Digital Technology

Photoshop Skill 1-Masking

2012-02-01T00:13:00.000-08:00

There was a long break since I uploaded the last blog. Sorry for the delay, I am trying to catch up from today.

When you use "Mask", it's very convenient when you want to delete part of an object or texts from a photo. How to use the mask tool? It's very easy if you follow the following several steps.

1. Select a layer for masking
2. Click the mask icon at the bottom of the layer window.
3. Select the white thumbnail beside the current layer and lock chain sign.
4. Use black brush to delete the area and white one to recover.

Choose a layer

Click the mask icon and select the white mask thumbnail

Use black or white brush to delete or recover

Source File

After Mask

How I used the mask tool in Photoshop

Character Panel

2010-08-29T22:13:00.000-07:00

When you type a character using Photoshop, you can use Type Tool from the Tool Box and use Character Panel for more detailed editing of the characters as follows;

1. Kerning: changes the space between each character.

2. Leading: changes the text line space.

3. Tracking: changes the space among the selected characters.

These tools are very useful when you do any typographical jobs.

Photoshop CS

2010-06-12T11:50:00.000-07:00

Photoshop CS is the most efficient program to edit, create a design such as postcards, posters, tickets, logos, and websites. The Photoshop was created by Adobe company in the states. The Adobe was named by one of the founders, John Warnock and he got the name from the creek behind his house in Los Altos, California. CS stands for Creative Series. The newest one is CS5 and the full extended version is about US$1,000.

Most of designers use this program nowadays. If you want to be a designer, it is highly recommended to study this program among any other graphic programs.

From now for several months, you can see Photoshop tutorials from this blog.

Windows ME and Vista

2010-06-03T17:09:00.000-07:00

The photos above show chronical history of Micorsoft Windows. The current windows system is Windows 7 and is stable now. Unfortunately the red marked Windows ME and Vista are one of the failures of Windows history.

External Monitor

2010-05-27T00:55:00.000-07:00

If you have a laptop or a netbook, your screen size will be around 9 to 15 inch. You can connect external monitor or LCD TV to your computer to use the bigger screen.

There are several ways to do that as follows;

1. Using VGA cable.
2. Using S-Video cable.
3. Using HDMI cable.

The best solution among the three ways is the third one. HDMI cable transfers video and sound data at the same time through the same cable. You can change the resolution of your external monitor or TV as seen on the above *photo.

*Display Properties->Choose the 2nd monitor-> Check mark at "extend my desktop onto this monitor"

Biometrics

2010-05-24T03:38:00.000-07:00

Biometrics secures data or premisesby way of recognizing humans based upon physical or behavioral traits. In computer area, biometrics is used as a form of identity access management and access control.

The most typical methods use retinel or fingerprint scanning.

However, smart cards are used much more often. I guess those biometric methods need more years such as 30 to 50 years to replace the smart scanning methods.

Battery

2010-05-23T17:38:00.000-07:00

The most popular battery is Li-ion(Lithium ion) battery. This battry is used for cellular phones, laptops, netbooks, and digital cameras. Li-ion provides the longest running time. The only disadvantage is the more possibility to explode than other types of battery.

Ni-MH(Nickel Metal Hydride) is discharging fast and not popular anymore.

Another type is NiCad can supply high surge currents. That's why NiCad batteries are used for remote controlled airplanes, cars, boats and cordless power tools.

UPS

2010-05-23T04:02:00.000-07:00

UPS(Uninterruptible Power Supply) is used to provide power for 5 to 30 minutes during the following power down;

1. Blackout: Complete power outage for a certain period of time
2. Brownout: Power down for a short time.
3. Sag: Power down for a very short period down.

There are two types of UPS as follows:
1. Standby UPS: It passes on the power it receives from the main power source directly to your device.(power-main, battery-secondary)
2. Inline UPS: It provides power from the battery, that is connected to the power source, to your device.(battery-main, power-secondary)

Hibernate and Standby

2010-05-22T00:41:00.000-07:00

Hibernate and Standby are the common power options, but some people are confused and they are totally different.

Hibernate keeps the current open data and saves them into the hard disk drive and shuts down completely.

Standby keeps the current data and saves them into the memory. In this power option, if the computer shuts down, the open data will be lost because the data inside the memory stay only when the computer is on.

Only power option that is allowed during airplane takeoff is Hibernate mode.

SLI

2010-05-22T00:05:00.000-07:00

SLI(Scalable Link Interface) is a brand name for multiple GPU(Graphic Processing Unit) of Nvidia. As seen on the above, two graphic cards are inserted into PCI-E slots and connected to a monitor for better performance.

The similar technology of *ATI is called CrossFire.

*ATI was originally established in Canada and later merged to the American AMD(Advanced Micro Devices)
*SLI and CrossFIre can have up to four video cards.

MSDS

2010-05-20T18:17:00.000-07:00

MSDS(Material Safety Data Sheet) contain the information of the toxicity of a product and whether it can be disposed of in the trash. You can check it from EPA(Environmental Protection Agency). The website address is http://www.epa.gov/ in USA and http://www.ec.gc.ca/ in Canada.

You can see whether you are disposing of has a Material Safety Data Sheet on the websites above.

You can check OSHA(Occupational Safety and Health Administration) related documents as well.

Dust

2010-05-20T17:44:00.000-07:00

Computers don't like dust inside. At least once every two years, we need to clean the dust inside. Especially, heatsinks and CPU fans collect the most dust among computer components.

Some people use household vacuum cleaners, but they can damage the components permanently. Using compressed air cans is recommended. If you don't clean the dust, the accumulated heat of CPU and fan will have your computers shut down suddenly.

When you use the compressed air cans, your computers should be shut down and disconnected from power sources.

LCD

2010-05-20T04:24:00.000-07:00

LCD(Liquid Cyrystal Display) has Liquid Crystal inside. Liquid crystal is in somewhere between a solid and a true liquid. That is the core technology of LCD.

There are two types of LCD as follows;

Active Matrix: This is made up of several individual LCD pixels. There is a transistor behind each pixel. It has better performance than the other type of LCD below.

Passive Matrix: There are two rows of transistors, one at the top and the other one at the side.

Laptop and Desktop

2010-05-19T01:09:00.000-07:00

Laptop and Desktop has some distinct differences as follows;

Laptop
Consumes less electricity
Produces less heat
Uses 2.5" hard disk drive
Support Mini PCI form factor
Support PC Card(PCMCIA)
Costs more

Desktop
Consumes more electricity
Produces more heat
Uses 3.5" hard disk drive
Support PCI form factor
Costs less

BitLocker

2010-05-18T19:12:00.000-07:00

BitLocker is an utility to encrypt a wholde drive. Windows Vista and 7 Enterprise/Ultimate edition have this utility.

If you lock one of your local drives, you can encrypt your drive using BitLocker. Right clicking on the drive will show you an option of BitLocker.

If you have other versions of Windows, you can't see the option unfortunately.

Backup

2010-05-17T20:39:00.000-07:00

Backup is the most important thing rather than repairing computers. Some technicians rapair computers even without asking data backup. I've seen lots of people losing important data because of careless technicians.

There are several backups done in companies as folows;

1. Full Backup: Copies all data inside a local computer regardeless of archive bit. Sometimes it is called Normal Backup.
2. Incremental Backup: Copies changed data only when the archive bit is turned on. After the backup, the archive bit is turned off.
3. Differential Backup: Copies all data since the last full backup.

RAID

2010-05-17T19:59:00.000-07:00

RAID(Redundant Array of Independant Disks) is a must in banks, big companies, and stock companies.

It holds important data as a backup of your primary storage devices. There are some RAID levels as follows;

RAID 0: This is not a RAID, does data striping only.
RAID 1: This does data mirroring and costs more than any other levels.
RAID 3: This does data striping with a dedicated parity disk.
RAID 5: THis does data striping with distributed parity disks.

System Restore

2010-05-17T19:28:00.000-07:00

System Restore can be done when you have some problem suddenly and can't fix it .

If you follow the next steps, you can restroe your system to an earlier point when your computer had no problems;

Start->All Programs-> Accessories->System Tools->System Restore

You will see a calendar with some bold dates. If you select one of the bold numbers, you can go back to the date you want. Only configuration settings will be changed back to an earlier point. No data loss is happening this time.

After your computer goes back to the point, if you think your computer still has the same problems, you need to have your computer checked by your tech support.

ERD and ASR

2010-05-17T03:17:00.000-07:00

In Windows 2000, we can use ERD(Emergency Repair Disk) to repair a portion of system. You can create a ERD disk. Start->Run->ntbackup will open Windows 2000 Backup and Recovery Tools.

In Windows XP and Vista, we can use ASR(Automated System Recovery) to repair a system failure. You can create an ASR disk at Start->All Programs->Accessories->System Tools->Backup. This is a replacement of ERD.

OSI Model

2010-05-14T13:16:00.000-07:00

When two computers are connected in a network, the data travel through some layers. Those are called OSI(Open Systems Interconnections) layers.

1. Application Layer: File and print services are working.
2. Presentation Layer: Data compression, encryption, and translation happen here.
3. Session Layer: Conversation session is established, maintained, and ends here.
4. Transport Layer: Verifies all the packets and provides error checking.
5. Network Layer: Responsible for logical addressing of messages and works like a traffic cop.
6. Data Link Layer: Arranges data into frames.
7. Physical Layer: Describes how data is transferred through a physical medium.

When you try to remember the order, you can remember using the sentence below;

"A Pig Stands To NDP."

Protocol

2010-05-12T01:05:00.000-07:00

The most popular protocol is TCP/IP suite. There are several more protocols we can easily find when we use emails or browse Internet.

1. TCP/IP(Transfer Control Protocol/Internet Protocol): The most common protocol suite.
2. NetBEUI: It is also used as NetBIOS. It isn't routable and suitable for LAN, not Internet.
3. FTP(File Transfer Protocol): It is used to transfer files between a server and a client computer.
4. IPX/SPX(Internetwork Packet Exchange/Sequenced Packet Exchange): It was used for Novell NetWare Operating System.
5. HTTP(Hyper Text Transfer Protocol): It's a protocol for the web browser.
6. DHCP(Dynamic Host Control Protocol): It distributes IP addresses automatically.
7. Telnet: The most unsecure protocol to access remote servers.
8. SSH(Secure Shell): SSH was designed as a replacement for Telnet.
9. POP3(Post Office Protocol): Internet standard protocol used by local e-mail clients.
10. IMAP(Internet Message Access Protocol) : One of the two most prevalent Internet standard protocols for e-mail retrieval with POP3.

Topology

2010-05-11T16:49:00.000-07:00

There are several LAN(Local Area Network) connection methods. The method is called as Topology. Popular topology is one of the above four ways.

1. BUS: Client computers are connected a shared communications line. If two computers want to communicate to each other, there might be traffic jam.
2. STAR: All connections are made through the central HUB. If one of the computers are broken, the remaining computers will communicate without any problems.
3. RING: Data travels to only one way. If one computer is broken, the remaining computers can't communicate.
4. MESH: All computers are connected to each other. There is little possibility for network down, but this topology needs lots of cables.

Solid State Drive

2010-05-11T14:22:00.000-07:00

SSD(Solid State Disk or Drive) is very common these days. You can see these drives in netbooks or notebooks. It doesn't include a motor inside. That's why it consumes less electricity.

The other type of SSD is called Thumb Drive because it's about the thumb size. The biggest capacity is about 256GB as shown above.

I believe SSD will replace HDD in 10 years. Your laptop or mobile device's power will last longer if HDD is replaced with SSD because of power efficiency.

IP Classes

2010-05-09T16:29:00.000-07:00

IF you are connected to Internet or a network, you are getting an IP. You are getting Class C because you are using a router for sure. That is a private IP address provided by your router.

Class A is for very large networks and Class B is for medium-sized networks.Class D is reserved for multicast(sending messages to multiple computers). The last one, Class E is reserved for testing.

Windows Installation Requirements

2010-05-06T17:59:00.000-07:00

When you install XP or Vista windows, there is some minium requirements for each system as the above.

As you see, the most important thing is the RAM and HDD size. If you have a Windows Vista with only 1GB RAM only, you need to upgrade your RAM. Otherwise, your computer will be slow.