Paid & Unpaid Internships

at Orlando CityBeat (part of the Sentinel). Give me a shout if you're interested.

Dr. B's health

Hi y'all,

As many of you have heard, I have been diagnosed with a serious case of cancer. It was just discovered and I'm currently exploring my treatment options.

Dr. Samman is covering my UCD class, so there will be no classroom disruption. I'm currently still doing the program administration. I don't know if there will be a replacement for me, or when, or who.

I'll do my best to be as available as possible. I know that all of the faculty and staff are committed to serving the students in my absence, so if you can't find me, ask Alicia, Joe, Rachel, or whoever you can find. Definitely email me if you get stuck and I'll fix it.

Keep your fingers crossed for me.

Dr. B

Ch ch ch changes...

Lots of changes in the ol' curriculum:

1. Both Visual Language of the Moving Image courses will now be taught by Jim Story.
2. Mr. Curasi's section of Production 2 will now be taught by Andrew Schrock. It will emphasize Flash Development.
3. Mr. Curasi's section of Production 1 will now be taught by Brian Pittard.
4. User-Centered Design will now be taught by Dr. Shatha Samman
5. SST will now be taught by Michelle Ferrier.
6. We're adding a new section of Principles! Keep an eye out on Polaris. It will be up soon. Spread the word!

Dr. B

Where we at?

Haven't heard much from anyone. Everything going OK out there? Do we need any courses or anything?

After effects course

For students interested in learning some additional video editing and
working with the special effects program After Effects, there is a new
course for you! This Fall there is a special section of course DIG3355
(a visual language course) that is going to be teaching After Effects.
The course will be taught by a new instructor and if you are interested
you need to have completed DIG3286 Assembling Digital Media with either
an A or B. If you are interested please contact Matt Walsh or Alicia
Sanchez as a special permission code is required to sign up.

the information for the course is:

90651 DIG3355 Section 0062 Artificial Environments and Effects
3hrs. LEC Open 30 Department Consent Required
UCF Orlando Expo Center and it is 6-8:50pm on Thursdays.

Sulley - Update

OK, it looks like only email files were lost. I'd still back my stuff up. Sulley's a dog...

Sulley in critical condition...

Sulley took a major dump yesterday. Many things are lost. If your stuff is still there, get it while you can.

We'll be working on a solution. In the meantime save what you can.

Dr. B

Summer Update

Hi y'all,

Here are a few tidbits:

1. We've received funding for a new lab. We'll be adding 30 dual-core IMACs at Expo. We'll be using Boot Camp to make them Windows friendly, too!

2. The new video course is either up, or will be soon. It's DIG4786C (Production software). This will be the new After Effects class. Go sign up! Now!!!

More to follow...

Dr. B

The Red Bull Build

If y'all haven't heard, the UCF team won the Red Bull Build contest. This is a huge accomplishment!!! Because they won, Red Bull will build a production studio for the team to use to build out their game. What an opportunity!

Congrats to the entire Zombie Cow gang.

Dr. B

71 Goodbyes; 133 Hellos

Hi y'all,

Long time, no post. Sorry about that - I'll try to be a better blogger.

Anyway, we have 71 folks graduating tomorrow. Way to go!! You're gone, but not forgotten, though. One of my summer projects is to start up a DM alumni group. We'll have the web page up shortly and I think Apple is going to sponsor an event for UCF DM alums later this summer. We'll also have some other announcements soon, so watch this space...

As for the hellos, I was just told that we have 133 DM majors in this Fall's class. If you're new, welcome! Don't be shy. If you have questions, ideas, whatever, drop me a line.

That's it for now. I'll post again soon.

Dr. B

Logo Contest - We have a winner!!!

And the winner is...

Jenny Starr.. Jenny gets the software. I'll post her logo shortly.

Way to go!!!!

Office 2007 UI design video

OK, I'm a geek - but I thought this was interesting....

http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/asx/OfficeUIIntro.asx

Summer Internet Software Design

It should be on Polaris now. Get it while it's available!

Dr. B

Hot Summer News!!!!

Let's take a look at how we did:

What I Predicted/The Truth
DIG3001.C001 Principles MW 10-11:15 J. Friskics/Being taught by R. Joyce
DIG3035L.C061 Digital Media Service 1 T 3-3:50 A. Sanchez/As predicted
DIG3135C.C001 Digital Imagery M 6-8:50 S. Schatz/As predicted
DIG3286C.C061 Assembling for Digital Media T 9:30-10:45 R. Kenny
DIG3286C.C062 Assembling for DM Lab Th 9:30-10:45 R. Kenny/As predicted
DIG3525.M061 Production 1 T Th 11-12:20 R. McDaniel/Being taught by Friskics
DIG4522L.C061 DM Service 2 Th 3-4:20 A. Sanchez
DIG4523L.C061 DM Service 3 Th 3-4:20 A. Sanchez/As predicted
DIG4524L.C061 Senior Project 1 T 4-6:50 C. Bowers
IDS4703.C061 Senior Project 2 T 4-6:50 C. Bowers/Being taught by Cannon-Bowers
DIG4526.C061 Production 2 W 12-2:50 N. Underberg/Being taught by Vick
DIG4716L.C061 Internet Interaction W 1-3:50 S. Schatz/As predicted
IDS3701C.C061 Internet Software Design T 1-3:50 E. Vick/Being taught by McDaniel
DIG4359C.C061 Computers as a Medium M 10-11:50 M. Croft/As predicted
DIG4359C.C061 Computers as a Medium Lab W 10-11:50 M. Croft

Not too bad, huh?

The Long-Lost Logo Contest

Ok, I know I've been a little slow with this. But, anyway, here we go:

The contest: design a logo for the UCF DM division. Think letterhead, t-shirts, web site, etc.

The prize: 1 copy of Aperture (a $499 value!)

The disclaimer: By entering this contest, you agree to let me (UCF) use the logo however I want to forever and ever.

The deadline: March 27, noon

The submission process: email to dmdirector@mac.com

Go get 'em!

Visual Language Portfolio info

I've had several requests for this. You can find the latest here

The Fall Schedule

Several folks have asked about the Fall schedule. Here's the deal:

1. We submit what we want (done)
2. The U tries to fit what we want into an available classroom (being done)
3. The U changes whatever it needs to in order to accomplish 1&2 (what we'll all see on Feb. 27 - allegedly).

I'mn happy to share #1 with you. You can download it here. Please note, however, that this was just our request, what you'll see on polaris trumps this.

As always, email your questions, concerns, critiques, or even complements.

Dr. B

You got questions - I got answers!

The following interchange is published with the permission of the authors...


Hello Dr. Bowers,

Im freshman in the DM program this year, and I declared my major under the digital music track. Ive been hearing thing all over the place that the program is slowly doing away with the music track. Im writing to as many of the professors of DM that I can find in an attemp to try and find out how much of an education in actual digital music Im going to get over the next 3 or 4 years. Ive noticed already that the "Principles of Digital Media" course isnt based on principles of general digital media at all, but more focused on web design and graphics, and those of us that are on the music track are learning things from the another track (no problem with that at all) but nothing at all is being taught about the track that we are majoring in. Id just like to know what those of us in the music track can expect, and who we can speack to to find out what our future is in this program. No one wants to waste time going in the wrong direction and if the Music track is going to be full of "bubble gum" which is what many of the rumors are, what do we need to do to be sure we are heading in the right direction.
Thank you so much for your time in reading this, and Im eagerly looking forward to your reply
Sincerly
Jonathan Wells


Jonathon,

It is true that we're phasing out the music track. This is being done at the request of the Music Department, which was no longer willing to participate. There are several reasons underlying their request, but mostly we had become a problem for them. They prefer that we counsel our interested students into the new Digital Music minor, which is housed in their department. All things being equal, taking that minor is my best advice. I do think that we'll have some offerings for you, though. Both Dr. Sung and Jon Friskics have new courses in the approval process. We could offer them as early as next year.

I'd be happy to answer any other questions you may have. Just send them along.

Dr. B.

Buy This!

I just got the HOW magazine Annual Design issue. It's brilliant! If you like to design, think about design, or get inspired by design - go get it. Now. Seriously.

No News & A Link

No update on the Summer. I'm hoping for something, soon.

Congrats to jstarr for winning a 1-year subscription to .Mac for the last contest. Watch this space for a news contest soon!

In the meantime, check out this link: http://softwarefor.org/

Requested courses for Summer

As promised, here's the list of courses we requested for summer. We probably won't get them all, but this should be pretty close. We should know something for sure in a couple of weeks.

DIG3001.C001 Principles MW 10-11:15 J. Friskics
DIG3035L.C061 Digital Media Service 1 T 3-3:50 A. Sanchez
DIG3135C.C001 Digital Imagery M 6-8:50 S. Schatz
DIG3286C.C061 Assembling for Digital Media T 9:30-10:45 R. Kenny
DIG3286C.C062 Assembling for DM Lab Th 9:30-10:45 R. Kenny
DIG3525.M061 Production 1 T Th 11-12:20 R. McDaniel
DIG4522L.C061 DM Service 2 Th 3-4:20 A. Sanchez
DIG4523L.C061 DM Service 3 Th 3-4:20 A. Sanchez
DIG4524L.C061 Senior Project 1 T 4-6:50 C. Bowers
IDS4703.C061 Senior Project 2 T 4-6:50 C. Bowers
DIG4526.C061 Production 2 W 12-2:50 N. Underberg
DIG4716L.C061 Internet Interaction W 1-3:50 S. Schatz
IDS3701C.C061 Internet Software Design T 1-3:50 E. Vick
DIG4359C.C061 Computers as a Medium M 10-11:50 M. Croft
DIG4359C.C061 Computers as a Medium Lab W 10-11:50 M. Croft

Feedback???

Dr. B

Stuff I Like...

In between "real" posts, I'll share a few sites I like in case you haven't seen them. My first is useit.com. I'm a usability guy, so of course I like this!