InDesign vs Word

Layers

One of InDesign features is it's layers.  On the right side panel you will see the layers (the red box).

The oparts of the document (e.g. picture, text, everything!) can be put in layers.  These layers can then be arranged from on top of the document to the bottom.  It is also useful to help select the part of the document you want when you have a complicated page.  Word does not have this feature.

User Friendly

Word is a more self explanatory and user friendly than InDesign.  At the top of the program in the tool bar, are lots of basic options.  These are alot easier to apply to the document than in InDesign. 

 

Copyright

Copyright is a concept which alows the person who created the work to have exclusive rights to it.  Copyright laws allow the holder to have the right to control who is alowed to use their work and what for.  The holder can sell and licence this right.  If you work for someone, then they have bought the right to your work in advance.  You do not need to register or give any notice, as soon as your work is in tangible form it will be copyrighted.  The copyright will last for 50 years after the work is made. 

A brief introduction to copyright can be found at: http://www.templetons.com/brad/copyright.html accessed 7/2/12

Creative Commons develops, supports, and stewards legal and technical infrastructure that maximizes digital creativity, sharing, and innovation.

Creative Commons have different licences which people can use to protect their work. They are:

• Attribution - Anyone can use your work but they must give you credit for it.

• Noncommercial - Anyone can use your work but not for commercial purposes.

• No Derivative Works - Anyone can use your work but only verbatim copies, not copies they have altered.

• Share Alike - Others can distribute derivative works only under the same licence which licences your work.

More information about Creative Commons and their licences can be found at their website at:  http://creativecommons.org/ accessed 8/2/12

I hope this blog has been helpful and taught you a little about copyright.

Visual Basic

When working with numbers in Visual Basic, you can use the 'IsNumeric' function to check if something is numeric.  Such as 'IsNumeric(txtIncome.Text)', this is checking to see if the text in the txtIncome textbox is only numeric.  It can be used in an 'If' statement to carry on with your intended program if it is only numbers or stop the program and warn the user if they have entered wrong text.

The 'Val' function is used before a variable or text box to turn the information in the text box into and integer.  Such as 'Val(txtIncome.Text)'.  This is turning the information in txtIncome into numbers.


While using Visual basic, it is sometime useful to edit out some lines of code to find problems or mistakes.  You can do this by putting a ' before the line.  E.g. 'iIncome = Val(txtIncome.Text).  This line will then become green and will not be used in the code.  You can also use this to write yourself notes about what is happening in your code, for example, 'Declaring Variables.