New and Improved Gmail

I'm not sure about everyone else, but my inbox gets pretty messy during the school year with all of the shift requests, messages from professors, Sakai, and of course the random spam mail. Luckily, Google has decided to improve its Gmail and update with cool features such as auto-sort that separates certain messages into different tabs and will notify you when certain kinds of e-mails are received. I know e-mail isn't completely related to the equipment in the Student Multimedia Design Center, but it is something that we all use, so I feel it's important to know about new features offered to us! Click the following link read all about the update: Gmail Update

Hope everyone is having a great Summer break!

At the center, in the Center

This is my final blog post before graduation, when I will be moving on from the first job where I felt at home and, thankfully, put to good use. I've loved this place and these people.

Of course, I'm talking about the Student Multimedia Design Center. While many of our blog's posts have dealt with advancements in technology and helpful software techniques, this one is going to focus on where the needs of our users most critically intersect with the services of our Center.

And of course, I'm talking about us staff and student assistants.

As cliche as this may sound, we're the heart and soul of the Center, and I'd like to offer a few reminders of what we should be giving to this several-thousand square foot space.

Electronic Entertainment Expo 2013

Hey everyone, as this summer approaches, I advise all video game, electronic media, and hardware enthusiasts to look towards E3 for the latest technology and design innovation coming to the world in this upcoming year. This event is usually tailored to gamers because of the large presentations from Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft. Though,the expo will also boast a strong presence from audio/visual technologies, developmental software/hardware, internet products/services, and more. Make sure you check out E3 June 11-13. It can be viewed via online streaming.

Some design examples for inspiration

I found this blog post on a design site that gives 20 nice examples of well done stationary design. If you are ever in Photoshop, Illustrator or InDesign struggling with designing a layout, check these examples out for some inspiration.

http://stocklogos.com/topic/professional-examples-stationery-design

What Are Your Summer Plans?

As final exams wind down and the campus quiets, we tend to disengage our minds from this quaint little space in Morris to embark on our warm-weather adventures. However, there are ways to stay connected to the Student Multimedia Design Center without regularly checking this blog (though it might be cool to see what staff posts during the summer). Whether you're graduating like me or returning in the fall, I would suggest incorporating some of your summer memories into a multimedia project. You can use what you already have on your personal computer or download a trial of one of the programs often used here. I recently did a video project for a class using my camera's video mode and Movie Maker on my PC. I learned a lot about the newer capabilities of Movie Maker in the process, like adding music or narration. Think of it as an fun and beneficial way to document the time you've spent. So while I bid you all adieu and thank you for a great time working here, I also pose this question. What are your summer plans?

Audacity Woes

On a couple of occasions, I've had students come to the desk saying that Audacity no longer will let them delete tracks. Finding this very odd, I went to the Almighty Google for answers!!! But, none were to be found.

I suggested to the user that we save their work on the desktop and then restart Audacity to see if that would solve the problem. But long and behold, the Save AND Export Option were disabled as well! Oh no!

Nonetheless, I would not be defeated by Audacity and switched my Thinking Cap to Turbo Boost! To make a long story short, it turns out if you try to exit out of Audacity, it will prompt you if you want to save your work before closing. Obviously, you should choose "Yes" and save it where you wish. Then after Audacity is restarted, it should work out fine.

The New Flickr

If you haven't heard, yesterday Yahoo made some major changes to Flickr, the photo and video sharing site they acquired back in 2005.  The change that is getting the most news is free accounts on Flickr now give you 1 Terabyte (1,000 Gigabytes) of space to store your photos and videos.  They are doing away with the "pro" account at $25/year and now have three tiers. Here are more specs from the flickr FAQs on the tiers:
Free:

• 1 Terabyte of photo and video storage
• Upload photos of up to 200MB per photo
• Upload 1080p HD videos of up to 1GB each
• Video playback of up to 3 minutes each
• Upload and download in full original quality

Ad Free:

• $49.99 per year
• All the benefits of a free account
• No ads in your browsing experience

Doublr:

• $499.99 per year
• 2 Terabytes of photo and video space
• All the benefits of a free account

I am very interested by the upload and download in "full original quality" statement.  I can't think of another free service that lets you do that for photos and video.  They also did a big re-design of the site.  It looks like Google+ mixed with Tumblr now.  An individual photo's EXIF data is a little harder to find, but there seems to be more of it once you do find it.  To get the EXIF data, just append "meta" to the end of the url for an individual photo like this:
Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/2ghouls/6922735110/
EXIF data: http://www.flickr.com/photos/2ghouls/6922735110/meta

Also, the advanced search is still there for now, but also hard to find.

Will you use the new flickr?

Illustrator Tutorial: How to Create an 8-Bit Pixel Character

Today, Nadine mentioned she wanted to learn more about Illustrator. Looking through Blog.SpoonGraphics, I found a cool tutorial to create 8-bit pixel characters. As the post says, people will often associate Photoshop with pixels, but unlike Photoshop, Illustrator is 100% vector, allowing you to scale your pixels to any size while keeping the blocky aesthetic. This tutorial is pretty basic and not too complicated for those of us who aren't very familiar with Illustrator.

Basically, what you're doing when you're creating pixel characters in Illustrator is using the grid tool to make it look like a pixelized person. Make sure Snap to Grid is turned on under the View menu option. Use the grid tool to make different sized squares and rectangles, change the fill colors, and move blocks from front to back. When it's all finished, turn off the grid and see your finished character!

Check out the full tutorial for details!

A little warning about Scrap Paper

Hey Guys,

So as the semester closes, people might be a little desperate for some scrap paper. We have had several people ask at the desk and even a few attempting to take the paper from the machine. This is not allowed for they could potential damage the center's equipment. If people ask at the desk for scrap paper, the best response is simply to dirrect them to the recycling bins near the copy machines or the large bin by the printer. Its a little grimy, but its the best we can do. Hope this helps!

Best,
Taylor

31 animated GIFs for when you graduate

Check out 31 animated GIFs for all the graduates.    31 GIFs

Tips for Dreamweaver

This week I had to help a student working with Dreamweaver to edit his website, although I was a little rusty I was able fix his problems. The student had trouble centering an image on his site, which can only by done by casing the image with <center> </center>  (I thought I could simply use the align in the image, but I was wrong). I felt I needed to gain more knowledge of Dreamweaver. In order to gain more knowledge of Dreamweaver I searched online until I found this website that has some interesting tutorials describing both the basic and other elements of Dreamweaver.  Hopefully the link below can help anyone that needs help learning Dreamweaver or is simply a refresher for those who have used it before! Also if you ever need help with html code try searching online to find the correct syntax.

http://www.entheosweb.com/dreamweaver/default.asp

WebP: a new image format we may be encountering

WebP (pronounced "weppy") is a new image format developed by Google that employs both lossy and lossless compression.  Facebook embraced the new format but many users didn't know what to do with the files they downloaded.  The CNET article notes "When people upload JPEG photos, the social-networking juggernaut converts them into the WebP format. And now it also apparently has begun delivering those images to people with browsers that can handle them, which today means Chrome and Opera."

Since "Windows, OS X, Photoshop, and most other software can't handle WebP" one may ask, "Will this cause us grief in the Student Multimedia Center?"  For those who can't handle the new format, one workaround is to log into Facebook using Internet Explorer, Safari, or Firefox.  As these browsers don't support the new format, users will download a JPEG file instead.  And (for now) may be much happier.

Images of microforms captured with iPhone

Awhile ago someone in the Microforms room was taking photos of images on the screen of a reader/printer, instead of printing or scanning. I thought it odd but it was what worked for that user. Earlier this week, I was helping someone scanning an article about an old Wilmington neighborhood with a photo of a big house. She wasn't very satisfied with the images produced with scanning. Getting photos to scan or print well from microfilm can be challenging. Often the image on the photo is not great quality to begin with, and sometimes scans or prints don't bring out the subtleties that are there. After trying several settings, including the grayscale setting on #7, it occurred to me to suggest taking a photo with her phone (looked like an iPhone). She did so and seemed happy to also have that in addition to her other scans. The photo on the phone looked a little greenish as the screen has a light green hue, but it seemed to capture some of the subtlety she was looking for.

Get To Know The Rebel A Little Better

Hi all! I stumbled upon this great, short photography 101 blog post the other day and found the information very useful. The blog looks at some of the main components to the Rebel that we all see but most of us don't understand like aperture, white balance, and focal point. It's short sweet and to the point and can get you a little more acquainted with the Cannon Rebel. Enjoy!

Presentations made easier

Towards the end of the semester, there is always a mad rush of people trying to finish up presentations.  With PowerPoint getting less and less popular by the minute, students may be looking for a new, innovative way to put together a professional looking presentation.  SlideRocket is a tool that I just recently found out about, that takes a new approach to presentations and business communication.

SlideRocket not only allows you to start from scratch creating new presentations, but also gives the option of importing an already started PowerPoint or Google presentation.  The formats are completely compatible with SlideRocket and can be edited there, so if you are are struggling with a PowerPoint presentation, but don't want to start all over, you aren't out of luck.  You can also quickly make presentations online with a full set of design tools, and share and collaborate with partners.  Then, publish a presentation URL and share it instantly.  It could really make group projects a lot easier, and cuts out all of the time it takes emailing and saving files to flash drives.  Your presentations are accessible anywhere - online, offline, or mobile.  I've seen so many groups come in with problems like they lost their files because they didn't save properly, or they need help saving so they can access it later.  SlideRocket could be a really helpful tool to them - saving isn't an issue, they can access it anywhere, and they can work on it together even when they aren't actually together.

More fun with iMovie!

Hey guys, so Konrad and I have stumbled across another problem with these wonderful iMovie projects. We had two different students come up trying to save the project and events folders to their own hard drives and/or flash drive. Here's the kicker. The folders saved fine, but when we tried to open them up on another computer only the information in the events folder was showing up. The problem was the the hard drives and flash drives were only formatted for PCs, not macs. So even though the folder would show up on the drives they would not open when put into a mac. Unfortunately, the only answer that we could offer these students was to reformat their hard drives because we were out of ours for burrowing. Just a heads up for anyone else that comes across this problem!

Review article on computer privacy uses familiar looking photo

The Review's story about a computer privacy bill, that has nothing directly to do with us, used a file photo of a student at a Mac in Room B. The photo caption makes it seem that it's the Senate -- with a "senator" not very hard at work and looking suspiciously like a college student...! On the plus side, it's good to know that we're thought of as a recognizable place with computers on campus.

Which Companies Make Efforts to Protect Your Information?

So many times we live for the moment --save it or buy it quickly without thinking that there may be a reason not to put our information out there for all to see or find. If you delete your account or last post, is it really deleted from the companies' servers? It's something to think about as we work in the Center and sometimes recommend these online tools or resources. The Electronic Frontier Foundation recently assessed company practices and policies for protecting your privacy and data online and you can quickly scan this list for some of your favorite companies and think about this, the next time you use them... As a side note, the Library tries very hard to protect user data. As just one example, we clear the circulation history throughout the day and all of the computers have Deep Freeze so that data added by a user is wiped and the computer is fresh on restart. Don't forget to restart!