Thursday, 19 April 2012

EVALUATION 6: TECHNOLOGY.


What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing your product?
Throughout this whole process I have learnt not to rely on technology! Below are some of the problems  that I faced...

Macs
The problem when using the Mac was that they was very time consuming seeing as I had never used one before and had to learn how to work it, especially how to construct front covers, contents, and double page spreads on Pages. I took several attemtps creating drafts as I was still getting used to how to work it, and discovering new techniques that I could incoorperate in on my work. I also had to ask for help on several things, such as how to find software and even how to use the software, such as 'grab'. I had to use this as I had to convert my Pages document into a picture file in order to upload it to my blog.I had to do this with each of my documents or otherwise they wouldn't be on my blog!

Latops
One of the main problems that I experienced was that when starting my work on Mac Pages, I then couldn't open it on a normal laptop as it didn't support the Pages software. This obviously was a big problem as I couldn't work on my magazine pages in my own time as I couldn't get access to a Mac. This delayed the amount of time I had for creating the front cover, contents as double page spread as I could only continue to create them in school time. Alongside this I didnt have Mircosoft Publisher on my  own laptop, which alos prevented me from creating the magazine pieces at home.

Cameras
Using the cameras bought many problems. Firstly, when I was taking the final images, with the Nikon camera it started running out of battery and need to be charged, meaning we had to rush taking the photos. I think this affected the overall quality and 'look' of the photo as they weren't how I wanted them. This meant I had to arrange another date for taking pictures so the camera could charge and be ready.
Secondly, when I was taking the recce photos with the school's camera it had a cracked screen meaning I couldn't see what the pictures turned out like and it soon rang out of batteries meaning I could no longer use it. I couldn't even take it back and get another one as the rest were either in use, didn't turn on or had no battery. To overcome this I used the camera on my phone to take the recce pictures then sent them to my email to then upload onto the computer. However putting aside these problems, the Nikon camera did produce good quality pictures and I finally got the end result which met standards.


1001 fonts
Even though there were several fonts on this website that I could of used and represented the 'pop' feel I ended up not using them as when I copied and pasted it into Pages, it came with a white background and didn't fit in correctly with the rest of the context. It also didn't let me change the colour which also posed as another problem.

Pages/IPhoto
As I previously said I didn't know how to work Pages or IPhoto, so it took a bit of time working these and figuring out how to use them. In the end I didn't use IPhoto because it was too confusing and Piknik was a better solution to use as it had more features and generally was easier to use.

Serif Draw Plus
This is the software I used to remove the background behind my model in order for it to be clear. At first this I didn't know how to do it however once my teacher shown me, I got the hang of it. As you can see the pictures aren't perfectly cut out however I done it as best as I could and tried to cover up the jaggered edges with text.

Desktop Publisher
I created one draft of the front cover on this to experiment and see whether it produced a better standard of quailty than Pages. I found that I could get the work done much more quickly and I found it easier to contruct as I have worked on publisher many times before. The only problem with this is that I don't have a clue how to upload it to the blog so I will need to do some more research on how to upload it.

Slideshare
I had plenty of troubles when it came to using this! As I had never used this before I was unaware of how it works and how to use it. I then asked a friend and they said you had to create the document on Mircosoft Word or Powerpoint first and then upload it - so that is what I did. However it took me several attempts to upload as it kept on saying 'error'. I worked out that this was because I still had the document open on my desktop. So once it uploaded I then figured out the the fonts I used where too big and made the text 'hang' off the page, so I had to delete that presentation and change the fonts and size on the document... then upload it again! Once this was done I had troubles on how to upload it onto my blog. I 'Googled' and even 'Youtubed' how to do this and it soon gave me the correct way. I embedded it into my blog and realised it had to go in the 'HTML' tab. It was as easy as that.

Apart from these problems I felt that working with technology. was the best option to use as it made me get my work done more quickly and efficiently while making it at a better standard. 

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