What happens in Digital Imaging

We all have heard of Digital Cameras and what they do (taking photographs is what I mean), but how exactly do they work? And what happens when you import that picture into your computer... this question has intrigued me for ages (okay... may be not) however my teacher did an excellent job of explaining it (no really ... he did ). Anyways if you were curious of what are the processes that go on... look not further, I'm sure you'll find the answer to them in this post!

Digital Cameras have something in them called the Charge-coupled device which essentially captures the pictures, and then stores them in the camera. The job of the CCD is to capture the pixels and the data of the image. The CCD sort of works like the photo film in olden time cameras (well... actually professionals still use high quality film cameras). The CCD then stores all the data in the form of digits and hence it is called the digital camera... simple!

Now when you plug in the camera to your computer all the data gets transferred to your computer, well when I mean data I mean the pixels. Hex colour codes for each of the pixels are transfred So basically what you get is a bunch of hex codes that make up a picture. This is where resolution comes into play!

Resolution is basically amount of data per given amount of area Usually resolution is defined as dots per inch (or DPI), the more dots you have the more better the picture is... it's as simple as that. For the internet the standard is 72 DPI, because you will get a clear picture (since you are using pixels on the monitor), however for printing you should always have 300 DPI, because otherwise it will just look like a bunch of squares! So when we talk about 2 megapixel cameras it means that the picture is going to have 2 million pixels in it! That's why people say that the better the resolution of your digital camera the better the pictures you have (because the more the pixels and different colours, the better the picture blends in... digital picture are made up of dots that blend in together). You can format the picture to have higher resolution, but if you do that then the computer (using complex algorithms) makes up pixels (it basically distorts the pixels around so that there are more pixels), but that won't help much.

After the picture (call it a set of pixels made up of hex codes if you wish) is imported you can save the picture in different formats (file formats). Whenever you save the file in a certain format it will add and extension to the image as well (for example if you save it in JPEG format it's extension will be .jpg) There are many types of file formats however I'll just mention the most important ones here:
PSD (or Photoshop Document): When you save a picture as a PSD, the main thing that happens in that it keeps the picture as it iswithout changing anything, and it saves the picture just like it was with the same number of hex codes that it previously had. And .psd files usually need a such as Photoshop to open them. PSD files are useful because no matter how many times you open or close them they will retain their original quality. Another bonus of having PSD files is that you can have layers (which makes it easier for you to change things around)
TIFF (or Tagged Image File Format): A .tiff file will also maintain the original quality that it was created in, and it will not take away anything from a picture. The backside to using tiff files is that like PSD files their sizes are a bit too big for uploading or sharing (and photos are usually taken to share!)
JPEG (or Joint Photographic Experts Group format): Whenever you save a picture as a .jpg file it will automatically reduce the size of the picture, because it compresses them. What JPEG formating does is, if the pixels look similar (have similar hex code values) it gets rid of them using certain algorithms. So to the average human eye you won't notice anything however the computer will have less hex codes to deal with so it will reduce the size of the picture. However you should only export picture to JPEG format after you've changed it as necessary or else, it will keep on compressing the size of the picture!
GIF (Graphics Interchange Format or some programs call is CompuServe Gif because if was created by them): A .gif file is also somewhat compressed, but the advantages of gif files is that is can have frames. And it can also have transparent images (not as good as PNG's though since PNG are newer). However gif files are really good for compressing (for example if you optimize something with photoshop chances are that it will be using gif).
PNG (of Portable Network Graphics): PNG's use sort of like a loselessy format of compression, and are really good for pictures if you are looking for uploading it so sites (so it's quality is good). PNG's like GIF's have the ability of having transparency, so they are used widely on sites and so on. A PNG also has other things such as interlacing (when the image loads it first loads the basic things in the picture, then the details and so on...) like GIF's.

Another important thing to remember is that PNG's, PSD's, GIF's, TIFF's and similar file formats use lossless data compression, that's why they don't compress the file (get rid of some hex codes). Where as file formats such as JPEG use lossy data compression, which makes the pictures loose their original quality.

That's pretty much the basics (yep this is very basic stuff...) of file formats in digital imaging, I'm sure that I'll write more about this interesting topic when I get more time!

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RIM and NTP dispute ends

RIM (a company based in Waterloo, Ontario), was being sued by NTP for the BlackBerry, and the court case was just going on and on. Apparently a settlement has now been reached between the two disputing companies..

RIM has paid NTP $612.5 million in a “full and final settlement of all claims,” the companies said.

Well, I'm not sure if this is good news or not for share holders, however the price did go up in the shares according to this article. For now I guess all we can say is, time will tell.

I'm not sure why RIM didn't know about infringement of NTP's patents, but somehow NTP managed to sue RIM for their extremely effective and useful BlackBerry. Even though the case only affects US customers I'm sure it has an effect on Canadian stocks as well! Now RIM is promising to create new software so that they don't infringe the patents but I'm not so sure whether they will do is soon enough. The BlackBerry is a big thing in the consumer world and personally I know a lot of people who use if for everyday work, so turning things around on such a big scale is definitely a big task.

NTP apparently also got a chunk of RIM's stocks, which might mean that RIM's stocks might be going somewhere in the near future, hopefully they are going to rise (so that I can make some extra profit on my shares assignment!)

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Converting numbers to hexadecimal

Hexadecimals are very interesting, and if you've read this post, you'll realize that they are hard to explain as well. So I decided to make another post to help in converting normal numbers to hexadecimal (okay, okay, it was an assignment as well...) Hopefully all will understand how to do this.

If take a look at my assignment that I'm supposed to do, you'll realize that there are numbers that only go up to 150, so I won't be including a '256' column in my imaginary table (the table is something like the one below, which might help in explaining what I'm trying to say).

Okay so let's start converting:
1. The first number is 12, and as you might know already if you've read through my previous post, you probably already know that there isn't a number for 12, it's a letter... So if you look at the chart on that page you are going to see that 12 is C. So the answer is C!

2. The second number is 20. Since we can't get 20 by one number we would have to use both the 16 and the 1 place values. You can look at the chart below for your reference.

Since 16x1 + 1x4 is 20 the answer is 14!
3. The third number is 60.

Since 16x3 + 1xC(C has the value of 12) is 60 the answer is 3C!
4. The fourth number is 32.

Since 16x2 + 1x0 is 32 the answer is 20!
5. The fifth number is 100.

Since 16x6 + 1x4 is 100 the answer is 64!
6. The sixth number is 150.

Since 16x9 + 1x6 is 150 the answer is 96!
7. The seventh number is 17.

Since 16x1 + 1x1 is 17 the answer is 11!

If you've paid attention to the red letters and bold words you should have no problem in grasping this concept!

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Hex Colour Codes and Colour

As we all know that hexadecimal codes are used to create colours that we see on the monitor and are used widely be web developers all over the world. Now we know how to create numbers with hex codes, but here's how you can create colour codes (well basic colour codes anyways).

Monitors use RGB format, which stands for red, green and blue. There are the primary colours that are used to make light, when these lights come together they create the colour that is supposed to get created. So the hex colour codes tell how these lights need to behave (in html and photo editing). So let's take this step by step:

1. Imagine there are three columns with Red Green And Blue.

2. In each column there are two digits, you cannot have one digit only two digits. Why? Because there are only 255 combinations of each colour (255 is the same as 16x15 + 1x15) which means that you can only have 2 spaces, which put together give millions of combinations.
For example:

3. Since f=15 and, if any value is f that is f should be on. For example: If I want the colour to be blue, I will have f under the blue column, and since you can put 2 digits you can put 2 f's in there so that the pixel becomes completely blue!

4. If you want any pixel to be turned off, the numbers that you put under the column should be 00 (0's have no value, which tells the pixel that it should not use that colour)

For example: The picture shows that only red is being used (because it has the highest value of 255, and the others aren't being used because it is a 0.
5. When the quantities of these colurs are mixed together you get different light (for example if all of them are on, the colour we see would be white, and if all of them are off the colour we see would be black)
Hex colour codes are basically all the numbers under all of the three colums above (RGB) put together. So the hex code for green would be : 00ff00 (look at the picture below to help you understand)

Then all you do is use these colour codes using the following tags "(font color=######) and type in youre text inbetween and then when you don't want the colour any more just end it with (/font). Note: You NEED to replace the '(' brackets with '<' brackets for it work. And put in the hex code where it says '######'!

These days nobody uses their brain to think of hex color codes because they are done for you by a lot of programs (such as Adobe Photoshop) that you can find easily. However I still think it is interesting to know how cool the computer codes are, so it's don't consider this post a waste of your time... any gaining knowledge is not wasting time!

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Laptops are a requirement at a few Universities

Indiana State University is making laptops a necessity for all their future students, and guess which laptop they picked as their preferred one?

Indiana State University has selected the Lenovo ThinkPad as its preferred computer for students and faculty as the university moves toward becoming a notebook institution.

Okay, so I understand that laptops are very necessary for college and for universities, however... Thinkpad? Aren't think pads designed for say, business or something? Oh well atleast it's good to see Uni's supporting tech.

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Hexadecimal Colour Codes

As we all know Computers don't speak english (although their output might certainly be in english). Computers are built up of codes and of numbers, that are processed, and only then do we get the output. Hexadecimal Codes are codes that were developed (by IBM apparently) to handle the colours (or color as some of my American friends would say) in the computer. These hex colour codes can be used for a lot of things such as webpages and graphic designing. This system is a little more complex because when we talk about colours, there are millions of them, so in order for the hexadecimal system to work it needs to be complex.

Hexadecimal Codes, are based on the base 16 system, which means that the codes go up by sixteen (in our number system the numbers go up by 10). So in the hexaadecimal system the place value chart will look something like this:

So basically to find out a value you multiply blue letter or the number with the red number. And then that is your result. Then you do the same to all the other columns and then add up the answers that you get from multiplying them. The hex codes also have letters in them... because to continue to say fifteen you can't say it's 15 because the 1 would fall under the 16 column. So after you've exhausted all the numbers in that column then you can use letters from a-f. A=10 and F=15. Here's a chart for a few numbers

Basically you multiply the value in red and the value in blue. That's pretty much it. And that's how the colour code is made.

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Apple unveils their new Intel Mac Mini and more

We all know that Apple has been switching over to Intel chips instead of PowerPC chips, and now they are another step forward towards their goal. They've successfully managed to get their Mac Mini (well Intel ones) out and about in Apple Stores and online today. They are promising that it is going to be 4 times more faster than it used to be, which is good news for potential customers like me. Since last year I seriously wanted to get a Mac (iBook or Mac Mini) for myself but then I heard about Apple switching to Intel, which would definately lead to something better. And I apparently was right...

The Mac Mini comes with 1.5 Intel Core Solo or 1.66 Intel Core duo, for only 699 ($599 US) along with that you can get 60 or 80 Gb of Hard Drive space and 512 MB. But the most interesting feature has got to be the 10/000/1000 Ethernet (and yes that 000 is not a typo by me, however it is a typo by Apple, however it has be changed to 100 today) You can take a look at this picture if you don't know what I mean! The only thing that bugged me was the graphics, it's only 64 MB shared, however Mac Mini's weren't designed to play a lot of games and all that (looking at the size or hard drives)

They also released something called the iPod Hi-Fi which is like a sterio for iPods (I believe this way they can sell the iPods and the stereos!) I think Apple might be a little late on the stereo because there are a lot of other competitors out there already, and many might have made their purchases from companies like Bose and so on.

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