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Showing posts from May 25, 2014

[Week 11] Electronic Diversity Lottery – American dream?

Electronic Diversity Lottery also known as Green Card Lottery is a program of United States Department of State which allows people from other countries get a Permanent Residential Card. The Program was created for people who are unable to qualify for employment in the United States, don’t have family there but would like work and live in USA. The Lottery is based mostly on good luck but factors like age, level of education and skills are very important during the whole procedure. The application process  is very easy and free so if you have never done it and you would like to try someday it is all you need to know: - You can enter the Diversity Visa Lottery once a year at: https://www.dvlottery.state.gov/ - You will be asked to fill up a form with basic information about your age, education, your children under 21 ;) and a few other things - You must submit a digital photo of yourself  (it is very important to send a photo which meets the requirements – we all know this kind o

[Week 11] Android or iOS?

Nowadays mobile device market is overflooded by smartphones which are becoming more and more popular. We use it every day and everywhere. Big companies like Samsung, Sony, LG, HTC produce new flagship models every month and sell millions of pieces but hardware is only half of success. The other half is an operating system. I would like to focus on two most popular platforms: Android and iOS Android The most popular operating system in the world. Functional and customizable – these are words which describe it. Android basically lets you do whatever you want with it and if you have problems with configuration or applications there are millions of developers, guides and solutions ready to help. On the other hand, hundreds of options, thousands of hardware configurations are not for everyone and if you prefer out of the box solutions you should focus on iOS or Windows Phone. Pros: - Android is open source platform - A lot of applications available in the Google Play sto

[Week 11] Evolution of webdesign? - flat vs real (skeuomorphism)

Nowadays websites are becoming one of the most popular ways of presenting information and sharing it with other people. The number of websites is constantly growing and every author, publisher or developer is looking for something new to catch our attention. Today I would like to describe two design styles used mostly in Web design and user interface design, first is realism called skeuomorphism, which refers items or objects used in user interface are designed to look as real as possible.  For this purpose we use shadows, highlights and other visual effects, effects which allow us to present objects in 3D even though these objects are placed on a flat surface mostly screens of our computers. Pros: - Content is understandable immediately - We are used to such a way of design Cons: - Huge size of images - Interfaces designed in such a way seem to be outdated The second style is Flat Design which is focused on the usability of an application and because of that all

[Week 11] Good bad movies

You might find this weird, but I often enjoy watching a bad movie. I'm sure I'm not the only one that is like this. However, if somebody enjoys a movie, can you still call it bad? In my opinion the main goal of a movie is to entertain. I understand entertaining in many different ways - being entertained is not necessarily laughing, especially in the case of movies and books I think of entertainment as enriching the viewer (or reader) somehow, presenting him something he likes and wants to see, that somehow has an impact on him. However in this case I will be mainly talking about entertaining as making one laugh. So why would I want to watch a bad movie? And enjoy it? Well I think it's funny. When I watch a movie that tries being serious but instead ends up silly or stupid I will laugh at it. And you know what? I feel entertained. So what if the idea was different, so what if somebody did a terrible job? As long as I am satisfied, one way or another, I believe it was

[Week 11] Steampunk

I mentioned the term in my previous presentation  speaking of the band Steam Powered Giraffe. Apart from that, there is a high chance you've heard the term before. Whether that is the case or not, I will try to make it more familiar, because I think it's a very interesting... Yeah, what is it exactly? I must shamefully admit that I needed the help of our old friend Wikipedia to aid me in choosing the right words and I think I found the right ones. So steam punk is a sub-genre of science-fiction, or perhaps a deviation on the classic concept of science-fiction. The main idea is a 19th century world in which however very efficient  steam-engines were invented and technology is much more advanced. Alongside with clockwork, gears and engines also magic is usually heavily represented, whether it's the concept of a European alchemist transmuting led into gold or an Indian shaman summoning the spirits of his ancestors in the wild west. There are many sub-cultures similar

[Week 11] Not-so-popular music

Not-so-popular music I'm sure that all of us listen to some kind of music. There are some many music genres it seems impossible for a person not to find at least one he would like. Music is part of the human nature - already in the prehistoric times the first humans were amused by repetitive sound. Music is a big part of my life. Don't get me wrong: I certainly am no musician, I don't posses any musical talent nor can I play any musical instrument. However, in spite of my great ignorance I have always enjoyed good music and have listened to a lot of it, especially during my high school time when I basically had my headphones on all the time. I can't think of any specific genre which I prefer over others ??- I believe that if a song is good, than there's nothing more to it. Although for some reason I like almost only English vocalists. There are really a few non-English singing bands or musicians I listen to and usually they are Polish or Italian. I don't l