stick death!

this weeks lecture was about multimedia design techniques. in the lecture we learned about various techniques you can use to create a multimedia project. we were told about the need to consider the user of the project and not to please your own tastes. we were made aware that certain colour schemes would be hard for certain people to see and were shown first hand how frustrating it is if a flash presentation has over the top navigation. if the navigation is too complicated most users will "switch off" or just give up on the page all together. however we were also showen a very creative flash movie based in the flash2004 program. i stick man is drawn on the screen and is then a target of attacks by various features of the program!the stick man defends himself and it turns into an out and out war with the cursor towards the end of the movie. this video was hilarious, even better than wedding crashers. it was soo impressive because it was a simple idea executed soo well.i was glad that this was an interesting lecture because i was fit to drop after the 5 hours of lectures i had in the day!i have found a good use of flash in a commercial myspace profile for the rap group g-unit. it is a menu at the top of the page, made in flash, to redirect you to the G-unit artists profile you are looking for. the page can be found at http://www.myspace.com/gunit

peace
x

the wedding crashers!!lol

i saw the best bit of flash ive ever seen in yesterdays lecture! it was from the film the wedding crasher and you could upload a .jpg of your face and put it into the advert!the example we had was of a picture of some random guys face overlayed onto Vince Vaughns character! the results were hilarious, its definatly one to show your friends! the main lecture was mainly about multimedia file formats. although basic i did learn about a few new file formats and was refreshed on the others. it was interesting to see which file formats were popular and which failed. although personally i think the .avi format is possibly more widespread than quicktime and definatly more useful as it can easily be transfered into mpeg files which are compatable with many media players and codecs or ever into .3gp files which are up and coming and are useful for devices such as mobile phones and the sonys multimedia device the PSP(playstation portable).i also learnt about the different sizes of compression for different files.for instance a .jpg file is far smaller than bitmap images which are huge.this is where quicktime video is good because although quality isnt always to the standard of avi/mpg the file compression is greater and so the reduced file size is preferable for websites.

this blog entry is about done for now as my girlfriend looks extremly bored as i sit here typing! so have a good weekend or whatever!:D

x

lecture 2!

I had my second lecture in multimedia today and it was as usual one of the more interesting modules in my network management and security course. there seems to be some really exciting possibilities with Flash and im looking forward to developing my skills and hopefully gain enough skill and experience to make some amazing flash presentations!todays lecture built on what we had learned last week, and advanced into "tweening". this is a simple animation technique where text and other objects can be manipulated into an animated video. this looks like a very intresting development and will definatly come in useful, however we also learned in the lecture that too many tweened objects on a page can be distracting as it draws the eye away from more bland objects such as text which will be the main body of a page.
Also i checked out the "aqualtis" flash move on the website we were trying to view in the lecture, and i was stunned!this is possibly the best example of flash i have ever seen. the whole page is nothing short of genius!you can find this page at http://www.dariopiana.com/home.html. i would recommend this site to anyone simply because of the skill involved in its production!i will check out the rest of the site when im back in uni tomorrow as the uni connection is far quicker than mine!
Thankfully i discovered that my copy of macromedia suite 8 is compatable with the mx 2004 software we use in glamorgan. this was useful as i have struggled to locate a copy of the now outdated mx edition through my usual channels!you can simple save the project as either a flash 8 file or the more compatable mx '04 file!this is very useful as i can not only get on with my work at home, but i can also use the software on my laptop which i take to uni! all this sounds good but it doesnt leave many excuses as to why i didnt do my project when i should have!!!!(only joking, im a good student really!)

well its bye for now as i prepare for another day at uni and hopefully a good weekend!

stay smooth!
tom
xXx

ENROLEMENT NUMBER!!!!!

ENROLEMENT NUMBER:06030289

thanks :D

MATHS!!!!!!!!!

well i had my first maths lecture today and it was very interesting! i struggled at first but was desperate to keep up, so concentration payed off bigtime!i actually left knowing what the lecturer was on about, first time ive ever really understood a maths lesson! I also had a lecture involving Databases and all that jazz. Most of my peers in this module have done it all before at a-level so i have to look sharp to keep up, but it appears im not alone in this which is a bit more encoraging!
I also had a programming lecture today which was very interesting. I am looking forward to having a go at programming next week. I have no prior experience at programming but i am eager to learn so i am quite optemistic about that module. The computer systems module particulary appealed to me as i am from more of a practically based computing background as opposed to a more theory orientated background. Athought the lecture started off very basically, it began to get a little more complexed. i really enjoyed this lecture and think this will be one of my favorite subjects, as i am very interested in the way computers work and the components that make up computer systems.
As well as this i also had my first internet application development lecture. I thoroughly enjoyed this lecture as it was very interesting to see what can be done with the flash software, and i look forward to learning this. I was also shown some amazing examples of flash in action and this really appealed to me because i like examples to help me learn!
As you can see it was a long day with 6, hour long lectures. But the laptop battery held out(shame the same insnt true of the cars!lol), and i just had enough free time to check out the resteraunt at the students union. So all in all it was a good day and an excellent insight into the modules i will be studying.

bye for now

x


ENROLEMENT NUMBER:06030289

OHHHH a day off a week!(for studies obviously)

My first wednesday off!was fun! just bought a printer! told u i would.lol! A day of xbox live is not a day wasted at all! jus watchin american pie now n blogging while im at it!N the bit where he gets with the girl in the band has made me miss my girlfiend! so on that note im off 2 talk to her!

peace out!

x

Day 2 and ive managed to find the laptop study room(J3)! i have been downloading files with download speeds up 2 40mbps in the mornings!:D i have also discovered the wireless SIAN network, and with a bit of persistance and a few frayed nerves i have sucsessfully connected! nothing like coffee and myspace to pass the 3hour gap between lectures!

they wernt joking when they said parking would be a bugger either, ive found that if ur much later than 9.15 youve had it for parking this side of trefforist!

But that problem aside im really starting to get into the whole uni thing, my only other issue is really the whole printing thing. Its a impressive system but its a pain having to go one end of campus for a token(which borders intrestingly between good value and a rip off), then having to go to the bottom of J-block to get it on the system, then finding a machine to print from, before the final pilgrimage up to J107 to finally get your print out!
I may ajust to the system but at the moment it does seem a little long winded, maybe a printer is a good way of burning some of that student loan!

well im off for now hope to blog everyday if i find the time! check out tomorrows entry for more of one guy, one laptop and a lack of patience!lol. :D

Hello, this is my uni blog, it is my first! dunno what to say?!

so bye for now! +D

http://www.myspace.com/tombright this is me!!:D