Movie maker

Windows Movie Maker is a fun and easy to use video editing program that allows you to make home movies, photo albums and business presentations. It is also widely used in schools as a tool for class projects and allows students and teachers to create wonderful graduation presentations of all the goings-on that took place in the school year.

Windows Movie maker has the feature of adding Still pictures, movie clips, sounds, music and narration to a Windows Movie Maker project.

The final version of a project can be exported to a variety of formats that can be read on other computers and on DVD players. They can also be saved in formats so that they are ready to upload to your webpage.

Benefits and Purposes of Windows Movie Maker

With Windows Movie Maker, users can bring together video, audio, and other multimedia content, then arrange and edit the content to create a finished movie. After creating the movie, users can save it on a hard disk, CD, or DVD, send it in an e-mail, or send it to a video hosting provider on the Web. These tasks are kept simple with an interface based mostly on drag-and-drop and on short lists of tasks from which to choose.

As part of keeping tasks simple, Windows Movie Maker can display links to Web sites, such as a link to a potential video hosting provider, and can automatically download missing codecs for audio and video files.

windows movie maker does not have many disadvantages, however the mian one are that is that if you want to use the subtitle feature, the software only allows you to add on title per clip, so a dialogue intense movie needs to be broken into many small clips in order to get subtitles matched up with every verbal exchange. The other disadvantage is very little control over where the subtitles appear on screen. The only option is at the bottom of the screen with either one or two lines of text.

Other problems users may face is that the Audio does not show up when it is recorded and also find that they can't import music files to the movie.

Ethical issues cont..Limits of image manipulation ( post 4)

I belive that If someone enhance something that is already there on the original picture, to bring it out and make it more visible, or more "pretty", that's OK. If you add something that wasn't there in the original scene, you've crossed the line from a documentary art form into a fictional one. This may or may not be OK, depending on what your purpose is. If your purpose is to portray a scene as truthful, then this might be an issue. If your purpose was to create fiction, or "art", then it shouldn't be a problem. in thyis case you will have to be up front and tell the viewer what you are trying to portray.

Ethical issue cont.. ( post 3)

I believe that the ease in manipulating digital images with Photoshop or any other software, some people are questioning whether images are "real" or "art", and wondering if they can believe anything they see anymore. However, people have been faking photos since the introduction of photography.

the problems of ethics in image manipulation arises when the artist or photographer lies about what his motivations, methods, and conclusions are, and presents images to intentionally deiceive someone.

Top Ten Face Book Application

Top Ten Applications on my facebook:

Friend Feed

This is probbly my best application out of the lot because it has the feature of content sharing between multiple websites. i.e. what you create in Frined Fedd application can be viewd on my Facebook news feed and other Facebook news feed activity.

Fantasy Football

I will rank this application as second as I am a very big footy fan and like to challenge my friends. The main feature I like about this application is that you can create your own dream team of Premiership footballers and share a bit of banter with your freinds.

Market place

Market place is a fantastic application which allows you to browse the market on facebook. I like this application as it is a very versatile and convenient and intuitive interface, which allows you to browse for items/products on sale, list your own items, job hunting, look for accommodation etc.

Premier Football

This application is very similar to Fantasy Football. The only difference is that you pick your best eleven from the friends list and not premiership footballers. I like this application because you have to challenge with your friends to see who can come up with the best team.

Liverpool fans

Being a Liverpool fan I enjoy this application as it keeps me up-to-date with Liverpool football clubs latest news, scores, fixtures, English Premiership league position and provides a discussion board so I can share personal opinions with other club supporters.

Mind Jolt games

I like this application as it cheers me up when I am feeling very low or when I am bored out of my brains. This application allows me to play over hundreds of online game, which I can challenge my friends or play myself.

Speed racing

Since I am a very passionate fan about cars, I like this application as you can choose from a variety of speed racing cars and mod your car to get more horsepower. You have a limited ampount of budgest so you have spend very wisely. Then race your friends and see who wins.


Pool

I enjoy playing this application, as it brings the best out of me. This application is extremely addictive. I also like the fact that it allows you to challenge your friends and also other members from facebook. Once you’re on it you’re hooked on it.


Birthday Alerts

If you know me, I am inclined to forget things, especially when it comes to birthdays. This is why I like this application, as it alerts me on my wall the upcoming birthdays on my wall and this way will never miss my friend’s birthdays.

Compare people

I like this application becuasr it allows people to find out who stands where in various categories: cutest, sexiest, and smartest and many more. Most importantly, find out where you fit in

Evaluating two applications:

I am going to choose the following applications to carry out a more detailed evaluation:

Friend Feed
Market place

I personally believe that in order to make a good facebook application, it must have the capability to bring users back to canvas pages on a regular basis to create some sort of engagement. The application should also have the ability to make the usability very convenient in terms of its efficiency, content sharing, connections between different users and most definitely provide entertainment as an end product.

I have not yet seen an application that meets most if not all of the criterias mentioned above; however, my favorite is the FriendFeed application. The reason for this is that it collates my activities from other websites/services and displays it in my Facebook news feed; along with all of the other Facebook news feed activity. The main reason for putting this application above all of the rest of the application is because it helps me represent myself on facebook aswell as on the FreindFeed application. On the whole, this application enables a user to show more about themselves and their individuality.

Another application that comes close to FreindFeed is Market place where connections between different users is a major feature of the application, as people for browse for items/products that are on sale, list your own items, job hunting, look for accommodation etc. This application works very similarly to e-bay shopping. I believe this application will be a big hit, if not already. Market Place is an ideal application to have been launched on face book as thousands of new and existing users are always looking to buy products/services.

Ethical issues ( post 2 EXAMPLES)

Example 1

The above image is digitally altered photograph of OJ Simpson which appeared on the cover of Time magazine shortly after Simpson's arrest for murder. This photograph was manipulated from the original image that appeared, unaltered, on the cover of Newsweek. Time magazine was subsequently accused of manipulating the photograph to make Simpson appear "darker" and "menacing".

Example 2

British Culture Secretary James Purnell (far right) was digitally inserted into this photo at the opening of Tameside hospital in Lancashire. Purnell arrived late to the opening and the hospital asked if it could add his image to their record of the event. The hospital said in a statement: "As we would not be able to stage a repeat of this historic day for the hospital, we decided to take a photograph of Mr Purnell in the same spot very shortly after and merge it with the earlier photograph, to which Mr. Purnell kindly consented." A Purnell spokeswoman denied that he agreed to the picture being doctored. "He was assured they would show the three MPs in one picture and have him separately in the corner."

The Ethical Issues ( post 1)

The last two decades have seen huge technological advances in the creation, manipulation and distribution of images. The relatively low-cost availability of imaging hardware and software has led to a widespread enthusiasm for creating digital images for a range of purposes. Many of these self-created images are put onto the Web with little thought about how they might be used by others or the moral rights of those portrayed in those images. Increasingly, however, those who publish and use images of individuals in electronic format are being called on to justify their actions and motives.

Manipulated images

The image above is a picture of University's Local newspaper. we took this image when we did the shooting few weeks ago.

The image above shows a manipulated version. this was done using the editing software called Adobe Photoshop. as you can see the name of the newspaper has been changed from "Pluto" to "News of the world". also the main headline has also been edited.

The image above shows original a picture of a pub which is situated near the Uni Library

The above aimge is an edited version of the pub. as you can see the name of the pub has been changed and the banner on the side of the pub has also been changed


The image above is an original picture of the computer building. I am going to use photoshop to manipulate the image. this is shown below:

The above image illustrates an edited image using photoshop, to have a storm effect. Even though this image has been edited, it still has a very realistic eefect which would not be visible to a third person. i edited this to give the image a more enhanced look to make the image more appealing

digital photo album

on wednesday 06th of Feb 08: on this day edited the images that that were uploaded last week ( 31st jan 08) on photoshop and created a slideshow.

Using the photographs that wetook last week, we create a digital photo album that portrays student life at UCLan. we, as a group decided to add additional material such as audio, backgrounds and other visual material, speach bubbles etc.

Shooting

last week ( 31st Jan 08) we were given a task to take photos of a typical life of a student at UCLAN. we got into a group of three and went round the University and took some photos of a student life. This included taking photos of the library, multi faith centere, foster building etc. we were given aproximately 1 and a half hours to complete the task.