My colleague got rid of M1841 from their project list, however a few days later it came back. Fortunately another project came in the way of my colleague’s schedule, so it was put onto me!

I was glad all the creations of the Adobe Flash videos were created. That was the hardest/boring part! What came back was the quality at which they were exported at. At this point I knew what to do and therefore got straight down to business this week. It took a fair bit of research but I impressed Content Master with my fast deliverable skills in setting up an automated batch processing procedure for exporting over 120 videos from Flash to AVI and converting them to WMV.

What would have taken at least 40+ hours of man-power was significantly reduced to just one hour.

I was well chuffed with that process as were the team. Something that no one thought of.

Just for the record I couldn’t have done it without AutoIt3!

So most of this week was spent organising the Flash videos and which videos needed editing. As well the editing, the sound effect and visual introduction video on each Flash file was extremely low quality. Again, I have come to realise about this particular colleague and unfortunately I could tell the technique used was very basic which resulted in not obtaining and achieving desirable results, but instead to just want complete the project and get it out the way.

Then again, it was understandable as their situation was extremely unfair for the timescale given. But it wasn’t a problem either way. I was more than happy to rectify the situation. Got quite a bit of credit for it too!

It’s the last month of work! Wah! Time flies especially at the moment, when you’re enjoying the work coming your way. Just three more weeks here at Content Master.

I worked a little bit on T-Mobile but not much. It was under control by my colleagues. The hard part about projects like this though, is getting to grips and learning where everyone is at and then trying to adapt your design styles to what has already been created. I find it easier to work on projects like MDAS and T-Mobile (these are “Product Groups” projects) from the very start.

Anyway, I was put on yet another project that was under a strict deadline. I was only a helper in this project, but we all had to give our input in order to get the content complete.

M1841 – Service Readiness Training Nuggets were a set of short videos for Mobile Devices capable of viewing WMV files. They were aimed to be produced for a Silverlight platform too.

Although I was not involved technically with Silverlight applications, XAML or the back end of this system, I was put in charge of creating many of the vector graphics for the animations for consistency throughout the project. I created some excellent graphics to represent fairly bland and benign subjects, as well as design and implement these graphics for use on a Silverlight application on a web page, and for use on a mobile phone.

This was a very stressful project for the media developer in charge of production. Unfortunately for some members of the team, it meant working through the weekend too, to get the deliverables out on time. Something which is quite unfair. Why do our colleagues have to work weekends just to get the work done before a certain time? I suppose it’s going to happen on some occasions, but there are times when clients do no appreciate how long it takes to produce what they’re after.

This project was quite boring to be frank, given that the same content pretty much had to be redrawn up all the time, except for a change of a few words. But I did what I was told and did it the way it was suppose to be done.

So it’s off to work we go on the rest of M1841.

By week four, there were a very few changes that needed altering in MDAS-5100.

However the content was near perfect and signed off by the client. They liked what they saw and this was without doubt one of the better courses Content Master has delivered.

The one main change made was the audio recording – which was done in-house. However, the male voice for one particular section was too quiet and even increasing the sound levels in software was not good enough. So we had to get it re-recorded. Unfortunately the individual who already originally recorded was on holiday for the rest of the week.

Nevertheless, I opened up a suggestion about a friend of mine who was a professional voice artist and would be happy to re-record within a day. In turn Content Master agreed and also agreed to pay him. My friend was chuffed about that!

Another huge addition was an idea suggested by myself in which the addition of an interactive PDA would give a lot more realism to the course. Given that the course was about an individual learning his ways of COS and how to apply it, the course had to feel like it was an interactive scene, whereby the user would receive emails from time to time which they would have to open or their phone rings or they were SMS hints to their PDA. They loved this idea and so did I!

But otherwise, we finished off the rest of COS (mid-week). We labelled all the correct files, put everything together and sorted out all the content and to sign off. Definitely my best project of the year.

For the rest of the week, I joined forces with another colleague to help him out with further animations to do with yet another bespoke media company – T-Mobile. Workload was increasingly coming in for T-mobile, a full course again similar to MDAS style. I helped with animations, including assistance with design and image selection.

I especially enjoyed the projects at this time, because I was not only developing my graphical skills and knowledge of the programs to use, but I also had to create a number of bespoke graphics and designs for use in a corporate environment.

On-going developments with MDAS-5100. I’m very much enjoying the construction of this course. It was a whole new eLearning course developed solely by our team with no outside templates.

I had created an introduction page where a pie chart flew in, demonstrating there are three segments to the course: planning, committing and executing.

I had done the definition page for each of these segments as floating signs – animating in as fast paced signs popping out from the side. The design was made like it was rushing in and then rushing out when another segment was clicked.

I designed a hand that rotates at particular angles depending on which of the fingers have been clicked. Each finger was associated with the acronym SMART: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time.
And I am working on designing a multiple choice game at the moment.

The beauty of this course was the way the whole thing was put in to a shell/framework.

This meant anyone could be working on a particular part of the course, and it could simply be called in later at any time during the course. That way, we each took on certain sections of the course and built unique content specific to our knowledge and our creative skills.

These sections were all exported and linked in at the right time. Very useful when sharing work across a team. It’s just MDAS-5100 going on for now.

On another note, I received a magazine from one of the technologists today, who went on an exhibition based in the US. He brought back a laminated brochure detailing the release Microsoft Expression. In there was a publication of my work, outlining the Web site I had created and the features of the Web site that made it unique to Expression Web. I was extremely proud of this creation!

I’ve come back from my holiday period to be given an awesome project.

I’ve been assigned a project similar to the MDAS-5102 performed a few weeks ago by the team (but I wasn’t officially a part of it). Only recently have MDAS come back and requested if they could have another Conditions of Satisfaction done. Not to replace 5102, but to cover a new field of information.

MDAS-5100 Condition of Satisfaction was the next project and only project I had to do at the time. It was a fully flash based interface. Apparently work had already started on this a few eeks ago and the project manager involved in kicking-off this project had already been to plenty of meetings with the client in an attempt to finalise ideas. The client on the other hand kept changing their mind about elements they wanted on the screen.

Back in May, time was spent in designing a new interface, for which the client wanted it to be presented clearer and more visible rather than a high-end fully colourful design. They wanted a clear white background with a simple top and bottom navigation bar. So after a month of sending all sorts of designs I was put on the project to come up with another design alongside other team members. We took into consideration all the different factors and came up with an auspicious design.

COS was a full course designed in Adobe Flash, which again, had to be SCORM compliant. My role consisted of a major design style input using a graphics library which we had created from a number of stock images and also layout ideas of content provided by the ID. Initial designs and styles were completed and sent back to the client, who retained the content whilst deciding on final design styles, content and layout. I produced a lot of conceptual work and designs and assisted with content styling.

It was also an opportunity to show off my Actionscript 2.0 knowledge in Adobe Flash, which was something I personally enjoy as part of a media career. And boy did I impress them!

I had yet to provide them with more results. Yet we were selected and given certain slides designs from a Powerpoint deck, and asked to, in any way possible – bring them alive. I had done one design this week and was on the verge to creating several more.

Although I haven’t updated the last week of May, it was a continuation of the first week in June. Things were quite slow back then – nothing really on. So I had one day in work this week then the rest of the time was holiday! Woohoo! 6-day weekend. It’s amazing how your appreciate time off when working in the world of work!

Anyway quick recap – from the end of last month to the beginning of this month, I was (for the first time) – assigned a solo project to do with CSS skinning customisation for Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server (MOSS) full template for company called White Concierge (project code C1010). My job was to locate the relevant files of MOSS and brand it to CSS standard making sure it matched their current colour scheme. Certain MOSS plug-ins was also being developed by the technicians. I was not involved in creating the custom controls involved in ASP.NET and integrated into MOSS, but I had to style them to make sure they were in the correct places.

It took quite some time to get into this project, given that there were over 400 different HEX values associated with the colour schemes in at least five different CSS files. Though I found the core CSS file for the main section to edit, it was also associated with other external files which I had to locate and edit.

I ended up requesting a Virtual PC with the latest version of MOSS which the technicians were working on, so I had the live content to work from. There were hundreds of alterations that were required to turn the skin from sky blue to corporate brown and white. It was also necessary to locate the corresponding colours in all areas of MOSS to maintain a consistent theme. I repeatedly kept checking the layout in the VPC to ensure the changes were being made in all areas of navigation.

Soon enough I got used to the theme and I was up to speed with locating the correct sections. I had to learn the layout of the CSS files in order to move colour schemes around appropriately. I obtained feedback quite early on only to find I successfully impressed the company with such a quick turnaround (max of four days).
Although another tedious project, in the end I enjoyed scurrying around a whole new tool, both its file structure and its functional content. I found it useful to get to know MOSS’s features.

Because the whole team was working on CA and no-one had anything else to do, CA got done pretty quickly.

Another project running in the background was Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions MDAS-5102. Although I wasn’t a part of this course directly, it sounded exactly what I wanted to do in terms of development. I did a bit here and there graphically, but this course was started by other individuals when I was in the middle of VS2008, so I couldn’t really be a part of it.

I’ve heard and seen this is a course fully designed in Flash and is known as being SCORM compliant. Roles consisted of major design style using a graphics library provided for motivation – also referring to an extensive document referring to colour schemes, gradient details, designs adverts and media representations. Very interesting!

I didn’t learn much about SCORM, however from what I was told it was simply a back-end running logging system to record details of users that login and take part in courses. One of the key features of SCORM included the fact that if a user quit the application half way, the user could pick up on where they last left off after re-launching the application. Quite revolutionary for Flash.

There was also a range of Actionscript 2.0 required for the back-end of the main pages and SWF files. Plug-ins which consisted of Voice of the Employee snippets (VOEs), videos and various custom-made animations and demos, which looked nothing like MSL animations!

I’ve learnt that these courses get sent back and forth to the client for continuing feedback to ensure the best possible outcome.

As for CA, they are nearly done. We’ve been editing foreign audio narration for a number of demos, which is a twist on the regular demos!

Good thing I’m fluent in French too! They let me have those ones!

Oh, and another thing, yesterday (Friday) – we were treated with a meal, complements from the company due to the handoff of various projects, but in particular, VS2008. That was nice!

I took a couple of day’s holiday this week. I think I deserved it.

Came back mid-way this week though – and a new project has emerged and was up for grabs. Though this time I was not in charge of the project, I simply gave the helping hand.

I’d been told little about this project, and even though it was a non-MSL piece, apparently the team had already done a bunch of work for them ages ago.

CA004 – Computer Associates, produce an antivirus product that came to Content Master to in turn, produce a whole set of demonstrations which we had previously done.

Except this time they wanted these demonstrations to all be in three other different languages (French, German and Spanish). Thankfully, given that this was a non-MSL based work, the team, a while ago (before I joined) – had already designed the interface to load in demos and control them dynamically.

As desperate as I was to get into this project and learn about how it was all constructed, I was only told to take the set of new screenshots provided by CA this time (we didn’t have to record them) and put them together like any other demo. It was a different procedure in comparison to MSL Captivate demos. Some people were used to it, but personally I found it quite tedious.

However, I can see at the same time, the design aspect of the template was top-notch!

So importing images into Flash and layering them was the next step for project work!

Sounded like fun… sort of.

Woohoo! VS2008 is complete!

It’s been the longest project of the year since I’ve been at Content Master. In terms of production, the Media team have finally handed off everything that we need to be involved with. We don’t have to worry about any further stages, for which the individual main project manager is sorting out.

Overall, this project has been extremely beneficial for my understanding of how a company works together as a whole. Personally I spent a lot of time organising and liaising with departments which were specialists in areas that were extremely interesting.

Instant Messaging (for which I’ve used from the very start of my placement) – was an extreme necessity for quick and easy communication. I worked with a lot of people from the US for which they were temporarily employed by the US Office in Content Master, to solely work on this project. It was a team effort that resulted in an outstanding final handoff from the Media team.

Project managing has become part of my knowledge and personally, in the future I now have the option to proceed further in managing projects having learnt the basis during my time at Content Master.

I’m pretty glad that VS2008 is finally over. More projects are on its way though! This time non-MSL related. I’ve heard a rumour that we are moving away from MSL work now!

That could just be Chinese Whispers though…

You guessed it – VS2008 still on-going. There’s another project in the background – again MSL related, but that’s not as big (TINY in fact!). Longhorn IIS – Just some more storyboards and animations to build on top of what we have already know really.

I thought I’d give a bit of reflection though on the last few months…

Even though Microsoft is one of Content Master’s biggest customers, from what I’d been hearing, the Sales team did not stop there. Content Master have been exploring other avenues and seeking out companies taking an interest in what Content Master could provide for them.

As more bespoke projects started emerging for our team to work on in the future, the team name of eLearning seemed somehow inappropriate for the new workload we were undertaking for other major companies, such as T-Mobile and Orange. So the team was officially renamed the Media team and my job description was modified to media developer from eLearning developer.

That said, the main focus of our team was still focussed in eLearning materials whether it was consistent and reliable work for MSL or bespoke custom courses for other companies.

From what I’ve witnessed so far, Visual Studio 2008 was just about manageable when I was in charge of just 5 courses. And I’ve been told this is as hard as it gets when it comes to courses. So I’m quite happy I’ve been given a responsibility that helps to maximise standards.

But on that note, it kind of made me reflect on my goals so far. It was challenging to establish the kind of goals I wanted to set myself for the rest of the year including wanting to take charge of Flash Actionscript 2.0 course and/or delving into Actionscript 3.0.

However for what I’d done so far, further focus included recording, editing and processing audio (skills that would be useful in my final year), developing graphical skills (for general ability and maintenance) and developing, documenting and scripting techniques (for skills in the workplace and my own personal development) –  all of which I’ve now had experience in!