Personal Blog

My favourite portion of the course was blogging. I chose to blog mainly about video games, but sometimes I'd go a little off topic, but that's okay. I was already quite familiar with the layout and organization of blogging before starting the unit so it was easy for to get into it. It's much easier to use then Dreamweaver and also much quicker to get what you want to say onto the interwebz. I liked how everyone in the class was aloud to comment on each others blog posts; I feel it brought us closer together as a class.

Everyday more and more people are choosing to have blogs over actual websites for many good reasons:

1. Blogging is free
2. Sites like blogger.com are easier to use then programs such as Dreamweaver
3. It's easier to get direct feedback from your readers (commenting)


blogospherez

Access

I really did not enjoy working with Microsoft Access. It wasn't very difficult work but it was extremely repetitive. I don't think I would ever take a job as a database manager unless I was really desperate. The program itself was easy to use and the instructions in the booklet were easy to follow.

Flash Website

After the choose your own adventure game, we had to make a website using Flash. I chose to make my site all about Homestar Runner. I had fun making the site even though I hate working with motion tweens. That was the only real difficulty I had while doing this assignment; everything else was just basic button pressing and such. I didn't fully complete the project, but I think I met the majority of the requirements.



[Upload your own video]

Choose Your Own Adventure

My choose your own adventure game I made using Flash was never completed. I got about 75% of it finished, then we started something new and I sort of forgot it ever existed. From this assignment I learned how to go from one frame to another using action script and how to make items and such. The assignment was a game so the kind of stuff we were doing in programming is reflected in this piece.


[Upload your own video]

Dreamweaver Tech Site

Making the tech-related site was the best part of the Dreamweaver unit for me. I learned how to make a website using Dreamweaver and basic techniques to make it look good. I got to be more creative when doing this assignment which made it all the more fun. Even though having your own domains isn't a very good idea, it's still good to know how. The only this I wish we could have learned was how to actually get our sites onto the Internet.

Flash Books

I learned a lot from the Flash books. They may have been a pain in the booty to read through, but they did help. I was glad we did work with Flash in this class because at the same time in my programming class we were also using Flash. Even though most of the work we did in programming involved using the action script and the work we did in this class was more working with frames and layers, it still gave me more experience with the program.



[Upload your own video]

Dreeeeamweaver

Using Dreamweaver was fun. My favourite part was when we got to make our own website about whatever we wanted. The book work was kind of boring but it wasn't that bad. I think it was a little hard to understand sometimes; I just wish it had more diagrams. This is a screen shot of the example website we had to make. I really enjoyed making this because we didn't have to stick to exactly what the book said so we were able to change some text and pictures.

Mutual Fund

The mutual fund assignment was a lot of work. I enjoyed checking the stocks every morning and comparing yours with your other classmates. What I didn't like about this project was having to move all of the charts from Excell to Powerpoint. Also entering all that data into Excell wasn't a whole lot of fun either.


Here's my fund compared to the NASDAQ and DJIA:

In-depth Report

This is my in-depth report on Bioware that I received an 83 on. I really liked doing this assignment because I enjoy writing articles and stuff like that. Also I got to write about a company that I actually care about. I kind of left this one to the last minute which is probably why I didn't do as good as I had hoped.


BioWare is an electronic entertainment company that specializes in the development of console and computer video games. BioWare has been very successful since its first major commercial release, Shattered Steel on the PC. Following Shattered Steel were best sellers such as Neverwinter Nights and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.

Founded February 1st, 1995 by Dr. Ray Muzyka (C.E.O) and Dr. Greg Zeschuk (President), BioWare has continued to grow as a company considerably. Just recently a press release from BioWare stated they were looking to recruit more programmers, concept artists, and writers at this year's GDC (Game Developers Conference, hosted in San Francisco from February 18-22). In 2005 BioWare announced that they would be opening a new studio in Austin, Texas. That studio is currently working on an MMORPG, but no other information about the project has been released.

As in every business, there are many factors that can make or break a company. In BioWare's case a lot of these factors come from the community and public relations side of things. BioWare has a thriving online community; nearly 3.6 million registered users at www.bioware.com as of July, 2007.
The active forum community has been a great help to the BioWare development teams. Consumers are always posting suggestions for possible downloadable content for BioWare's latest X-Box 360 success, Mass Effect. The forum community can be a very negative factor to many companies in the video gaming industry, but luckily BioWare has yet to have too much negativity to deal with on not only their own forums but other popular ones as well.

Along with the forum community, video game journalist's thoughts on a companies work can make or break the outcome in sales of a product. Multiple negative reviews could end up putting a game in the bargain bin for eternity. With most consumers, if they see a game has been rated anything less then a 7, chances are they won’t even consider picking up the game. Luckily for BioWare, video game journalists seem to really enjoy the products coming from their studio. IGN.com rated Jade Empire a 9.9, Mass Effect received a 9.4, and Neverwinter Nights a 9.4 on the Dreamcast.

A major factor that all video game developers must deal with is technology. BioWare has created three engines that have been used not only for their own games, but many other third-party games as well; the Infinity Engine, used for many of their original 2D role-playing games, the Aurora Engine which was used for the development of the Neverwinter Nights series, and the Odyssey Engine, used for the development of KOTOR.

Many video game developers' engines are shared among companies, but not for free of course. BioWare used a third-party version of Epic's Unreal Engine to develop Mass Effect for the 360. CDPROJEKT used the Aurora Engine for the world visualization of their recent release, The Witcher, and Obsidian Entertainment used the Odyssey Engine for the development of KOTOR 2.

A huge factor that affects almost all video game developers is the media, mainly news stations such as FOX or Global. Unfortunately in our society, the
news can be easily misinterpreted or misread. BioWare's Mass Effect was recently reported on by FOX news, which caused quite a stir among the gaming community as well as parents. news can be easily misinterpreted or misread. BioWare's Mass Effect was recently reported on by FOX news, which caused quite a stir among the gaming community as well as parents. FOX news stated that at one point in the game the player is "forced" into a sexual situation in which the player controls their avatars movements while engaging in sexual activities with another avatar. This of course was false, but many viewers weren't aware of this. BioWare received many emails from upset consumers who were horribly misinformed by this news report.

BioWare's public relations team did an excellent job at repairing the situation; they received formal apologies from both the news anchor and the psychologist who misrepresented the video game.

BioWare has been thriving ever since its first releases in the 1990's. BioWare was bought by EA games just recently in January. Many analysts believe that this purchase can only mean good things for BioWare, Pandemic Studios (BioWare's parent company) and EA. With new episodic content being released soon for Mass Effect, sales and the amount of registered BioWare.com users are estimated to increase dramatically. The episodic content will cost players "gamer points" which can be purchased at most video game retailers. This will not only increase the sales for Mass Effect, but also for Microsoft, the creators of the X-Box 360. Now that EA owns BioWare, the budget for their projects has increased, meaning we can expect even better looking and feeling games.

It's hard to see BioWare getting into any sort of major dilemma, be it a manufacturing problem, a safety issue, or financial problem. From the way thing's look for this developer now, there's no way to go but up.

Peripheral

We had to do a write up, a diagram and a chart for some type of computer peripheral a while back, so I chose the optical mouse. I learned a bit more about how they work, which probably won't help me to much in the future, but still it won't hurt to know. I didn't fully complete the written portion of the assignment, but I did complete the diagram and the chart.

Optical Mouse Write Up


The first optical mouses were introduced in 1980. At the time, there were only two different varieties of the optical mouse. One type used an inferred LED sensor and a special metallic pad to detect its position, and predictive algorithms to detect the speed at which the mouse is moving. Steve Kirsch of Mouse Systems Corporation invented this type of optical mouse.
Richard F. Lyon invented the second type of optical mouse introduced in 1980. He sold this mouse through the company Xerox. The difference between this mouse and Steve Kirsch’s mouse is that this mouse uses a 16-pixel visible-light image sensor. This means that the sensor on this mouse detects change in motion light dots on your mouse pad. The major difference between the two is that Lyon’s mouse would function normally if the mouse pad or the mouse itself were rotated, while Kirsch’s did not.

Business Card

This is the business card I made for my business tech. It's for an imaginary gaming magazine called "Bra". I enjoyed working on this assignment because it let me be creative. I learned how to make a proper business card and how important it is to have the measurements perfect when making it. The logo was the only challenging part of this project even though all I did to make it was take some letters out of a logo for a video game. It would have been neat if we had to have some kind of write up about our companies to go along with the card, or maybe have some sort of interview with Mr.Smith about our companies.

Complaint Letter

Here's the first assignment we did in business tech this year. It's a complaint letter that we had to write to a real company about a real product. I choice to write to Jakks Pacific about their "Jakks Diamond & Pearl Pokedex". I explain in the letter that the product did not function properly and kindly asked for an explanation. Before doing this assignment I was already familiar with the proper business letter format, so this just gave me some more practice. Although I don't really enjoy writing formal letters, I didn't mind doing this assignment.

Jacob Greco
577 Bolivar Street
Peterborough, Ontario K9J4R9
Phone 1-(705)-745-9064


February 8th, 2008

Jakks Pacific
New York Sales Office
11 East 26th St, New York, NY 10010


To Whom It May Concern,

I recently purchased the Jakks Diamond & Pearl Pokedex at my local Wal-Mart.
After reading the description on the back of the product I immediately purchased it. I returned to my estate and began to unwrap the product from its hard plastic wrapping. This is where my troubles with the product began.

The plastic wrapping that the product is encased in cut my index finger while I attempted to fold it back. Once I managed to remove the product from its external casing I turned on the product. Immediately after turning the product on, the 3 AA batteries began to spark and excrete the acidic battery acid inside them. I replaced the batteries and turned the product back on. The product was working smoothly, but left something to be desired.

As you know, the product is supposed to give a detailed description of the chosen Pokemon. This description is in audio, and I may not be deaf but I do have many acquaintances that are. If they had purchased this product, they would never be able to hear about their favorite Pokemon. I believe your product should have the option to use the audio feature, or to just read text about the chosen subject. Other then what was stated above, I had no other problems with the product, so I do not wish to be reimbursed for my troubles.

Thank you for considering these suggestions.

Sincerely,



Jacob S. Greco

The REAL Master Chief