff like that. It more imporatant now than ever that I create a professional image for myself what with my career looming in the future and, sooner than that, the likelihood that I'll be taking on some freelance projects while still in school. So, there you have it. You now have some time to decide which poison you want whilst I make the finishing touches on my other half.

We're almost down to one month before Christmas. THis means many different things to many different people. For some it means shopping, others getting together with others. For me, it means Christmas music. A lot of Christmas music. Of course, it also means that I'll be able to go see my folks again which is always sweet. And let's not forget the tantalizing aroma of sweet Christmas presents under the tree. And, speaking of aroma, and possibly the most important part of Christmas, the cookies. But, I suppose we must get through Thanksgiving first, which for me means being thankful for my brand new copy of Rock Band that I will be playing on that day.

But, holidays aside, I've been working on some very interesting things for school as of late. I've already given you a taste by showing my trailer project, but there are many other things I've been up to. Let's list them by class.

Designing Computer Graphics (DCG) So far this class has been mostly about Illustrator and Photoshop basics, though they have touched on some good design practices (or not so good) by reviewing previous students works. However, there are three core projects we're working on (of which only two have been assigned so far). The first was a black and white logo.

Our second project was a set of three (or more) icons based around a theme. There were six possible themes to choose from, those being Olympics, zoo, theme park, library, airport, or musical styles. I'll let you figure out which theme I chose.

First I need to note that that is not my logo (it is the official logo of the 2012 Summer Olympic games). It's primarily there to help set the mood and show where I drew my inspiration from.

You may notice that both of these projects were in black and white (no colors or grays). This is a pretty ingenious call because by limiting us in the color department we are forced to put more emphasis on line width, stylization, and shadows and highlights. If something works well in black and white there's no reason why it won't work well in color.

Networks and Operating Systems (NOS) As stated before the name of this class is a misnomer. They are actually in the process of converting it into Digital Storytelling, focusing more on getting a point across as opposed to the technical aspects of computers. I have to say of the two classes I am currently taking this is my favorite not necessarily because of what we do but because of our instructors, Fabian Socarras and Jacob Kaplan. It's difficult to explain how there two teach (if indeed they are really teaching at all), but it is certainly the most entertaining course and, so far, the most informative.

But, that aside, I've been doing some pretty cool stuff here as well. After the trailer project we all made podcasts (I will not be posting mine, thank you very much). Our last project was to prepare a Keynote presentation trying to convince our target audience of why we needed something and, subsequently, why they should purchase it for us. I did mine on why I needed a Nintendo 64. I presented in front of my lab group and Fabian and Jacob invited themselves in as presenters which was cool. Will you ever see this keynote? Perhaps, perhaps not.

Our next project is something that, for me, is pretty easy stuff. We are to set up and design a blog using Wordpress. To make things challenging for myself I asked Fabian if I could write mine from the ground up as opposed to using Wordpress. While he gave the nod of approval, he seemed dubious as to whether or not I could pull it off within the time frame and meet all the criteria. Considering most of my back end is already in place, and with the addition of a couple of new modules I pounded out tonight, I foresee no problems. However, it turns out this will be a group project so I may just stick with Wordpress so as not to make myself appear elitist to my fellow classmates. No, that can wait until my official web classes a few months down the road.

That's about all for now seeing as I need to get to bed so I can be up at eight o'clock tomorrow morning. Here's hoping I have afternoon classes AND labs next month.

Hah! You thought it was going to be something about Smash Bros., didn't you? Well, my friend, you were WRONG!

This is actually a school project. If you can name for me a college (other than mine) that tells you to rip your DVDs and then cut them together in a bizarre manor, I will give you piece of candy. This movie here is the result of about seven hours straight of work. I was up until three in the morning finishing this thing up and, many, many revisions later, I get something that's almost semi-believable. I was trying to just use Episode III Anakin so that I'd have some continuity. I also needed to cull footage from a red vs blue lightsaber battle which limited me to the Dooku fight and the fight at the end of Episode V. I was hoping for some more close-up shots, but there weren't very many in either of those battles. Lucky for me the sets were fairly similar so that helped a little bit.

Well, enjoy.

Today's randomness is brought to you by Florida University. Remember, you can't have Florida University without FU.

Rap I have come to the realization that rap music is an ongoing attempt to find the frequency of the brown note. Let's look at the facts:

1. Rap has a lot of deep bass notes.
2. The people who have giant subwoofers in their cars listen to rap.
3. Rap can stand for Rectal, Anal, and Poop. Coincidence? I think not.

Nicknames Interesting to note that I now live in the Sunshine State which is the complete opposite of where I come from, namely the Moonshine State.

Come back tomorrow for something more constructive.

As I write this I am taking a hiatus from, once again, coming up with a new design for my blog. The major question I'm sure that's on everybody's minds is "Why do you redesign your blog so often?" After pondering this question myself I have come to the conclusion that I just enjoy coming up with new designs. This in turn begs the question why go live with every new design? Why not just create the designs on the side and leave the live version alone? Because I end up liking what I've just created more than what's currently implemented.

The relationship I have with any piece of art I create is generally a strained one. I'm very self-critical of everything I create. It is very rare that I make something that I like for any extended period of time. I think the problem stems from the fact that every time I see one of my works I begin finding flaws. These flaws are not necessarily seen by others, but I can see them. This is generally fine for, say, a movie or a drawing. I don't have to look at them once they're done. My website, however, is something I see fairly often. I come to see if people have left comments, to post entries, etc. It is hard for me to turn a blind eye to any flaw I see in the design when I am faced with it over and over.

As stated earlier, I also just plain and simple like creating new designs and trying out new things. As I surf the internet I am constantly bombarded by all sorts of different color schemes, layouts, etc. and these intrigue me. I get all excited and before too long I've got Photoshop and Notepad++ up and running and I'm hacking away at the latest entry of my long list of designs. Excluding the Wordpress and Blogger themes, I have made live three designs for my blog since June of '05. That's not including the designs I had from '01 to '03, anything I created for any of the various other sites I've managed (YPN, my church's website, Digital Double), or the designs that never saw the light of day.

I realize that changing up the site design so frequently is not necessarily a good thing, especially in a commercial environment. It can confuse people and probably would piss some off to the point of not returning. Granted, there are sites that do this (digg comes to mind). However, since this is my personal blog, my sandbox as it were, I'm not worried about too much. I generally try to keep the overall aspects more or less the same breaking everything down into navigation, body, extras.

Though it is beyond the scope of this article, one thing I have messed up through all the redesigns is my URL naming conventions. Usually when I roll out a new design I'm also rolling outa new CMS (conent management system) to go with it and these don't always use the same naming conventions for internal links. This causes links in older posts, google's index, etc. to become broken and raises general chaos. I'm happy with my naming conventions now and this will remain the same even when I do change the back end. Permalinks will be exactly that.

So, that is the "logic" behind my madness, tune in next week to watch the evolution of my designs and learn the rules behind them.