Today, I tried revising my earlier projects by going through the things I did wrong and fixing them. For example, in my resume project, I fixed the order and orientation of the things that were included in it. Next, I worked on revising my crafts project. For the gameboy, I decided to try and incorporate the techie youth logo into a homescreen for launching games on. I am still trying to work it out, and will likely be finished with it by tomorrow. I eventually was able to put the logo onto the gameboy, and now it is able to start up with the image. Also, I worked further on the writing unit, learning more about backlinks and how they can be effectively used to make quick money while not having to do as much. I also finished revising my resume, and have now uploaded back onto the website.
Today, I learned more about blogging, guest blogging, and ghostwriting. When blogging, you generally want to go for more niche topics, because those can grow a very specific and attached community, who keep coming back to your content. If you chose a general topic, you might be overlooked in a sea of thousands of other blogs about the same idea. While writing about a niche topic, you can employ Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, to help your website climb the ranks and be displayed among one of the first results on google. This could help your site gain more clicks and ad revenue. Guest blogging follows this same idea, though you write for someone else's blog. This can help you gain publicity on your own if the readers enjoy the content. Ghostwriting involves writing pieces for other people to claim, so if your writing is good, you can successfully offer your services.
Today, I learned more about how exactly books get published, what you need to do so, and how to go about making more money. Although many might think you have to go to a large publisher to even get a shot at publishing your book, you can actually self-publish and possibly make much more money that way. However, one downside to self publishing is publicity --it would be much harder to push your book without being backed by a massive publisher. At that point, it is a trade off, with self-publishing being a higher risk for possibly a higher reward. I also learned more about copywriting today, which is basically creating media to market. In doing so, you have to make sure you can garner interest for a product by using powerful and distinct wording to help push a product to success. I do not think this appeals as much to me as writing does in general, since this is seemingly less interesting.
Today I learned more about writing and how it can be used in different fashions to promote a cause. In particular, I can see the use of magazines and books to promote content. Generally, magazines are used to promote information to a more casual audience, making it good to reach a wider audience.
Since I am interested in video games, I have bought a broken gameboy for cheap that needs to be repaired. After watching a few videos, I think I have to resolder a few points on the charging port of the board to make it work again. Additionally, I have bought a new shell and screen for it, to fully repair it and later sell it as a refurbrished product. I will start working on it more tomorrow, after I begin planning it more today.
Tuesday
Today, I learned more about adobe Photoshop and Illustrator through the video tutorials provided in the curriculum. In the past, I have had experience with Photoshop, but I have never seen anything much about Adobe illustrator. They work differently in that although Photoshop is primarily an image editing software, you can also draw and create art in it. However, this creates a traditional image file like a png, which is tied to the total amount of pixels used. This means that when you zoom in, it becomes pixelated. On the other hand, Adobe Illustrator works with vectors, which are tied to an algorithm instead of a map. This means that even if you zoom in really closely, it does not become pixelated or image quality is not lost. Illustrator is probably better for most applications since art created there can be more future-proof when higher resolutions come.
Wednesday
Today, I learned more about how I would sell future products that I can make. I have multiple options to do so. Primarily, I can use sites like Ebay to handle transactions. One good thing about this is that you can list your product easily and without much worry. However, this comes at the cost of possibly being scammed as a seller. Also, there is a rather significant cut of money lost from fees. Hosting your own website would ideally be the best, but it might make it a lot harder for potential consumers to find your website. When I am to sell my future creations, I would likely use ebay to build a consumer-base, and then switch to my own website later on.
Today, I learned more about robotics through things like arduinos and raspberry pi's. I have had previous experience with these devices, so a lot of the information served as a good refresher for me. However, I did see some new things and usages of the devices. For example, the chess game using the arduino particularly stood out to me. I am greatly interested in these kinds of robotics things, and will likely try working on one of these for my end project. I also have a soldering iron kit already, so I will be practicing with it to try and prepare for what I might try and design for the project in the future.
Today, I completed my stocks assignment and also began learning more about solid works. In my stocks assignment, I found that nearly all of my predictions were inaccurate. Some of my expectations were too high, but surprisingly many of my guesses were actually also too low. It is interesting to see just how much stocks can change in such a short time, and just fluctuate in general. One good thing about my predictions is the fact that since they were below expectations, the gains above them could be seen as a "bonus" compared to what was expected. Investing cautiously seems like the safest course of action, as you can make money while not risking your financial stability.
Today, I learned more about Blender and Autodesk CAD. Blender seems interesting as it is a free and open-source program, so it has a very low barrier to monetary entry. After looking at the tutorial, I feel a lot more comfortable trying to use and understand blender. In particular, I might want to try and recreate some characters from popular video games in order to get more used to the program and working with it. And working with preexisting characters, I could have a good reference and base to work off of when trying to create my own representation of the character.
Today, I learned more about Tinker CAD, the ways I can use it, and how I could possibly monetize my creations of it in the future. As someone who plans on doing mechanical engineering in college next year, this was fascinating as I was able to have my first experiences with software that I will likely need to use in the future in my job. Being able to understand CAD software in a more simplified manner will help me create things that I could monetize myself in the future. Currently, I am thinking about possibly designing something like a video game cartridge holder, as that is something I have desired but have not actually purchased. A simple, yet effective design could also help me sell it to others who might want to have something similar.
Today, I started my stocks assignment. I further researched more stocks, and came up with the final ten of Google, Tesla, Nike, Gamestop, AMD, NVIDIA, Intel, Amazon, Apple. I picked primarily tech companies because I am most familiar with them. In order to hopefully create more accurate predictions, I researched upcoming/recent events from each company. One in particular that stood out to me was Intel's release of their new dedicated GPU line. This market was previously dominated by only AMD and NVIDIA, and to see a new competitor break into it could mean a great deal in terms of innovation and pushing graphics power forward. I hope to see that my predictions were at least somewhat accurate.
Today, I looked through the stock units to review the content and prepare for the upcoming assignment. I decided that I was going to track stocks, rather than other forms of investments, as they seem to be the most simple to me. Investing in something that I am not sure about would likely not be a smart decision either. So far, I have been interested in mostly tech stocks, as they always tend to be increasing. Even though there appeared to be a large decline in stocks such as Tesla and Amazon around April, they are likely to soon recover again and soar, which could be a great opportunity to invest. I will spend more time focusing on these tech companies specifically, and perhaps look at speculated plans to see if any of them could possibly raise the stock price even further when implemented.
Today, I completed my executive statement after looking over other examples that were given in the course. I came up with the idea of The Guitar Garden, which is a website that aims to host guitar tablature and sheet music as a resource for all. Currently, many of the guitar tablature sites online are difficult to use, with a great deal of content behind invasive ads and expensive subscriptions. This often leads to sub-par tabs being left up, with many mistakes and the like. In turn, The Guitar Garden intends to create a website that is community-sourced in providing a more refined tab searching experience. Looking back at the executive summary, I believe it would be hard to hold this vision of the platform while also being able to be reasonably profitable, and that could be a point of contention if this were to be made.
Today, I learned about commodities. Commodities are generally a raw material that is used to manufacture finished goods, and can often be traded or sold. Generally, the origin of the commodity does not matter, since the good is not processed. These can also be bought and sold in large amounts on specific exchanges. The fluctuating price of these goods also depends on supply and demand, and there might be certain seasons when a given commodity is more popular. These prices can be referenced on a commodity index, of which there are many. Investors can invest in these indexes if they don't want to do a future. Soft commodities are grown, while hard commodities are extracted from the earth. The trading of commodities appears to be very similar to trading stocks. I expect commodities to be a relatively safe, but low-earning form of investment, as there are likely patterns exhibited yearly based on the required materials in certain seasons.
Friday/Saturday
During these days, I continued to go through the options video to learn more about them. I was going through the video series in learning more about how to invest with options, which helped conceptualize the information to me. I will take the quiz during my next day at Techie Youth, and hopefully do well.
July 13
Today, I learned more about REITS. These appear to be like real estate stocks, which provides a form of investment without the need for large, upfront sums of cash. However, when learning more about these, I found these much more confusing than the other forms of investment that I learned about, mostly because I am very unfamiliar with the real-estate market in general. I did not do great on the quiz, and I intend to thoroughly review the material so I can make sure that I really understand REITs before moving on.
July 14
Today, I learned more about Options, which are a way to have a way to buy stocks at their current price, and redeem them in the future. This seems like a great option for investing because of how the potential losses on a bad call can be much lower than outright buying many shares of a stock beforehand. I intend to keep going through and learning more about options tomorrow.
Today, I learned more about the blockchain and forex. The blockchain is a continuation of cryptocurrency, and focuses more on how the technology's backend works. This was particularly interesting to me, to see that even though the whole exchange is publicly visible, it is also extremely secure and very hard to hack. This serves to be a method in which funds can be transferred privately and securely. I also learned more about Forex, which is the process of earning money by exploiting the fluctuation of global currency. I think I still need to read more about this, as it is still rather confusing to me.