Site Maps

Today we looked at the site map layout of the happiness factory ready for us to make out on site maps for our website. I had already started doing the site map and had a few extra minutes to edit it.

Discussion forum and blogs

Discussion forums tend to be questions of something that the user wants to ask peoples opinion on whereas blogs seem to be a way of telling people something. For example on a discussion forum you could post “What mobile phone is the best?” but on a blog you would post “This is the best mobile?” Questions can also be asked on blogs but the main blog overall is normally telling you about something with one person in control of what is on the site with a discussion forum the only thing you really get to do is start it off and contribute .

Email vs IM

Emails are similar to text messages only they don’t cost the user anything. The best thing about Emails is that they are like sending a letter only they take a few seconds to arrive. Also the same email can be sent to a number of different people at the same time. In order to receive e-mail you have to use an e-mail client, it’s simple and free to sign up to certain providers like Hotmail.

Vs

IM is the same as being part of a chat room; you can have conversations with people over the internet. With IM you can send a message to a friend but only if they are on the good thing about this is that you don’t end up sending a tonne of E-mails to someone who isn’t going to reply. One of the main thing that makes IM so popular is that it allows you to use a webcam and talk to people rather than just by written text.

My own personal opinion is that I prefer E-mails as for me to use IM it becomes disorientating when I’m talking to so many people at the same time and the sad thing is that it stresses me out. With E-mails you can take your time and you don’t have to rush the message you write back. But the main reason I don’t use IM is because I HATE text talk, I prefer it when people write the whole word especially when the text version of the word is longer than the real spelling of the word.

Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS)

Multimedia messaging service is similar to SMS (Short Messaging Service) as it allows messages to be sent from one mobile to another mobile. There is one advancement that has been made and that is that MMS can sent not only text but sound, images and videos. MMS works by uses a combination of WAP and SMS in order to send it across to another mobile phone user. The research site explained it as "when the message is sent from a mobile phone, a mobile phone connects to an MMSC via WAP and transmits the MMS message content to an MMSC & the MMSC then takes responsibility for further delivery".  So in short MMS only works by using a lot of other protocols to make it work.

Brands

Brand logos are something that represents a company, they can often be assosiated with something of quality. The logos are usually displayed on all the different things produced by that company so it can range from things like trainers to tracky bottoms although that same company tends to stick to the same type of product. For example nike do sports clothing so you wouldn't see the nike logo on a can of drink unless it's in a sports bottle. I think that these logos are important as you are able to easly identify the products just by looking at the logo imprinted on it and you know that the company obviously pride their products as they are willing to put their insignia on it. This is why a lot of people like to buy branded items and why they are associated with quality.

Storm Tracker 7!

Today we spend time improving our skills on Photoshop by following Julian's online tutorial that showed us how to do things such as make lightening, 3D writing, and clouds. It was really interesting to do and helped us get to know photoshop better.

Work, Work, Work!!!

Today we all sat down at a computer and did different tasks since we had this lesson spare before we had to show Julian our interviews tomorrow. I managed to do the story board for the website and start a flow chart of the buttons on the site. Zoe worked on the photoshop mock up and came out with me to find out all the names of the buildings, Lewis started building the website on flash and Josh edited the videos.

3G-Zoe's blog

I learned a lot from Zoe's blog, the first thing I learned was that although 3G was a good development and is very popular today to begin with it wasn't as popular. I know that the reason for this was because of how expensive it was to buy. I also learned that it is the reason video calls and internet access is allowed on a mobile which was the reason it was so expensive. In order to look at web pages on their mobiles a load of new "mobile friendly" pages needed to be made.

Lastly I learned that Zoe is a shopaholic!

GPRS (General Packet Radio Service)

GPRS stands for General Packet Radio Service, the main thing that GPRS does is allow 2G mobiles to send and receive information faster. The information travels at 32-48kbps and allows use during phone calls due to this it is now available on newer types of phones. The main reason this was developed was to make phones that are 2G closer to the standards of 3G phones. GPRS was introduced in 2000 this was called phase one, this phase only allowed information to be sent to one device at a given time. The plan is for GPRS to allow mobiles to send the same information to several devices at the same time this will be the second phase of GPRS.

Group discussion

We all went up to the Student Lounge to discuss what we had and had yet to do in our classes with Julian, the reason for  this was because we were unable to get on a computer with the correct software to start editing the interviews and making the website.

Filming the Interviews

Today we took out the camera and the rest of the equipment we would need to film all the interviews, Zoe had got hold of a lot of people and asked them to meet us for an interview. We had a few problems with some of the equipment but once we got used to doing the interviews we were able to do them in a short amount of time. We were trying to make it as organised as possible but it got to the stage where we were just grabbing who ever we could to interview. We were able to get all the interviews we needed in about an 2 hours which was a lot less time than we thought we would need.

GSM (Global System For Mobile Communication)

GSM stands for global system for mobile communication, the GSM is a competitive mobile internet sevice there are three other providers these are EDGE, CDMA and TDMA. GSM is the most popular service as it allows internet access and clear phone calls in most parts of the world.

WAP (Wireless Appilaction Protocol)

WAP the wireless application protocol is sometimes called the mobile internet, the reason for this being that it allows the user to access the internet via their mobiles. WAP is avaliable on most mobile phones, smartphones and PDA's. Because each of these devices tend to have a small screen the internet is displayed in the most basic form which allows it to be downloaded faster. Due to how popular WAP has become you are able to go on almost any sites and all of them are free of things such as java images and adds.

Using Discussion Forums

Using discussion forums is very simple to do you can learn how to use one in only a few minutes, I also found that it was a really good way to share information with other people and to comunicate without talking to each other.

What important information I learned from W3C that I will take in to account when creating a website

Reading the information on W3C's website I will take into account the disabilities that other people have and develop my website so that it best suits as many of those problems as possible. Since reading the information on W3C I have started to think of ways that I can make it possible for everyone to use it. I will take in to account things such as the font size and the background colour and adapt it to suit those who don'thave perfect eyesight. I will also make sure that anything I put on the Website doesn't flash more than 3 times in a second so that it doesn't cause any problems. Overall I think that reading the W3C information has made me more considerate of the limitation on the web for those with disabilities and how simply we can change it.

Group Meeting, The Plan and The Treatment

For the lesson we sat up in the student lounge and discussed our ideas and took notes over what we thought should be in each section. We also wrote down who we were going to ask to interview and what subjects we were going to aim to get an interview for. For the last fifteen minutes of the lesson we split into two groups and took some photos of the college buildings to use on the 3D overlay. We also agreed on what each of us was going to do between now and our next lesson together.

Group Meeting

Today we had a group meeting in M:019 we discussed different ideas that we all had for our Weymouth College website on flash and then decided on one main idea that was developed slightly by adding new ideas to it. We also were able to plan what we are going to do in tomorrows lessons so that we don' t waste any time, we all agreed that it would be best to start taking images straight away so in the first lesson we're going to write out the plan and any other written work we need to do and then take the camera's out and take the necessary pictures.