Branding

Branding is a name, term, sign, symbol, or design, or a combination of them that identifies a brand and the product or goods and services that the brand sells, it also differentiates them from other brands that sell the same product or goods and services.

A well-known brand is generally regarded as one that people will recognise, often even if they do not know about the company or its products/services. These are usually the businesses name or the name of a product, although it can also include the name of a feature or style of a product.

The overall ‘branding’ of a company or product can also stretch to a logo, symbol, or even design features (e.g. Regularly used colours or layouts, such as red and white for Coca Cola.) that identify the company or its products/services.

For example, the Nike brand name is known throughout the world, people can identify the name and logo even if they have never bought any of their products.

Vectors & Bitmaps

 

 

Vector graphics

 

Vector graphics use geometrical formulas to represent images. The other method for representing graphical images is through bit maps, in which the image is composed of a pattern of dots. This is sometimes called raster graphics. Programs that enable you to create and manipulate vector graphics are called draw programs, whereas programs that manipulated bit-mapped images are called paint programs.

 

Vector-oriented images are more flexible than bit maps because they can be resized and stretched. In addition, images stored as vectors look better on devices (monitors and printers) with higher resolution, whereas bit-mapped images always appear the same regardless of a device's resolution. Another advantage of vector graphics is that representations of images often require less memory than bit-mapped images do.

Bitmap graphics

A bitmap is a type of graphic composed of pixels (picture element) in a grid. Each pixel or "bit" contains color information for the image. Bitmap graphics formats have a fixed resolution which means that resizing a bitmap graphic can result in distortion and jagged edges.

Some common bitmap formats are GIF, JPG or JPEG, TIFF, PNG, PICT, PCX, and BMP. Photo-editors or image-editing graphics software such as Adobe Photoshop and Corel Photo-Paint are designed for creating and editing bitmap graphics.

Blogs & Forums

Blogs and Forums are very similar, however they do have some differences.

Forums are created for discussion between many people, whereas blogs are created for single user input, with the option to allow other people to comment on your post. So, blogs are more like a simple homepage where other people may contribute with comments, but there is one overall ruler, the blog owner, who can delete any comment they do not like. However, in forums there can be hundreds or even thousands of people posting discussion topic messages and also adding comments to those topics.

It is difficult to use a forum as a journal because their message will get lost in the constant stream of messages posted by other people. People tend to post shorter messages in forums, but blogs usually have longer messages on average.

MMS - Multimedia Messaging Service

Multimedia Messaging Service, or MMS, is a new standard for mobile messaging. Like SMS (Short Messaging Service), MMS is a way to send a message from one mobile phone to another. The difference is that MMS can include not just text, but also sound, images and video. It is also possible to send MMS messages from a mobile phone to an email address. MMS messages can contain formatted text, images, audio and video.

An MMS message is a single entity, not a collection of attachments. One of the main practical differences between MMS and SMS is that whilst SMS messages are limited to 160 bytes, an MMS message has no size limit and can be many kilobytes, or even larger. MMS requires a third generation (3G) network to enable such large messages to be delivered, although smaller messages can be sent even with the second generation networks using GPRS.

Photoshop - Storm Tracker Logo

Today I learnt to understand and develop intemediate Photoshop skills by creating a style sheet, I also learnt to use a variety of tools. I created 3D text use Filters such as Motions Blurs, I created a sky in the background with rain and lightning using the Cloud filters. Here is my finished product:

3G

History

The first 3G was introduced in 2001 in Japan only for commercial use, the technology was still very limited and wasnt very reliable. The second 3G network was released commercially in 2002 in South Korea, making koreans the first to view the competition of all 3G operators. Telenor opened the first commercial network in Europe for in December 2001. There were no commercial handsets, however, so there was also zero clients. The first 3G network in the United States that was released commercially was by Monet Mobile Networks. Later on, the network provider had to shut down operations. Verizon Wireless released the second 3G network operator in the United States in October 2003. Today, 3G is a very common feature among modern models and designs, and is continuously improving.

What it offers

• Fast connection to the internet on your phone and Mobile Broadband dongle
• Download music, pictures and games up to 10 times faster than on 2G.
• Quickly access up-to-the minute weather reports, sports bulletins and Twitter or Facebook updates at the touch of a button.
• Stream music and videos using services like YouTube and Spotify on compatible phones.
• Use applications like Google Maps or Nokia Maps to get to where you’re going easily.
• Upload photos quickly and easily to your favourite websites, like Facebook or Flickr.
• Communicate in different ways with Skype, Windows Live™ Messenger, Facebook, Twitter and email.
• 3G offers better quality calls compared to 2G

What devices is it compatible with?

3G is available on most modern smart mobile phones and is also available for laptops/pcs via a 3G wireless USB dongle.

General Packet Radio Service (GPRS)

General Packet Radio Service, or GPRS, is a method of enhancing 2G mobile phones to enable them to send and recieve data more rapidly. With a GPRS connection, the phone is "always on" and can transfer data immediately, and at higher speeds (32-48 kb/s). An additional benefit is that data can be transferred at the same time as making a voice call. GPRS is available in most new phones.

GPRS is part of a series of technologies that are designed to move 2G networks closer to the performance of 3G networks. The key characteristic of a 3G network is its ability to transfer large amounts of data at high speed (up to 2 Mb/s), enabling applications such as video calling, video downloads, web browsing, email etc. By increasing the speed of a 2G network, some of these applications become possible, e.g. web browsing and sending or recieving emails with large attachments. These technologies are now called 2.5G.

GPRS is measured in classes which determine the speed at which data can be transferred. The GPRS' class usually refers to the number of timeslots available for uploading or downloading data. Timeslots are available simultaneously, so the more slots you have, the faster you can send or recieve data. The most common GPRS classes available are Classes 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12. Generally speaking, the higher the GPRS class, the faster the data transfer rates.