Prototype 3 FAQ

The third BlogTalk Prototype is more or less finished. It is CPU and bandwidth intensive. It needs some explanation so people can understand what’s going on here. So, here goes.

1. When you first launch it you will only see some text telling it it can’t play until it’s ready. This is because the vog has to go and get all of Michael Verdi’s Vlog Anarchy video. It could start before all was loaded, but then if you clicked button 14 (for example) it would just start playing Michael’s video from the beginning because it can’t jump to the end of his video (because it hasn’t arrived yet).
2. Once all of Michael’s video has arrived, the text disappears, and the movie starts playing.
3. Down the left hand side are a series of small images of moi. They turn up and go away. They are silent. It was just me filming myself for a bit with my iSight so that I had some content.
4. Across the top right are 14 buttons. Clicking any of these will auto jump to a specific part of Michael’s video, and play it. It will then stop and my commentary, either on or in response to that section, will play.
5. The commentaries are loaded as child movies. This means they have to be downloaded as well. They’re all fast start but still, it will take a bit of time (though on broadband they should pipe up in only a couple of seconds).
6. Because they’re child movies you only hear what you want to hear (though of course I don’t let you know what each button is about).
7. No, you can’t watch all of Michael’s video in this way. That’s why it’s called quotation.
8. To watch all of Michael’s, go to his site, just like the way that blogs work.
9. I haven’t provided a link directly to Michael’s entry, and I should have, I didn’t because I wanted to leave some things out so that everyone could see what things are missing (it isn’t about solving everything but posing the problems we need to think about)

And I’d like to thank Michael for permission to use his work in this way. I guess this is also what comes of using a Creative Commons licence (as does my work).