Tutorial 2: A World of Sound

            Each and every day, we encounter an enormous amount of sensory input from all aspects of our lives.  One of the most important senses that commonly gets taken for granted is our ability to hear.  Whether the sound of the coffee pot running as we wake up and rush into the world or a favorite comedian doing stand-up on late night television, we are never free from sound.

            Most of the audio that we hear generally comes from unnatural sources (for example, iPods, televisions, and radios to name a few).  Generally speaking, there are two types of multimedia audio: compressed and uncompressed.

            Compressed Audio is the majority of all audio we hear every day in distributed audio media.  Compressed audio includes MP3 or MPEG1 Audio Layer 3, WMA or Windows Media Audio, and AAC or Advanced Audio Coding.  MP3s and AAC audio has quickly become the most common audio formats as the iPod and iTunes boom.  Compressing audio is a great deal of help due to the actual data size or amount that can be found in just one song or other audio sample.  For music, this can equate to around 44000 bits of data per second or upwards of 700 MEGABYTES for just one song!

            ‘Lossy’ compression typically removes data, permanently, from a source to allow for an extremely smaller bit of audio.  This reduction can be around 1/10 the size of the original audio piece.

            ‘Lossless’ compression simply removes redundant data found in a piece of audio without actually destroying data from the source.

            Uncompressed Audio is effective for storing original pieces of audio in its raw form for editing in the future or other useful means.  For Windows, WAV or Waveform Audio Format is the uncompressed formatting.  For Apple, AIFF or Audio Interchange File Format is used for uncompressed audio.

            DRM or Digital Restriction Management has been set in place to help reduce the ability to create digital piracy.  This piracy is a huge problem to control as the internet and computers have made it very easy to download and upload music that can be heard and shared with others.  Digital watermarks have been very effective at creating traceable media so that, if pirated, there will be a direct, immediate link to whoever started the illegal act.  Expiration dates on rentals and other types or media are now in use to control various types of media.  Although there are many different ways to effectively reduce the amounts of piracy, an ‘Analog Loophole’ will forever be an issue.  The ‘Analog Loophole’ is basically the ability to rerecord music from one source to another such as a radio to a computer with only a small loss of actual quality.

            Creating audio and music is quite easy, as well.  There are several free software applications for operating systems of all types.  A couple of these applications are ‘Audacity’ and Apple’s ‘Garage Band’.

            Sounds and music are everywhere around us every second we breathe.  Our ears never stop listening and neither should we.  Take time every day to simply listen to the world around you.  You will not be disappointed.

Excel Project

           There are many aspects of Microsoft Windows that many people in the general population will never experience.  Whether it be for personal use or for the workplace, Microsoft Windows, specifically Microsoft Office, contains a few of the most vast, intricate, yet user friendly applications on the market.  Microsoft Excel, for instance, allows anyone to create spreadsheets with accuracy, ease, and a certain ‘pizazz’ when used to Excel’s full potential.  After completing the Excel Project for ISM3004, I have learned that a person, such as myself, with a fairly knowledgeable background with computers can expand their skills and knowledge of Microsoft Excel even further with the right tools and time to explore such a wonderful application.

            PivotTables have opened my eyes to a new and extremely helpful new office tool.  Not only can you create very easy to read tables in addition to the ‘raw data’ of the original spreadsheet, but these new tables can calculate an unimaginable amount of information from such data in a matter of seconds.  With very little effort whatsoever, a multitude of calculations of huge amounts of data can be displayed, edited, and adapted to almost any need of the user.  An example of a PivotTable from the Excel Project that calculated a percentage from 500 ROWS of data is expressed easily as you can see here:

With very little effort and a few clicks of the mouse, the PivotTable gathered, calculated, and displayed a neat and precise visual representation of the ‘raw data’.

Before starting the Excel Project, I had a pretty good idea of what Excel had to offer.  Whether it is the ability to generate enormous amounts of information from a simple data spreadsheet or to complete complex calculations with a few clicks of the mouse, Microsoft Excel has always been an awesome (often intimidating) tool for use around the house, school, or office.  Prior to this taking ISM3004, I had some background using Excel with previous classes completing spreadsheets using simple calculation commands such as “=SUM” and “=AVG” but had no previous knowledge of PivotTables and how extremely capable PivotTables really are.  This project included several tasks including adding columns, using the Freeze Pane capability, inserting and executing several functions and their calculations, as well as the before described PivotTables.  I will personally never use another application for organizing and manipulating numerical data.  All in all, Microsoft Excel is an unimaginably useful and indispensible addition to anyone’s office repertoire.