This week in tutorials..we were to play around in photoshop. We had to pick a topic out of the selected field and play with a photo that suited that topic..My topic was friends

To the left is a picture of my best friend Sacha..the photo is of us before we got picked up to go out ..I used a variety of effects in the filter menu to get the effects of this photo.

The next photo is of the last day at school where a few of my friends are..i changed the brush type to leaves and i did the same with the grass aswell.. i also added text at the bottom

This photo i added in a lens flare and some stars..i also made the boys cartoon like..but not too artificial

Week 4

This week we were given some tasks in tutorial.. this is one i have to do ..a search without using Google to find the answers to the following questions.. lets see how i go haha

1. What is the weight of the world's biggest pumpkin?

The largest pumpkin ever grown is 1,502 pounds. It was weighed in on October 7, 2006 at the Rhode Island Weigh-off. (worldsbiggestpumpkin.com)

2. What is the best way (quickest, most reliable) to contact Grant Hackett?

Try the White Pages..for either him or his new swimming coach Mr Ian Pope.

3. What is the length of a giraffe's tongue?

The giraffe's tongue can measure up to 22inches in length. (www.bellsouthmspioneers.org/ZooGiraffes)

4. How would you define the word 'ontology'? In your own words, what does it really mean ?

A study on the nature of existence.

5. What was David Cronenberg's first feature film?

Shivers in 1975

6. When was the original 'Hacker's Manifesto' written?

January 8 1986

7. Why do all phone numbers in Hollywood films start with '555'?

It began 30 years ago or more when the use of exchange names as part of the telephone number was still popular in the USA. Dials had letters as well as numbers and the first 3 letters of the exchange name were dialled followed by numbers. Due to the "low fill" of the 555 code, Hollywood was encouraged to quote 555 numbers in their productions to prevent real subscribers being harassed by members of the public trying out the numbers quoted on the screen. Generic and satirical advertisements and commercials often used 555 numbers

8. What is the cheapest form of travel from Crete to Rhodes?

AU$260 inclusive of all taxes and fees
06:45 Depart Chania (CHQ)Arrive Rhodes (RHO) 10:50 (http://www.expedia.com.au/pub/agent.dll?tovr=-1294687291&ps3u=)

9. What song was top of the Australian Pop Charts this week in 1965?

I'll Never Find Another You by the Seekers (http://www.onmc.iinet.net.au/topspot/1965.htm)

10. Which Brisbane band includes Stephen Stockwell on keyboards and vocals?

The Black Assassins (http://www.griffith.edu.au/school/art/staff/stockwell.htm)

Search Engines

What is a search engine?

A program that searches documents for specified keywords and returns a list of the documents where the keywords were found. (http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/s/search_engine.html) A good example of this Google or Yahoo. It however doesnt neccessary only happen through the internet. Assuming you are using Windows, in the start menu there is a search option where you can search your computer and network similarly.

How do search engines rank the stuff they find on the internet?

Search engines rank web pages by determining relevancy though analyzing keyword location, frequency and through other methods.(http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=2167961)

Who, or what, makes one page (that you might get in your search results) more useful than another one, so that it is put at the top of your search results?

Frequency is a factor in how search engines determine relevancy. A search engine will analyze how often keywords appear in relation to other words in a web page. Those with a higher frequency are often deemed more relevant than other web pages.(http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=2167961)

What are some of your favourite search engines? why do you like one more than others?

I would say that Google is my favourite search engine..ok a bit cliche but i think it is the most precise and easy to use and read out of the ones i know. For this tutorial tast i used Ask.com and it was extremely slow and was hard to read, and i didnt just take that stance because i was out of my comfort zone..i just didnt enjoy the search engine experience. So yeh..google..woot!

Can you find some current news stories about search engines? (for example, Google has been in the technology news a bit lately).

1. Beating The Unbeatable Google (http://www.webpronews.com/insiderreports/2007/03/27/beating-the-unbeatable-google)

2. Getting Link Love from Google Custom Search Engines (http://searchengineland.com/070326-154515.php)

Lecture 2

Lecture two held interesting things for discussion..but what interested me the most was the movie. I found all the information about communication and media studies really interesting..and the culture studies also!

But yes the movie had me rather interested...firstly its quite amazing to see how far cinema has evolved..that kind of movie was designed very similarly to the way i made a documentary on the industrial revolution for mod history last year - with photos and voice over, but i must say that the photos and the voice very much suited the topic and era it was set in. At first i didnt know whether it was a true story or not with a war like scene in paris..but as the movie progressed and went into detail about travelling into the past and future, i came to realise quite quickly that it was of course fictional.

I found it rather interesting that the way to travel into the past and future involved injections and medicine based ways, rather than the cliche 'time machine' which is commonly used in future travelling movies that are produced in today. The process seemed to be quite taxing on the mans body - almost torture like, with his body and facial expressions displaying those of pain. Something that really fascinated me about it was the features of the future beings. They looked rather star trekkish, with formations on their forehead and space looking suits, in a way it kind of made me laugh as this perception was more than likely based around the world as we know it to be today (although noticeably it is nothing like it was in the movie)
It was quite creative for the story to go into the past and future to look for resolutions to the problems they were faced with in regards to their wars etc where in most hollywood films they will try and overcome that kind of problem by themselves and find the answers through their own workings rather than trying to place another person or people in the past or future to remedy these kind of situations. During times like those, people would have considered reading up on what actions they would have taken in the past rather than trying to travel back in time to avoid it or travel forward to get a solution.

I dont quite understand the ending though..to me it was like he was going to be killed by those people anyways - but say the future took him, would it have just been a dream like state from the injections until he was killed anyway? And how would it be possible for the future to take hold of someones life and place it into the past - just for him to get killed by the same person anyway. To me the future summonsing him is kind of like the way todays society talks about "the light" when people are passing away and how there are people on the other side waiting for you to join another life - which is a rather christian way to ending the movie(Heaven like) which is pretty much the message i got from that part of the ending. You could also look at it from the point that no matter which decision he would have made someway or another he was going to die in time - whether it be the future world, the past or the present.

First Week - Lecture

Okay... so it was the first lecture for New Communication Technologies...i really didnt know what to expect..all i knew it was a pre-requesite for my course for the first year. Luckily i wasnt alone in the lecture to start with..Kerry, Ruby and Henrietta joined me who i went to school with last year.

Anywho..once the lecture started it was .. well i thought, extremely interesting..our Lecturer has the most motivating and intriguing speaking voice i have ever heard, which for me is really good because it just captivates me and the need and want to learn pretty much takes over. He ran through the basic stuff of introducing the class tutors and then running through the course outline .. which i must admit scared me for a bit haha He spoke about several things to do with technology..of course, but it was interesting not any of that boring nerdy stuff which was something else i was scared of. He explained to us the difference between communication and technology and the history of telephony and cinema, radio and television..stuff i had learnt in film and tele in yr 12 but it was a good revision if you would call it that :)

I am looking forward to the next lecture on friday as i am interested to see what is going to be discussed and what not .. :)