Bluetooth

Bluetooth  is an open wireless technology standard used for exchanging data over a short distance, ranging from around an arms length from each other to over 100m, and can be used from fixed and mobile devices, most mobile phones commonly come with Bluetooth nowadays.
Bluetooth was first implemented in 1994, originally as a wireless alternative to RS-232 data cables.
It uses radio technology called frequency-hopping spread spectrum and it chops up data being sent and transmits chunks of it.
Bluetooth is used in wireless headsets for phones and wireless networking between computers where little bandwidth is required, as well as many other things.
There have been 4 versions of Bluetooth since '94, each building on it's predecessor to a faster data transfer standard.

A taste of GIFs

In Ross Cleaver's lessons we have been using Adobe Illustrator, to show how we can utilise all of Illustrators uses we had to draw a vector image of the toolbar, that was just the begining though, once finished we were told to open it in photoshop and after making many copies of the image and adding text to each one, create an animated GIF which explains which each button on the toolbar is. And after exporting it, this is the final result!

Using Adobe Premiere

To edit the videos we used the Adobe Premiere software, to use this you first have to import the video in .avi format into premiere, you can then drag it from the list on the left hand side into the timeline.

From the timeline you can effectively do what ever you like to the sound and video. I began by unlinking the sound from the video this allows you to move them both out of sinc and begin editing, the shortcut “c” starts the cut tool, moving the cursor over the asset and clicking cuts it at that spot, this breaks the asset up and you can move both of them around.

This allows you to add in cut away to other scenes, which can be imported in the same way as the first video.

Including adding other scenes you can also add transitions to smooth the cut aways to other clips, transitions such as dip to black / white, which really help in making the final video look more professional.

Bitmap and Vector imaging

There are 2 major 2D graphic types, these are Bitmap and Vector imaging.
Bitmap images (also known as raster images) are made up of pixels in a grid, pixels are like individual dots of colour, that make up an image. Bitmap images are resolution dependant. Resolution refers to the number of pixels in an image and is usually stated as dpi (dots per inch) or ppi (pixels per inch). Bitmap images are displayed on your computer screen at screen resolution: approximately 100 ppi. Because bitmaps are resolution dependent, it's difficult to increase or decrease their size without sacrificing a degree of image quality.

Vector images are made up of many individual, scalable objects. And compared to bitmap images, use mathmatical equations so always scale to the highest quality. They are resoluation independant, how ever a disadvantage is they only use basic shapes to create images compared to bitmap which can create a more detailed image.

Our Assignment:

A few weeks ago we were given an assignment in which we had to design and make an informative website which can help people who are considering coming to Weymouth College by giving them course infomation and a small taste of what life at Weymouth College is like.
Since then we were put into groups, my group being Louis Reed, Zoe Hunt, Sophie Anstey and myself. And have worked hard to make our idea a reality.

Branding, a companies biggest weapon

Walking down the highstreet you see a big yellow "M", immediately you recognise it as McDonalds, you look in a sports shop and see a big tick, these trainers are obviously Nike, these are just two examples of famous brands established by companies.
A brand allows a business to sum up it's company into a logo, name or phrase that gives it some personality.


Coca Cola is one of the most well known brands in the world.



Brand awareness is measured in how well customers recognise the brand under differing conditions and link to the brand name, logo and jingles to certain associations in memory.

Advantages of a well known brand include; lower marketing costs, quicker identification of products, in the case of brand logos being able to skip over the language barrier of foreign countries.

To: Jingle1692@hotmail.co.uk

Email is a way for people to send letters, pictures, videos and other attachments via the internet to another email address, it is faster that traditional "snail mail" and is immune to postal strikes which is an enormous advantage, not to mention it saves paper in an age where resources are dwindling. They are big, allowing anywhere from 10mb to over 1gb to be sent, depending on your provider, Gmail etc.

Instant Messaging is a way of communicating like email, but is.. well, instant, it requires the user and the recipient to be on the same server to chat, the most popular example is windows live messenger (MSN),  microsofts IM service, IM requires both users to be online and allows them to have a normal convosation through typing as opposed to talking, in real time, compared to emails which need the recipient to look at their inbox, read the message and then reply. Though email does have the advantage that the person you are sending the mail to can be offline.

MMS, or the handsome older brother of SMS

MMS stands for Multimedia Messaging Service, a new standard in mobile messaging. Like SMS it is a way to send messages from one mobile to another, however it differs from SMS due to the fact that it can send, sound, images and videos as well as the standard text. It also allows SMS from mobiles be sent to email addresses.

Formats that can be embedded within MMS include:

• Text (formatted with fonts, colours, etc)
• Images (JPEG, GIF format)
• Audio (MP3, MIDI)
• Video (MPEG)

MMS is an extension to the SMS protocol so it’s pretty easy to use if you are familiar with SMS technology. One of the main differences between MMS and SMS is that while SMS messages are limited to 160 bytes, an MMS message has no limit and can be many Kbytes in size. 

You're listening to GPRS radio!

General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) is used on mobile phones to allow 2G phones to constantly download data  at a faster rate (around 32-48Kbps), even while talking to someone with it! 

The service is split up into classes, the better the class the faster your transfer speed is, for example if you have class 2 GPRS with 3 slots this means you are limited to 8 - 12 kbps upload/ 16 - 24kbps download.

GPRS is available on most new phones with a range of classes to suit them.

The Third Generation

3G, or too give it its full name, International Mobile Telecommunications-2000, and is the third generation of wireless technologies. What makes it better than it's predecessors is its high speed transmission, advanced multimedia access and global roaming and IPTV support (TV through the phone). Its main use is it's ability to connect mobile devices to the Internet and allow voice and video calls between people.

Unlike Wi-Fi hot spots, which tend to be free, 3G requires you to be subscribed to a service provider to get connected.

A slight disadvantage of 3G is it's cost, it's not very cheap, however that is counterbalanced with the service it provides some would argue that the price is worth having Internet access on the move. Some providers offer it in expensive packages, however some offer plans where the user pays for the amount of data transferred, reducing the cost if you don't use it all the time.

So is 3G worth it? Hell yeah.

W3C, and how it benefits web developers.

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) was founded by creator of the internet Tim Berners-Lee, it is a document reviewed by many parties who all have the common goal of making the Internet easily accessible to everyone.
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines are a group of recommendations developed by the W3C and other parties too better help website developers create websites that are more accessible to people mainly with disabilities such as blindness. Websites are graded against the guidelines to see wheher they conform to them and thus offer better access to the public.
So basically, the W3C is looking out for less priviledged people by helping make websites more open and interactive with everyone.

SMS and you.

SMS, or Short Message Service, is basically the texting component of any mobile phone. Nearly everyone has experianced communication in this manner. Whether it was that drunken  message declaring your love to someone, or asked for a lift from your mum, you've used SMS.

It is the most used communication method in the world with over 2 billion people using it worldwide, it does have it's advantages, it is cheaper than phoning someone, you can do it anywhere where you have signal, but since it is text based you can't really convey any emotion in your writing and people may take texts the wrong way.