Video Conferencing

Video conferencing is a good way of communicating as it allows you to reach people immediately. Many businesses have started using video conferencing to allow people to talk without having to travel long distances for meetings. Video conferencing can allow large groups of people to interact with one another at different locations all over the world. Most video conferring software will allow you to share power point presentations and other documents with each other.

Some video conferencing software can be pricey but if you are looking for some software with only a few features it will bring the price down a lot. However, this option will be a lot cheaper than continually flying clients around the world if you are part of a business. If you are a business situated in a remote area with a slow internet connection their may be issues with the quality of the audio/video. However, the majority of business’ looking to communicate through this protocol won’t have problems very few suffer from slow internet connections.

Broadband ADSL

Broadband ADSL –

ADSL broadband (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) is the most popular type of broadband. ADSL broadband is supplied by BT and uses a standard phone line to connect people to the internet. Broadband works by converting your normal analogue phone line to a digital phone line which allows to you to transmit data at a faster speed that you would if you were using a dial-up connection.

If you are using an analogue modem you will get an approximate speed of 56kbps. ADSL broadband will allow you to get a speed of about 512kbps or even faster. ADSL can provide internet to 99% of homes and businesses in the UK.

Bluetooth is a wireless technology standard used for getting data from one person to another. Bluetooth technology only allows you to exchange data with people that are a short distance away from you. Short wavelength radio transmissions are sent from fixed and mobile devices. Bluetooth was created in 1994 and was used as an alternative to rs-232 data cables. Bluetooth has its advantages and disadvantages. It can be a good way of transferring images and audio to contacts without having to connect your device to a computer. It is also a good way of over-coming synchronization problems which is stopping you from putting files onto your device. Once you have your device with Bluetooth enabled it allows you to send data for free unlike if you were sending it via MMS. Personally, I use Bluetooth a fair bit when I want to receive music or photos from somebody.  I have received some problems using Bluetooth if I am not close enough to person I am sending/receiving files from. Bluetooth Special Interest Group is managing Bluetooth at the moment.

Evaluating Work

Today my brain seems on a different planet so thank god I have Sophie to help me out a bit! I asked everyone in the group to write some bullet point answers on what they think went well in our assignment and what they think could have been improved if we did the assignment again. I thought this would be easier than getting everyone to crowd around a computer to do an evaluation. I think everyone found it tough to give any negative feedback because the assignment went really well and we all worked as hard as we could to get the best grade possible. When we first got put into our groups to do the project I had my doubts that we would get much done because we hardly knew each other and we didn't know what each persons strengths and weaknesses were.  However, now that we are at the end of the project I think that it really paid off getting our groups decided for us because it meant that we got to know some other people in the group. I found it really easy to get on with everyone and I felt that I could ask the others for help if I was struggling with anything which was really reassuring. If we had to do a group assignment again I would love to work with the same people although I think it would be good to get to know some other people in the group a little bit better.

Printing off, tidying up.. In hope to get a production file of some sort.

As a group we have all looked at what needs to be done and what needs printing off. I have asked everyone in the group to print off all of their work or either email it to Sophie or me. The website has come together well and we got some clear feedback from some other people in the group on what they think of our work. I made a questionnaire today in Jackey's lesson to find out what some other people thought of the website. From our feed back we learnt that there was not enough information on our website. This was good to find out because we now have a little bit of time to put some extra stuff on there before the deadline. One thing we will definitely be adding is some information on where the college is situated for the people who are new to Weymouth.

Right now I'm going to finish typing and leave the LG as there is a VERY annoying person making their chair squeak beside me!

Weymouth College

A little something that I did on Photoshop following another tutorial of course. Let me know what you think :)
This tutorial was really short but I think it is a great way of editing text.

http://www.photoshopessentials.com/photoshop-text/text-effects/image-in-text/

Trying out a Photoshop Tutorial

Today I followed a tutorial to create a 'Light Burst' effect. The end result could have been better but I tried my best :) If anyone else wants to give this tutorial a go the address is:

http://www.photoshopessentials.com/photoshop-text/text-effects/light-burst/   

I find that following tutorials are helpful because you pick up lots of skills as you go along.

Working away again..

Sophie and I went to take some images of the buildings we filmed in around college today. This will be a part of our location recce which we did before we started filming. Tomorrow I have to do my review so that I can give it to Sophie. This will give us another part to our production file. Later I will print off the location reccee when we are in the LG, so that I have some more work to give to Louis (Our production Manager)

Vector. Bitmap

Bitmap images are made up of lots of tiny squares. These squares are arranged together to create the effect of the image. If the image is very bright and clear it will have a higher resolution to an image which is fuzzy and a poorer quality. Higher resolution images are made up of lots of little dots which makes the image clear. The fewer dots there is the poorer the resolution. Bitmap images often have a large file size which is not good if you're trying to store a lot of these images. If you enlarge a bitmap image you will be able to see the formation of the tiny squares, this is a big disadvanage if you want to make the image alot bigger because you will lose the quality.

Vector Images are alot different to Bitmap. These images are not made up of tiny squares, they are put together by curves and straight lines Unlike Bitmap, with Vector you are able to make the image bigger without losing the quality. Also, Vector images usually have a really small file size so if you are looking to store lots of images then this vector has a big advantage over Bitmap.

Editing More Interviews..

Today Sophie and I were editing another interview for our promotional college website. The interview we edited was really short so we decided to add some more images on Adobe Premiere to make the video longer. Louis was using Flash to continue making our website. Josh was also editing the interviews we have.

Working on our day off, we must be good!

Today Louis and I went to college to do some more filming for our promotional college website. We did some filming at the front of the college, in the mechanics workshop, in the performing arts block and around the college square. It went really well and we got all of the filming down which we wanted to do.

Another day... Another post...

We have been given time in Jackey's lesson to get on with our assignment. This has been helpful because it has allowed us to get some of our notes typed up. I have receieved an email from Sophie which contains the budget, this will go in our pre-production file. We haven't been able to get on with any work on Flash because only a few computers in the college have Flash on them. This is a problem which is slowing us down alot in terms of getting the website working. :( I have updated the schedule which helps us determine how long we have left to do all of the tasks. Louis and I have decided that we will come in on Friday and get some filming done which we can use as cut-offs in our interviews.

1st November - Work. Work. Work.

Today, Sophie, Josh and I were using Adobe Premiere to edit some more interviews for our promotional college website. We cut out parts of the interview which weren't relevant and also made the video's fade in. We also faded the audio when someone else started to talk in the interview. Louis was using Flash and Photoshop to get the basic website so it functioned. As a group we decided that we needed to get some short cut off clips from around the college so we could add it to the interviews. I think today went really well and everything seems to be coming together. I really hope I will be saying the same at the end of the week!

Branding

Branding is one of the key aspects in a business, whether the business is small or large. When you get a brand name which is recognisable means that people can relate to your product in competitive markets. The brand is telling your customers what they can expect from the product. Once you have a brand it is important to be consistant, this is the key point to getting a successful brand. Strong brands allow the customer to build a trust between themselves and the product. Your brand is not only a name and a logo it also has to convay a message.

Discussion Forums and Blogs.

Discussion forums tend to give a feeling that everyone in welcome to add their own thoughts and opinions. Forums allow anyone to start a discussion about anything and wait to get a response by anyone viewing that forum. Discussion forums are usually helpful because the person looking at your discussion is often interested in it and are likely to give constructive critics or advance, rather than start a slanging match because they don’t like what you have to say!


Blogs still allow you to comment on the post but it is less open for discussion like forums. The blog is usually written by one person who has researched a topic on the internet and added information from different sources. Blogs often come from one individual or in some cases, a team of people if it is for business.


“In the context of business communication, these are often used to talk with the marketplace and to join the conversation that existing external bloggers may be having” - Jeremiah Owyang, Columnist for Forbes CMO Network.

Email and IM

Emailing is a way of communicating by exchanging messages across the internet.  Emailing is a quick way of sending information to whoever you want. An advantage of emailing is that you can communicate with people quickly no matter where they are.

Although there are many advantages of using email services, there are some disadvantages too.  Emailing allows you too attach files and images which can be seen as a plus side to using email but that feature allows people to add viruses /malicious malware to the email.

Instant messaging is usually seen as a fun way of keeping up with friends and sending files to each other. Most instant messaging services only allow you to send a short message. IM has a few advantages over email. For example, you don’t get junk mail. Like Email, it is possible for other contacts to send you malicious files which can harm your pc.

Personally, I use email more than IM because I find it more convenient as it doesn’t require you both to be online at the same time.

MMS - Multimedia Messaging Service

MMS is similar to SMS in the way it allows people to communicate by sending messages. However, SMS is just a simple way to send a short message to a contact, whereas MMS allows you to send images, sound, text pages and videos.

MMS was first used in Japan when camera phones first come out. At first there were a few technical difficulties in opening the picture message that you had received because it was in a different format to what the phone would usually be compatible with. 

****I found it quite difficult to get information MMS that I could understand. If anyone can give me some help in understanding this, please write some info

MY WONDERFUL WORK...With a bit of help from Julian, of course.

This is what I created today in Julian's lesson. To create this I used Photoshop CS4 and followed a tutorial on Youtube. I found it very interesting and learnt some new techniques. The technique that I think will be most useful is the gradient tool to create a 3D effect.

..Making our lovely college website!

Today we spent an hour and a half on our college website assignment. We didn't want all 4 of us trying to do the same thing so we split what we had to do up, making it easier to get our work done. Sophie was in charge of the story boarding. She also made a flow chart which showed the buttons we would have on our website. Louis was working on Flash to get more of an idea on how our website would work. Josh was using Adobe Premier to edit the video's we got from students around college. I started to make a photoshop mock-up which would show the home page of our interactive wesbite. I used Google earth to get a birds eye view of the college. At the moment I am still at college and because only the minority of the computers in college have Adobe Software on them I cannot complete the mock-up until I get home. I will definitely be finishing this tonight as tommorow our group will be showing Julian what we have done so far and I don't think a simple mock-up will be too impressive! I think today went really well in general, although I wasn't too happy with the quality of the image I was using from Google Earth. I'm really pleased how our group is working together and I'm sure the end result will show how much effort everyone has put in to it.

Revolting ART + DESIGN

Be daring, be different,
Be all you can be but have integrity, imagination and purpose.
Believe in what you do.
Don’t be a slave to mediocrity or convention but contribute something new and exciting and different.
Everything else is just about being the same.
- 

Ross Cleaver, Creative Director of Revolting Art +Design

LEARNING - What we should be doing at college, right?!

I read Sophie's post and learnt that GPRS was developed to try and help 2G with the speed it can send and receieve data. GPRS allows you to be receiving information as well as being on the phone at the same time.
In 2000, GPRS was released, it was known under something called phase one, phase one only allowed you to send information to one device at a time. GPRS is hoping to bring out phase 2 which will allow you to send information to more than one device at a time.

Thank you Sophie for helping me understand what GPRS is about.

If i have made any mistakes, don't hesitate to correct me :)

>> 3G << This took me ages.. so READ!!!

3G technology  first started in 2000, since then it has become more and more popular. In 2000, 3G was a completely new technology out, it was not linked to 2G technology. As it was something new on offer it started off with a few problems. 3G’s biggest problem was that it was extemely expensive.  In order for 3G to work, new networks had to be built which added to the cost. After a year of getting 3G together, Japan launched 3G in 2001.

3G allows network providers to offer their  customers more. For instance, people with 3G on their mobile phones can video call. Other advantages include having the internet wirelessly whenever you need it. 3G systems provide quick internet access to all kinds of data like map and positioning services. 3G can be used for whatever you choose whether it’s multi-player gaming or even shopping whilst you are sitting at home.  (obviously being able to shop 24/7 is my favorite feature of 3G!!)

Although 3G is now being put onto even the most basic phones, it wasn’t like that the entire time. 3G was only a feature which was added to smart phones such as the iPhone, Blackberry and other brands which sell more advanced mobile phones.

Interviewing

At college today we had to interview students about how they feel they are getting on at Weymouth College. I arranged the interviews at the weekend so it made it easier to get the videoing completed more quickly. We used the equipment which we booked out for today which was a small video camera, tripod, spare battery, microphone and a wind protector. We did the majority of our videoing in the student lounge whilst it was quiet this morning but we also did some filming in the performing arts department and in the college square. We got all of the interviews done we wanted which was good because we had only booked the equipment out for one day. Also, we uploaded the video's onto the computer which allows us to get editing shortly. We will be importing our files on to Adobe Premiere and getting them ready so that they can be used on our website.

WAP and GSM

WAP is an application communication protocol which is used to access services and information. WAP is for mobile phones and other hand-held devices. It is a protocol designed for micro browsers (a small piece of software that makes minimal demands on hardware, memory and CPU.) which allows you to create web applications for mobile devices. HTML, XML and TCP/IP) are the internet standards which WAP standard is based on. 

WAP can be used for many different things, such as checking weather conditions, purchasing tickets, looking up addresses and even looking up sport results as well as many other things. WAP is good as it provides people with a service which they can use wherever they are, this allows you to get information quickly.

GSM (global system for mobile communications) is used all over the world to allow people to roam between mobile network operators. GSM can be used for practical and every day services. GSM offers more than other network technologies and offers users a wider international roaming capability. GSM uses digital technology and is a second-generation [2G] cell phone system.

Mobile network T-Mobile uses GSM technology for its cell phone network. This allows T-Mobile users to access information and services whenever they need to.

Some of the advantages of using GSM include: 

.A stable network which had robust features.

. You’re more likely to maintain a good amount of signal inside a building

. GSM covers virtually all parts of the world so international roaming is not a problem.

Using a forum on Moodle

Today I added my own discussion to Moodle about saving files in different formats on Photoshop. I got positive feed back and other students thought my post was helpful. I also commented on other discussions and gave my opinion on what they had to say. I found the forum useful as it allowed me to communicate with other people in the class without having to speak to the face-to-face. I will definitely be adding some more posts to the forum and if I ever find something difficult I will definitely be asking for help!

W3C - Important Information

What important information from W3C will you now concider before you produce a website?

I learnt that W3C develops guidelines which allows the web to be accessible for all, dispite disabilities and conditions which may make it harder for someone to use the web. Before looking at the W3C website I didn't even think about how websites need to be created to accommodate all people, I just imagined that only people like myself, who doesnt have any disabilities would use the web.

Before you make a website it is important to concider that all different types of people will be using the web, for example, here are some factors which will need to be focused on.

 color blindness

stress injury

blind people

dyslexia

aging-related conditions

 cognitive disability

deaf people

Getting together the Proposal and Treatment

Today we started off by having a discussion on the proposal and treatment for our website. To do this we broke down what we had to do into smaller sections which allowed us to get a brief schedule which could later have more detail added to it. As we are working in a group of 4 we thought it would be best to split up into pairs when we needed to get information. As a group we decided what we wanted our website to look like and as a result we needed to get images of the college buildings. We got these images today and uploaded them onto the computer. This will allow us to edit them and get onto the next step in our schedule.

Group Discussion for college website

Today we got into our groups and had a discussion on some ideas which would be good for our Weymouth College website. We had a range of ideas but decided on one idea which we thought would be the strongest. In tomorrows lesson we have decided that we want to get a booking form filled out so that we can take out a video camera which we would use to interview a range of different students around the college. We are also going to use still images on our website which we will take on 2 cameras, bought into college from home. We are hoping to get the still images onto the computer tomorrow as well so they are ready to be edited and used on our website.

SMS

SMS is a short messaging service which allows you to communicate with your contacts by text messaging on your phone. SMS is an easy way to communicate and is used all over the world. Depending on what mobile network you are with, SMS can be a cheap way of getting brief messages from one person to another. SMS can be used in business' and for personal use to do everything from send a joke to your friend or even send important data to a client from your workplace. I find SMS very convienient and I use this system on a regular basis to keep in contact with friends.