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Archive for RachelWood

‘Youtube adds a “Play in 3D” option across its site’

Posted by: | April 5, 2012 | No Comment |


TechCrunch article by Sarah Perez

For months, Youtube employees have been beta testing the conversion of 2D videos into 3D. Finally, the tool has been released that allows users to upload and watch videos in 3D.

When filmmakers create 3D movies, they shoot two videos and once and combine them to make the 3D effect. Youtube, however, is bringing these flat videos to life by capturing color, movement, estimation of depth, etc. The creators use those aspects to make a 3D effect.

Youtube hopes that viewing these clips in 3D will be the next big thing. What they obviously haven’t taken into consideration is that not everyone has a pair of 3D glasses lying around. Without those, the video is pointless and causes the viewer to be dizzy.

Movie theaters shouldn’t be surprised when their “return 3D glasses bins” aren’t as full at the end of the day.

Photos from Tumblr and 3Dglasses-store

under: Comm361, RachelWood
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‘Educator suspended when she refused to show her Facebook profile’

Posted by: | March 30, 2012 | No Comment |

Mashable article by The Daily Dot

This topic is a hot commodity with the government today. More and more employers are asking prospective employees for their passwords to their Facebooks upon interviewing.

One of the recent cases is of a teacher in Michigan, Kimberly Hester. Hester was suspected of posting a picture of a co-worker to the site that was flagged as inappropriate by one of the students’ parents.

After the complaint came through, Hester was asked by the school to release her password and information for her Facebook. Hester refused numerous times and was then fired from the school.

The House of Representatives has refused the idea of banning employers from asking for this information. However, many senators are drafting other legislation to put the same law into effect.

Whether you’re on the side of “if you’ve got nothing to hide, it shouldn’t matter,” or the side of “releasing that information is an invasion of privacy,” something needs to be done about it soon. This refusal or acceptance is putting a lot of people in awkward situations.

Photo from Blog.TimesUnion

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‘Twitter updates TweetDeck, Allows users to edit and retweet’

Posted by: | March 22, 2012 | No Comment |

Mashable item by Christina Warren

The new TweetDeck is now downloadable to Google Chrome. It has many of the features that Twitter had when it was first released. The update is now bringing back many of the features that users have missed from the original Twitter. For example, users can now have more flexibility with lists.

They can create, edit, and delete them more easily. It has also added an interactions column, which shows more of the communications between the user and other users. This update also shows times for when these users make these interactions.

This TweetDeck is also allowing the preview of pictures and videos to be shown under the link. This makes it easier for users to choose what they click on. Last, but not least, users can now edit previously added tweets. These updates hope to change peoples’ outlooks on Twitter and increase the consumer quality.

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Briggs Chapter 9

Posted by: | March 20, 2012 | No Comment |

JournalismNext by Mark Briggs

This chapter is about embracing the digital world into your life. Briggs starts by acknowledging that people get frustrated by all of the recent developments in this field. There seems to be a million ways to do most things when it comes to the internet.

He empathizes with those that know there is probably a program out there perfect for the task they are trying to complete, but that don’t want to take the time to search for it. It is hard to keep up with all of the tools available.

Briggs then goes on to emphasize the importance of staying organized – primarily in your email. When it comes to other aspects of keeping things in order, he suggests things such as calendars, to do lists, spreadsheets, and so on.

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Briggs Chapter 8

Posted by: | March 20, 2012 | No Comment |

JournalismNext by Mark Briggs

This chapter highlights the importance of video in journalism. Many stories are best told with video. Other forms of reporting wouldn’t have the same effect on readers and viewers. Video can evoke feelings that pictures can’t always.

Nowadays, high school students are taking classes that teach them how to shoot and edit video. These skills will benefit them in the future when they dive into journalistic careers. They will be prepared with experience that most people in our age don’t have.

I thought it was good advice for Briggs to say that the only way to learn how to do video was by getting out there and doing it. People can attend classes and have teachers tell them how to shoot good video, but practice makes it that much easier.

Briggs tells us the difference between full documentary-type videos, and those made for breaking news or highlights. It is important to know when to use each one. Documentary videos are planned out and the journalists have time to decide who to interview and what to shoot.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tU1dLutdRAM

Highlight and breaking news stories, however, are spur of the moment. They happen quickly and have to be reported quickly. This makes it crucial for journalists to be able to know how to shoot and what to shoot in a timely manner.

under: Comm361, markbriggs, RachelWood
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‘Pinterest Drives More Traffic to Blogs than Twitter’

Posted by: | March 8, 2012 | No Comment |


Photo from Mashable

Mashable article by Lauren Indvik

To the surprise of most social media outlets, Pinterest has been increasingly (inadvertently) promoting online publishers. The company has been driving more traffic to these companies that than Twitter.

In January, Shareaholic did a study that showed Pinterest was sending more referral traffic to these publishers than Google+, Yahoo, and LinkedIn combined. Naturally, most of these promotions went to companies involved in home decor, arts and crafts, and style and food.

Cooking magazines and things of that nature have been receiving a high amount of attention from the site as well. As of February, Pinterest has notably risen above Twitter and many of the opposing sites in directing traffic to publishers.

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Adobe Photoshop II Workshop

Posted by: | March 8, 2012 | No Comment |


Photo from FindtheBest

This workshop was an extension of the Photoshop workshop that I took earlier in the week. I was somewhat discouraged when I walked in because we began working on things that we had done in the first lesson.

Beneficially, we elaborated much more on the techniques that we learned the class before. There were a lot of repeated lessons, but they allowed me to gain extra practice with the program.

In the first class we moved shells from the surrounding areas into a plate. We focused on the selection tools and some of the other basic techniques. In this class, we used many more ways of selecting items.

This particular class teacher was much slower and more precise (which was probably good). The unfortunate part about it was that I didn’t learn much that I hadn’t already known.

However, I did increase my knowledge of layers, different effects, and different tools. Overall, it was good for me to take both of these classes because they will help me in my future career; not to mention it will look good on my resume to be familiar with the program.

Photo from MarcoFolio

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Adobe Photoshop I Workshop

Posted by: | March 7, 2012 | No Comment |


Photo from BMSoftware

This workshop was especially helpful for me because it will apply to my future career. As a journalist, or a PR person, it will be important for me to know how to create pictures that are aesthetically pleasing.

I have taken AVT180 (Computers in Creative Arts), which gave me a foundation before this class. In AVT180 I learned the basics of Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator. My professor was Negar Nahidian and she had extensive experience with the programs.

In the workshop, on Tuesday, I first relearned how to white balance a photo. I then learned how to select certain items in the photo and change their color. We then learned how to crop a photo and save it in ways appropriate to what we plan to do with it.

My favorite lesson in the workshop was learning how to get rid of things in the picture that you do not want. For instance, if there is a crack in a brick wall, and you want the wall to look seamless, you can select the crack and fill it in with its surrounding pixels.

It detects what is around it, and blends it all together. Another way we learned to do that was through choosing a certain part of the picture, and cloning it onto another section of the photo.

I was happy to take this workshop at GMU. It made me realize that I should take more advantage of these because they are so easily accessible and free right now.

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Briggs Chapter 11

Posted by: | March 7, 2012 | No Comment |

JournalismNext by Mark Briggs

This chapter is about building a digital audience for news. The importance of this is that your contribution to news actually gets out there. Briggs provides some helpful points to gain an audience and keep it.

Firstly, he stresses the importance of analyzing what you publish, and listen to what your readers want. If you have a comment box, take advantage of it. Don’t let it sit there unused. Read what your followers have posted and take it seriously.

Secondly, it is vital that the content your readers are interested in can be found in search engines and through social tools. If your writing can’t be found through these outlets, then the only way people can be turned on to it is through others. That’s hardly ever enough to rely on.

Briggs says that it is good for online journalists to know how search engines work. The results on the first page of a search are the most credible stories. They are the stories endorsed by the most other sites, and the most credible at that.

Having these sites link to your site is a great way to get your foot in the door for having more people find your link.

Picture from Healthy Influence

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Briggs Chapter 10

Posted by: | March 7, 2012 | No Comment |

JournalismNext by Mark Briggs

In this chapter, Briggs discusses the pros and cons with news as a conversation. First order of business, he dives into the idea of comment boxes on news stories.

He makes the point that people have always commented on stories in their free time, but that the technological comment boxed has caused much more controversy than expected.

People often take advantage of their opportunity to get their opinion out into the public. They say what they want, even if it is hurtful or blatantly mean. This means that it takes more employees and more time to monitor these comments to make sure nothing offensive stays up.

On the other hand, one of the important pros of news as a conversation is that things are now spread more quickly through word of mouth. This includes blog posts, buzz, microblogging, and much more.

All of these ways of communicating the news are important because it takes us less time to find out what is going on in the world. We no longer have to wait a day until the paper arrives on our doorstep.

Photo from Shutterstock

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