29/02/08 - 6/03/08

This weeks lecture was again on audio. We covered sound, frequency and amplitude (e.g. "two waves, same frequency, different amplitude = same not, different loudness), digital audio, sampling (sample rate and quantitization/sample depth), aliasing, audio sampling including typical sample sizes and typical sampling rates. I found the lecture has helpful for an understanding of audio and also helped me understand what I was looking at when using audacity in last weeks tutorial a bit better. For this week I decided to look up aliasing and sampling for my external reading because I found that I understood these less than the other topics covered in the lecture:

Aliasing:
www.tagnet.org/digitalhymnal/en/glossary_a-l.html
Sampling:
www.dvd-makers.com/public/468.cfm

In the tutorial this week we learned how to use Adobe Premiere. I followed the tutorials found within the software on the help page which introduced us to the basic components of video editing. The tutorial pages also explained how to create a home movies, capture video into a new project, organise / assemble / edit clips, add effects and transitions (such as bluring, distorting, fading in / fading out etc), add a title and create DVD's. I found using Adobe Premiere interesting and found using the tutorials helped a lot in learning how to use it and hope we get to use it again in future tutorials.

Overall I found the lecture helpful this week for expanding my knowledge on audio. I found that it also helped me understand what I was looking at when using Audacity when we looked at soundwaves and frequency and amplitude. I also found that a lot of what was discussed were things I hadn't previously come across. The tutorial was interesting because I used Adobe Premiere for the first time. I found the tutorials within the software helpful and found it relatively straightforward. I think I would benefit from using it more, so hopefully we'll get to carry on using it in the next tutorial.

22/02/08 - 27/02/08

First off we looked at the blog marks we had up until Christmas, and I was happy with mine! Then we moved on to look at multimedia "pallette" and how audio can be captured from the real world (e.g. recorded audio / video) or created electronically (e.g. synthesised audio / computer animations). We were also told about different audio types, what you need to consider when using audio and other aspects such as content / interface / incidental audio. The lecture notes also covered the production effort; which would include things such as scripting / composing, acting / performing and many others.

The tutorial was also based on audio files, but we actually got to edit some sounds using Audacity. The sound wasn't working on my computer (and yes I checked if the volume was turned up etc!) but I still followed the notes and had a go at it. But I did find Bethan's eventual duck sounds amusing that she made out of the files, so I got a good idea of how it worked by watching what she was doing too (although I thik some people were a bit irritated by the the repeated quacking and giggling coming from our side of the room).

Overall I enjoyed both the tutorial and the lecture this week and found both gave me a better understanding of audio files and what you can actually do with them. But I think the tutorial was more benefitial for me just because I tend to learn more when I'm doing something myself rather than sitting and listening to someone because I'm quite easily distracted. So I'm looking forward to hopefully getting to use Audacity again and editing some more audio files. I still found the lecture very informative and I had learned something new by the time it had finished.


I also looked up some tutorials on Audacity for future reference:

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/help/tutorials
http://www.edhsonline.org/other/audacity/

15/2/08 - 21/2/08

In the lecture we looked at writing for multimedia, which involved topics such as writing style, printing vs online reading, publishing vs dialogue, maintenance etc. I found this weeks lecture useful for covering the many different aspects of writing for multimedia and how the features such as linking can affect how people actually look at the content on a page, eg if links are distracting the user may click on it without reading what's on the rest of the page.

In the tutorial, we had attatched a database to an the asp page so that it could read data from it. I found the tutorial useful to help develop my knowledge of CSS and found designing the website interesting as it isn't something I've done a lot of before now. It was another opportunity to familiarise myself with dreamweaver a bit more so I found that aspect helpful.

Overall I found the tutorial and lecture both useful this week. I found that I developed my knowledge of CSS and web design during the tutorials, and how using writing for multimedia can affect how people portray how people react to different aspects of a piece of text. I found a website that also explained how to link asp pages to an access database, just for a bit of extra help incase I needed it later on:

http://www.haneng.com/Lessons_17.asp


I also found the website below, which covered writing for multimedia and topics such as how to organise content etc:

http://writing.atomicmartinis.com/

1/2/08 - 7/2/08

This weeks lecture was based on text; where and why it is used such as webpages so we more or less covered the basic concepts of it. We were also given pointers on what to consider when designing such as who is going to be reading it, how it is going to be presented and where it is going to be used. We were also told how text can be used for different purposes such as to represent an image. He also talked about text codes which I decided to look up for my external reading this week:

http://www.grasshopperllc.com/help/PGSuser/textcodes.html
http://www.asciitable.com/

The tutorial this week followed on from last weeks, which is the one I missed. But I had got the notes for it from somebody in my tutorial group and sort of managed to catch up. This weeks tutorial was an introduction to page layout using XHTML and CSS which we had previously been told about in one of the lectures. We were given a link to a website to get different CSS codes. We had to create / attatch style sheets, add content to it such as titles and then format them to specific fonts etc that we wanted to use, all using XHTML and CSS.

Overall I found the lecture a lot more interesting than before, again because I found the topic more interesting than some of the previous lectures and also found it a lot easier to understand. I found the idea of text for other things such as images interesting. The tutorial was a bit less straight forward than usual because I hadn't managed to make it to last week, so I was really playing catch up, but I still found using dreamweaver interesting and I don't think it will take me too long to catch back up.

25/01/08 - 31/01/08

For this weeks lecture we looked at an introduction to mark up - HTML and CSS (Multimedia and the web). The basis of the lecture was learning what mark up language is, what it's used for, different types of it, and what the advantages/disadvantages of it are. We also looked into XHTML and CSS in a bit more detail, such as the difference between HTML and XHTML. We were also informed of the importance of validating and how to do it / where to get the forms etc from. but also I found another definition for XHTML and CSS on it on this website:

http://www.web-design-tips.info/webdesign_glossary.html

For this weeks tutorial we were supposed to use dreamweaver for the first time, and were asked to use manage site to set up a XHTML page and then attatch a CSS page to it. I didn't actually manage to make this weeks tutorial, but I asked somebody about it and looked for tutorials for dreamweaver on the internet just so I might catch up a bit easier next week.

http://www.intranetjournal.com/articles/200002/dream_index.html

Considering I missed this weeks tutorial I can't really comment on it, but from what I've heard it seems like it was pretty interesting. The lecture I found a bit more interesting than last week so I found understanding it a bit easier as well, I found it helpful for an understanding of mark up - XHTML and CSS and also found the extra information on validating helpful in understanding how important it is. So I'm just intending on catching up for next week, maybe if I could lend the tutorial notes off a friend, but think I would have better understanding if I’d managed to make it to the tutorial.

18/01/08 - 24/01/08

The topic for this weeks lecture was basic operations, we basically looked at display features such as pixels / colour / size of images or graphics. The different area's covered in the lecture included; models, display, applications program, graphics library, colour depths etc. I found this helpful as it isn't something I have previously taken interest in and didn't really understand, however I have to admit I found it boring as I simply didn't find the topic particularly interesting. Although I did take notes, because of the lack of interest I felt in the lecture I looked up pixels and colour depth and found the two websites shown below:

http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/p/pixel.html
http://hankfiles.pcvsconsole.com/answer.php?file=459

The tutorial was interesting as we got to use photoshop again, but we got edit a piece of text so that it had an image used for the colour of it rather than just using the usual text colours. I used the same text and image as the one's used in the tutorial sheet, using "hello" for the text and a picture of a rose for the image. I also managed to do a bit more of last weeks tutorial as I didn't get round to finishing it. It was as usual straightforward to follow the tutorial notes and was overall easy enough to understand.

I didn't find the lecture interesting this week, not because of the lecturer but simply because I found the topic extrememly boring, however I still found it wasn't a particularly difficult topic to understand. The tutorial was a lot more interesting, however still may not have been as benefitial as the lecture simply because I had less understanding of the lecture topic this week. I found both the lecture and the tutorial helpful, I just hope the topic for the next lecture is a bit more interesting.

11/01/08 - 17/01/08

This week's lecture was focused on multimedia with particular focus on graphics for now. Decision making considering graphics was discussed under topics such as client requirements and target audiences. Graphics sources was also mentioned to help for an understanding of where graphics can come from and how they are created / used. I think that defining what a graphic is will be easier after this as although I already knew what graphics were and where they come from, I wouldn't have been as in-depth if asked to explain it to someone else and therefore found the lecture very useful. For a bit of further reading this week I just looked up "multimedia" online and found the following:

www.herts.ac.uk/ltdu/technology/what_is_multimedia.html


I didn't actually finish the tutorial notes this week, but am definately going to try and finish before next weeks tutorial. We used Photoshop again but this week we had to use the layers application to edit / combine different graphics to make one. When it came to selecting / removing the opaque area around the clock I couldn't seem to stop removing the legs of the clock so gave up in the end and just left it without any. I'll probably try it all again at some point to see if I can do it without cutting the legs out. I got as far as linking the layers so I'm going to attempt the "adding a gradient" etc sections at some point before the next tutorial. For my extra reading for the tutorial I'm going to use the Photoshop tutorial I have previously used to read up / get help with the topics I hadn't got round to doing.

I found the tutorial more challenging than the lecture this week, however neither were difficult to follow, it just simply took me more time to understand what I was doing in the tutorial. The lecture was, as usual, straight forward to follow and helpful and again added to the knowledge I already had of the topic previously. The tutorial was equally as helpful and I'm finding using Photoshop a lot easier than the attempt I made at it alone.