Tessa Blakeley Silver | aka: Tessaract

Titanium Alloy Styling

tessaract — Wed, 03 Dec 2014 18:46:03 +0000

Getting better at working with Titanium’s TSS: Single component, NO FORKED CODE! Smooth forking of iOS and Android native component TSS styles only.

Introduction

tessaract — Wed, 03 Dec 2014 17:32:04 +0000

Hi!

In addition to Tessa or Tess, I often go by the handle tessaract (on twitter and quite a few other places). I do a few different things to earn income. First and foremost: I design. I’m trained as a graphic designer/commercial illustrator. As a kid, I wanted to airbrush rock album covers, movie posters and sci-fi book covers when I grew up (Yes, you read it right: album covers. I’m that old. And I may grow up yet!).

I also program in a few scripting languages, primarily JavaScript. My specialty is is working with far less-than-ideal HTML markup, CSS and existing “legacy” (yeah “legacy”, you know what that means) JavaScript and despite the spaghetti underpinnings and fugly-insides, making it run like a smooth, clean and shiny Tesla Model S with an elated Matthew Inman behind the wheel (aka: JavaScript Magic). Oh, and when I can, I like to share what I know via writing posts, articles and books.

In the 90’s, I fell into multimedia (video, audio and animation in Director/Flash – remember CD-Roms?), and in the late 90’s, I fell into web development (“What? you want that CD-Rom’s design, video and audio on the web?! You know, it’s only 1997, right?!”). Along the way, I got deeper into programming (JavaScript, ActionScript, PHP a little Python), and I became absolutely fascinated with organizing data and content to work with it programatically (XML, JSON/NoSQL, MySQL/SQLite).

Most recently in the past few years, I’ve moved over to full OOP programming of ~~not only Flash-based~~(Flash: It really did die. For me anyway.) and AJAX web apps, but desktop and mobile apps as well (Not very rock album cover-y, but pretty cool none-the-less).

So, What’s a Tessaract?

A tessellation or tiling of the plane is a collection of plane figures that fills the plane with no overlaps and no gaps — wikipedia.org

I’ve liked the word “tesseract” ever since I read Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle In Time as a kid. The term is actually “tesseract” and while Madeleine used it to describe a type of time/space/warp portal, it is actually a hypercube or tetracube (hence the name of my LLC: hyper³media pronounced: hyper-cube-media). Yep, I spell tesseract incorrectly, on purpose, to have my name in there: tessaract.

“Tess” is a greek root that relates to the number 4. My name for example is Greek for “fourth born”. A tesseract is a 4-dimensional cube as we discussed and tessellation is the tiling of squares or things with 4 sides (like old-school desktop wallpaper), you get the picture.

When I’m not working, I’m probably…

Taking my my ex’s dog (hey, she’s an awesome dog) to the river ~~with my partner~~ (2013/14’s been “fun”). Playing with our daughtERS (We have two now! – yes, 3 years later I’m still surprised I have two kids). Noodling on a guitar. Wondering how I’ll handle ~~my first~~ THIS winter in Minneapolis (#NotANative). More recently, spending quality time with my wonderful, super-patient, understands I’ma-little-busy-these-days, girlfriend. And as always, trying to find a better, faster way to do things on my mac or with my brain – and then hack it some more. Taking an online course and reading a non-fiction book (I’m happiest when learning something new – sometimes, fiction squeezes in there).

Upcoming Project/Ideas:

tessaract — Wed, 11 Dec 2013 17:02:57 +0000

A running list…

CargoJS: Time for some updates and documentaton to this powerful little “Git Gist” jQuery plugin of mine (I’ll also be bringing Cargo’s friends: Enquesto and Eligio out into the light)
The Disorganized Disaster’s Guide to GTD and Time Management: An eBook? An online course? I’m not sure yet. But if GTD and various Time Managment/Productivity systems seem to fail you – you’ll find out why (it’s you) and how to get back on track (in spite of yourself, and that convoluted “productivity system” you’ve bought into.).

Books by… well, me:

tessaract — Wed, 09 Oct 2013 14:01:33 +0000

Currently Available:

All current titles published by Packt Publishing

WordPress Theme Development – Beginner’s Guide
WordPress 3.0 jQuery
Enhance your WordPress website with the captivating effects of jQuery.
WordPress Theme Design (2nd Edition: WordPress 2.8 Theme Design)
Joomla 1.5 Template Design Covers the new jdoc tags, template overrides and custom module chrome!
Joomla Template Design
A great title for sites that still opt for the Joomla 1.0 legacy version.

SXSWi 2013: Designing eBooks With Web Standards

tessaract — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 22:11:28 +0000

Standard ebook publishing requires ramping up on knowledge about various ebook formats, and then becoming familiar with proprietary ebook publishing channels like Kindle, iBooks, etc. Wouldn’t it be easier to use web standards to build ebooks, and then either serve them on the web or distribute them via mobile app stores? If you already know and use web standards (HTML, CSS, JavaScript), ebook publishing is within your reach. Come to this session to explore frameworks and techniques that enable you to design and publish ebooks, monetize them, and distribute them to a variety of devices and platforms.

We’ll look at all the major eBook apps/platforms but will primarily work with the open EPUB format and export to the MOBI format.

#html5epub | #SXSWi | #sxsw

Downloads:

The ePub “slide deck” – Finally!
Sigil
Kindle Previewer
video-audio – updated!
bootstrap-svg-sample – updated!
jquery-jqui-sample – updated!
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – NEW!
This test comes from a very long HTML file provided by The Project Gutenberg. Drag and dropped right into Calibre and converted to ePub.

A quick look at this .ePub in Sigil reveals that multi-section pages were created and the TOC and metadata is quite well formed. You’ll note the title page was broken into two pages a bit oddly. So, for those of you converting your manuscripts (especially from Word -to-> HTML -to-> ePub via Calibre) – just be prepared to do a touch of “post clean up” in a tool like Sigil for the best end user experience!
geo-location-sample – NEW! – Update 2013.03.15:
Well, shoot. I can’t actually get this working in iBooks (or any js enabled app – that’s not the browser on the iPad). I’ll put together a full article, but for now – it seems that despite having access to geolocation – the iPad refuses to let the: navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition(yourCustomFunct); actually kick off (you can play with my alternate test that breaks down the geo checks step-by-step and note where it “hangs”).

For now, you can do what Liz Castro does with her Barcelona book and at least link people out into the maps app and/or browser (again, be sure to just buy her entire Complete EPUB set – well worth the $40 bucks if you’re serious about web standards ePub, you’ll get the Barcelona book with the set)

Also: Liza Daly (of course) has a geolocation sample (though, I haven’t had time to convert it to ePub and test it, it appears it might not work either).

Here’s to upcoming eReader upgrades (hopefully arriving with the full support of ePub3)!

Note: This page is actively updated! SXSWi is over but the fun continues – Follow me: @tessaract or get results for #html5epub for the latest on this page.

Relevant info:

When: 03/12/2013 3:30 PM – 6:00 PM
Where: AT&T Conference Center – Classroom 203 – 1900 University Ave
What to bring:
- Laptop – (if you’d like work along with the examples – you can also download Sigil and the Kindle Previewer tools) –
- Sigil – Sigil is a multi-platform EPUB ebook editor.
- Kindle Previewer – This software allows younto convert EPUB format to MOBI and preview it in all the different Kindle Readers.
- HTML/CSS/JS editor of your choice
- iPads, Kindles and Nooks (of all flavors)! – Hopefully at the end, you’ll have a little something personal to open up and test out in an eReader of choice!
Prep & Materials:
- Code/HTML Samples: Download to the left!
- Slide Deck: Download to the left!
Post workshop: A few lessons learned
- For those of you using Twitter’s Bootstrap: be sure any CSS styling the library adds doesn’t confuse readers if JS functionality isn’t available (for example, I’d programatically add in the btn, tab etc. classes and other styles indicating dynamic features, only if the modernizr js class is available)
- Fun little surprise: The Kobo reader on the iPad will kick off JavaScript if it’s on the first page, but won’t after the first page – interesting…
- While geolocation services seem to be available to iBooks (and Kobo) the apps (or perhaps the iPad OS itself) will not allow any of the geolocation functions to initiate. (This could be a “security feature”. I’ll research a bit more)
- Calibre – not too shabby at converting loooong html files over to a nicely parsed multi-sectioned ePub!
The official run down:

About me:

Tessa Silver Sr Interactive Developer Capella University

I design and program. Online learning, mobile apps (and combining the two) are my main interests. I’m a Senior Interactive Developer for Capella University, I write for Packt Publishing and various other blogs. I also create media and apps (in my oh-so-copious spare time) via my company hyper3media LLC (pronounced: hyper-cube-media).

Jolly Alpha Five Niner

tessaract — Sat, 29 Sep 2012 17:45:14 +0000

As you can see, Zombies are pretty darn slow. (whew!)

Website: Nice use of Twitter’s Bootstrap and Google Maps!

I’m enjoying the app (Android – a lota space off my lil’ LG but worth it) and no longer quite so allergic to “gamification” – or running.

Your mouse is already dead.

tessaract — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 16:42:39 +0000

My ~~partner~~ calls them “pricey toys”. I call them the future. Check out my latest FTF post.

I know, right? Toys! You get one measely little iPad… sure, there was that other tablet… oh hey, remember that Annotate pen thingie I had!? Ahem, well they’re still the future.

Note: This post was originally posted onto Capella’s public blog: FreeThinkingFriday.com – The blog has been pulled from the public and given internal-access-only at meteor.capella-id.com

And you wont even need those dorky, three-finger gloves they used in Minority Report!

Gestures

Leap Motion brings affordable multi/3d gesturing to the rest of us (who don’t want to shell out for an MS Kinect – and then hack it).

See the full gallery on Posterous

Check out the vid on the homepage. Total hand (pencil, chopsticks – whatever) control. And for $70 bucks? Yep, I preordered mine.

Thought Control

On a related note: I’m very close to picking up an Emotiv EPOC headset.*
(*purchase is pending approval of my financial-advisor aka: spouse)

Forget gesturing with your hands (pencils, chopsticks – whatever), this device lets you use your thoughts and emotions to control your computer (well, the specific data those thoughts and emotions send to the 14 channel research-lab-quality EEG sensor array). This isn’t as out-of-the-box as the Leap Motion is – the headset and software require you “train” it to control your OS and other software – but the potential of uses for the physically disabled alone are stupendous.

There’s already FDA approved software controlled by this headset for motorized wheelchairs and an assistive typing app that allows people previously limited to Sip-and-Puff devices or using incredibly expensive eye-tracking word/array-lookup hardware and software to type as fast or faster than a touch-typist on a standard keyboard.

And yes, there’s tons of insanely cool stuff people are doing with this for the rest of us – do check out the vids on the home page of the site and Tan Le’s TED talk.

What this means for our media

Up until now, gestural interface design has been reserved for mobile devices and being able to keyboard through a piece has deemed it 508 compliant – but with the release of these two comercially viable and totally affordable devices – I can easily imagine we’ll soon be making sure our media is fully “gesturable” as well as 508-TC compliant (Thought Capacitive? Who knows what they’ll call it) .

I’m excited for the Leap Motion to (hopefully) ship in February and you can always make a donation to “Tessa’s EPOC Headset and Developer SDK Fund”* at my desk. ; )

*2014 update: I got an EPOC headset and an actual financial-advisor. Will post my thoughts on how these two devices compare and work together.

Finally, Going Paperless… with Paper

tessaract — Wed, 09 May 2012 16:31:19 +0000

It’s the bleeding edge future of tech: writing stuff out by hand. Find out about a neat app and why your super-fast computer actually slows you way down.

Yes. I got an iPad.

Note: This post was originally posted onto Capella’s public blog: FreeThinkingFriday.com – The blog has been pulled from the public and given internal-access-only at: http://meteor.capella-id.com

I don’t own an iPad (this hasn’t stopped me from pre-ordering a Touch Pen Polymer from LunaTik). But 53’s new(ish) app, Paper, may be the thing that pushes me to pick one up (that and the fact that I’ll already have a handy stylus/pen-thingie).

While Paper’s pricing has a few users disgruntled, the app itself gives me hope that my dream of a genuine paperless sketchbook is finally here (or at least very close at hand).

I do feel strongly that all designing/planning/conceptualizing should happen on (real) paper FIRST – before ever looking at a screen. No, it’s not a “hard-core/old school” designer thing – I’ve just come to believe that attempting to capture and organize any deep, creative or problem-solving work via any software’s interface – no matter the device – slows down and can even kill the creative/conceptualizing/problem-solving process.

It’s a lengthy explanation, but I’ll attempt to nutshell it:

A GUI (aka: Graphic(al) User Interface) activates your brain’s limbic system, and that’s not necessarily a good thing – depending on what type of thinking you need to do. While we can dual process plenty between our brain’s left and right hemispheres, apparently we can’t dual process very well between the limbic system and our super-cool neocortical systems (this is according to current Neuro/Sci types like Jeff Hawkins and John Medina).

You probably know that the neocortex (aka: “grey matter”) of our brain is essential for our rich “when”, “why” and “complex how/how much” thinking. Not to mention our linguistic capabilities, imagined visualization abilities and executive functions which fuel and direct all that awesome thinking.

Our limbic system sits just under those 6 neocortex layers and primarily handles “what” and “where” processing along with rudimentary “how/how much” processing. This is uber-handy for navigating our environment and core survival, hence it’s (rightly) easily visually stimulated.

As a result, our limbic system totally ❤s software GUIs.

This is your brain on GUIs:

“What do I need to capture or represent this?”, – navigate through options – “Where is it again in this app?”, – navigate through more options – “How do I…” “Oh! oooh! I see it! I see it!” – click (or touch) – “Easy!” “Now… but, what was I thinking?!! hmmm… ”.

Any questions?

According to Dan Roam (referencing Jeff Hawkins’ work), drawing and writing directly with pen and paper* keeps you in this “higher”, neocortical, creative thinking mode for longer durations than if you were working through a software’s GUI, essentially, “looping” your thought processes from neocortical to limbic and back.

Capturing and processing deeply creative work via a robust application interface is essentially “mental multi-tasking”. It forces you to gear shift every time you have to switch between the two types of thinking, effectively interrupting your creative/problem-solving workflow. Yes; multi-tasking, being interrupted, shifting gears and losing context – all the things the productivity experts tell us to avoid!

Hence, I’ve come to the conclusion that if you want to be as productive as possible, do the “real” work by hand with pen and paper first. Your desktop, laptop and various mobile devices are really just tools to be used for: communication, media consumption and once you have it all planned out, production. They do not aid your true genius and creativity in any way (no matter what the app’s marketing tells you).

That said, Paper looks promising: Practically no GUI at all and when you do reference the interface to switch tools, it appears to work more “naturally” – similar to simply picking up a different pen and “flipping” over a fresh sheet. As for other uses, looks like exporting images to just about anything is a breeze so the sky’s the limit. I hope future upgrades bring the ability to swap/share journals with other Paper users (my Evernote account will get jealous). Ah, and exporting a journal into an iBook would be pretty great as well.

iPad users: If you’ve got Paper, let me know if it’s worth picking up my first iPad!
Update: Never-mind. Got it. Love it. However, it still has its drawbacks. I can’t say I’m truly “paperless” yet, but that’s another post.

*Non-doodler’s FYI: According to Jeff Hawkins, being able to touch-type without looking at the screen or keyboard keeps you in this “higher” thinking mode as well (a coincidence that all the hottest “productivity writing apps” out there simply give you a screen with your text and no interface options?) – but do check out Dan’s work; he makes the case that drawing visual images to design, capture, plan and problem solve has clear advantages over words.