Evaluation - What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

During the making of my magazine, I have been experimenting with different types of technology. I have to admit, I have never used an editing program for more difficult tasks like this before, so it was a new challenge.

Firstly, I'm stating the obvious a bit here, but the better the camera was, the more professional my magazine would look. I used my own camera to take all of my photos, including the photos of locations and target audience. My camera is a Panasonic DMC-Z51 which is also known as a Panasonic DMC-Tz6. It has 10.1 megapixels and has 12x optical zoom. I actually love my camera and find it very easy to use. It has complicated settings to improve the photos, but are easy to use. Here are some photos of it:

Computer-wise, I have used an Apple iMac, a ACER Aspire One D255 and a Dell Dimension 4600.

I found the iMacs rather unsusual for editing on. I think this is because I'm used to Windows and not Apple software. I didn't get how to use iPhoto, and I felt more comfortable using a Windows based programme. Although, they are good for using the internet. Very fast and very efficient.

My ACER Aspire One D255, for me, was the best computer I used. It was very fast and rarely froze. I got along with it well because it has Windows software, although I had to get used to Windows 7, which I soon got the hang of. Considering it is only a netbook, it suprisingly had enough space to download editing programs and still work without a fuss!

The other computer I used was a Dell Dimension 4600. I found this okay to use, but considering it has aged quite a bit since we bought it, it has slowed down a bit and froze often. But when it was busy freezing or messing up, it was very handy to upload things to my blog with!

When I wanted to use examples from a magazine that I couldn't find on the internet, I would use my scanner that is built into my printer, to scan the pictures onto my blog. The scanner/printer I used was a Epson RX620. It is a very good printer, it scans quickly and easily, the controls are easy to follow and it generally does a good job.

I orginally wanted to use Photoshop to edit my pictures with, but as I've said earlier in another post, the part of the Photoshop website that you use to download the free 30 day trial version, wasn't working. This really annoyed me so I had to find another editing program. On the home computer (the Dell one) we have a program called GIMP. I had never used it before but remembered the name. So I downloaded GIMP to edit my photos with.
I've got along quite well with GIMP. I find it relitively easy to use, depending on what you want to do. Adding layers can get quite complicated, whereas so can the simplist of things, like resizing a photo. This got quite tedious but eventually I figured out how on earth to use it. On GIMP, I learnt things like how to put a layer on so the subject of the photo was infront of the text.

I used a free online editing programe called Picknik. I found this very easy and simple to use, but I could tell it wasn't desinged for huge editing projects, just little pieces of editing here and there.

I have also used Picasa to create my magazine. I used it to put the text on the OFC. I cant say I get along well with Picasa but it's bearable.

I've also used webistes like Wikipedia, Fontspace and Google. They have all been very helpful and very efficient. I've also used Publisher to help get my results from the questionnaire into a pie chart.