Posts Tagged ‘creative possibilities’
September 2nd, 2009 | 
Author: Thomas Edison would be pleased to know his incandescent electric light was a seed to, many years later, sprout and grow into OLED Lighting: Organic Light Emitting Diodes. This new technology changes the light bulb we and Mr. Edison are familiar with into a very thin and flexible sheet of bright, white light.
OLED Lighting technology is relatively new and the obvious light of the foreseeable future. OLED Lighting occurs when current passes through thin films of light-emitting material. Because it is possible to make these lights very thin, transparent, and flexible, lighting designers are opened to entirely new creative possibilities. OLED Lighting is used almost exclusively today in the design of stunning displays but there are a number of manufacturers in the US and EU developing ways to create white light using this technology.
In addition to designers being inspired by OLED Lighting technology the environmentally conscious are as well. OLED is highly efficient and these objects of light do not contain mercury like CFL lamps causing fewer recycling issues. That would make the new OLED white light quite Green.
Professor Junji Kido of Yamagata University in Japan invented the first white OLED Light. Professor Kido has formed a new company, Organic Lighting, to expand his work with white OLED expecting to market equipment in early 2010. Organic Lighting continues to work on plans using OLED for emergency lighting in public locations.
Philips, the frontrunner in OLED Lighting research, has OLED panels available to purchase on-line. Offered are a variety of shapes (circles, triangles, rectangles, hexagons, and what Philips calls ‘free-shapes’) for a variety of uses (clothing, furniture, vehicles, jewelry, art, and any other use you might imagine). Philips plans to offer commercial products by 2010, and ultimately offering color panels the consumer can change (in 3-5 years) and ultimately flexible panels (in 5-8 years).
GE (General Electric) also very involved in OLED Lighting asks us to consider a light bulb of the future resembling wallpaper. GE, currently applying their knowledge to cell phones and television screens, will begin producing flexible OLED panels in 2010. Having already made advancements in light quality and brightness, GE researchers plan to use this technology for general lighting applications.
Ingo Maurer with OSRAM designed the first OLED Lighting lamp and befitting the technology is very futuristic in appearance. The lamp uses ten, thin OLED panels each measuring 132 X 33 millimeters. This remains a huge milestone in OLED Lighting technology taking these thin panels from the realm of the unusual to a very practical application.
Konica Minolta is another company interested in OLED Lighting enjoying great success in their endeavor. Research here has achieved efficiency in lumens and hours of life comparable to fluorescent lamps; this advancement brings OLED considerably closer to practical applications.
Kodak’s scientists originally discovered OLED materials in the 1970s. Since that time Kodak continues to research OLED applications for the automotive industry, consumer electronics, digital video technologies, industry, science, medicine, and telecommunications. A current goal of Kodak is to provide OLED Energy Star compliant technology to consumers.
The way we think about illumination is changing dramatically thanks to OLED Lighting. It’s a distinct light on the horizon and unlike any we’ve seen before.
http://www.oledgadgets.com/oled-lighting.html
Source :
http://www.oledgadgets.com/oled-lighting.html
Article Source: OLED Changes The World Of Lighting
Adobe’s Dreamweaver has been in commercial use for over ten years now and while other’s have come and gone Dreamweaver’s development and popularity has continued.
As a piece of software it is widely used in professional web design circles, but nevertheless many designers openly discourage its use when writing in forums and blogs.
This is because of its WYSIWYG features. WYSIWYG is an acronym for What You See Is What You Get. This means that the software writes the actual code for you as you write the text or import pictures.
Professional web designers get aggravated about its use not because they feel that it’s “cheating”, but because the correct way of learning the trade is to look under the bonnet of the website and understand the engine, the code.
However, many people are attracted to the creative possibilities of web design by first using the WYSIWYG features of Dreamweaver. It allows the user to more quickly create something visually tangible rather than just lines of code.
My first website was created using FrontPage, which was part of the Microsoft Office Suite from 1997 to 2003. It is now defunct and has been replaced by Expression Web, but as it came bundled with Word and Excel there is no doubt that many of today’s web designers got their first taste of site creation through that piece of software.
FrontPage was, to say the least, rather basic, but it served as an entry point to the profession.
I use an old version of Dreamweaver, version 8, on an almost daily basis. As a web designer there are many aspects of the software that really appeal to me, although I’ve never seen the benefit of upgrading to more recent versions.
I’ve long stopped using it as a WYSIWYG editor as I now hand code, but I really like the layout. It’s very easy to flip between the code and preview views, or a split combination of the two, and all the files for the project site neatly stacked meaning quick and easy access when needed.
I particularly like how easy it is to preview the page in the browser of your choice and the code validation function.
Of real benefit to quick web design is its template system. Say, for instance, that you need to create 30 near-identity pages then it is easier to create one master template page and base all subsequent pages on that. Changing the template page then automatically alters all the 30 individual child pages.
It is rather useless for PHP coding and I use a separate PHP IDE for that. Subsequent versions of Dreamweaver also have extra features for ease of incorporating AJAX, Adobe AIR and XML.
There are other basic WYSIWYG editors out there such as KompoZer and Mozilla’s SeaMonkey, but none come close to the Dreamweaver experience.
Popular software coding packages are Notepad 2 and Notepad++, both of which are widely recommended, but again, their interface is still not as intuitive to feel your way around as that of Dreamweaver.
So do you need Dreamweaver in order to learn web design? It’s not essential, but it will certainly be a key aid in you quest if you are just starting out.
Andy Walpole is a web designer and developer: Suburban Glory Web Design
Article Source: Is Dreamweaver Necessary for Web Design
The top reasons to take courses in web design
Web design training can be a wise move for creative individuals looking for a new, challenging and lucrative career. Almost every business needs a website these days. From the world’s biggest online operators like eBay and Facebook, to single-owned interactive traders and bloggers, almost every business also has an ongoing need for people with web design skills.
Some good reasons to take web design courses
1. The sky’s the limit: Web design courses can lead to profitable ventures and creative possibilities. The video website YouTube was set up from scratch in February 2005 by three former PayPal workers. Less than two years later, in November 2006, Google bought the enterprise for $1.65 billion. The web is definitely an exciting place to do business.
2. Demand for skilled professionals: Website design courses are meeting the demand for skilled web professionals and as technology picks up pace, it’s a demand that will grow and grow.
3. Freelance opportunities: A freelance website designer with a couple of years’ experience can expect to earn at least £200 per day – that’s £50,000 per annum.
4. Prestige: Each year, leading professional bodies bestow a wealth of industry awards on websites that are exceptionally well designed. With a web design course under your belt, your name could be on them.
5. Innovation: The web is the cutting edge for so much technological development. If innovation turns you on, there’s no better place to be.
Web design training – which course should I choose?
There are many website design courses on the market. But perhaps the most widely prized and recognised are those that are Certified Internet Web (or CIW) approved. More than just a certification body or curriculum publisher, CIW is a web-technology standard, recognised by businesses, governments and academic institutions worldwide.
Career-focused CIW website design courses are particularly suited to distance learning, so you can learn in your own time, at your own pace, while fitting your studies around your other professional and personal commitments.
Courses in web design – what will I learn?
Reputable web design courses teach the graphical and operational aspects of the job, including:
• Interface design – how to create a website with looks and features that make the site easy and pleasurable to use
• XHTML – an in-depth look at the markup language used for displaying text and multimedia across different platforms and machines
• Flash scripting – studying the multimedia software used for adding animation and interactivity to web pages
• Web security – a grounding in the practices for ensuring websites and their users are protected from online threats such as hackers
Additional, or ‘development’, aspects of web design training may include:
• Ecommerce – how to develop a website into a money-making venture
• Search engine optimisation, or ‘SEO’ – how to ensure your website is highly ranked by search engines such as Google, your passport to online visibility
Remember to choose a CIW-approved course, and you can be sure of user-friendly, step-by-step tuition.
So why delay? Sign up for an accredited web design course today, and look forward to more income and more rewarding work tomorrow.
To get started, visit: http://ciw.skillstrain.co.uk/
JM Neilson is author of this article on Web design courses.
Find more information about Home website design here.
Article Source: The top reasons to take courses in web design