My Design UI/Logo Preferences

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There seems to be a trend in every company to change their logo and user interfaces to something a bit simpler. A lot of companies nowadays are changing their familiar logos to create a more modern version. But this isn’t your standard “make the logo look more complicated” style of the 20th century but the “make your logo 2D and use bright single colours” style. You can see iconic logos of companies changing their famous logos to simpler, brighter logos. Gone are the days of making your logo more and more complicated as technology progresses in favour of a simpler version.

In my opinion this is better. MY preferences for the design and UI is always for simpler and more readable designs. I think that this change is in no small part heavily influenced by Apple. Their designs are always simple and with no intricate details. Recently though their design for their UI is falling behind compared to other competing operating systems and they need to step up their game.

iOS UI

iOS UI

Android 4.2 UI

Android 4.2 UI

Windows Phone 8 UI

Windows Phone 8 UI

 

Useful Windows Programs for Students

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In Victoria, Australia school has finished for Term 1 and it is currently Good Friday, so I don’t really have anywhere to go. Plus it’s quite cold. So I thought I do some writing for my blog and maybe a couple of videos later. So without further ado, here is the article:

So you now have a laptop, netbook, etc. with Windows that you plan to use for school. Of course you need to install your stuff that makes that new PC yours. So I presume you already have your favourite web browser installed, desktop background and all your social stuff (Spotify, Skype, etc.). You probably have programs that you need for a specific course, if you don’t know you can probably install it after you know what to install. What I’m going to show you is the tools needed for a lot of classes. Some of these are free, some are not. But they will help you at school, on almost any subject.

Office Application

Although I write Office Applications I am just referring to the suite of programs that help you at school.

Word Processing - This one is a no brainer, if you want to type out your reports, essays, etc. This software is absolutely necessary. There are a couple of free alternatives and they do work for most things and you can also save money. Google Docs has a word processor which looks like a nicer Office 2003, there are a couple of things you can’t really do but it is more than sufficient for most things. AbiWord is there if you want a free word processor that is light but is also offline, same layout as Word 2003. If you want something that is full featured then you need to get LibreOffice, although it is a bit slow it works really well and is the most recommended if you want something that is full featured.

https://drive.google.com

http://www.abisource.com/

http://www.libreoffice.org

Slides Presentation- This selection of software is a bit limited but they work, I do recommend the Google Docs slide presentation software because it’s nice and simple, the LibreOffice version is a bit odd to use but it works. There is also an interesting web service that does away with slides but is still used for presentation, it’s called Prezi. I haven’t used it though.

http://www.libreoffice.org

https://drive.google.com

http://prezi.com/

Microsoft Office - It was obvious I was leaving the elephant in the room so you know that there are other alternatives other than Microsoft Office. This is without doubt the one office suite to get, no other suite compares at all. There are many useful applications and it’s likely that the teachers will be using this rather than the other ones. In my experience it’s better to get the offline version for Students, it’s a bit cheaper than the others.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-au/

Notetaking

Evernote - One of the two heavyweights in this area, it is a completely free service that has a quite a few unique features for you to use. Along with the standar notetaking stuff such as notebooks, tagging, searching it has a unique feature. Say you want to search a picture that has text, Evernote can do that with it’s OCR feature. Their mobile apps are simply the best in my opinion for a multi platform area. The desktop version is OK though.

https://evernote.com/

OneNote - Part of Microsoft Office this costs a bit of money but I think it is worth it. The thing that sets it apart from the competition is that it’s from Microsoft. As such it has that awesome text editing and was truly designed for the desktop. It’s organisational structure is better for school because you can divide it to more than just notebooks and tags. Their mobile apps are a bit lacking and isn’t as good as the other programs.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-au/onenote/

Online Cloud Storage

This place is a very competitive area and I will only list a few because there are so many to list, The main criteria to be classified in this area is that you have to be able to access it on many computers and phones, all of these devices are synced to the cloud. I will show you three.

Dropbox - The original and is a really nice service. Although the other services may have some better features and more storage space (you get 2gb) this is worth mentioning because it works really well. You can also extend your space more than the other services by doing activities and referring people to their service.

https://www.dropbox.com/

Google Drive - This service is by Google itself, it integrates 5gb of free storage and it’s simple but great online office suite. The interface is very Google like and your files can be converted from Office to their office suite. It’s also cheaper to upgrade your storage than Dropbox. This is a great service, you may have to be careful because Google may data mine your stuff, after all it is an advertising company and search engine

https://drive.google.com

Microsoft SkyDrive - The current service I am using. It gives you 7gb of free space but if you were a member before you could have stayed on their 25gb plan (which I am). Also it is cheaper than all 3 services mentioned to upgrade your storage. It’s also got a lite version of their office suite, which is a huge bonus. I also use it because I can sync my OneNote notebooks their. Their interface is very Metro-y.

https://skydrive.live.com/

Wolfram Alpha

If you are taking maths then this is an absolute must, while the engine is free some features you may have to pay for. This does everything your CAS calculator can do and it also gives you the step by step instructions to solve a problem, though you have to upgrade to premium if you want to learn more than 3 solutions per day. Still, it is very handy.

http://www.wolframalpha.com/

Khan Academy 

This is one of the best ways to learn maths and other subjects online. The guy who makes the videos is a great teacher and If you want to revise on subjects this is it. First you watch the video lesson,he has hundreds on maths, science, economics, etc. Then after that video there maybe an exercise for you to complete. I use this when I need to revise on something or I just want to learn.

https://www.khanacademy.org/

Adobe Creative Suite

If you are doing anything creative than this is the software suite to get. Although it is a little pricey your school will probably have licenses for you to use. Some applications such as Photoshop will help you if you are doing art, After Effects and Premiere Pro for media, Lightroom for photography, etc.

http://www.adobe.com/au/products/creativesuite.html

Conclusion

I hope this list helped you, even if it was a little bit. These programs are the necessary programs for me, if you have any essential programs write a comment on what you like. Sorry for not having any images, I don’t feel like taking screenshots, cropping, uploading. I just felt like writing so I can do something productive.

Rotten Potatoes – An IT project

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Today I have finished a project for IT. It was made by Tim (my friend) and I. This is just a simple and not really that good website. It only works for monitors of a resolution of 1440×900 or higher. I know that I shouldn’t have used tables for formatting and that computers with a low resolution wouldn’t really work for it but with a limited time to do it and little knowledge of dreamweaver this was my only choice. But still, I’m pretty proud of the website. You can find it at:

http://sammaritan12.com/rottenpotatoes

It is meant to be a parody of Rotten Tomatoes as a movie review site. It’s very simple and it would have more content if we had more time to do it. I know the images are copyright but it can fall under the fair use/ fair trading agreement because it is for educational purposes and as a review site with criticism (not really).

 

Rotten Potatoes

Rotten Potatoes

Testing out HDR Photography

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Just a quick post about HDR photography. I wanted to try HDR photography so I put it to the test with a window and a dark foreground, the following image is the result of 3 exposures from my E-PM1. I shot in RAW and used Luminance HDR and RIOT to compress the photo. As you can see the photo has quite a bit of purple fringing, I will try and get better so there will be minimal purple fringing.

HDR Test

HDR Test

Portable/Travel Music Instruments

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I intended to write this article a while back mainly because I’ve been looking at instruments that are cheap and portable but there have been a lack of articles on the topic, so I decided to create one. Unfortunately this list may have already been covered by professional journalists and writers but I thought I’d write it anyway because I like creating content and my blog is more neglected than my Youtube channel. So without further ado I will show you a couple of portable/travel musical instruments, most you will know and maybe 1 or 2 you haven’t heard of before.

Harmonica

Harmonica

Harmonica, Photo by Steven Depolo

The classic harmonica, a musical instrument that is a “free reed aerophone”. It sounds very nice and can play multiple styles of music. It can fit in your pocket and can even play chords! There are many types of harmonicas but a harmonica every person who plays music should get a 10-hole diatonic harmonica in the key of C. What does this mean? It is a harmonica that has 10 holes that you can inhale and exhale to make a note and it is tuned to the key of C. You can get any cheap harmonica from a music store but some notable brands include Hohner, Lee Oskar and Suzuki.

Tin Whistle

Tin Whistle

Tin Whistle, Photo by Ishikawa Ken

The classic Irish musical instrument that sounds really nice but it does sound a bit like a recorder and may annoy your friends and family! It is a fun instrument to play with and is definitely very cheap, it’s got almost the same fingerings as any woodwind instrument, like the harmonica it comes in different keys but for Tin Whistles you should get it in the key of D.

 

 

Jaw Harp

Jaw Harp

Jaw Harp

The weirdest instrument on this short 3 instrument list. It sounds weird but it definitely is interesting. It seems to be a folk or world instrument it sounds cool but it looks like a different way of playing compared to other instruments, I do not own one but as with any other instrument make sure to pay for a decent one.

 

The rest

Of course there are your classical ones that everyone thinks of such as the Ukele, Flute, Recorder and the not so portable such as the Guitar, Violin and other instruments. Be sure if you want something to take it with your that it has a case or something to protect it while you are travelling. Hope this sub-par and not that interesting list helps make a decision for you.

Street Photography in Melbourne

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Over last weekend I went to the city. I didn’t really have any purpose to go there but I thought it would be fun. I went with my brother and went to various places. I think that one of the main things we did that day and what I really wanted to do but I never really got the chance to was to take street photos. The city is the best place to take photos and that there are so many pictures to take because there can be many subjects. While I was sparse on the pictures I took and I was quite nervous taking pictures of people it was a fun day for me. Maybe next time I will have the courage to be more bold in my picture taking like DigitalRevTV.

These pictures are from a newbie and thus are not that good compared to others. I chose to shoot in black and white because most street photos are black and white. Also because it turned my picture into a photo. Black and white seems to make everything less amateur and more ‘graceful’. I shot with an Olympus PEN E-PM1 and 14-42mm MSC IIR kit lens, looking to upgrade in the future..

If you find yourself in these pictures and do not want to be in them, please contact me so I can remove them.

State Library of Victoria

Lenses and Camera Bodies

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Recently I have been fervently looking through forums, reviews and eBay prices for a nice lens that would fit on my Olympus PEN E-PM1. Although I probably will not buy a lens in the near future I still like to research about it (I sometimes wonder If I research more than taking pictures and creating videos). The one thing that people seem to undervalue are lenses.

Wherever I see a DSLR or an CSC (Compact System Camera) being used it is almost always the kit lens. Now don’t get me wrong, some kit lenses are great and are very versatile, but the quality lacks. All kit lenses are in my opinion good but not great. They will work when you are in a social event in a pinch, but if you truly want to get serious about your photography then another lens would be better than a bigger and better camera. People some to obsess about this camera or another and to some extent this is good, but people always overlook the lenses.

When you see videos comparing cheap cameras with expensive lenses vs. expensive cameras and cheap lenses, the cheap camera with the expensive lens always wins. Although in my opinion having a camera is better than having none at all and some lenses are cheap and fun to play with but can become a serious tool if used properly.

I guess what I’m trying to say through this unorganised ramble is that you should not obsess over cameras and lenses but to take pictures with them, a crappy mobile phone picture of a moment is better than no picture at all. But people who do need an upgrade generally tend to look at a better camera where they should be looking at better lenses. These people expect better photos from better cameras but they don’t understand that the image quality is coming from the lens.

I hope that this ramble doesn’t tire your ears but instead open them further.