Introduction to the mobile application development with an example of a "PhraseBook app"

The aim of this project is to combine and apply the knowledge and experience obtained along this master degree and try to create a market opportunity by developing mobile applications for iPhone devices. The idea is not to become a full time mobile developer but perhaps a passive player with some income stream. I am well aware that the battle of mobile applications is brutal and some competitors are way beyond the rest, with great capital behind them and with excellent programing skills. Still the experience, the time invested along with hard work can only bring good results. This effort may not be reflected in an overnight minor fortune, but its about daring to compete, learn fast and adapt and show what your capable of. The project arises as a curiosity to discover how mobile app are created, what it takes to start building your own application, what do you need to know to develop one. My inclination to start testing on Apple’s iPhone is because I currently own a MacBook and an iPhone 4 device. I am familiar with the Mac environment and I have a preference for Apple’s software, I also find the iPhone operating system quite interesting and therefor I am curious to know what is behind its impressive performance. One of the most interesting things I find about this project is the set of skills you need to have to start creating applications. You should be able not only to program what your idea is about but also in designing what your idea is going to look like. A developer must create the code that is going to be the backbone of the application and also he must create all the graphic environment that is going to represent that code making it appealing for the user. When thinking about what you are going to build you should as well think about how it is going to be represented, like the colors, the orientation of the phone whether it is going to be landscape or portrait, the buttons, the tab bars, sounds, video, wether it is going to use internet connection or not. All this aspects have to be taken into account at the same time you are trying to figure how to write down all that you want your application to do. So you must combine your creativity and your technical skills to fulfill all that you want your application to do

Improving Search Rank by Optimizing TTFB

Now a days, everyone is in a great hurry and no one waits for turtles. Studies have shown that the search ranking are affected by how fast the web page loads. The simple logic behind this is “ A website which takes too much time to load provide poor user experience, today's user would quickly shift to next search result and you will end up loosing one“. The big search engine giant, Google search uses large number of parameters for determining search rankings which are mostly related to the content on your website, URL , social metrics, quality, quantity, SSL certificates, etc. In 2010, Google added one more factor in search ranking which is websites speed. TTFB (Time To First Byte) provides a clear way to determine how fast/slow there web page loads. Hence, here I'm focusing on improving website search engine ranking by applying various techniques to optimize TTF

The Mediterranean Way of Eating

Scientific evidence accumulated over decades validates the idea that a plant-based dietary pattern, such as the traditional Mediterranean way of eating, promotes health and plays an important role in risk reduction and prevention of several chronic diseases. One of the great advantages of the Mediterranean diet is that it can be easily adopted by other cultures because it is flexible and highly palatable. The Mediterranean Way of Eating: Evidence for Chronic Disease Prevention and Weight Management offers evidence-based information about an enjoyable, healthy way of eating that has stood the test of time, along with practical suggestions for incorporating the Mediterranean diet into your daily life. The first part of the book provides a brief history of the Mediterranean region and its different dietary influences. It discusses shared and unique foods in the coastal regions, and recent influences of processed foods and fast foods. It also presents scientific information on critical nutrients (macronutrients, vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals, antioxidants, and fiber) in foods found in the Mediterranean diets, how they function in the body, and why they are essential to health. The authors review the major chronic diseases, including obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and certain cancers, and examine how a Mediterranean-style diet may help reduce risk or prevent these diseases. The second part of the book addresses the protective effects of foods and food components, discussing how Mediterranean diets may confer health benefits for reducing disease risk and managing weight. It examines the evidence-based health benefits for each of the food groups—such as fruits, vegetables, grains, fish, meat, dairy products, plus alcohol—along with suggestions for using the foods as part of a healthy diet. The last part of the book focuses on how to move toward a Mediterranean-style diet in your own life, eating at home or dining out, offering effective strategies for implementing the dietary changes

From Fitspiration Posts to Food Shaming: Social Media’s Impact on Adolescent Girls’ Body Image

Social media is marketed as a way to connect and share with others all over the world—a fast way to connect to grandma down in Florida, do research from a university on the other side of the world, or even spark environmental change across the globe. So how, at the same time, can this be a harmful tool, one that has been identified as a cause of depression and even, in some cases, suicide in young girls? Social media sites like Instagram, FaceBook, and TikTok encourage users to post pictures and videos that show your “best self” alongside a rating system of visible comments and like counts on each post. While social comparison is not new, social media has amplified it allowing people to compare themselves to hundreds of people in with endless scrolling and the expectation to “be liked” by everyone. Research has shown social media comparison impacts individuals’ body image, particularly how it is affected by viewing other people’s bodies that fit societal expectations when theirs may not. Several studies note specifically how social media negatively impacts adolescent girls and their body image and self-worth through various trends and personalized critiques. Through the examination of fitspiration posts and food shaming hashtags, I detail examples of negative body image in the demographic of adolescent girls, and I call for awareness and changes in social media

Designer/industry interface

The transcript from the discussion panel section of this event provides an interesting exchange of ideas around the notion of textile reuse and value. Following on from the exhibition Ever & Again: Experimental Recycled Textiles in October 2007, the Textiles Environment Design (TED) Project organized a one day Textiles Upcycling Symposium at Chelsea College of Art & Design on Friday 18th July 2008. The aims of the Symposium were to engage the audience and invited fashion and interior textile designers in thinking about high quality and innovative recycling practices for the future (‘upcycling’). The morning session featured the work of 12 of the most well known designers working in this field, including Orsola De Castro – ‘From Somewhere’, Kate Goldsworthy, Amy Twigger Holroyd – ‘Keep and Share’, Emmeline Child – ‘Emmeline4Re’, Kerry Seager - ‘Junky Styling’, Cyndi Rhodes – ‘Worn Again’, and Barley Massey – ‘Fabrications’. For the afternoon session invited key participants from industry contributed to an informal panel discussion with the designers and audience, to discuss the potential for shifting these ideas into mainstream and larger scale commercial production. This was chaired by sustainable textiles expert Dr Jo Heeley. The day also included a keynote speech from Professor Marie O’Mahony and a presentation of the outcomes of the three-year research project led by Rebecca Earley, which has involved teaching staff, researchers and students from Chelsea College of Art & Design

Exploring Black Holes

Introduction: Students discover the properties of black holes based on their understanding of gravity and velocity. They also analyze astronomical images from the Hubble Space Telescope and Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Through an experiment, they define escape velocity. Then they extend this idea to a black hole, which is an object with an escape velocity equal to the speed of light. In the final activity, students become astronomers in charge of a new database of super-massive black holes. Their job is to evaluate new claims to decide if they are valid. They design an evaluation rubric and apply their new understanding of black holes to make their decisions. They also use real scientific data from Dr. Karl Gebhardt's black hole database.McDonald Observator

Ethical consumerism. How are caterers coping?

Active ethical consumerism is much less obvious in the behaviour of consumers when they eat outside the home. The catering industry argue that the majority of consumers are primarily driven by the taste of food, convenience and the service they receive when eating out. This article examines the drivers for ethical provisioning within the catering industry

Survey of Input Modalities in the Western World

Having your account compromised can lead to serious complications in your life. Oneway accounts become compromised is through the security risks associated with weakpasswords and reused passwords [22,23]. In this thesis, we seek to understand howentering passwords on non-PC devices contributes to the problems of weak and reusedpasswords. To do so, we conducted a survey that was distributed to people in thethe Western World. In our survey results, we found that users commented abouthow the current password model was not created with a variety of device types inmind, which created frustrations and complexity in the authentication process. Wealso found that users will try to prioritize using the devices that are fast and theones they are familiar with. While users are most frequently authenticating usingkeyboards and mice, and generally had a strong preference for physical devices, wealso found that touchscreen and mobile devices were the next most frequent deviceused to authenticate. When authenticating on other devices, users listed a numberof frustrations like not having access to password managers and having to use arrowkeys to input passwords, which made the whole process slower and more complex.Ultimately, these frustrations caused a majority of users to create intentionally weakpasswords so they could authenticate faster and it caused other users to simply refuseto use the device or service. This shows that there are specific user needs that are notbeing met when it comes to the current authentication scheme, and to rectify this,we suggest a preliminary model for how password managers might better meet theseneeds in the conclusion of this paper

Harnessing Technology in Schools Survey 2007: technical report

This technical report provides a detailed review of the methods used and the data gathered for this survey. The report also provides copies of the research instruments used in this survey