2. Lenovo ThinkPad T60
This is the laptop I will use to create
my music magazine. I can take this
laptop to school and use it at
home, so it is convenient and I can
use it throughout my research and
planning, production and evaluation.
It is also useful as it has access to the
internet and all my pictures and other
files I will need for my coursework.
This laptop is a bit slow due to its
age, but works just as well.
Sometimes the mouse doesn't work
but I just need to restart it.
However, all its other functions work
well and I have up to date, useful
software - for example Microsoft
Office.
3. Google.com
I will most likely use this search engine
throughout my coursework and in my
opinion is the quickest and has the
best results out of all the other search
engines available. I can use it to access
my blogger account, slide share
account and other sites that I needed
to use. I have used Google for
researching for other pieces of work in
other subjects, and find that it is very
straight forward and comes up with
lots of good pages.I don't have any
critisms about this search engine. All I
can say that it is sometimes slow, but
think is due to my wireless connection.
4. Blogger
I am using www.blogger.com to post all my
updates on my music magazine. I have
access to the internet at school and at
home, so the site is easily accessible. If I am
anywhere without my laptop, but need to
get onto my blog, I can use my mobile
phone (Sony Ericsson Xperia Play). The site
has the facilities to be accessed via other
technology, not just a computer, which was
very useful. At first, because I have never
used the site, it was difficult to navigate
around, so it took me a while to get used to
it. After a few times using the site I found it
easier and easier to use. However, there are
a few things I was still a little uncertain
about, but I think this will just take a bit of
time and patience to work out.
5. Slide Share
I will use www.slideshare.net to
present my ideas on a few of my
posts. Quite a few people
recommended it so I decided to
create an account. When it comes to
uploading a presentation to my
blog, it might take me a while to work
out how to do so, as it could was a
fairly complicated process (others
have also said this) However, I have
seen other blogs that have used
slideshare to present there ideas and I
was impressed at how neat and clear
it was. I think I will use slideshare to
present certian things like
my, questionnaire - I think it will be a
more interesting way to show my
ideas, rather than just listing them.
6. Kodak M550
I can use a Kodak M550 to take my pictures for
my music magazine. This is my own camera and
it is around a year old. I would like to have used
a higher quality camera but unfortunately I
don't have access to one at the time I want to
take my pictures. The camera is 12 megapixels
and produced some good pictures. I will not
edit the images on my camera; I instead want
to use some better quality photo editing
software. The images are easy to upload to my
computer via the USB cable (as I use this
camera frequently). I will use it to take the
pictures for my music magazine, including the
smaller images around the sell lines on my front
cover. This camera is light and portable and has
a good picture quality, and there isn't a delay
when taking a photo. However, the battery on
this camera does run out quite quickly - so I will
need to make sure the camera is fully charged
before my photo shoots.
7. Sony Erisson Xperia Play
I mentioned earlier that I can use
my mobile phone to access
blogger. I can use it for other
things that helped me with my
coursework. As well as blogger, I
will use it to communicate with my
models and I also can use it to
access the internet when, for
whatever reason, have access to
my laptop. The phone is touch
screen, but also has additional
buttons which were useful when I
doing research or editing my blog.
Unfortunately, the internet was a
lot slower than on my laptop.
However, it will be very useful to
have if I didn’t have my laptop. The
large screen also means that sites
are very clear and readable.
8. Picnik
I will definatly use www.picnik.com to edit my pictures. I
found this site extremely useful when editing some other
photos. It allows me to airbrush, add makeup, change
colours, add stickers and text, crop and brighten my
pictures (to say a few!). It has a brilliant variety of
colours, stickers and fonts to choose from. It was easy to
use and everything was very clear and labelled.
Unfortunately the site will be shutting towards the end of
April. The only thing I can't do on picnik, was add
additional images onto my existing page. For example,
I won't be able to add a barcode to my front cover on
this program, so I have to find somewhere else to do this.
Also, once the image had been saved, you couldn’t go
back and edit it, for example move text around or change
colours, which I will find quite difficult as there were
times when I might not be able to (for various reasons)
complete a draft in one go. Apart from these 2 negatives,
I would defiantly use www.picnik.com for editing my
photos.
9. Microsoft Publisher
I can use Microsoft Publisher to help
me make my music magazine. There
were certain things picnik won't allow
me to do – for example, I can't add
additional pictures to my front cover
(like the barcode). I only used Publisher
for this purpose and it was useful in this
sense. I use publisher regularly and
would defiantly use it for this purpose. I
like publisher as it has lots of useful
features, like adding shapes, adding
text in interesting fonts and colours and
text boxes which will be useful if I
wanted to make my double page
spread on publisher. You can also group
things and save things as images which
is very useful.
10. Microsoft Word
I will use Microsoft word to do many
things, including designing my
questionnaire and doing my risk
assessment. I use this piece of software
regularly and find it very easy to use and
there were lots of other useful things
included on it, for example changing fonts
and colours. Word also will help me when
making slideshare presentations, because a
document needs to be uploaded in order to
create a presentation. This has the same
sort of features as Publisher. Word can
create proffesional looking documents, and
this will be good for creating some parts of
my coursework.
11. Microsoft Excel
I will use Excel to create help me present
my questionnaire results. This was the
only thing I will use it for, I haven't used it
before, and at first it might be difficult to
use, but after doing a couple of the pie
charts it will become easier and easier. I
would use it for this purpose, and also in
other pieces of work. However I am not
completely aware of its other functions
and this could be something to look in to.
