Anthony Cataldo's Blog

!NEW! iPhone 3G S

anthonycataldo — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 11:24:26 +0000

That’s right boys and girls, the iPhone 3G S is on it’s way and is due to hit our shelves June 26. It claims significant improvements over the iPhone and iPhone 3G like:

Runs up to 2x faster
A 3 megapixel camera
Video recording capabilities (30fps)
Up to 32GB of storage
Voice control
Turn-by-turn GPS

Apple.com
I don’t know if the iPhone 3G S is really going to entice buyers that much as the camera improvement is only 1 megapixel in difference and options like video recording and voice control are standard features on almost any phone in today’s market. The memory size increase is definitely a good feature along with the turn-by-turn GPS. One other feature which is definitely worth mentioning is the ability to edit video but if you’re a current iPhoner (like myself) I know I won’t be rushing out to purchase this little puppy anytime soon.

See more details here.

Let me know what you think below.

Final blog post for NMP! (reflective ‘meta’ post)

anthonycataldo — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 15:03:57 +0000

The 3 final blog posts I would like to be assessed are:

Week 12 – Data Visualisation

Week 11 – Multiplicity (Google’s AJAX)

Week 10 – Web 2.0

All most all of my blogs were to do with NMP and not much to do with personal interests bar a few posts. I tried to keep my blogs short and straight to the point. By embedding media content like videos and pictures, I tried to let the media do most of the talking. In most of my blogs also included linkable text to references and related articles or topics.

My target audience are people with similar interests to mine, which include:

Programming (web & apps)
Electronic gadgets
Latest IT news
Music

Although I didn’t get to do as much blogging on topics of interest as I wanted to (which meant less of a traffic flow), I did try to embed as much relevant media and links as required. As you can tell from some of my earlier posts, they were not very interactive. It took quite a while to figure out how to embed a Youtube video and once I engaged more with the unit I noticed what other people were doing to better their blogs.

In addition to the blog posts, I subscribed the blog page to djbooth.net’s RSS feed for the lasted Hip Hop/RnB music as well as PC Authority’s RSS feed for breaking I.T. news. I also jumped on the free advertising band wagon by promoting my business under blogrolls (www.allitsolutions.com.au).

I made use of tags to classify and categorise my posts so that readers will be able to find other posts of similar content.

When I started the post I originally had the plain basic theme. Once I found out how to change it I changed it (not only to my corporate colours) but to something a little more ‘me’. I like the visual contrast of the colours and also the font of the headings and how it was set out.

Overall, this unit and the continuous assessment has actually taught me a lot more about the web’s social media services and even the web in general than I previously thought I knew. The Internet is not all so heavy on programming and relational databases as our Bachelors of I.T. course will lead you to think. Of course there is programming behind almost all websites, but I think that the NMP unit or one like this that is focused on blogging and Internet media should be taught to I.T. students to open their eyes about social media services on the Internet.

Week 15 – Assignment 2

anthonycataldo — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 13:36:30 +0000

Assignment 2 (which is almost complete) will be following a geo-narrative of JFK’s assassination. It follows JFK’s last moments up until his burial. It shows the exact routes his motorcade took before and after his assassination.

I got the idea from wanting to follow a real life murder case but when I found it too hard (due to wanting to use actual addresses and follow exact routes) I stumbled across the JFK assassination Wikipedia page which trailed the events before and after his death. This is a very interesting topic to do research on as it is such a unbelievable and chilling event in American history.

Week 12 – Data Visualisation

anthonycataldo — Wed, 13 May 2009 07:59:30 +0000

This week I was introduced to data visualisation. Examples shown in the lecture were very interesting and it makes viewing data and statistics somewhat enjoyable to read.

One that I really liked was a website called Oakland crimespotting which looks at offenses from murder to arson and places them on on a map of Oakland. It allows you to go back minutes, hours, days and months to see what happened and when. Not hard in concept and probably not that hard in implementation but definitely a great idea for reviewing crime patterns.

Other examples of Data visualisation.

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgaFwHe_klc]

The video above was a nice little clip I found on Youtube which has a few different (interactive) data visualisation sets. The application they’re using is very smooth and although I can’t tell exactly what data is being presented it still looks nice!

Week 11 – Multiplicity (Google’s AJAX)

anthonycataldo — Wed, 06 May 2009 01:32:33 +0000

As I’m sure you have noticed (from my previous post and experience), Google has implemented a feature to users so that they can find what they want a lot quicker. It uses a technology called AJAX and now Google has created their own search API which utilises the very handy technology. This tool is currently implemented in to Google’s search box on their home page. As a user enters characters in to the search field the page sends tiny requests to the Google server which are called post backs. Google then returns a list box which shows common search strings which match what the user has typed in (sort of like an auto complete feature).

The video below takes an in depth look at Google’s search API and they’re encouraging developers to use it.

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qU_1_DrP04I]

Week 10 – Web 2.0

anthonycataldo — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 15:05:17 +0000

Web 2.0 was (originally) a technology I thought was going to hit us one day and everything would be different. After doing a bit of research I’ve found that it’s not quite that at all. It’s more about these small technologies like AJAX which allows the user to believe that the web is statefull. A typical example is Google’s search engine. When the user enters a string of words, a drop down list of common search topics containing the user’s string of words appear. This is done by a technology called AJAX. It sends small pieces of information to the Google servers in what’s known as a postback which then allows Google to analyse what the user has entered and therefore helping that user with their search. It’s technologies such as AJAX which have built Web 2.0 which in time will be built upon further to create Web 3.0.

Rane’s new SL3 for Serato Scratch Live!

anthonycataldo — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 14:55:16 +0000

(www.Rane.com)

Above is the new SL3 device from Rane. It’s main feature is its 24-Bit audio processing which allows DJs to get a crisper sound from their mixer. Amongst other things like the auxilary-in port which added, it also features a USB 2.0 interface which is about time in my opinion.

Check out the full feature specs and more from RANE

Week 6 – Carving up the world

anthonycataldo — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 08:29:07 +0000

This week I learnt about a lot of different terms where the Internet is concerned. It is all about classifying information on the Internet and how us as human beings do that. Some of the key words thrown around were:

Without explaining each term they are all closely related. Some of them are self explainitory and others (like document-oriented databases) are a little more complex.

In I.T. we really only deal with relational databases so learning about DOBs provided a ‘flip side’ databases. DOBs are databases which don’t store data in set field with pre-determined fields and data types, instead it stores documents (like objects) and catagorising fields may be created or simply not even implemented. This allows there to be minimal waste of space and only allocating space to used fields.

Overall, this lecture allowed me to grasp a deeper understanding of how the Internet is broken down and classified. To even try and think of how the whole Internet is set out and catagorised is way too much for humans to think about, but by employing the methods listed above we can at least classify information in to a structured design.

Week 7 – Working on assignment 1

anthonycataldo — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 13:01:30 +0000

Assignment 1 is due this week and I’m discussing some differences between Facebook and Myspace.
In particular, I will be discussing the security aspect of both of them and in addition to that I will be targeting the old and the new Facebook changes and what that means for the user. I also analyse the flow of information for facebook users, including how certain tasks are carried out and a detailed activity diagram on the exact procedure for signing up for Facebook.

Week 4 – Mashups & APIs

anthonycataldo — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 12:27:25 +0000

This week let me apply previous knowledge (which was only learnt in theory) to practical use. Until this week, the only form of mashups I had heard of was music mashups whereby (typically) an acapella of one song was mixed with an instrumental of another. This week opened my mind to video mashups which I found to be very creative by a character on Youtube. More importantly though, mashups of websites was even more interesting.

So the only APIs I had learnt about were ones which were using in operating systems and how they worked theoretically, I had no idea that they could be applied to websites. It was interesting to see how you could grab query commands like that from Twitter’s API page and actually implement them in to your website. I now understand how things like the Facebook app could be created for the iPhone. Simply consulting Facebook’s API page allows a programmer to query and write data to the website via a mobile device.

It was very interesting to see how to create something new from existing components (using API’s) and a mashup perspective. After all isn’t that how new things are made? By using this style of thinking you can grab an idea from song 1 and another from song 2 and then implement these new found ideas in to song 3 which is then a whole new sound. After thinking further about this, I was able to see how new niches in any market can be formed. As long as technology and humans evolve and people keep inventing there will always be room for improvement therefore leaving room for new possibilities.