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1. Principles and practices

Objectives for Week 1

  • Plan and sketch a potential final project.
  • Work through a git tutorial.
  • Build a personal site in the class archive describing you and your final project.

Setting Up Your Personal Repository

To begin, you need to clone your personal academic repository. Navigate to the folder where you want to store or create your repository. Then, use the following command to clone your student repository. For example, in my case, the command is: git clone git@gitlab.fabcloud.org/academany/fabacademy/2025/labs/waag/students/yerlan-turgenbayev

Once your repository is cloned, you can upload your files using the following essential Git commands:

  • git add index.html – Adds a specific file to the staging area. Alternatively, use git add . to stage all modified and new files at once.
  • git pull – Downloads the latest version of the repository to ensure you are working with the most updated copy.
  • git merge – Integrates changes from different branches into your working copy.
  • git commit -m “describe your changes” – Saves your updates with a descriptive message about the modifications made.
  • git push – Uploads your committed changes to the remote repository.
  • git init - To create a local git repository in our store folder
  • git status - To see what is changed since the last commit
  • git add - To add a specific list of files
  • git log - To check the history of commits

By following these steps, you ensure that your repository is properly synchronized and up to date.

Introduction to Git

Git is a distributed version control system (VCS) widely used by developers and teams to manage source code changes throughout the software development process. Originally designed for the development of the Linux Kernel, Git has evolved into one of the most essential tools in the programming world.

It is important to study the page of Use SSH keys to communicate with GitLab|cdocs.gitlab.com which gives better understanding of SSH keys

Setting up MkDocs

The concept of using Markdown to emphasize content intrigued me, leading me to explore MkDocs as a tool for building my personal site.

Since MkDocs is built with Python, setting up a local development environment required installing Python first. Once Python was installed, I proceeded with setting up MkDocs to streamline content management and site generation.

Image and Video Compression for the Web

  • Image Compression Using ImageMagick

To optimize images for the web, for a Linux machine you can use ImageMagick on. I am using a Windows machine, so I can compress all images in a folder using the following command:

magick mogrify -resize 1000 -quality 80 -format jpg *.png

How to Use: Install ImageMagick if you haven’t already.

  • Open the folder containing your images.
  • Click on the address bar, type cmd, and press Enter.
  • Copy and paste the command above into the Command Prompt.

This command resizes all .png images to a width of 1000 pixels, maintains 80% quality, and converts them to the JPG format.

  • Video Compression Using FFMPEG

To reduce the file size of videos while maintaining good quality, I use FFMPEG with the following command:

ffmpeg -i input_video.mov -vcodec libx264 -crf 25 -preset veryslow -movflags +faststart -vf scale=-2:360 -c:a aac -b:a 128k output_video.mp4

How to Use:

  • Install FFMPEG if you haven’t already.
  • Open the folder containing your video.
  • Click on the address bar, type cmd, and press Enter.
  • Copy and paste the command above into the Command Prompt.

This command:

  • Encodes the video using libx264 (H.264 codec).
  • Sets the quality with crf 25 (lower values = higher quality).
  • Uses a slow preset for better compression efficiency.
  • Optimizes streaming with +faststart.
  • Resizes the height to 360 pixels while maintaining aspect ratio.
  • Compresses audio using AAC at 128kbps.

This week is the beginning of my journey to Fab Academy Study and is going to be interesting and challenging as I have to learn, practice and create by using new tools and resources.

By following website, I have studied its details of Principles and Practices:

  • digital fabrication
  • links
  • schedule
  • rights and responsibilities
  • assignment
  • plan and sketch a potential final project

Then I have submitted Fab Academy Student Agreement and then I worked on defining my final project idea and started to getting used to the documentation process.

Why Documentation Matters Neil highlighted several crucial reasons why documentation is essential. Here are the key takeaways that resonated with me:

  • Tracking Progress – Helps evaluate what’s working and what needs improvement.
  • Learning Reinforcement – Writing things down strengthens understanding and retention.
  • Portfolio Building – Serves as a structured showcase of work, ideas, and processes.

Conclusion

This week, I gained hands-on experience with Git and GitLab, successfully cloning my first repository. I also explored HTML and CSS, laying the foundation for building my website. Additionally, I finalized the design concept for my final project and created initial sketches, marking a significant milestone in my development journey.