The document discusses technologies learned about through constructing a project. Macs were used primarily due to availability, and knowledge of Mac functions deepened. iPhones were used for communication and taking photos. Cameras of varying quality were used to take photos for publications. USB drives and SD cards helped transfer files between computers and cameras. Search engines like Google and Safari were used for research, and new shortcuts were learned. Photoshop skills like using the magic wand and skew tool improved. Wix helped create a website, and Blogger, Prezi, and Emaze presented research in visual and information-based ways.

1. What have you learnt about
technologies from the process of
constructing this product?

2. Hardware – Macs
When working on this project I had to use a number of different pieces of hardware as
they were what was accessible to me at the time or I simply wanted to use them for
quality or ease of access reasons. Macs were always going to be a large part of the
hardware when working on my products and research as they were the main types of
computers available to me at the time. I had used macs in the past so already had a
primary knowledge of these computers and how to access files and complete simple
tasks such as screenshotting or using the command key instead of the control key that
would be on a PC. In working on this project, however, my knowledge of macs have
significantly deepened in the times I’ve been using them. In my time using them I have
gathered knowledge on how to share files via the cloud computing as well as simple
tricks abd shortcuts that didn’t necessarily make a huge impact on my work but they did
however manage to make my time working on this project run a lot more smoothly and
efficiently, this was both easier on my as it made my work a lot more satisfying to work
on and easy to take in and it also helped make creating pieces of research or products a
lot more quick at the same quality, this is clearly seen in the fact that I have a
significant amount more blog post than I did on my previous project last year.

3. Hardware – iPhones
Another piece of hardware that I used while working on my products and research was
my iPhone, while this item is a fairly standard in day to day life with most people
using them every day throughout their daily life for a number of varying reasons. I
used my phone for a number of reasons, one of which being communication, when
taking the pictures for my magazine, website and billboard I couldn’t simply do it
alone, I needed people to help me take the pictures and to be models for my pieces
and my iPhone was one of the only items I used to contact these people and I managed
to learn new techniques in emailing multiple people at a time as well finding new,
more efficient messaging apps such as “Facebook Messenger” or “Discord” that
allowed multiple forms of communication. I also used my iPhone for taking pictures of
certain items such as the audience feedback or simply for showing certain props or
locations I intended on using in my actual image I learned from undertaking these
tasks that you could take ”live” photos on iPhones that allowed you to go back to the
instance they were taken and select the perfect moment that you wanted the image
to hold on for framing, focus or lighting reasons this helped both make my images
more clear and meant that I didn’t have to go back to take pictures I had already
taken on my iPhone

4. Hardware - Cameras
In working on my magazine and research I have had to take pictures of various things, as
I stated before, some of these images did come from my iPhone but a large bulk of them
(all of them when it comes to my magazine) have being taken on an actual production
quality camera. I used both my own camera, a Sony Handycam, and a camera that I had
borrowed from the college, a Canon EOS Rebel. Both cameras got the jobs intended to
be completed done to industry level; the only different being between the cameras
were that my camera was originally intended to be a video camera that also happened
to take regular pictures so the quality of the images taken on my camera were slightly
worse as compared to the college one, but it wasn’t to such an extent where it was
noticable. I had used the camera from the college before on past projects but in using it
this time I had learned new ways of using it, such as being able to take images without
having the flash go off or taking a number of images in quick succession; along with
those techniques I learned how to further use the camera that I owned, I had only used
it for the video feature in the past so it took a little while to get used to the picture
mode but since I was using it at home and had time I managed to learn the basic ins and
outs of the cameras functions relatively easy.

5. Hardware – Memory Cards and Sticks
Throughout the course of my work on the many different aspects of this project I had
to make many different presentations and documents for research and within my work
on the drafts for my magazine and billboard I had to create many a Photoshop
document, the issue with this was that I was primarily using macs so when I moved
rooms to work somewhere else or worked from home the date wouldn’t be on the
computer I was then working on most likely. This lead me to using a method of data
storage and transportation that was very helpful for moving data from computer to
computer; USB flash drive storage. On my past media project I was emailing work to
myself and downloading it all over again but this could lower image quality and overall
simply took more time so I moved to this form of data transportation. I also had to
take a lot of images for this project, with my iPhone it was simple enough, all I had to
do was connect the phone to the mac and import the images but with the cameras I
used an SD card to transport the images from camera to computer, I had used these in
the past but this time around I learned to buy my own SD card so that I had all my
images on me at all times and I had more free space than before as I didn’t have all
the other images taken by other students on the card.

6. Software – Search Engines
In my research throughout this whole project I have had to use the internet and therefore
internet search engines very commonly; I primarily used two very common and very
popular search engines a lot in my research, google chrome and apple safari. When using
the macs that I’ve previously mentioned I had to use safari as it was the only search engine
that was available on the macs I was using so I was naturally drawn towards it. In my time
with safari this time around I learned a lot more new shortcuts that made my job a lot
easier as well as keyboard shortcuts that sped up my work a lot more as well. Google
chrome was my usual go to search engine when it came to my research so I already knew a
number of shortcuts and tricks that it had but in my work I managed to learn even more as
well as the useful trick of being able to have different google accounts on the same window
which was helpful for using other net software.

7. Software - Photoshop
Photoshop was obviously a massive part of my work throughout the various drafts
and products made over the course of working on this project. In last year’s
assignment I worked on Photoshop to quite an extent as well though this time
around I was doing some slightly different things than before. For example, last
year I was using the lasso tool to cut out images because I didn’t fully understand
the magic wand tool but this time around I managed to learn how to use the magic
wand to a pinpoint degree which was greatly helpful for my work and meant that
my work looked better and was being made faster than last year. When working on
my billboard as well I had to place it on an actual billboard layout as well, this
meant that I had to learn how to use the skew tool which was confusing at first but
I picked it up quickly and it made my work look that more real. Also, in making my
logo, I learned how to delete the background of the image and make the image a
lot more sleek and usable throughout all of my work from my website to my
magazine pages.

8. Software - Wix
Part of my project was making my website, since I’m not very
familiar with programming and therefore wouldn’t be able to
create my own website from scratch, I had to use a software to
help me along. Wix was great for this, I hadn’t had any
experience with the software before this task was undertaken so
I had to learn how to use it without any prior knowledge. Luckily
this software had a large user support section that helped me
learn how to use the software to a decent enough of an extent
that I was able to efficiently make the website that I needed to
make. The hardest part of this task was definitely having to
insert the images to the website as it wasn’t as simple as a
Microsoft software of Photoshop but with enough practice and
time I managed to figure it out.

9. Software - Blogger
I used blogger a lot throughout a large portion of last year’s project so this
was a very familiar software to be using in my work. This meant, however,
that I naturally flowed into things that I already knew about and was more
fluent with things and was able to experiment to a greater extent than
before, this can be seen in the new layout and dynamic background and
general user interface that I’ve adopted. I also was lot more familiar with
the software which means that my work was coming along a lot quicker
than last year which means that I’ve gotten a lot more posts out a lot
more frequently, this can be seen in the larger number of post on my blog
this year than last year’s.

10. Software - Prezi
Prezi was one of my most used software of last year and that definitely
hasn’t changed this time around as well. In this year I have used Prezi to
show off many of my various ideas and pieces of research in a flowing and
natural way; this point has gone even further this year as I know more about
the website and was able to place the next slides and place images in places
that made the presentations look overall more natural and comfortable for
the viewer allowing them to settle into my ideas and research a lot more
easily than beforehand. I was definitely using this software more for
research and planning that I considered to be more visual than information
based on how the software generally works and presents itself.

11. Software - Emaze
Emaze was also a very commonly used software in last year’s project and like Prezi,
I’ve used it a lot this year too. With emaze I was using more as a way to clearly and
formally show information or deconstructions or any form of research I deemed
more information than visually based. I chose the software for this purpose as it was
a lot more straight forward in it’s presentation than Prezi was and simply showed
the facts and what you had laid out before your audience. I didn’t learn a lot of
new techniques for this software in my time with it this year as the software us
rather simple to use and doesn’t have that many different things you can do with it
so I was more or less as the same level this time around, I did however learn a few
keyboard shortcuts that made working on the software a lot faster and more
efficient that previously meaning that I got work out a lot faster than before.