Kevin Pratt » Comparative Studies

Universities and Branding

Kevin — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:11:00 +0000

Having spent time creating official and unofficial university publications for Clayton State University and Mercer University, I’ve found that it’s just no fun to talk to those in charge of the university’s logo. Even with the backing of a department, it can add weeks to the project just to get institutional approval.
For this iPhone library search application, I don’t have any backing at all, at least not yet. I could get help from the GSU Library itself, and I’ll attempt to do so. Having them on board would make not just the branding easier but the coding as well. Working with them would allow for the creation of an API that this application and others could use. For now, I’ll use the logo in mockups and examples. I don’t think I can get other people on board without the narrative of a smarter easier library experience. More on the narrative later.

No Man is an Island – On Open Source

Kevin — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 21:56:00 +0000

So I want to make an iPhone app. With my limited coding skills, I always knew that the likelyhood of this happening wasn’t very high. I could, of course, get hip deep in code and piece my way though. I’ve done it before with wordpress themes, wikimedia preferences, and integrating different sets of software together. I learned the basics of javascript, PHP, and how to structure a mySQL database.
But if you look carefully, you’ll see that I cheated. It wasn’t just me and a hello world script all the way to a blog, wiki and forum online. I took existing open source programs and templates and modified them to meet my needs. Now I want to work the other way around. I want to create the idea and the interface and put it out to be built upon by coders much more talented than myself. According to Clay Shirky in his book Here Comes Everybody, “Open source software has been one of the great successes of the digital age” (240). He then compares it to a Wikipedia article where someone starts an article and an army of people come along and finish it.
I don’t know if I’ll find an army, but a few good coders will do. For now though, I’m going to see how far I can get.

Coding an iPhone App

Kevin — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 14:15:00 +0000

So I’ve decided to create an iPhone application for my Comparative Studies in Emerging Media class at GSU and document my progress here.

For now I’m working on creating a library search application that will allow me and others to search my university’s library from anywhere and create a list of the books I need to find there. I’ll create this as an open-source application which should be able to be adapted to any university using a project called VuFind to connect to their database.

But first, I’m going to do some research and see if it’s a good idea for me to spend the $99 for a iPhone developer license.