Born On The Web

We needed a tool to make a questionnaire for school. I couldn’t find a good open source one so I made one. It’s not really finished, only the front office, it doesn’t have an admin interface. So don’t expect much of it. But it’ll do the job for you.

Requirements

Webserver with PHP and MySQL support. PhpMyAdmin would be handy to insert and administer the question.

Features

1. database driven, you can change add/alter questions in the db
2. 3 types of questions are possible : Open questions, Radiobox options (only one possible), Checkbox options (multiple options possible)
3. Skip a few questions looking at the answer. F.e. if he answers “no” on question 4 he’ll go directly to question 8.
4. Put an answer into a session and use it in the next questions by putting “**” in the question field in the db.
5. View the results on a webpage, export the results to excel
6. View the questions
7. Make a question obligated to answer
8. Progress bar
9. Easy to change the value of the submit button

How to install?

1. Upload all the files to your server
2. Run the enkiti.sql files in your database, so our tables are made.
3. Open up config.php
4. Change your database configuration
5. Change the number of questions your questionnaire will be.
6. Change the admin login & pass
7. Go to the database table enk_questions and add the questions.

Explanation table enk_questions.

• ID: Just a unique key
• Intro_txt: An intro txt, will only be visible if not empty
• Question: The question, if a session is set in an earlier question you can use “**” and it will be changed by the session that is set.
• Question_nr: This is the arrangement of the question, question 1 will become before 2, logic é !
• Sumbit_txt: The value of you submit button specifically for that question.
• Type: open – gives a text area for entering the answer , option – gives you a radiobox, only one answer possible , m_option – checkbox, multiple options possible .
• Skip_to: if the value of the answer = skip_if skip to the this question number.
• Skip_if: If the answer on this question is yes, skip_to question 5.
• Take_session: if this is set to 1, he keeps the answer in a session, so you can use it in next questions as “**”.
• Check: validate if an answer is set.
• Option_nr: the number of options you’ve set
• option0 -> option15: put the different answer options here

Admin: use the login and pass from config.php

• view.php : view the answers a session in a table -> export to excel
• questions.php : view the questions that are in the db

Demo
I’ll put one online soon…

Download
version 0.5

Disclaimer
You can use and re-use this freely. But remember this isn’t tested fully and isn’t bugfree. If you made some improvements, please contact me.

I wanted to talk about this a long time ago, but never came to this. But as I see my thesis evolving, I keep coming to this conclusion. With the new web techniques it’s easier to become emotionally involved into communities. It’s a general feeling I have when I’m browsing the different “web 2.0″ communities. I found that there are a few things that can make your social connection in a community more emotional:

• Better User Experience: When interacting on a website, the flow of using the functionalities becomes more natural. It feels more direct, faster, … I think better UE also results in more interaction. Interaction feels more spontaneous.
• Folksonomy/Taxonomy: It becomes easier to find people with the same interest/problem/feeling. You can find people with whom you can emotionally connect.
• Rich Internet: Technology now gives users the possibility to share more than just text on the internet. It has become easy to share pictures/videos/audio/play lists/bookmarks/… The person behind a profile can become more reel. You can see him, hear him or both. The more aspects of a person you know, the better the social connection.
• Share your life: This is a general trend that can be seen online. People want to share their personal stuff to the world. The trust in the internet is back, they don’t mind putting photos online of their kids. Not only the technology but also the general trend makes your community richer. People want to get emotionally involved in communities.
• Subscribe to a person: With the growing popularity of feeds, it becomes easier to follow a person’s life.

My personal experience has learned me that if communities have the above aspects I will get involved emotionally. I can’t be attached to someone if I only read his/her opinion about one subject. I can be attached to someone if I know he/she likes going out, acting crazy, music, … I want to know how his/her voice sounds, how he/she looks, …

This emotional connection can exist out of a real life contact and become stronger trough your online profile. Or it can exist out of an online contact and grow to a real life contact (f.e. blog meetings, flash mobs).

Maybe this generally goes under the term social software, I just feel it can be more then just being social. It’s about emotions, it can go further than just a common interest. People want to share their emotions as well as find out about other peoples’ emotions. So the perfect online community should support every possible emotion, because my offline experience learns me that sharing emotions makes a band between people stronger than ever.
I’d love to research this in my thesis, the problem is it’s so difficult to prove things like this. I should talk about this with a psychologist or a sociologist. Any ideas how to prove this?

So off you go buzzword emotional web, hope to see you again.

Reading this article makes me wonder where I’ll be next year? I have to admit, graduating frightens me a bit. It’s exciting that things will change after 4 years, but what to do, where to go, I’m not sure yet… I’d love to see the world like every dreaming, adventurous guy…

How do(did) you handle(d) it? Straight from student to carreer?

Boost your productivity, take LSD !

“I think that in human evolution it has never been as necessary to have this substance LSD,” said Hofmann. “It is just a tool to turn us into what we are supposed to be.”

But remember kids, don’t take this to literal !
[via]

Internet Guru, Jeffrey Zeldman from A list apart wrote an interesting article about the web 2.0 buzz. He’s negative towards the web 2.0, I hate to come to the conclusion that he has a few good points. His last paragraph is not really motivating:

To you who are toiling over an AJAX- and Ruby-powered social software product, good luck, God bless, and have fun. Remember that 20 other people are working on the same idea. So keep it simple, and ship it before they do, and maintain your sense of humor whether you get rich or go broke. Especially if you get rich. Nothing is more unsightly than a solemn multi-millionaire.

In the comments on Jeffreys’ article, some interesting points are made. They explain my feeling about the article, I’ll quote some here:
This is a reaction on the anti-AJAX part in the article:

Keep it simple.

1. Web sites can be made much better for the user with the principle known as AJAX.
2. Be sane about your usage of AJAX

This reaction was my favorite, I couldn’t have said it better:

While I tend to agree with many of the points made here (especially the bit about Ajax being a bitch to wireframe, ain’t that the truth) I can’t help but feel a bit frustrated that:

A) It has to be said at all. B) It takes someone like Zeldman to get this stuff to sink in. C) In a way it’s just more spin.

Web 2.0, Web 3.0, etc. It’s not the numbers that matter. It’s all “Web” and this stuff should be about people not technology. A successful Web application can be built with Ajax, or not. It can rock on Ruby on Rails or be a bit slower on PHP and be a great app either way.

Ultimately I feel this kind of hype doesn’t matter much at all and it’s kind of crazy there is so much time, effort and brain power spent debating about it. But, hey, it was a fun read.

All I can add to this, is that I like working with the new “web 2.0″ applications, I like flickr, del.icio.us, … I like interacting with people on flickr, it’s more fun than having a discussion on a phpBB forum. Just because the user experience is better, not because it is a WEB 2.0 application.

Last week during my presentation of my thesis subject. One of my lectures asked me: “What is the WEB 2.0? Isn’t it nothing more then a hype?” I hated that question, I wouldn’t have tought that I had to explain the true existence of the WEB 2.0. But it was a good question, because it kept me critical. I have to admit, it was pretty difficult to come up with an explanation that really made it sound great. As a user of a lot of WEB 2.0 apps it’s sometimes difficult to stay objective. These kind of articles and critical teachers really help keeping your realistic view on things. It’s like in politics, you have a left and a right wing, they have to find a balance.
Links:

• The article: WEB 3.0 by Jeffrey Zeldman
• The comments, as valuable as the article itself

What’s your opinion after all this?

IMG_3423

Good weekend, little bit of listening, little bit of talking, little bit of eating and a lot of thdrinking! The educative power of mixing pleasure with learning can never be underestimated. I did however came close to catching the birth flu. Luckily the goose had an headache…

Thanks Clo for the nice practical inside into communities. Great usable information, ow yeah, good thdrinking buddy too.

Not much content, but I talked a lot. So If you have any comments … please shoot !!

Download PPT

Like you maybe already know I’m in my final year of communication & multimedia design, so this means I have to make a master thesis about a subject related to new media, internet, television, … So I figured out that I want to do it about the WEB 2.0, because it’s just really interesting. If you look at the quiz, you know I’m interested in it. So I started thinking about a research question, a question I’m going to try and answer during my research in the next half year. I came up with the following:

How can we use WEB 2.0 techniques to create social connections between members in online communities?

but I’m not really happy with it. Because with my research (together with a research project) I want to fill a knowledge gap. I want to work on a field where they can use some research. With this question I feel that it has already been proved how to do it if you look at flickr for example. Also I think it’s not specific enough. The problem is, I was very happy with this research question uptill now. So time is not on my side, tomorrow we have to present our subject and I really don’t know what to say. I already worked a lot around my current research question, I like the community aspect in the WEB 2.0 story. But I can’t see what added value this research can give to the information already available.
So maybe you can give me some quick suggestions about what do you think that in the WEB 2.0 landscape is still blurry. Or how I can make my current research question a lot more interesting. Or just something you wanted to know but never had time to research! =)

The research document will be available for download for everyone… Thanks in advance !

Coming very soon … for the moment only American content(NBA, CSI, NCIS, …), but I guess more is coming soon.

Larry Page announces Google’s video store on CES

Some Google Video movies :

Waterborne (www.waterbornethemovie.com )

WATERBORNE, the independent feature film that debuted to an Audience Award at the SXSW Film Festivsal, follows the fictional aftermath of a terrorist attack on the water supply of LA. Starring Jon Gries (Uncle Rico of “Napoleon Dynamite”), Ajay Naidu (”Office Space”), Chris Masterson (”Malcolm in the Middle”) and international star Shabana Azmi. Featuring the original score by Dredg.

Kintaro Walks Japan

Kintaro Walks Japan is the meticulously filmed and edited story of Tyler MacNiven’s 2,000 mile trek from the bottom of Japan to the very top. His five-month odyssey was meant to impress a girl and to find his American father’s Japanese birthplace. Tyler arm wrestled 100-year old ladies, dodged trains in tunnels and walked into the hearts of the Japanese people, quickly becoming a celebrity. Kintarowalksjapan.com

I haven’t seen the movies, but love the concept of google video movies…

I’ve always been a fan of Royksopp, but the magic of this song made me silent. It’s difficult to describe the voice of the girl (Karin Dreijer). So intense beautiful, I can’t stop listening … help !

Listening/Watching tip:
Put yourself comfortable in your dark computer room. Put on your headphones, loud enough. Sit back and enjoy the magic of music.

Royksopp – Where else is there? (movie clip: Windows Media Player), from the album with the same name. The other songs from the album are also very good, you’ve probably already heard the single: “Only this moment” .