Digital_Humanities, Weekly Update 11/23: Like Riding a Bike... Sort of

It seems that putting together my Digital Humanities Portfolio is a series of really small steps that will hopefully form a cohesive whole over the next two weeks. At the start of every day, I always intend to build an entire page or section to cross it off of the requirements list, but there are smaller things that first need to be constructed before I can begin to work on an actual part of the project. For example, this past weekend, I spent most of my time building the HTML pages not just for my research and general website, but also for a landing page for the portfolio itself, making sure to construct directories that I can then just insert the information I need as soon as it is available. This is a needed step, I will admit, but it's interesting how this portfolio has really become a collection of really small additions and cannot be rushed for that very same reason.

However, I do seem to have a general layout for my pages, which makes it easier to construct the different sections using slightly modified css style sheets and streamlines the process a bit. Hopefully, once I start putting together the other aspects of my portfolio, it should be simple to adapt my already established pages to display what I need it to in order to meet requirements.

At the moment, outside of this HTML triumph (or potential triumph), I am currently trying to work with QGIS and get it to display data. This is more frustrating than what I anticipated; I have a vague memory of loading data and a map into the program and displaying things, but I feel like I am relearning how to use the program all over again at the same time (I'm also reminded how much I really dislike the program as a whole). I've spent far too long trying to figure out how to use OpenLayers to display a map and now I can't seem to figure out how to get it to focus on Albuquerque. Again, it seems this addition to my portfolio will be another series of small additions as opposed to one large contribution. We'll see how this goes.

Digital_Humanities, Weekly Update: 11/17

This week, in addition to general work on the ABQ Airport project and my portfolio, I mostly focused on working on my research trailer. The first draft of this product is below.

Overall, during this process, I was reminded of a few things. First, regardless of how familiar you might be with making videos, using any new program to edit film is going to take a while to get used to. I have made videos before and had become quite familiar with a video editing program called Roxio. However, this research video was created using Adobe Premiere, a program I had not used before. I assumed that I would be able to utilize the software with little to no issues, but I quickly realized that this small change from one video editing program to another would take some adjustment. Once I got the hang of the program (although I am still learning), it got easier to put the video together, but it served as a reminder that any new program or tasks requires adjustment. This resonates with all of the new forms of technology we've been learning over the course of the semester -- familiarity with technology or a certain type of technology does not always guarantee a universal understanding. I'm sure I'll have to keep this in mind in the future as I progress in my work in Digital Humanities and continue to build my online portfolio.

The biggest frustration I faced with my research trailer was accessing and finding images to include. My research topic isn't too well documented in images and I found myself pulling from related as opposed to directly linked photos to at least try to convey my message. In the future, given more time, I'd like to try to have photographs that are directly associated with my topic and what I am talking about and have more integration between what I am saying in the narration to what is being displayed on the screen. After this project, I do want to continue making similar videos about my research and general information for the public, and so this is important to keep in mind moving forward.

While this week wasn't filled with my general level of frustration, I still was able to pull valuable lessons away from this video project and keep in mind what I can do in the future to improve similar endeavours. It's not exactly a failure as it is an acknowledgement of a learning process that is sure to continue over subsequent years.

Digital_Humanities, Weekly Update 11/10: Keep Moving Forward

I don't know if everyone else feels this way, but, most likely due to the fast-approaching end of semester, I feel extremely behind in all of my work for this course. I've been completing the assignments and am diligently and frantically trying to meet all of the requirements for the portfolio, but I can't shake this feeling. I'll be going to the after-class meetings starting next week to try to get on the same page as everyone else and will devote as many hours as I can to actually making progress on the ABQ Airport project, my portfolio, and my research video this weekend, but I still feel pretty stretched for time. I don't know what the end result will be of all of this frantic working, but I hope there is a light at the end of the tunnel and whatever I produce will at least be adequate and satisfying. 

Regardless, I've been working on my portfolio and website as of late. I decided to try to completely revamp the design. It took a bit longer than anticipated, and I spend an embarrassingly long amount of time trying to figure out why my visited link colors were not updating. Apparently I just misspelled "visited" and forgot to add an "i." Spelling definitely counts in HTML and proofreading is a necessity. After jumping that ridiculous hurdle, I'm updating the other pages to now match the design and it's been slow progress, but still, progress none the less. Eventually, I should be able to actually add more content and fill the general requirements of the portfolio before the semester deadline hits. 

The ABQ Airport Project is going just as well as my portfolio, where I've been making small discoveries and baby steps to actually putting something together of value. I've been collaborating with the ABQ Museum to try to get a copy of the Oral History video to put online of Harry Davidson, but there was an error in trying to find a jumpdrive big enough to hold the file. I'll be going back on Monday with an external hard drive to get a copy once and for all. Hopefully during one of the get togethers after class, I can try to organize my work with everyone else's and prepare for Friday's deadline. 

Either way, this weekend is going to be pretty full of work, both digital and non. I don't imagine the workload will decrease anytime soon as well, so I guess the only thing I can really do at this point is keep moving forward. That's not exactly a positive message to end it on, but I am making progress. As of now, I've yet to really run into any technical roadblocks, outside of trying to figure out how to have a dropdown menu bar on my website and make the page resizeable, which I'm sure can be solved with some Googling, but the night is still young. 

Digital_Humanities, Weekly Update 11/3: Small, But Successful Progress

I still feel like I am behind in Digital Humanities, in part because I am still working on my website and portfolio and balancing that progress with my research on the Albuquerque Airport. It can be a bit overwhelming and time consuming, and considering the semester is very quickly coming to a close, it is no surprise that I feel this way. However, I finally seem to have made a breakthrough with my Albuquerque Airport research.

I found an oral history video of Harry Davidson as conducted by the Albuquerque Museum of Art and History. Davidson is a local expert on airports in Albuquerque, and this video reflected that. While he does focus on all airports as opposed to just the Sunport and the fact that my initial question of "What does the Albuquerque Airport mean to people?" is still unanswered, I'm honestly very pleased with this progression. I think it will pair rather nicely with a page about the general history of the airport and at least gives some insight to why the airport is important.

Of course, I'm still struggling with finding good oral histories to use, so I am going to stick with collecting newspaper clippings that concerned the airport and putting them together on a webpage, most likely grouping them by theme, similar to Maggie, Candolin, and Kaveh's project, but with text as opposed to images. It can still be a tad interactive and tells personal stories as filtered through the newspapers at the time and at least attempts to find the local voice contained in oral histories.

So far, so good. I'll be working on that this weekend and also updating my website, working on my portfolio, and making my trailer as the weekend and week progresses.