Wednesday, February 25, 2015

Advice on laptops

Hi All,

I mentioned this website at the orientation week introduction:

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Computer-Games-on-Laptop-Graphic-Cards.13849.0.html

It compares one of the most important parts of your laptop .. the graphics card.

The goal would be to get a graphics card as high up this list as possible. By studying the list you'll see that Nvidia GTX cards are faster than their GT cards; good to know when you are trying to compare laptops from different suppliers.

The Mac vs PC argument has lost a lot of energy in recent years; this is because they both now use the same hardware under the skin. So now it's only the operating system that is different. But because they use the same hardware it means you can now run Windows on your Mac ... which will allow you to run the software we use at the faculty (some critical pieces only run on Windows). Keep in mind you should run it through the Mac's "Bootcamp" facility and will need to buy a copy of Windows to run. Some students have used software like "Parallels" to run Windows ... but that is like going swimming with one arm; possible, but very slow. Finally, The vast majority of the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) industry also use Windows (which is why we use it).

While I have an iPad, iPod and iPhone at home I use a PC for work. So that's what I would recommend.

Regards

Monday, February 2, 2015

Before the First Class

Step 1: create a blog at http://www.blogger.com/

note: use your own name to name your blog, use “awesome inc.” as a default template…

Step 2: post three images ...


a: your best piece of creative work before coming to this course, think laterally if you have not done "conventional" art or design work
b: an image of a great piece of architecture
c: an original photograph of something beautiful

Step 3: write a paragraph under each of the images that tells us something interesting about them.


Step 4: find an image showing a creative work from each of the companies below (they will be your clients in experiment 1) and describe it using a noun, verb and adjective; see below for examples.


Hazan Motorworks: Noun, Verb, Adjective



Rolex: Noun, Verb, Adjective



Christian Benner Custom: Noun, Verb, Adjective









































Step 5: purchase an artline 0.5mm black pen, and a squared cahier pocket moleskin notebook (you can get these from the unsw bookshop).


Step 6: if you would like to get ahead, download and install the latest version of the modelling software "sketchup" on your laptop.


Welcome!

Hello All ARCH1101 Students,

This is the course blog for ARCH1101 in 2015, please check back frequently for updates and info regarding the course.


Regards,

Russell Lowe