Fasten your seatbelts, the ride has already begun...

To have a successful business, a lot of serious planning needs to be done. But before we get really technical we have to get our ideas straight and picture some real numbers. To be able to visualize what we have up in front of us, we've been asked to write a Main Concept and a Rough Budget to our summatives.

The main concept should go over:
- Briefly what the purpose of the business is
- Costs included
- Obstacles or problems you'll have to face
- Why the business is viable

The budget should help give us an idea of what kind of numbers we'll be dealing with, and if all that work is really worth it. In other words, is the business really going to be better than just working at a local fast food restaurant?

Terminology for Budgets:
- Gross: Total amount of money the business is bringing in.
- Net: The amount of money left after deducting expenses.
- Capital expenses: Expenses that you'll be able to benefit from in the long term.
- Consumable expenses: Things you'll need to be buying constantly, or things that won't last longer than their sole purpose.
(For example, a camera is a capital expense as it will be useful to you even after the business is done with, however the film in the camera is a consumable expense as it will be gone after it runs out.)

That's all for now

--Amna

Evolving into an Entrepreneur

Ahh...the time has come. We have finally received our major assignment for the end of year, otherwise known as the summative. This project is worth 30% of our final mark, it sounds like a lot but it's better than having the pressure of both a summative AND an exam!

It's time to put all the skills we've learned throughout the course to good use. For this last assingment we'll be applying all our knowledge gained from the course towards one product. This one aim will be a plan to start up our own small business in the form of a sole proprietorship. I'm actually glad that this is our goal for the end of the year; being able to use all our skills for a task such as this proves that this course is very useful!

Ideas do not come easily, and ideas that can be built on come even harder but I've already started to brainstorm some possibilities for this project. Keeping in mind that I have to be able to afford this and carry it out...these are the possibilities:

- Seniors Computer software use lessons
- Creating Flyers/Advertisements for other local businesses
- Customized Buttons Business

These are a few ideas but the one I'm probably sticking with for now is the customized button business. To start up this business I won't need much aside from my mind, my button machine and a computer. I already have these as my assets, so I have a start-up cost of $0. This sounds good, but as I factor in future issues as well as consumable purchases, this might not be the best idea to go with.

[Edit April 27th] This is why we have to get our ideas approved by 1 adult and 2 peers. If they can already see flaws, it's time to go back to the drawing board. Remember that a good final business is one that Mr. Case can see you starting the next day!

Well, all the best to everyone...
Ganbatte ne?

"Fresh Collaboration!"

The past week we've been working with Flash and Dreamweaver, and I've come to learn how the two can be really helpful to one another.

Today we learned how to create a slideshow or take an already existing movie in Flash, and then incorporate it into our websites. This could be one way of displaying our Portfolios!

Here are the details:

For Slideshows:
- In Flash, go to File>Import>Import To Library
- Convert all images imported to symbols.
**Remember to put each image on its own layer.
- Set your timing: Insert keyframes & Tweens
**Adjust the Alpha(transparency) percentage on the keyframes to create transitions from one picture to the next.

Working with the video:
- Size: Width- 320, Height-260
- Import the video into library
- Video Options Dialogue should open
- Select your player/size and skin
-Publish your video
** This part is important, make sure to save the video in all the correct formats as well as in the right folder.

Open in Dreamweaver
- Correct HTML code from "False" to "True" in all the areas needed to allow fullscreen options.
**Make sure you've selected a template for the video that enables this option
- Save and check to see the results

Until next time,
--Amna

Flash in a Flash!

Our custom animations are really coming together. I decided to create a toaster as my custom animation. So far it's working really well, and I'm looking forward to the final product. I'm just going to use this post to report on some minor details/problems I've learned or come across during this process.

Concerning tweens:
- If you see a white circle it indicates the absence of a tween.
- A dotted line shows that an object is missing, or that Flash can not locate anything to tween
- While, a White square marks the end of the tween.
- Sometimes the more keyframs there are the more precise the movements will be.

Getting to know Flash, important parts to remember:
- Toolbar
- Menubar
- Timeline
- Palettes/Panels
- Properties Inspector
- Stage

That's all for this unusually short post.

Now, Back to work!

--Amna

A Step Beyond Stop-Motion

For the past two classes we have been concentrating on creating animations using Adobe Flash CS3. The software has all the functions available to even create a full-length animation feature. A few simple techniques can produce a very good quality result that manipulates the eyes in certain ways. We've only taken a brief look at flash and below are listed a few of the things we learned how to do.

Motion Tweening: Allows you to move an object without filling in every specific frame. All you have to do is insert a new frame after however many number of frames from the initial frame where the object appears or currently is and move the object to where you would like it in the new frame. The frames in the middle will be filled in by the program!

Shape Tweening: Works basically the same way as Motion Tweening but instead of moving the object, it alters the proportions.

Importing Files: Across your toolbar, if you go to File>Import, you can import files from anywhere else on your computer to work with in your flash animation.

Symbols: We also learned how to convert pictures into symbols. Right-clicking an object and clicking 'convert to symbol' changes the object or picture to symbol format. This means that the object is saved only once individually throughout the entire animation, which in turn lowers the file size.

That's all for now, but I'll be playing around with flash at home for sure. I do have a few interesting ideas....

One Frame at a Time

We'll be starting to work with Adobe Flash now in BTT. This is a program I've been looking forward to learning about as it can be used as a simple yet impressive way to display information.

What is Flash?
Flash is basically a program used for creating animations, however it's also good with encoding video files.

Some Common File Formats:
- .FLA: This is the Flash Project file, or the format you save in while still working on an animation. (Much like .PSD used in Photoshop)

- .FLV: This is a Flash *Video Project File. This format allows you to view your video.

- .SWF: Shockwave file. This format is used to save your final product.

Frame rate?
The frame rate is how many frames you see per second. The standard fram rate for Theatre in 25 Frames/second and for digital cameras it's 20 frames/second. Other videos, like the ones on Youtube usually have 12 frames/second.

Key Frames:
A Key Frame marks key movement. Or simply put, just used to mark where something actually happens. A tween is used in between key frames to shape movements to look more realistic. ( To move into one to the next)

We used this new knowledge to play pool! Or at least reinact the movement occuring on a pool table using Physics.

Signed, Sealed Delivered!

Continuing with the Dreamweaver, today we went over the basics of creating a webpage. Since dreamweaver automatically creates the HTML codes for you, we focussed more on how to create a well-designed website.

Firstly, like everything else we've worked on through out the year, remember to keep things original. Anyone can use a pre-made template and call it their website, to really achieve more with your site custom pages, backgrounds etc will show your true abilities. Also remember to keep all the images used on your website in the folder you have your webfiles! The actual webapge doesn't hold your images or links, for them to still show up on the website you'll have to make sure that pictures are accessible from anywhere. Embedding the pictures into the folder along with your webpages works best.

As for HTML, we were given a website that is to help us with quickly grabbing hold of important text tags etc: http://www.webmonkey.com/reference/HTML_Cheatsheet

This site is helpful for us to study from, and get used to working with HTML, however Dreamweaver makes working with HTML very simple because it allows users to create their sites without actually having to write out the HTML coding. It has three views, one that allows you to write out HTML codes, another in which you can only see your webpage, and a third one with a split between the two.

As I've mentioned in previous posts, we can use the website we create to host our Portfolio, which is basically just a collection of all our best work this year in BTT. I'm still not too sure of what I'll be putting up in my portfolio, but I'm going to work on creating the website first.

That's all for now

--Amna