PERSONAL WEBMELODY: CUSTOMIZED SONIFICATION OF WEB SERVERS                                     

Maria Barra     Tania Cillo    Antonio De Santis                                     Teenie Matlock   
Umberto Ferraro Petrillo                                                               
Paul P. Maglio   
Alberto Negro                       Vittorio Scarano                                                
Dipartimento di Informatica ed Applicazioni                              IBM Almaden Research Center
Universit di Salerno                                        650 Harry Rd., NWE-B2  
Baronissi (Salerno), 84081 Italy                                    San Jose, CA 95120 USA 
{marbar,umbfer,alberto,vitsca}@unisa.it          {tmatlock, pmaglio}@almaden.ibm.com                 


ABSTRACT
This paper presents Personal WebMelody, a sonified web                                                
server that informs its administrator of both normal and                                              
abnormal operation through background music. It allows                                                
customization and full integration of system-generated music                                          
representing web server activity with external music sources                                          
(audio CD, MP3, etc) selected by the administrator.                                                   
Our sonification technique works by associating MIDI or WAV                                           
sound tracks with web server events. In an attempt to enable                                          
the webmaster to listen to such system-generated music for a                                          
long period without becoming fatigued, we introduce the                                               
opportunity of mixing an external music source with system-                                           
generated music. In this way, the administrator cheanar  the                                          
status of the web server while listening to his or her preferred                                      
music.                                                                                                
We present an empirical study that shows how our web server                                           
sonification can convey useful information efficiently.                                               



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