WEEK TWO
Following on from last week I am looking at software this week and completing sections of my eBusiness assessment.
OBJECTIVES
Source free interactive software which will have the following functionaliities:
Add text
Add text boxes
Add colour
Add shapes
Drag and drop
Use with Android devices
PROJECT
Make two interactive eBooks from published material for New Zealand Fire Service. These books are called Be Fire Safe activity book and Wise Up, the choice is yours both. At present these books are in paperback form and taken to schools by the Fire Awareness Intervention Practitioner to help children and young people understand the dangers of fire and the consequences that a fire has.
TASKS
Find suitable software to complete eBooks to a high standard
Test software for suitable software
DAILY LOG
Monday
Today I typed in the words free interactive software for eBooks, defining my search criteria. The first one I decided to look at was 8 top interactive eBook creator tools. I found this in etrainingcafe. The first one was Pubsoft, this had a lot of the things I require but you have to sell the books for which you earn commission of 50% which is good if you were selling your books. My client does not want to sell the books as at the moment they are used as a training aid for fire safety.
iBook Author – this is software for an Apple device and not suitable for my eBooks as they need to be used on Android devices.
KindleGen – these are for just books with no additional features to add drag and drop or text/tick boxes. However, you can turn pages with this software and include tables, scroll bars and drop caps.
Interactive Touch Books – Nice piece of software but only able to use on Apple devices.
Interactive Builder – This is good, can run on windows, Macks, iPads and Android tablets. No programming skills are needed for this software and you can use the free eBook software available. However, it is for an app and the company charge a small percentage for each one sold – Not a requirement for my project but maybe something to look at another time. Also you have to publish them in the interactBook store.
Skyreader Media – this is for eBooks and apps. It can be used on both iPads and Android devices. This software sounded interesting so I had a look at their webpage but as it was under construction and had to click on several different tabs before I found the correct one I needed to read. This software is for eBooks but not interactive eBooks - you can add text, change pages and add graphics using this software and they call it Page flip software.
Wednesday
These were the two webpages I looked at today after typing in free interactive software for eBooks.
Librios – I had to sign up for this and had to request a demonstration – I am still waiting. I did receive an email from them stating that it was a business that uses multi-platform deployment for eBooks, Word and the web and you have to pay them.
eBusiness class today (2 hours). I worked on my eBusiness assignment today which included a write up on my findings from last week (Tesco and Countdown - benefits on being online). I went into both these sites, as a customer, and proceeded to order products and arrange delivery. I stopped when the companies asked for payment details but I was able to gain valuable customer experience to be able to write up my comparisons with both companies.
Friday
Adobe InDesign CC¬ – downloaded the trial software on my home desktop. Again this took forever but I did stick at it today and finally when it had completed the download I went onto the Adobe website and had a look at the tutorial Create a new document. After I watched this I created my first document. This is what I had to do just to create a page.
PROBLEMS
Looking at different software and seeing if they were suitable only to find that I could not access the information on their webpage or the webpage was not available.
Looking at two online shops (Tesco and Countdown) for online experience and benefits.
POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS
Use a different search engine when using the internet.
Have two pages open of each page would make comparing the two companies easier.
LEARNING EXPERIENCE
My learning experience this week had been a bit of a mixture. I learnt that even if you put in the correct words on your search you will still come up with software that is unsuitable for what you require and that it is so time consuming looking at different pages and reading through different sections. I also got frustrated whilst looking at the eBusiness companies for comparison as I thought it would be good to have the 'customer' experience by ordering online - one was easy the other not so easy.
STATUS OF PROJECT
The objectives for this week included looking for free interactive software for eBooks and to test some of the software. Although I looked at different software I didn't try them all because of the time factor - the time I looked at their websites and read through to find that they were unsuitable did not warrant testing so I only tried one software - Adobe InDesign CC.
REFLECTION ON ISSUES
Following on from last week I am looking at software this week and completing sections of my eBusiness assessment.
OBJECTIVES
Source free interactive software which will have the following functionaliities:
Add text
Add text boxes
Add colour
Add shapes
Drag and drop
Use with Android devices
PROJECT
Make two interactive eBooks from published material for New Zealand Fire Service. These books are called Be Fire Safe activity book and Wise Up, the choice is yours both. At present these books are in paperback form and taken to schools by the Fire Awareness Intervention Practitioner to help children and young people understand the dangers of fire and the consequences that a fire has.
TASKS
Find suitable software to complete eBooks to a high standard
Test software for suitable software
DAILY LOG
Monday
Today I typed in the words free interactive software for eBooks, defining my search criteria. The first one I decided to look at was 8 top interactive eBook creator tools. I found this in etrainingcafe. The first one was Pubsoft, this had a lot of the things I require but you have to sell the books for which you earn commission of 50% which is good if you were selling your books. My client does not want to sell the books as at the moment they are used as a training aid for fire safety.
iBook Author – this is software for an Apple device and not suitable for my eBooks as they need to be used on Android devices.
KindleGen – these are for just books with no additional features to add drag and drop or text/tick boxes. However, you can turn pages with this software and include tables, scroll bars and drop caps.
Interactive Touch Books – Nice piece of software but only able to use on Apple devices.
Interactive Builder – This is good, can run on windows, Macks, iPads and Android tablets. No programming skills are needed for this software and you can use the free eBook software available. However, it is for an app and the company charge a small percentage for each one sold – Not a requirement for my project but maybe something to look at another time. Also you have to publish them in the interactBook store.
Skyreader Media – this is for eBooks and apps. It can be used on both iPads and Android devices. This software sounded interesting so I had a look at their webpage but as it was under construction and had to click on several different tabs before I found the correct one I needed to read. This software is for eBooks but not interactive eBooks - you can add text, change pages and add graphics using this software and they call it Page flip software.
Demibooks - this was an app device, not interactive software to make an eBook.
Active Reader - again a tool to be used but could not access the web page to have a look at what this software can do.
Tale Spring - This is a touch screen facility for books but can only be used on Apple products.
Mogule - this looks a good software which I may utilise as it has a drag and drop facility however the website was unavailable so I will have to go and look at this another time.
Kwik - For this you need to have Photoshop CS5 and Corona SDK and is only free for pages 1 - 6. Each of the books I have to make are 16 pages (this search is harder than I thought it would be).
Tuesday
Today I had an eBusiness lecture which we discussed different elements of our forthcoming assignment. Afterwards, whilst the information was still fresh in my head I worked on my assignment. For this I started to compare the difference between Tesco and Countdown and the benefits they had of being online. Again lots of reading and note taking. In the evening I researched free interactive software for eBooks. This is what I looked at:Active Reader - again a tool to be used but could not access the web page to have a look at what this software can do.
Tale Spring - This is a touch screen facility for books but can only be used on Apple products.
Mogule - this looks a good software which I may utilise as it has a drag and drop facility however the website was unavailable so I will have to go and look at this another time.
Kwik - For this you need to have Photoshop CS5 and Corona SDK and is only free for pages 1 - 6. Each of the books I have to make are 16 pages (this search is harder than I thought it would be).
Tuesday
Oppia - This software supports learning by doing, their activities are call explorations. To use Oppia (based in Egypt) you need to have: Python 2.7, JQuery, Angular Ul and a Google App Engine.
This software was not as interactive as I first thought it would be. There are some interactions, for example you can write a question and that you have to set the parameters for the answer. Once this was done another question (which you write) will come up. I could not add images or change the shapes. Got quite frustrated trying this software.
AtPresent Editor – this software had a good write up but when you go into it it is just a business domain site which was not very helpful. No interactive software was available. Filtering not working as well as I had hoped.
AtPresent Editor – this software had a good write up but when you go into it it is just a business domain site which was not very helpful. No interactive software was available. Filtering not working as well as I had hoped.
Wednesday
These were the two webpages I looked at today after typing in free interactive software for eBooks.
Librios – I had to sign up for this and had to request a demonstration – I am still waiting. I did receive an email from them stating that it was a business that uses multi-platform deployment for eBooks, Word and the web and you have to pay them.
Kitaboo – Again this is something which I had to sign up for. I then received an email to say that somebody from the company would be in contact with me. This they did but they were not offering the software for me to use, they wanted to make the eBooks for me. They did offer to let me use the software but the price per month they were asking was way too high, $1000. This would be good for a business (if their budget allowed) but not for a project.
Thursday
Adobe InDesign CC – Borrowed the book from EIT Library last week and today I tried to download the free software which took forever so I gave up. Read some of the book to see what was possible to do within this package and then went online and watched a couple of YouTube tutorials on the subject, writing notes as I watched for future reference if needed.
eBusiness class today (2 hours). I worked on my eBusiness assignment today which included a write up on my findings from last week (Tesco and Countdown - benefits on being online). I went into both these sites, as a customer, and proceeded to order products and arrange delivery. I stopped when the companies asked for payment details but I was able to gain valuable customer experience to be able to write up my comparisons with both companies.
Friday
Adobe InDesign CC¬ – downloaded the trial software on my home desktop. Again this took forever but I did stick at it today and finally when it had completed the download I went onto the Adobe website and had a look at the tutorial Create a new document. After I watched this I created my first document. This is what I had to do just to create a page.
- Open Adobe InDesign
- Select File
- Select New
- Select Document
- Change Intent to Digital Publishing
- Select facing pages
- Change page size to Android
- Select number of pages required
- Select preview (to see if the page been set up correctly)
- Select the icon next to Document Preset to save - you need to name your document here
- Select OK
PROBLEMS
Looking at different software and seeing if they were suitable only to find that I could not access the information on their webpage or the webpage was not available.
Looking at two online shops (Tesco and Countdown) for online experience and benefits.
POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS
Use a different search engine when using the internet.
Have two pages open of each page would make comparing the two companies easier.
LEARNING EXPERIENCE
My learning experience this week had been a bit of a mixture. I learnt that even if you put in the correct words on your search you will still come up with software that is unsuitable for what you require and that it is so time consuming looking at different pages and reading through different sections. I also got frustrated whilst looking at the eBusiness companies for comparison as I thought it would be good to have the 'customer' experience by ordering online - one was easy the other not so easy.
STATUS OF PROJECT
The objectives for this week included looking for free interactive software for eBooks and to test some of the software. Although I looked at different software I didn't try them all because of the time factor - the time I looked at their websites and read through to find that they were unsuitable did not warrant testing so I only tried one software - Adobe InDesign CC.
REFLECTION ON ISSUES
I was pleased with the progress I have made this week. Although it does not look a lot there was heaps of reading and looking on the internet. This was very frustrating at times but then made me think of other things I could do (something to discuss with client at a later date). Some of the software which can be purchased is very good and I hope, at some stage, to be able to use some of it. By using Adobe InDesign I am feeling more positive as I feel I have found some software I can use on this project. I just wish the client had of purchased the preferred software at the beginning as I was comfortable using this software but in hindsight what would I have learnt? Probably not a lot. At least with looking at different software options and their functionalities I am learning something.
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