Session 8 and Session 9... (Two in one post)

Yeah!! I'm back!! After finished my first draft FYP report, now my life becomes normal again :p. Almost 2 weeks I only touched my report, and ignored other subjects that I take this semester. Heheeheh.. And now I'm back with revision on session 8 and session 9. Let's start from the session 8.

Session 8: Interactive Design
Yup. Session 8 was all about design. In this session, we started the session with presentation of proof-of-concept for each team. We presented our proof of concept in different way this time. Instead of using power point or flash, we did it by using skit !!! And then followed by demo of our sub application inside eSing, our business plan. This application is a bus guide. But it is not like old fashioned street directory book, this application is dedicated to mobile phone and the user can access this application from their own phone. Here is the snapshot of the bus guide application
Another interesting presentation was conducted by Team Visionaries. Their user interface design was very attractive. They did it using Flash. Before you interact with the user interface, you'll never know what's inside. But once you interact with the apps, you will be amazed by this interface. This interface will attract your attention and it will enhance a user experience.

Okay, let's go to the lesson. In this session we discussed about designing an interface for application especially in Critical Design Trends for application developer when designing an application. Prof. Gilbert gave us nice analogy by using a simple game. This game required the two players to each take turn to choose a number for a set of numbers between 1 to 9 till either side got a total of 15 from the addition of the numbers each pick. At the beginning, the class confused about the game rule. The game rule seemed complicate and hard to play. Eventually, this game is a version of Tic Tac Toe game that I'm sure you all know how to play. Moral of the story is with proper interface, the application will be easier to understand by customer.

Actually, I'm quite interesting with one of the slides that Prof. Gilbert gave us from edventure. It is a slide about Creating Initial Design. Well, the contents of this slide are related with my Industrial Attachment. Before I share my IA experience about creating a User Interface for our application, let's highlight the contents of the slide. Here they are:

• Intelligent borrowing
• Derive principles from other applications
• Copy specific interaction techniques
• Only then conside a new solutions

One of the phases in my IA project was designing user interface for the application. At that time our team made a Windows-based application. This means, we must follows the User Interface of the Windows XP. After I read the Creating Initial Design slide, I feel that the slide summarize the essence of my experience during my IA. Okay, let me give you an example in designing a Windows-based application.
Refer to figure above, all the buttons in the User Interface are placed on the right side (right-alligned style) and Microsoft as well as Windows always put their trio buttons ('OK' button, 'Cancel' button, 'Apply' button) on the corner of the Windows.

And at that time, I didn't follow this kind of example. I designed the user interface with my own design. In the end, one of my friends told me that your application is not a Windows application if the User Interface design is different from what Windows does. =D

So, moral of the story is, follow what Windows does when you design User Interface for a Windows-based application.

Okay, le't go to session 9. I think its enough for session 8 review :p..

Session 9: Scenario Planning
Let's start from the definition of scenario planning. In formal definition, Scenario planning or Scenario thinking is a strategic planning method that some organizations use to make flexible long-term plans. It is in large part an adaptation and generalization of classic methods used by military intelligence.

he basic method is that a group of analysts generate simulation games for policy makers. The games combine known facts about the future, such as demographics, geography, military, political, industrial information, and mineral reserves, with plausible alternative social, technical, economic and political (STEP) trends which are key driving forces.

Scenario planning can include anticipatory thinking elements that are difficult to formalize, such as subjective interpretations of facts, shifts in values, new regulations or invention

In this session, Prof. Gilbert highlighted the importance of scenario planning to help in our forecast about competitor's strategy. In this session, Prof. Gilbert gave us an example using a table to represent the Structural Dimension and Scenarios. We need to identify the structural factors for decision making process. Looking at 3 or 4 dimensions is very good to analyze the problem. Using only 2 dimensions will result in many way of contradicting answers.

That's all for these 2 sessions =D

Ciao..

Podcasting... yay!! Sounds cool!!!

Yup yup.. actually I was quite busy during the recess week, since I had several things to settle about my Final Year Project. Hehehe. That's why I update this blog just before the week 8 session starts :p..

Last 2 week, we had a discussion about Podcast. Actually I have already heard this term quite frequently, however I didn't know the exact meaning before I attended this session. :p So, what is podcast??

Podcast is...

In the formal definition, podcast is a method publishing files to the internet, allowing users to subscribe to a feed and receive new files automatically by subscription, usually at no cost. It first became popular in late 2004, commonly used for large audio files. The term 'podcast' itself is derived from Apple's popular product, iPod. More detailed information about the name can be found here. :D

iPod by Apple

Podcast is distinguished from other digital audio formats by its ability to be downloaded automatically, using software capable of reading feed formats such as RSS or Atom.

Okay, definition will become clearer if it is supported by some examples. Here are some of the podcast examples, take a look at them

• From mac.com
• http://audio.weblogs.com

Podcast potential...

In the lesson, we discussed about podcast's abilities and potential. Eventually, we conclude that podcast has great potential to enhance our education and learning experiences, for example:

• portable, can be played anytime anywhere, as long as you download the file and save it in your own computer
• suitable for self-paced learning, student can arrange their convenient and best time to study:D
• provide flexibility to the student
  
• it enhances our learning experience

Here is the example of podcast for education, The Education Podcast Network

How to....

Let's go to practical things. How-to section!!!!. :D
This how-to section will teach you how to make a podcast. Sounds fun right??!! :D

First you must create your own audio content. In this step you need computer, working mic, and sound editor software. Free sound editor software like Audacity is quite good for your first podcast:D. You can download Audacity here.

Audacity is a freeware, so you don't need to pay to use it :D

Save your finished audio show at maximum quality in the native format of your audio application. That way you can go back and edit it or reuse it and you'll have a good version.

Convert the file to MP3 format. Once you have your audio content, you need to save it in MP3 format. MP3 is the defacto standard format for podcasts. Stick with MP3 unless you've got a very good reason for using another format. Using anything but MP3 will mean that some users may not be able to use your podcast.

Use the minimum bit rate that provide good results. Here are some suggested settings:

• 48 - 56k Mono - sermons, audio books, talk radio
• 64k+ Stereo - music, music & talk combinations
• 128k Stereo - good quality music

Publish your MP3 - save your MP3 files to your web server, and test them with any MP3 player. The files can go anywhere on your site, but you may want to put all of them into one directory, so they are easy to find and manage.

Create your podcast newsfeed - Podcast feeds are RSS files that describe your podcast, along with information for each show. An RSS file is just a text file that links to your MP3 file.

For a brief introduction of to RSS, check the article Understanding RSS Feeds. For details on RSS, check the RSS 2.0 Specification. The specification includes an example file that can be used as a starting point for creating new RSS files.

You can use any text editor to create an RSS news feed. However, most podcasters use blogging programs or other applications to automatically generate newsfeeds.

If you have a blogging tool that lets you reference enclosures, just create an item for each MP3 file you publish, and use URL of the audio content as your enclosure. If your blogging tool doesn't support enclosures yet, don't worry, it will soon because of the popularity of podcasts

In the meantime, you can edit your RSS file with any text editor to add the enclosure tag. Here's an example from the Trade Secrets podcast newsfeed:

RSS newsfeeds normally feature news Items that contain a Title, Link, and Description. Each item in a news feed provides meta-information about a URL on the web. In the case of a podcast newsfeed, each Item describes the content of an audio file referenced by the enclosure URL. Save your RSS file with a .rss or .xml extension.

Normally, you'll want to have one news feed that contains all of your recent podcasts, ordered from newest to oldest.

Publish your podcast news feed - transfer your podcast RSS file to your webserver, like you would any other content. Validate it using an online RSS validator. If the podcast news feed is valid, it's ready to be published to the web.

Hehehehe... That's all for this session. Enjoy podcasting!!!