Thursday 29th November

Today we were doing are web design all day. but before that we watched a video on youtube of a robot in a cage so it can not just fly but roll on the ground so it is more energy efficient.

We looked at what wire framing, prototype and mockup meant. then had a look at what order they would be when designing a website.
I designed my website in Photoshop today and I think I have finished it, so all I need to do is put it into fireworks. whilst making my website I have been taking screen shot all the way through to see the steps I have taken.

Here is what I have got so far

As I go along I will no doubt change it many of times but we will see. 

It was a pretty good day full of designing. 

Wednesday 28th November

Today when we got in we had a look at look at a women's YouTube video which was about her taking pictures of herself everyday for 5 and a half years.

We then moved on to our logos which we started yesterday, I had to scan my three logos on to the computer and then started to create them by drawing over them in Illustrator. I managed to complete one and I am very close to completing my second one.
I have made one with Thumpers foot cracking open an ice cube with the name of the band on the ice cube with cracks coming from each letter.
The other logo had Thumpers foot once again with icicles under neath the foot and underneath the icicles I put the band name "Artic Thumper".
I need do one more after i have completed the second one.
As I am going along making the logos, I am taking screen shots which is required.
Here is one of my logos

Today was overall a very relaxing day with a lot of work but it was good.

Tuesday 27th November

First thing this morning we all did a questionnaire about the TED video we watched. I only got one wrong which was pretty good I thought.
After that we got on with our assignment 3 task one. The assignment is about designing three logos for a band it was either an existing band or we could make one up. I sketched out 5 designs and have chosen the three best one and tomorrow I will scan them in to start annotating them on Illustrator.
we had to write a short but detailed brief before we could start. When I started to think about what band I could do I couldn't think of one so I went on to band name generator and but in Artic and it came up with Artic Thumper. I instantly thought about Thumper the Rabbit and design my logo around that using Thumpers banging foot.

After lunch we had a visit from the Matthew Project. They were talking about drugs. there are many different drugs, we out lined which ones were serious and which weren't so bad. we then discussed about which one is less harmful to us, the choices were alcohol, cannabis and tobacco. everyone in the class said cannabis was less harmful but in the end we found out that it was the most harmful so we were wrong.
During the visit from the Matthew project we were in four groups I was with Dan, Matt, Matthew and Luke. we all worked well in he group and all can up with ideas and answers.

Today was once again was a good day and I enjoyed what we did.

Monday 26th November

In the morning we looked at what is the easiest way to become famous without a talent or murder.
we had a discussion for about half and hour and the best one was to upload a video of your self doing something so it becomes viral. there were many different ideas but this was the best one.

After that we got on with completing our videos which i have done and all I need to do is upload them to YouTube so John can watch them and analysis them.
I have put four different videos in to one video to meet the criteria and I think I have done all the specific videos that are needed to pass.

After lunch we look at a a news report which was to do with a tracking device for humans and that has been introduced in to USA schools so pupils can be tracked where they are during school hours. we talked about it afterwards, so we can put our own views across on whether we think it is a good idea or not.
Here is the link for the report

Thursday 22nd November Web Design

To start off today we look at what functional specification meant, we were put in to two's. I was with Lewis and we had to research the definition of what it meant and put it in as much detail for people aged between 16 and 20 years old.

The second task we did was have a look at different web sites to see the different layouts and get some ideas for when we started to create a website. when looking at the web sites we were looking at the navigation and where each click takes us.

The last task was to write out what we want on our website such as the units, home button, contact, about and any extra links.
We then designed our website and how we want our layout to be.
I drew my first website layout but then thought I don't want drop down menus like I put so I completely changed the design. I think its a lot better and will be good when its created. it will take some time to create it but as long as the end product is good I ill be happy.

Wednesday 21st November

Today we had a whole day of graphics. The first task we had to do was to design four logos on a piece of paper and then let john  and/or Catherine look at the four and pick the two logos they like the best then we had to create them in Illustrator. The logos we created were for the company Develop.
I used my initiative to use Illustrator as I have no really used it before. I managed to create two full logos which I quite liked.
once I created my logos I had to export them and change the format into PNG so they can be viewed in other programs and then had to move them to a file.
At the beginning of the day I did not like illustrator but now at the end of the day I rather enjoyed using illustrator and understand it. I managed to draw my own earth, which took very long to try and get as much detail in as possible, the end result was rather pleasing.

These are my  two logos

Tuesday 20th November

Today I continued with assignment 3 task 1,2,3 and 4 which was to create my videos from all the pictures, I managed to create another four videos today as well as edited my two videos from yesterday. the video I done today was setting up and installing NovaBench, installing XP server pack 3, setting up password and screen/computer timeout and the last one was installing AVG and scanning the computer for viruses. I have put words to all the the videos explaining what I am doing as I go along. I need to put song to all the videos once i finish every thing (all the videos). i need to do a couple more videos then i should be completed.

Me and Dan helped each other if we got stuck at all (very rarely). I helped Lewis when he needed some help.

In the hardware unit i have completed everything except assignment 3 I am confident I will do well (I hope). famous last word

Monday 19th November

Today was a pretty relaxed day and all we had to do was do assignment 3 task 1,2,3 and 4.
This is the hardware task where I took photos of each stage of installing the RAM and Video card. I also took photos of installing different software and updating widows XP server pack. I took photos when I was running a benchmark test on the computer to see if the performance has improved.
Now I have all of these pictures, I can put them into a video which I did today. I managed to complete the video of me installing the hardware and done a separate video of me installing LibreOffice. I have a few more video to do but feel confident I will get them finished by the end of the day tomorrow.

Today I got back the work John marked and edited some stuff that needed doing this was the first task I did. I did not do it all as I thought I better get on with my videos.

Fridays blog but doing it today

When I say today I actually mean Friday because we all forgot to do one.
In the morning we looked at the hardware unit for level 3 we had to go over and complete task 2. I managed to complete it and email it to john.

In the second half of the half day Lewis was first up to do his presentation on fireworks. He gave us a video to watch and then attempt what he wanted us to do. The task was to try and create a moving banner and the three winners would get a bite size rocky road.
The second person up was Matt, he was trying to teach us how to convert a bitmap to vector in Illustrator. which was pretty simple and think everyone knew how to do that already.
Ben was up last and was doing a presentation on how to edit a picture on Photoshop to remove a person who was in the picture and smooth it out to make it look like he was never there.

Today was a very interesting day and I learnt how to remove a person or an object that I wouldn't want in the picture.

Thursday level threes only day alone

The First task we disk today was assignment 1 task five, what we had to do was to write the cycle of what happens when you send and email, I worked with Lewis and we hopefully done well. whilst we were doing that Dan and Matt was doing a similar task but doing task four which was slightly different.

In the second half of the day we were updating and completing assignment one task, one, two and three as they have to be handed in a the end of the day. whilst i was doing that i cracked out a few christmas songs; its never to early for christmas songs. I managed to finish one and two and am nearly close to finishing task three.

Today was a good day as usual and learnt what most of the meanings for POP and MTA. 

I had to help matt when he was trying to enlarge his icons when he couldn't figure out how to do that on XP.

Installing Hardware and Software plus old computers are annoying

Today me and Hulk Horton (Lewis) were installing all of our software, the software that was included was AVG, Google chrome, LibreOffice and i had to up date windows XP to sever pack three. the assignment that we are doing is assignment 3 task 1,2,3,4,5 and add any addition info to the assignment.
I found out that I do not like older computers as they are a pain when installing server packages because it took almost  two hours to complete. Also Lewis doesn't like hos either because his was very slow when he put the old ram back in and kept on not responding.

Today went well, I think I have completed all of assignment 3 but i just need to put all of the photos i took before, during and after into a video with some text explaining every thing.
when I had to put the old RAM back in it was trying to boot from the CD Drive so I had to change the Bios so it would boot from the Hard disk drive.

Mondays Blog

Today there isn't much to write about as the whole day i was doing Assignment 2 Task 3. I managed to complete it and send it to John. 

The first thing John gave us a task to try and solve a riddle about a light switch and 20 prisoners. no one managed to get it so we all need up searching online for the answer .

I got a fair amount for each utility and altogether I had two pages. 

I helped Dan and Matt when they were doing there installing hardware when they got a bit stuck especially Matt. He didn't put the RAM in properly and didn't/forgot to connect the power supply.

Today I learnt that the arm that moves back and forward on the hard drive disk is called a seek head. 

Today was good as we all helped each other out when we got stuck. 

Mainly me and Lewis helped each other but not much as the work was fairly easy as I already know a bit about system utilities. 

Friday 9th November

This Morning we started with functional skills and as our teacher we had David for English. I felt that it was a very interesting lesson and was rather fun. David is a very good teacher and one of the main tasks we did was we could choose between three questions and create a Power Point. We were in a group of two and i worked with Matty. The question we chose was what are the impact on younger people when they play computer games. once we don't that we created a survey in word and handed it out around the room for people to fill out.

The second half of the day was to with Graphics, in graphics we were doing assignment 1 task 2 which is all about why we should have the peripherals that we have chosen the peripherals are a camera, scanner, and stylus pad. we had to pretend we were pitching to peter from dragons den and explain why we should have the products I chose.

I enjoyed what we did today, overall today was pretty laid back. but i am glad it is the weekend as i can have a lay in and try and recover from the lack of sleep.

Thursday 8 November - Installing Hardware

Today was a great day, the only day just for level three's. The first thing we did is go through installing hardware with John. We gathered round his desk where a computer base unit was and he asked us to have a look and see what was missing. Once we determined what was missing (RAM and Graphics card) we wrote it on the board and then had to go find the right type of RAM and Graphics card for the computer and make sure it would be compatible. We put about 2GB of RAM in and found the right Graphics card to suit the computer.

We then had a look at why a normal Desktop costs less than an Apple Mac Pro Desktop.

We came to the conclusion it’s because the whole case is made out of solid aluminium instead of flimsy, thin metal and Apple makes their machines so people can’t upgrade it except the RAM.

The main task we had to do was, each of us had our own base unit and had to upgrade a part of the internal hardware and install some software on the computer (once we installed the hardware).

Before I installed the hardware I took a photo of what it looked like before and recorded that photo so I can make a presentation once I had completed everything. I kept taking photos all the way through so I would have a photo for each stage. 

Once I installed the new hardware I then connected it to a monitor so I could make sure it was in good working order (luckily enough it was). 

When I got logged on, I then installed some software/a program (can’t remember the name of it) and took screen shots/photos of each stage of installing the program, once it was completed I then opened the program and took another photo to prove I had installed it correctly. Once I had done all of that I then created two accounts; one called Susan and one called Steve and set passwords for each one and took more photos to show I had set passwords for both of the accounts. The last thing I did today was set the time for the monitor to go off after 10 minutes of inactivity and for the whole computer to switch its self-off after 30 minutes of inactivity and took a photo of before I done that and after to prove I had changed the switch off time settings.

The Day Me And Ben Found Santa

Right the situation is that me and Ben were in Aldi and we came across SANTA!!

6th November

Today in our course we started on our web design and completed task one and task three of assignment one. I did most of task two but not all of it, I would be able to complete it if I had another half hour to an hour. The work went well today and if I got stuck at all I got a little help from lewis.
I wrote a fair bit in task one which was about server side issues and user side issues, I learnt all about them and wrote each problem in a table and was and fairly good standard according to lewis.

we got Fifa 12 and 11 for the xbox and ben found out that he is no good at Fifa, he gave up and started scoring own goals.

I felt i have learnt a lot today and want to learn more. I worked independently and helped other people if they needed help. I can't wait till we get into all the practical stuff such as installing hardware.
I can't write much as we have only done assignments in Microsoft word and can't write a lot about the assignments.

Short Blog

Today we completed our level three assignment 2 task 1. the whole task was about making a presentation to explain about all/most the components in a computer. the components i included are, RAM, CPU, Graphics card, CD Drive, HDD & SSD, Motherboard, PSU, Sound Card, Northbridge and Southbridge Etc. I manage to complete the whole presentation and felt it is up to scratch.

The second task was to write about the differences between the common operating system and these operating systems are windows 7 & 8, Linux and Mac OS. we also explained about mac's and pc and that PC's are more flexible to upgrade and mac's can not be upgraded at all.

I felt that today went well and i learnt a lot about Northbridge and Southbridge. i am fairly confident i can explaining what each components do.

I also learnt we don't have Nick for functional skills anymore we have a lady called julie. Also Catherine is absolutely awesome but i did not need any help from her today!

Graphics and Functional Skills English

In the morning we had nick teaching us for our functional skills English. we went through all pronouns and verbs, we done many sheets with many different tasks on. we also improved on our punctuation. it went very well i got most of the answers wright and only a couple wrong so hopefully i am on my way to passing functional English when i do the test. when we were doing the sheets me and ben worked as a team to get more accomplished.

In the second half of the day we had john for graphics. we were working on our banners which we started on Wednesday. i am getting the hang of illustrator but it is by far the hardest Adobe software to use as i haven't used it before and not used to it. but i will get there one day, i would say im about 50% there.

Today went well, i am doing fairly good in graphics and getting most of my work completed.
even though i was very tired i manged to slug out the day.

First Day of Level Three

This morning we started off with an interesting task/challenge as ben cheated he managed to win. the challenge was to a paper challenge to try and get on piece of the paper up in the air in the middle of the paper. its hard to explain but it was a good task to wake us up first thing and get us thinking. I was with the one and only Lewis Horton.

The first proper task we did today was research about acronyms and have a short explanation of the following acronyms:
HTML (HyperText Markup Language)
Web architecture: Internet Service Providers (ISP), Web hosting services
,  Domains, Worldwide web
Hardware Components: Routers
, Domain Name Server (DNS), Web server, Proxy Server, Mail server 
Software Components: Browser software, Email software

The second task we did was we want to a group of four (i was with Ben, Dan and Josh) we had a big piece of paper and write down ideas from a title called user problems when accessing a website, we got many ideas to why a user would have problems when accessing a website. 
then one of our group members uploaded it to wiki.

today was a very good in our first lesson as a level three. i enjoyed it very much.