Wow...the end of the year is here already. Anyways, I just wanted to thank all the BTT students this year and Mr.Case for an awesome year. I learned a lot this year, and this course has only made me want to learn more. Thanks again everyone!!

YESS!!! ALL MY SUMMATIVES ARE DONE AND HANDED IN! Today we had the first part of EQAO. I got all of the questions, but I wish I had some more time to explain how I got my answers. Next week will be exams for Science, Geography, Math, French, and English. In place of an exam for BTT, we have to hand in our portfolio. Our portfolio is a website with all of our stuff that we did the whole year presented neatly. I'm almost done my portfolio. Good luck on EQAO and the exams. Signing Out - Mohammad.

The last day of May!!!! Wow, the end of the year is approaching at an alarming rate. Today I studied for some of exams. Remember that EQAO is on Thursday and Friday this coming week, and Tuesday is the Aural Exam. Good luck guys!!

Today, I handed in my finished summative. Some of the things that I had for it included my website, my brochure, my business cards, my business letter, my letterhead, my registration form, my business outline, my business decisions, and some pens with my business logo on them :). I also uploaded the thirteenth episode of the Moh Joh Show. In this week's podcast, we reviewed the book Lord of the Flies. This was to help you all get started for studying for the english exam (which will be in less than two weeks).

Today I worked on BTT summative, and my Website Protfolio. I downloaded PageBreeze, but I don't have much time to wriet and I have to go work on this. Signing Out - Mohammad.

Today, we went to Georges Vanier for our oreintation. Since we had BTT in the morning, I missed it. Turns out that we didn't do anything important today though! Today I'll continue working on my brochure. Afterwards, I can just copy an paste that information into my website :).

The second series of notes for our BTT class:

*One of the ways that you can advertise is by a brochure
*It is an 8 and a half by 11 piece piece of paper that is folded into 3
*Brochures have more information than a business card or lettehead
*Use Microsoft Publisher to make your brochure
*Brochures tend to last longer than business cards or letterheads because they have more information
*You can very easily copy the information from your brochure directly onto your website

The first series of notes on our BTT class:

*Once you have a business, make sure that someone else doesn't already have the same name
*If they do, you could be sued for infringement
*Try and see if someone has your business name
*The most common form of advertisemnt is on the web
*You want to make sure that you have an accessible URL
*Make sure if you have a business name, it has a prescence
*Go to "domaintools.com", and you can do a URL/domain search to find out if existing businesses have the same URL
*"internic.ca" and "domain.ca" are other domain finders
*".net" and ".org" typically refer to non-profit websites

Today in BTT01, we worked on finishing up any work that we did not previously complete like our business cards, letterheads, or domain websites. We also learned how to make a Header and Footer not appear on every page. First you go to Page Setup in Microsoft Word, and then click Different for First Page. We also got some information and websites on registering our businesses, but that will be due later on...Sigining Out - Mohammad

A series of notes on what we did today in class:

*Business cards are very effective and they make your business seem more serious and legitimate.
*Your business card represents your business and makes an impression on however you give the card to.
*A letterhead is kind of like a business card that you can give to others to make your business seem that much more professional (through paper or E-Mail).
*Try to make your business card stand out, but still remain in the industry standard
*www.reencoded.cim has business cards in a variety of unique formats.
*There are some rules to making a business card: Your card must have a sense of design, it must have a phone number, an address, a URL, your name, your business' name, and what your business is.
*A letterhead is essentially the contact information.
*You can make a letterhead and business card using Microsoft Word.
*Use 8371 for the business card number.

I finally edited and put together another episode of the Moh Joh Show on our Woodbine JHS Wiki. This week, we reviewed the book Dragonrider. It is getting close to the end of the year, so I think that we'll be able to fit in only 2 more podcasts. Anyways, the next blog will be about our last BTT class. Signing Out - Mohammad.

Mr.Case will collect a BTT Sumative folder from us at 9:00 AM tomorrow. These are things that need to be in this folder: A paragraph on your business, a logo for your business, a paragraph explaining that logo, a business name, a paragraph explaining that name, and a budget plan.

This is helpful for choosing a business name: http://sbinfocanada.about.com/od/startup/a/createbizname.htm

Today we went to the Rouge Valley and planted some trees! Me, Thanushan, and Jaynash planted over 20 trees. We planted all of the trees that they gave us! Afterwards, we went to the creek and tried to skip rocks. It wa really funny, and I had a blast today.

Tomorrow, our class 9-5 and the Environment Team from Woodbine will be going to the Rouge Valley to plant new trees! This means that me and the other students who have BTT will miss our BTT class for tomorrow. Being environmentally friendly has become a popular issue to talk about, and we should all try to be as green as possible. Yes, this includes doing small things like turning off your lights when you are not using them or re-using things that you've already used once before (heck sometimes you can donate stuff to local charities instead of throwing that stuff out).

Today, we had the BTT test on Adobe Dreamweaver, Adobe Flash, HTML tags, and the Subtractive/Additive color theories. It went suprisingly well!! I think that is because I made a page for everyone for the test on the wiki, and this helped me review. Well, for now I'll continue to work on BTT Sumative assignment. Signing Out - Mohammad.

Wow! It's May already. Anyways, just a reminder that the BTT test on Adobe Flash and Adobe Dreamwaver will be tomorrow. The test will also inlcude the Additive and Subtractive theories of color. Signing out- Mohammad.

This is about my business:

My business is going to be about teaching people advanced and beginner computers. Some of the things that I will be teaching include Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Excel, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Flash, Adobe Dreamweaver, and Windows Movie Maker. I would also teach a little bit of basic computer hardware. The economy is sluggish nowadays, and job competition is intense. Having “Proficient in Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Photoshop, Flash, Dreamweaver, and Movie Maker” on a resume will seriously bump you up in the eyes of an employer. During these times, it is good to upgrade your own skills so that you can blow away the competition.

My target audience will be anybody who is interested in getting a decent job. This therefore eliminates small children and people under 16 from my possible consumers. I think I may even continue to tutor computer programs for next year when many people will take BTT (I of course will have finished the course).

The reason that I did not focus on computer hardware is because it is usually harder to find jobs that require hardware knowledge, and because I am not an expert on it. My dad, however, is an expert on computer hardware. Some of the things that we could do involving hardware could include taking a computer apart, and identifying every part of it to the student.

I would start my teaching session by introducing them to the program and what it could be used for. Then I would go through the menubars, and the toolbars of that program. I would give my student two tasks to complete (write a short essay using Word, or list ten new things that you learned). If the student is interested, I may award him with a trial version of that program. I will then proceed to make a test for that student. When the student has completed a program course, I would award him with a certificate stating that he has done so.

I would teach a students by one hour each day depending on what they want to learn. Each course requires 5 hours of instructional time for it to be complete, except for Basic Hardware and Movie Maker which require 3 hours of instructional time. For one hour of Microsoft Word, I would charge $14. For one hour of Microsoft Excel, I would charge $14. For one hour of Microsoft PowerPoint, I would charge $14. For one hour of Adobe Photoshop, I would charge $15. For one hour of Adobe Flash, I would charge $15. For one hour of Adobe Dreamweaver, I would charge $15. For one hour of Windows Movie Maker, I would charge $14. For one hour of Basic Hardware, I would charge $16.

I would also have special combination offers. If the student wants to learn all three Microsoft programs, I would charge $200 (that’s five classes for each). If the student wants to learn all three of the Adobe programs, I would charge $215 (again five classes for each). If the student wanted to learn Windows Movie Maker and Basic Hardware together, I would charge them $130 (three classes for each). If the student wanted to learn everything, I would give them a value package of $530.

The maximum number of students that I could have at one time would be four students. This is because it would be hard for me to keep up with each of them.

There are some costs involved here. I will be working at my house so rent is not a problem. The students will come to me so transportation is not in play here either. Some of my costs would include the cost of the trial CDs. The cost of refreshments would also be a problem: water bottles and some chips (I want my students to come back). Another cost would be the cost of the paper and the ink to print the certificates and tests. I would also need to buy a small handbook or calendar to keep track of the days my students come and the money that I receive. The last of my costs would be advertisements: I would put up flyers everywhere (they cost money), and maybe host a website for my business.

Of course I would have some problems with this business. A possible problem could be me getting sick. In this case, I would put off my tutoring classes to a later date because I would not want my student to get sick aswell. Another problem could be the student not showing up to my classes. In this case I would arrange a later date for them to come here.
This is a working progress, and hopefully I will have more ideas for my business.

A series of notes that I took today at BTT class:

*We are going to create basic idea plans for our businesses
*Some of the problems and obstacles that you will encounter include the cost, the way in which you will be making money, and if the idea is realistic
*The money that you get to use is called the gross income
* The net income is the amount of money that in the end you make (your profits)
*Capitol expenses are anything that you will have at the end of your business (you own it the end of your business should you decide to close it)
*You can break all other expenses into operational and consumable expenses (both of which you need to run your business)
*Even if you have a negative net income, you can use those capitol expenses for next summer
*The advantages of running you own business is the job experience, you're your own boss, and you might end up making a lot of money if things go well
*There is a high risk, but also a high reward if you choose to start your own business

We will be having an Adobe Dreamweaver and an Adobe Flash test on Monday next week. Some of the other things that you need to know include the Color Theories and the Property Manager in both of the Adobe programs.

This is a collective of notes from last BTT clash on businesses and the like:

*For the sumative, we have to create a lgeal and viable business in the province of Ontario
*Viability is if something can really happen and if it is realistic
*Jobs like car dealerships or petshops are not viable because a teenager would not be able to aquire such jobs
*Try to make as much money as possible with your business
*A level 4 project would be perfect: you can submit the paperwork and start a business the next day
*A wholesaler is someone who buys retail
*Wholesale is cheaper than retail
*You can buy wholesale from other countries but you have to pay for the Duty Tax and shipping fees
*Avoid retail and importing
*If you buy in bulk it is cheaper
*You also need to have stock and places to put the stock (you have to invest money into buying the stock first though)
*In the 1980s, companies just imprinted their logo on normal clothing from another company
*When you buy a shirt with a lgog, you pay four times as much to ADVERTISE for that company for free (that's the power of branding)
*The problems in creating a store include the rent money for the store, the insurance, the contract, any licenses, and the stock for your store products
*The problem of doing a business in your house is that no one would really know where you are
*Areas also have zoning laws that tell you what you can and can not do in any given area
*The problems with food businesses is that there are a ton of laws, licenses, and permits needed
*Even if you sell lemonade, you would still technically need a license
*It's good to have business cards for you business and advertise
*Run your idea through 3 people before you approve an idea
*Try to think of all the problems that you might run into
*There are 3 types of businesses: a sole-propriership, a partnership, and a corporation
* A sole-propriership is when a sole (only one) personn owns the business or store
*You can still have people work for you as employees in sole-proprierships
*A partnership is a business that has more than 2 owners in the business (usually equal share bu there may be exceptions)
*You buy people out to turn a partnership into a sole pro-priership
*Partnerships often end up badly (money brings out the worst in people)
*The third kind of business is a corporation: a corporation is a lgeal entity that is set up to exist by itself seperate from the owner
*You can tax a corporation differently that the owner
*There are a lot of tax benefits to having a corporation
*One of the problems of a corporation is that money made gets taxed for the corporation, the owner is given his salary, and then the owner's salary is taxed again
*Corporations are based on shares which people put in
*The company is split into shares and the value of each increases when the company generates more money (or profit)
*As people become intersetd in buying shares, the value of the company increases
*People try to sell their shares when something bad happens or they think something bad is about to happen (the value of the company decreases)
*If there is more supply then things are worth less, and if there is more demand then things are worth more
*Each share is woth a part of the comapny (a fraction)
*Splitting shares is when you divide the existing shares into more smaller pieces (but you don't increase the total value at all)
*A take-over is when half or more of the shares get bought by someone and that person gets to make all of the decisions for that company by way of voting
*Each share in a company is worth one vote

Today in BTT, we worked on our websites and we talked about our portfolios which will include all the best work that we have done this year. Aswell, we talked about our end of the year summative: we have to create our own business. Some possible ideas include tutoring, teaching people about the basics that we learned today, and lemonade stands.

A post on all of the new things that we learned today.

*To use Windows Movie Maker, connect your digital camera via firewall or a USB
*You can "capture" videos by recording one on your camera and then it is played/saved onto the computer and the program
*You can also choose to import videos, pictures, or audio to your video
*Assets are things that you can use in your video (read above point)
*The timeline is at the bottom, the stage is on the right, and the well is in the centre
*You can add video effects such as blur, sharpen, or make the video look old
*You can add transitions in your video to seperate scenes
*You can add a title at the beginning of your video and even add transitions to that title
*Movie Maker is good for simple editing and it is found in every Windows XP
*You can cut, trim, or even replay clips
*You can save the file as a Windows Movie Maker Projects or MSWMM
*This file is only a set of instructions
*To publish the real movie you can go to Save Movie File>if you save on the E-Mail or Web the file will be lossy
*Save your video as the best possible format because you can always make it lower-quality later on
*DVAVI is a good high quality file but it takes up an enormous amount of space
*The more stuff you have on your video, the longer it takes to export it
*To turn DVAVI movies into Flahs videos, got to the Adobe Flash Video Encoder and turn it into an FLV video (one that you can control unlike the previous Flash animations)
*The framerate is the number of frames per second and the standard is 15 framerates per second
*The standard size for videos is 360 pixels (width) by 240 pixels (length)
*An FLV file is much smaller than and AVI file
*To make a widescreen video to put on your website, you need Flash CS3 and Adobe Dreamweaver
*In Dreamweaver, go to Insert, Media, and then Flash Video to insert a video
*A skin is the overlayer of the video
*To make a video widescreen, change all fullscreen "false" values into "true" values
*To make a new, custom skin go to Import, and then Library and then choose your picture
*You can choose your own skin and skin colors in Adobe Flash CS3
*Go to File and then Publish Settings and save it as an SWF file and an HTML file

I made an awesome cricket animation using Adobe Flash. The bat, ball, clouds, and even the sun moves. I might seriously start reconsidering my career as a graphic designer. Mr.Case says that the animations that are good will be featured in a digital art gallery for students. Aswell, an electrical computer engineer will be coming next week to talk to us.

On Friday, we worked on our own animations. We also learned how to save our pictures as an FLA file, and as a video file that can be played. Today I downloaded a free trial of Adobe Flash CS4 Professional, and I'm going to try and make some cool animations.

Today is BTT class we worked on perfecting our pool table animations. Next week we will have to start creating our own animations (although it does not have to be very complicated; just enough so that Mr.Case can see that we have a basic grasp of Adobe Flash). If you want the stage to fit in the middlle perfectly, go to View and then Magnification and then Fit in Window. An FLA file is the Adobe Flash file and you can save it by going normally to file and then save or save as. An SWF file is the animation file and you can make one by going to File, Export As, and then video movie. An SWF file is similar to the JPEG files in Photoshop in that the information is compressed and it takes not that much space up.

Today, we had the BTT test for Adobe Photoshop. In my opinion, it was pretty easy. There were only one or two questions that I think I got wrong. With Photoshop done, we'll be able to put our full attention on Adobe Flash and HTML codings.

These are some of the notes that I took last BTT class:

*Flash is a program created by Macromedia
*Flash was the first interactive program in the World Wide Web
*Before this websites were "static"
*Flash is used for animation in websites and movies, encoding videos, etc
*The FLA stands for Flash Project File
*The FLA is a set of instructions
*An FLU is a video that you can play
*SWS is a shockwave or interactive program
*Action Script is the programming language embedded in Flash
*Action Script 2 is easy to play around with and user-friendl;y, but is is not as complex or powerful as Action Script 3
*A timeline, property inspector, color swatch, toolbar, and menubar is in Adobe Flash
*The Adobe programs are very similar to create a familiar setting
*The main area in the middle is called the "stage"
*The framerate for a digital video is 29.97 frames per second
*The framerate for cinemas is 26 frames per second
*The framerate is the number of still pictures per second
*The refreshrate is the rate at which the pixels refresh
*12 framerates per second is the website standard
*If you go to View and thhen Fit In Video, the stage will change itself to fit perfectly
*The Timeline is used for frames (the timeline of the frames)
*Add a new layer to not mess your background up if you happen to make a mistake
*The "Circle Tool" can be used to make a cueball that will eventually be animated
*By using symbols you save space because the computer is told to get the same picture
*It is important to double click the circle, otherwise the border does not get selected
*A keyframe is a frame where something importanat happens to your animation
*Flash allows us to use "tweens", which means inbetween frames
*Tweens save us a ton of time by allowing us to fillin the animation frames in between; the longer your tween the slower the animation and the shorter your tween the faster your animation

I was away today unfortunately; got sick again :(!! Anyways, the test for BTT seems to be one next Wednesday, after the four-day long weekend. I hope Mr.Case does another review for the test tomorrow. By the way a "roll-over" image is one that changes itself when you "roll" your cursor over it.

Last time in BTT class, we talked more about creating our webpages and how helpful tables are at that. The Photoshop Test has been moved to next week! Next BTT class we will review for the upcoming test next week!

These are some BTT notes from last Thursday:

*Alternate text is what pops if the picture doesn't load properly
*Sometimes it is better to use the "normal view" of Dreamweaver because it is faster
*"Google.ca" is the domain, but the index is the main page
*If you don't have an index, it makes it easier to hack your website
*Save your main page as "index.html"
*There is a small pinwheel in Dreamweaver which allows you to link just by dragging it
*CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets and it is a way of making HTML pages
*You can download "pagebreeze" for free which is similar to Dreamweaver (web-authorizing program)
*The bottom part of Dreamweaver is called the Property Inspector
*You can create tables by using percentages of that page
*By using tables, you can be a lot more creative when desingning pages for your website
*You could go down to the Property Inspector and add to or change the properties of basically anything that is selected
*Go to Insert Chart to add tables
*Use a table to create a navigational bar
*Select the text/highlight it and use the linking Pinwehel to drag to your link
*When you select something on it's normal view, it becomes highlighted in the HTML coding view
*You can copy and paste the navigational bar into all of your pages
*This saves a lot of time and your website is much easier to navigate

Whoa, sorry for not posting for a while. I guess the long weekend got me a little carried away and I forgot about this blog. Last BTT class, Mr.Case showed us how to create a website using HTML. The next post will have all of the notes that I took.

This is just a series of notes that we took in class:

*Pirate Bay is a tracker that finds "hash" files by downloading things with a "peer to peer" network
*Adobe Dreamweaver is a web-authorizing program that is also closed-source
*the Url stands for Unifromed Resource Locator and it is the individual address for an individual page
*the web address also includes prefix such as www., etc, etc
*domains inlcude com, org, net, ca, or gc at the end
*a domain is liker your main, "big" address similar to your apartment in your address
*if the domain's author is changed, then he can actaully transfer that domain to another person
*the source code is the HTML page which can tell links to get videos, picture, or logos
*HTML is similar to a set of instructions that tell your server (Internet Explorer/Fire Fox) where to get the stuff from
*you cannot sned pictures, logos, or videos through HTML
*a font is also a program
*you must have a folder containing all of your pictures, logos, and videos
*a way around creating a folder is vy hosting your pictures on the internet and then linking from there (your stuff is already on the web
*In Dreamweaver, once you resize your pictures be sure to resample it aswell
*If your page is the Main Page of your website, save it as Index

This is just a short series of notes on viruses:

*people used to write viruses to damage others' computers for the sake of making themselves feel better
*virus writers are often failed or rejected programmers
*nowadays virus writers often create viruses to make money by selling stolen information to others such as your email address, credit card number, or any other personla information
*most people now write viruses to use your computer for a greater goal
*viruses often trigger themselves on a specific date and time (the attack is fixed on a set date)
*an example of this would be everybody in the world who has the virus sending an email to one person on April 1st, cauing that person's account to shut down
*sometimes viruses can hide themselves from Anti-Virus, but it's best to update anyways
*virus-makers often hide viruses in things that people want to download like Adobe Photoshop, movies, or pirated software
*never, ever download a pirated version of Anti-Virus :(
*a way to avoid viruse is to run your clock two days behind so that the rest of the world gets the virus first, and you see what effect it has
*pirated softwares often have viruses hidden inside of them
*a virus could be seen as cyber-vandalism
*never turn your virus-checker off

I worked on creating a basic HTMl color code page for the wiki today. Red is FF0000, Green is 00FF00, Blue is 0000FF, White is FFFFFF, Black is 000000, Gray can be A9A9A9, Yellow is FFFF00, Cyan is 00FFFF, and Magenta is FF00FF.

Today we talked a lot about HTML. People confuse the Internet with the World Wide Web. However the Internet is actually the physical computer chain, whereas the Worl Wide Web is an enormous web which connects different pages and websites together. If you wanted to get yellow using hexadecimal, you woul write FFFF00. A protocol is a set of rules that guides you as to what you can do. VOIP stands fro Voice Over Interactive Protocol and HTML stands for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol. The following is a link to some HTML cheatcodes: http://www.webmonkey.com/reference/HTML_Cheatsheet.

On Friday I uploaded our tenth (!!) episode of The Moh Joh Show. In this episode we reviewed one of the books in the graphic novel series Bones. In the next episode, we will be reviewing Dark Mirror: A Novel, which focuses on the X-men being put into human bodies and their reaction to their change.

Today in BTT01 we covered a lot of new things. First of all we have a Photoshop Unit test on Elements 1 and 5 on the Wednesday after the one coming up. We looked at using electronic organization devices such as the calendar on the Woodbine Wiki or Google Calendars. Mr.Case will actually be giving us a mark on these for Term 3. The internet was first developed by the military for communication purposes. The Americans were afraid of the Russians dropping an atom bomb, and one of the side-effects of that bomb is an electromagnetic-pulse. An electromagnetic pulse kills all electronic devices that are active by overloading them. Anyways, back then you had to go through multiple phone lines just to get through to the one person that you wanted to talk to. This provided a lot of inflexibility, so the internet was developed. The internet is much like a web in that it can find it's way through multiple paths to the person that you want to talk to. An FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol and HTTP stands for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (a set of rules for transferring hypertext pages). Every time you use WWW. or HTTP://, you are using the Hyper Text Transfer Protocol. HTML also stands for Hyper Text Mark-up Language, which is a coded language that allows us to link to other pages simply by clicking on a series of words or letters. A server or browser acts like a translator and translates/turns this code into something that we can see and understand. If you go to View, and then Surce you can see the HTML coding. If you edit the HTML coding, you can actually edit what you see on your webpage. However you cannot change the website on the internet (it is stored somewhere else safely and we're unable to access the original file), but only on your own computer if you save it. All Webpage/Website creating programs using the HTMl coding language to create new pages; you can either view the HTML code or the changes that come from it. Sometimes it is better to see the code itself, simply because you can see where there is a glitch since you can not see what is wrong in the browser or "finished" version. HTML codes can only do things with text, therefore pictures, logos, and videos/animations are not inlcuded in the HTML coding. Instead, there is a link which tells the coding where to get that pciture, logo, video, or animation from: usually a secure website or server. Finally a tag is a small code that you input and HTML code is basically just a series of tags.

Today in BTT class, we messed around with more of our teacher's pictures using the Photoshop Editor. It was fun, and I made two great pictures. Remember when editing the pictures of the teachers that it should all stay inside the school computers and know when not to cross the line.

Today in BTT01 Mr.Case wasn't here and many students were away at the art trip. We got a work period to play around with and edit/change some pictures of teachers using Photoshop. The three rules about changing someones' pictures are: I.Get Permission from the person who created the picture or is in it. II.Be respectful and know when not to cross the line. III.The images that are changed are for personal use only; do not post them up anywhere.

This is what I'll be posting on the wiki:

Now that we're all familiar with Photoshop, we should be able to list some clear advantages of using Photoshop (why not just use paper and other utensils?). In the situation that someone asks you what's so good about Photoshop, or why even bother using it, these advantages would come in handy. I know that many of us had to do an essay on "Uses of Photoshop in School", and those uses could be posted up here aswell.
*Not having to deal with copyright issues: You are rightfully the owner and author of any work that you create on Photoshop. This means that you control whether other people can distribute your work, change it, make money off of it, etc, etc.
*Being able to mass-produce your work: Files created on Photoshop are digitally stored. This means that you can print as many copies of them that you want, or have as many copies of the file. Artists who paint only end up making one copy of their work.
*Work is harder to lose and easier to access: Since Photoshop work is stored digitally, it is harder to lose that worksimply because you can store/place the work in a large number of places and copy it over and over again.
*Time is saved: It is much more time efficient to press the Paint Bucket and have something painted. It would take a lot more time to get a bucket of paint, paint, and then clean up the big mess that you just made.
*You don't have to be an artist to be good at Photoshop: If you're not good at art, Photoshop could be a different story. Look at the work like math: it is just a series of numbers and by changing those numbers you change the work (not as much skill or expereince required).
*If you go into marketing, Photoshop is an excellent skill to have: With Photoshop, you multiply what you can make and how you can make it exponentially. If you master Photoshop and start making original art, people will notice you a lot more and you have a greater chance of your marketting campaign being a success.
*You can undo any mistake that you make: Simply by pressing a button, you can go back and edit/undo any things that you don't want affecting your work. Imagine how hard it would be to remove red paint from your canvas, when on Photoshop all you have to do is press Undo.

The computers in our school had a ram boost: they apparently run twice as fast now. However these upgrades come at the price of some accounts not being able to find their hard-drives and the printer. There are seems to be some type of network problem; my account says that it is "restricted", and I'm unable to import pictures into the Photoshop Organizer. I hope all of these problems get fixed soon.

Wow, I really haven't posted in a LONG, LONG time. The March Break made things fly by and I haven't been able to update this blog. However once school starts again, I will update much more frequently.

I was sick yesterday so I missed BTT and the last day of school before March Break. Anyways, we apparently talked about cyber bullying and how you could change someone's picture on Photoshop and post it on the internet. You could insult and offend that person and that is one of the things under cyber bullying- changing someone's pictures in a way that they do not want you to.

Today in BTT, we talked about organizing our pictures. You could add "tags" to a picture (such as taing it from 1-5 stars, putting it into the Freinds folder, etc). This just organizes your pictures, and you don't actually end up making copies of all your picture (you're just changing the way you see them). This way you can actually end up saving massive amounts of space if you have 1000+ pictures. You could also create slideshows with these pictures, and I personally would prefer using this to PowerPoint to create a pciture slideshow. Lastly, there is a secret way of sending secret messages to your friends via the pictures you send- editing or adding notes to the picturess.

Whew! Making Photoshop pictures is not that easy if you're a beginner. Anyways, I came up with some other picture ideas other than Lunar Cry (a lone wolf under a moon). Some of these include Aquatic Message: this picture would include underwater rocks/pebbles spelling out P-E-A-C-E. Another one, the Human Blur: a human-figure moving at super-speed. My last idea is Inferno: this would be a liquid river of lava.

Hey! Next week will mark the beginning of March Break: that means that this month will pass by in a flash. Anyways, I got Photoshop Elements 3 on my computer thanks to a trial CD that Mr.Case gave me. Photoshop Elements 3 rocks my world!!! I think that it is the best one I've used yet, even better than Photoshop 7. Anyways, I finished my LunarCry picture and have begun my Aquatic Message picture.

Today at BTT class, we worked some more on our Photoshop pictures. I am going to try to find the original Photoshop and download it's trial; Photoshop 7 isn't that good. Mr.Case reviewed with us some of the filters in Photoshop, and now I am happy to say that I have a firm grasp on how Layers work.

Resampling a picture means that your are actually changing the information inside the picture. If there is a chain connected to your length and width, then each will automatically compensate to make up for the other. I also downloaded photoshop for a 30-day trial so taht I could familiarize myself with the tools and make something that didn't look like it was made solely on Paint.

Mr.Case was not here today at BTT. The wiki instructed us to watch some videos about Bert Monroy, world-renowned photoshop artist. The idea for my own photoshop art was centered around a comet hitting earth, but because everybody is doing something space-related, I may have to change my idea.

Wow, we only had BTT two times this week! Thursday was the Ontario Science Centre trip, and on Friday it was a Day 2. Speaking of the Science Centre trip, it was awesome!! We had two labs: one about chemistry (stuff blew up and we got to see liquid light) and electricty (we learned about it's history and saw electricty before our own eyes). We also watched an Imax film called Roving Mars, which was about two rovers (Spirit and Opportunity) who landed on the surface of Mars. These two rovers confirmed that Mars did have liquid water sometime in it's past, which raises the chance of their being life on it (be it present or past).

For the next week or so in BTT, we'll be working on creating our own pictures using Photoshop - from scratch! Mr.Case showed us how to replicate and merge layers so that even though he created a single brick, he managed to make a complete brick wall. The art presumably has to be related to something that is related to us - an important sign or something that depicts the creator's own personality, for example.

The following is a collective of notes that I took today at BTT class: When you open a New document, you have to choose and decide what it is for (are you putting it on the internet, printing, etc), thus choosing what resolution and dimensions it will have. The Rectangular Marquee Tool helps you select things with rectangular shapes. Elliptical Marquee Tool is very similar to the rectangular one, only it selects things with a circle shape. If you want a perfect circle or square to select something, press Ctrl+D. Always work on a duplicate layer, unless you want your original picture/work to get ruined if you make a mistake (it's also more convienient to work with multiple layers). There are shortcuts for each tool, for example press Ctrl+M for the Marquee Tool. The Move Tool helps move things around. The Lasso Tool helps you select things. The Feather Tool helps soften the selected edges. The Magic Wand Tool has tolerance levels froms 0 to 255. The tolerance levels choose the closest pixels to your selected number (10, 20, 100, etc). However if you select 255 as the tolerance level, then your WHOLE document will change. Red eyes are caused when light from a flash goes into the person's eyes and then reflects right back (a red reflection is made thanks to the retina). Contiguous means touching, and it only chooses the colors that are within the chosen levels AND those that are touching. The Crop Tool helps you crop parts of a picture and you can choose the width, length, and resolution of what you cropped will become right there. When you blow stuff up (make it big), it becomes fuzzy because information is absent. The Text Tool (you can write vertical or horizontal) allows you to put words onto your document, A gradient is a blend of 2 colors, and you can choose where the gradient starts and it's direction. You can even make the gradient opaque or transparent. The Shape Tool allows you to input shapes. The Airbrush Tool has a soft edge, and it is similar to spraypainting. The background Eraser erases the background layer of a work. The Compressionist Brush can be used to do funky stuff. The Blur Tool blurs parts of your picture. The Sharpening Tool increases the edges and contrasts betweeb a picture. Be careful not to overdo the Sharperning Tool because then your picture will have extreme, whitish contrasts and it will not look professional at all. The Sponge Tool softens and blends the picture like a wet sponge. The Smudge Tool smudges parts of a picture. The Red Eye Tool adjusts the levels of the red in your eye, and the computer tries to replace the red with existing colors from the eye. The Burn Tool subtly darkens an image. The Dodge Tool subtly lightens an image. The Clone and Stamp Tool clones a selected area of your picture. Press the Alt key down, click on where you would like to clone (the stamp appears), and then click on where you would like the cloned area to appear. You can change your paintbrush so that the brush sizes vary to help you with this. The Eyedropper Tool goes in and selects color from your picture (this is called color sampling). The Hand Tool is used to move things around. The Pattern Tool is similar to the Clone and Stamp Tool, only it creates patterns.

I really have to catch up on my blogging! Anyway, we've started a new unit on Photoshop during the last couple of classes. The following is just a collective of notes and information: DPI stands for Dots Per Inch. The most common size for photographs is 4 inches by six inches. A megapixel is a million pixels. The Additive and Subtractive theory is about the three main colors of light>RGB (red, green, and blue) and the four colors used in ink>CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black which is also know as K). In computer resoultion, we use 300 DPI but when we put it on the interent it has to be 72 DPI. The less DPI a picture has, the less space it will take on your computer;less information. You could use large amounts of DPI if you were to scan something, or if you were a professional photographer. Once something is compressed, it will lose information and that information can never be regained. In fact, when you try to recover the information on Photoshop the picture will become blurry. JPEG is bad for professional photograpphers, because every time you change that file it will lose informatiom; thereby gaining the title of being a "lossy" file. If a file never loses information, then it is considered "lost-less". Examples of "lost-less" files would include PSD, TIF (Tagged Image Formats), and Bitmap (BMP) files. An average person uses only 6-8 megapixels, and a 24 megapixel camera would therefor be useless. Camera phones are bad because even if they have a lot of megapixels, their senses are just too small to capture enough light and the picture properly (gaining you a lower quality).

Woah! I need to cahc up on my blogging! Anyway, today was supposed to be the BTT test, but I had the math contest. That's why me and a handful of other kids will have to do the test tomorrow. The only problem is that this test will be HARDER!! I'm already pretty fair with the Microsoft Word part of the test, but I need to work on my legal podcasting stuff. That's why I think I'll create a page about all of the legal podcasting basics right now.

Hey it's a long, long weekend! Thursday was activity day, so I went to the Nascar Racing Track; if I had to summarize it in one word it would be "superb"! On Friday it was a PA day, and on Monday it is Family Day! That gives me plenty of time to study for the BTT test this upcoming Wednesday. Me and John also recorded our seventh episode of The Moh Joh Show: in this podcast we reviewed the book Star Wars The Force Unleashed. I'm actualy in the process of uploading the edited version, with music, onto the wiki now. I can't believe that we have actually made a podcast for every two weeks!! I hope you all have a rocking long, long weekend!!!

Whew! It seems that the BTT test is postponed! I think that it has moved over to NEXT Wednesday, which would be the 18th. I have also chosen the book that we will review for the next episode of The Moh Joh Show: Star Wars The Force Unleashed!

Lastt BTT class, we got a final work period for making pages about the MS Word Book and adding those tutorials to the Woodbine Wiki. We added the tutorials to the Woodbine Wiki to help us study for the test on Wednesday. I made a page on the menubar Edit Basic Functions that class, and I already had a tutorial up on the wiki about the WordArt Toolbar. That makes 4 tutorials for the MS Word Guide, and 1 up for the Wiki!!!

Today in BTT01, we learned a lot of important things! First of all, there will be a test next Wednesday about Microsoft Word and Legal Rights (podcasting). A pixel is a very small blot on the screen short for Picture Element. We learned that there are different colors used for ink (cyan, magenta, and yellow), then the colors used for light or on the computer screen (red, green, blue). These six colors complement each other. For example you could get cyan by mixing green and blue together, and you could get blye by mixing cyan and magenta together. The more colors you have in light, the lighter your picture gets while the more colors you have in ink the darker your picture gets. Each color in light (red, green, and blue) can have 256 different shades or tones. So if you multiply 256 by 256 by 256, you would get around 16.7 million different color combinations! That means that each pixel has a piece of red, green, or blue in it (or none if you want a perfect color). If you wanted a perfect color, you would type in 255 for the color you wanted (because 0 is a level too) and then 0 for the other two. It is also good to note that if you put 0 for all three of your colors, you will get black. If you put 255 for all of your colors, then you will get white. If you have any equal levels in between (such as 78 for all three colors), then you will get a shade of gray. Also, colors are measured in the hexadecimal or Base 16 system. The values for this system are as follows: 1, 16, 256, 65536, etc. Since the computer would get confused if you were to write 10 in this sytem, we use the letters A-F to represent the numbers 10-15. So A stand fors 10, B stands for 11, C stands for 12, D stands for 13, E stands for 14, and F stands for 15. There is no need to have any other numbers after F, because then it becomes 16 again. The hexadecimal color is used as a code (for example 3F4B8E) for a certain color, and you can actually see the code in Adobe PhotoShop. Speaking of Adobe Photoshop, we learned how to use a neat function called the Eyedropper. This function turns your cursor into an eyedropper, from which you can see the colors used in a picture and see it's actual coding. This would be really neat to try on a scanned picture. Whew! That was a long post-Mohammad Signing Out.

Today I handed in my Basic File functions into the BTT tutorials. This tutorial is basicaly about all of the simple features and functions of File. I'm currently working on one for Basic Edit functions.

Today I was supposed to go to the library in the morning or at lunch to comlete my Mail Merge Letter. Unfortunately, I woke up a little late so I couldn't go to he library in the morning and I had student council at lunch. I also had to pick up my little sister after school. However I finished it right now at home, because I forgot that one of our computers actually had Microsoft Word 2003.

Today in BTT, Mr.Case was not here and there was a supply teacher. Anyway, there were instructions on the Wiki to create a mail merge letter. I started off and created 10 entries, each with ten fields. Unfortunately, by the time I had a chance to start my letter the period was almost over. That means that I'll have to go in the morning and at lunch in the library to finish off my letter.

Wow, I can't believe that it is Febuary already! Anyways, on the wiki I uploaded the sixth episode of The Moh Joh Show, replied in some forums, and reated a page about the Word Art Toolbar. I think that I'll be getting around to creating a page about New Window and Arrange. Another cool idea popped into my head for our MS Word Tutorial Book (Getting To Know MS Word): what if I could create a page for all of the simple functions in each of the menubar functions? This way we wouldn't have to explain functions like Cut or Copy in their tutorials, but put the very, very basic functions into just one tutorial page.

Today in BTT01, we talked about makinf Mail Merge letters. What this means is that you could type out only one letter, but have millions of letters with personal information in (by previously filling out the form for all of your mail recipients) while keeping to that one format/style. Unfortunately, I got called down to the office twice so I missed a lot of stuff. We also voted on a cover for our book, BUT I didn't really like any of them so I think I'll be making a cover page myself over this weekend. Hopefully, Mr.Case will still accept it. Other than that, I hope that you all have a great weekend!!

Ok today, we worked on coming up with a title for our MS Word Tutorial Book. Some of the possible titles were Step By Step MS Word, Get Aqquainted With MS Word, MS Word Guide For Middle Schools, and Getting To Know MS Word. In the end, we chose Getting To Know MS Word. It think that it is pretty good, but that we could have done better.

Today in Btt, we talked about a lot of things. We talked about how we were going to publish our Microsoft Word Tutorial book, and Mr.Case said that we would be using a website called lulu.com. It seems that we'll be making a perfect binding, softcover, black and white, paperback copy of the book to publish. This way it will only cost $8 to make and we could sell it for a much lower price. The lower the price, the more likely someone is to buy it. Mr.Case also suggested that we could have a limited-time full-color or hard cover book, for those entusiasts who would like to purchase it.

This week, we'll be reviewing one of the Harry Potter books. I'm really excited and I can hardly hold back my constructive critism. If you have any book suggestions for our podcast, please feel free to tell us.

Ok today we talked more about the BTT Tutorial Book for Microsoft Word. Some of the things we talked about included choosing how our pages would be organized (we chose menubar), and the cover design. We also talked about who was going to edit all of the tutorials (2 people: one male and one female), and me and Joanna were chosen!! I can't wait to start - Mohammad.

Whew, sorry to not have posted for a while. I was busy studying for my French exam. Anyways, I'm glad to say that my first tutorial, the New Window and Arrange All tutorial, has been completed! I woke up early in the morning to work on the second one - the Word Art toolbar. I hope Mr.Case gives us one more class to work on this assignment, though.

Bad news! Somebody already took my function, Word Count, from the other class. The functions that i am doing in one tutorial is New Window and Arrange. Hopefully I'll be able to find another function. Mr.Case also told us to install lightscreen from the Pick Up folder, so that we would be able to capture Print Screens with better accuracy and save time.

Last time on BTT01, our class created a template on Microsoft Word that we would use to create our Microsoft Word textbook based on the various functions that we each chose. Remember that professional documents (ones that are published) have a consistent feel to them such as a constant Header and Footer, or the same text font formats.

Ok today, I worked on getting all my pictures for my tutorial and began gathering ideas. Mr.Case said that the tutorial had to follow the function we chose step-by-step.

Also, we were supposed to start gathering information about our chosen feature (mine was Word Count) so that the wiki could have a textbook about Microsoft Word. I'll have to start working on that this weekend...

Today I finished editing the fifth episode of The Moh Joh Show and uploaded it to the wiki. Feel free to check it out. We reviewed the vampire book Thirsty.

Today we were supposed to choose one of our 10 new features on Microsoft Word to present to the class. I chose the feature Word Count.

Today we were supposed to continue on what we were doing on Friday> trying to find 10 new features on Microsoft Word that we did not know before. However since I already finished that at home, I'll be trying to find even more complicated functions. This is Mohammad signing out for today.

On a side note, me and John will be having to meet again to do our podcast for neext week. This week we'll be reviewing the book Thirsty, which is a vampire book. Stay tuned Moh Joh Show listeners!!

10 New Functions About Microsoft Word

Hey! Our homework was to find out 10 new features about Microsoft Word that we did not know before. I just went through each of the menubar functions (File, Edit, etc) and looked for things that I didn’t recognize. I'll start my new feature off with where it can be found in the menubar, and then it's specific tab. So here they are below:

1. File>Properties: If you press this function, then you can actually input information on your document such as a title, or a description. You can also see the document's statistics such as how many paragraphs or words it has in it.

2. Edit>Find: If you press this function, then you can actually search your entire document’s text to find something specific. Go to Edit and then Find, and type in what you are looking for. The text that is wanted will be highlighted. If it is not in your document, then a pop-up will show up saying that it was not found.

3. Edit>Clear>Contents Del: If you press this function, then you can automatically delete all of the selected objects such as pictures or text. This would be usefull if you want to keep your previous settings (font, lining style), but you want to start your document all over again without closing it.

4. Edit>Replace: If you press this function, then you can actually replace the selected text, with that which you have chosen. First go to Edit and then Replace, and then type in what you would like to find and what you want it to be replaced by. If it cannot find what you have typed in, a pop-up will show up saying hat it was not found.

5. View>Outline: If you press this function, then you can see an outline of your document, which you can edit in different ways. You can post your ideas onto this outline, to make you Microsoft Word document look even better.

6. Insert>Break: If you press this function, you can choose to break or separate your text in different ways such as a Page Break or a Column Break. This would be useful if you wanted to custom-choose the amount of pages that you wanted in your document ahead of time.

7. Insert>Date and Time: If you press this function, then you can insert your current date or time in various different ways into your text. This would be useful if you wanted to have the EXACT date of when you completed a document right down to the seconds (for all you crazy organized people).

8. Format>Theme: If you press this function, then you can choose different themes for you word document, such as different bullet combinations. This feature gives you a variety of 5-8 themes that you can choose from, but you have to download more if you don't like their selection.

9. Tools>Word Count: If you press this function, the word count (with or without spaces) and character count will appear. This would be useful for those with restrictions on how many words they can use (journalists for example).

10. Window>New Window: If you press this function then an exact replica window of the one that you are currently using will appear. Very useful if you want to experiment on something.

Ok today we talked about copyright laws in BTT01. There are multiple ways that you can get in trouble and/or get sued using external files in your podcast. For example, Person A recorded a song and has the rights to it. Person B says that it was okay with Person A for you to use that song in your podcast. However Person A really did not, and Person A becomes upset and takes you to court. Another thin is that you really don't want to mess with big music companies, because Mr.Case said that they have the money to hire many more lawyers than an average person could afford. In the end, you really have to read copyright contracts right and judge on whether the source that gave you rights to a song/beat is viable.

Today, I stayed at home so I missed Day 3. Today, we were supposed to have BTT in the first period. I'll have to go early in the morning to ask Mr.Case about what I missed.

On our first day back to school, we were assigned to read an article and reflect on it. You can look at the article yourself here.


In summary this article was about hard work and how it's usefulness in today's Information Age is slowly diminishing. It also stated that attention is what dominates this new age; through the internet. In short, companies competing with each other to gain our attention and interest are preventing most humans from engaging in hard work. Why? There are simple too many distractions, and companies take advantage of our inability to resist well.

"In one generation, we've gone from a total separation of "work" from "non-work" to one in which both work and play are always sitting right in front of us." I find this to be absolutely true. Whenever I try to go on the internet researching for a school project, atleast 6-8 advertisements show up on almost every website. It's very unconvienient because when you're working hard on a short deadline, and you have these popups and flashing lights everywhere, its almost impossible to focus solely on what you're doing. The internet has given us so much freedom-"Porn, gambling, funny videos, flirting, socializing, playing games, shopping -- it's all literally one click away."-as this quote states.

What I thought was even more disturbing is that you generally see more advertisements on sites in which children go on (game sites for example). The article similarly states that children are "addicted to screens before they even start high school." The sad truth here is that most of the attention children nowadays give is to the internet (away from the family). Again companies take advantage of their vulnerability and try to gain as much attention as possible.

The last sentence of this article is what really clicked on me: "Hard work is dead. Are you paying attention?" In my mind, it's almost like a tragic truth: hours and hours of working are worth less than a simple flashy banner. I guess that is the ultimate truth of this age: we want things to happen faster and quicker (attention>more advertisements seen>faster rate of sales), and we're simply too lazy to commit ourselves to working vigorously for long periods of time to achieve a higher quality of work.

"Hard work is still a virtue, but now takes a distant second place to the new determinant of success or failure in the age of Internet distractions: Control of attention." The solution? Well the article points out that the only thing you can do is resist. I'd have to agree, but as we all know one thing can lead to another. In my opinion it's best to avoid the problem: don't go onto the internet unless absolutely necesscary (especially children). It all boils down to how you control your own level of attention.

Sorry for not posting in a while...I guess all that free time made me a little lazy. Anyway, I uploaded episode four of The Moh Joh Show today because my computer was having trouble on Friday. Other than that, I hope you all have an awesome 2009!!!