ADVICE!

Dearest New Computer Skills Students,
Hello! A quick word of advice to make you as successful as possible this semester in your computer class.

1. PAY ATTENTION- you're going to learn so much more than ever thought you would for a common cric class. This stuff (PowerPoint, Photoshop, Webpage Designing) is really helpful, and I've already used a bunch of what we learned this semester in my other classes at Trinity.
2. Get Notes- If you miss class, or if you're an athlete and you know you're going to miss class a lot, figure out what you're going to miss beforehand. It makes life so much easier in the long run!
3. Don't Blow Off Homework Assignments- 10 point assignments add up. Quickly. And if you are going to do the homework, take the time to actually do it right, because if you just BS it, you'll get docked a ton!

Hope this helps, and good luck with everything!

My Favorite Websites

After looking at everyone's blog in the 8:30 class, my three favorites turned out to be Luke's page about Zombies,  Tess' page about Francesca's, and Sophies page about her trip to Italy. I really thought Luke's was well done because it had a perfect combination of images, video, and text, and the color scheme was also appropriate for the topic of the site.You could tell that a lot of time and effort was put into creating this website! Tess's page about Francesca's was both aesthetically pleasing and informative. The different pages of her website were well chosen.  I also loved seeing Sophies website because after hearing about for trip for the last few months, I finally could see the amazing photos! Again, I thought Sophie's was also well organized, with a fitting color scheme, and easy to navigate. Overall, I enjoyed looking through all the websites, but these two were my favorite!

Website!

Please visit my website at http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~lhender1/!


Making this website was significantly easier than I thought it would be! I really enjoyed using Expression Web, because it was pretty simplistic and straight forward. The only time it was necessary to hand code was to insert the YouTube videos, and even that wasn't difficult. The section that I am most proud of is the Team Photo page because even though it took forever, I hyperlinked each individual face on the team picture to each player's personal page. If I had more time, I would have added more pictures from the season, and probably tried to make different albums from the various games played.
My biggest technical challenge in creating this website was inserting the YouTube videos, but after some instructions, it turned out to be not very difficult at all. The biggest design challenge was probably figuring out how to delete the border from auto thumbnail images, but once again, with instruction it was really easy. I'll probably show this site to a few of my teammates, and my parents back home. I do hope I have to make another website for a class in the future, even though it is time consuming, because it ended up being way more fun than I anticipated!

Larry Hechler's Lecture

Today during Larry Hechler's lecture, I learned a ton about the differences in different types of lap tops, as well as the different sections and functions of each part of a laptop. The piece of information I found most valuable from the lecture was the emphasis on the importance on backing up you computer. I’ve had plenty of laptop problems already, but have been fortunate enough not to lose any memory so far. After hearing the horror stories of studdents losing all of their work, pictures, music, and other information, I’ve finally realized the importance of spending the time and money on purchasing an external hard drive so I can back up everything that’s important to me!

Photoshop

In the article "PSA definition of Creative Photography: Altered Reality," the question is posed as to what makes the difference between a creative photo, and an altered photo as defined by the Photographic Society of American. The idea that stuck me most in the article was that "There has been much discussion about what should be judged to belong to the category of a Creative photograph." Modern technology has changed the way we look at photography, and for this reason our perspective on photography is ever changing. Is altered photography still considered photography?

"PSA Definition of Creative Photography: Altered Reality." PSA Journal 75.9 (2009): 35-9. Print.

The picture that I chose to manipulate was that of a flying V of geese, because after being in Indiana for the weekend and seeing these birds everywhere, I started to think about how odd it would look to have a different species of bird with the group, and that thought blossomed into having a completely different animal, like a cow with the group. The picture originated from Google Images, and I manipulated it by flipping the picture horizontally to make the V face the opposite direction, used the magnetic tool to crop and placed the cow in line with the geese, and altered the hue and saturation of picture to make the sky appear more vibrant. The manipulation was not in any way harmful, and merely meant to entertain whoever happened to be looking at it. This picture did relate to the article I researched because it is unclear what exactly it is defined as, and whether or not it is considered a "creative photograph."

PowerPoint Presetations

I thought the PowerPoint presentations were a lot more fun than I anticipated. Going into the project, I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do, but after completing the presentation, I feel more sure about what I want to do with my life after college than ever before. The concept of sports medicine, specifically overuse injury in young athletes, hadn't really been brought to my attention until this presentation was due. I was encouraged to seek out the specifics of my career choice, which turned out to be very eye opening so I really enjoyed that aspect of the presentation. I also feel like after practicing, through trial and error, to get the presentation exactly the way I wanted, I learned a lot about slide animation (how much is too much?!), and how little things like color and background can add to the presentation.

Personally, my two favorite presentations were those by Katie Garrett and Luke Tibbits. Yes, I am biased because they're both good friends, but I did legitimately enjoy both of their presentations. With Katie's presentation, I felt like the topic "Malaria No More" was not only crucial for everyone to hear, but presented in way so as to appeal to everyone in the room as well. She was very successful at making a complicated topic seem simplistic d easy to handle with only a little help. On the other hand, I enjoyed Luke's presentation
because it brought some life to the class. His PowerPoint was educational in talking about chemical warfare in the past, but also kept this serious topic light hearted with his use of zombies and such later in the powerpoint. Overall, I though both of these presentations were great!

Chris Nolan's Presentation

Even though I missed being able to personally hear Chris Nolan speak, just looking over the notes from his presentation was enlightening. Although this may sound absurd, up then I had never even heard of Google Scholar, and now look forward to having such a reliable search engine to pull up scholarly documents. Similarly, the information on what makes a website reliable is also interesting. Too often is it too easy to read something and believe it, but going over Mr. Nolan's notes reminded me of the importance of analyzing the credibility of the author and checking for the references used in an article. These hints may seem small, but they are applicable to everyday life!

Powerpoint

Five Things I CANNOT STAND About A Bad Powerpoint:
1. Clutter: Use more than one slide if you have THAT much to say
2. Disorganization: There are templates for a reason. It's not that difficult to make sure the font is the same size and type!
3. Blurry Pictures: If the picture is poor quality, find another one to get your point across. I don't want to spend 5 minutes trying to figure out what the picture is.
4. Excessive Sound Effects: I don't want to hear a new sound effect after every word of the presentation. Do not, under any circumstances, use the typewriter sound effect!
5. Too small a font: I don't want to use a magnifying glass to read the powerpoint. Make it big enough for everyone to read it easily, even from the back of the room!

If all the gets sorted out, Powerpoint can be an extremely useful tool to communicate an idea. More specifically, Powerpoint is ideal for school presentations. With this program, you can link audio, video, graphs, charts, tables, and images to further explain your point or topic of discussion. Powerpoint makes it easy to present ideas in an organized, educational, and aesthetically pleasing way.

CLT Visit!

Today, I ventured down the the CLT Center for my first time since I've been at Trinity. I was absolutely amazed at how nice and high the entire room was. Every piece of equipment in there was top of the line, and there was also many staff members on hand who could essentially help you with anything you needed! One of the most interesting rooms in the CLT Center to me was the video conference room. The technology is unbelievable. The video conference room can support up to 20 high definition calls internationally, and up to 100 high definition calls on campus! It's amazing to think that at any given time, you can speak face to face with someone across the globe.
 I was also surprised to find the amount of the other technology available to students, especially because things like video and photo editing aren't something used daily by every student on campus. Still, the university provides great software for the students who do find it helpful. Similarly, there is also a recording studio to where different tracks can be mixed, recorded, and produced. Overall, the CLT Center is an amazing resource that I am so glad I've been exposed to! We even got to learn how to use the scanners (for free!)

Photo Manipulation

The picture I chose to evaluate from the “Pictures that Lie” website was the image entitled “Leon Trotsky.” I found this picture absolutely fascinating because although I had heard in various history classes that editing to this extent had been done, especially when looking back on the Soviet government, I had never been able to witness the alterations first hand. Looking at the first image, it is clearly a picture of Trotsky standing in a crowd a long a number of other Russians. In the released altered photograph, Trotsky has been completely eliminated by essentially blending his image, along with a few of his friends, into the background. At one point in time Trotsky was a very powerful man in Russia, but after his fall when he raised opposition to Stalin’s rise to power, he was an outcast. From this point on, the Russian government slowly tried to erase him from Soviet history. This is a perfect example of the censorship and the tight control that the Soviet government had, as they took the time and resources to remove Trotsky to make it appear as if he were never in the crowd of people celebrating the anniversary of the October Revolution that day.

The below video is definitely anti-photoshop in regards to using the photoshop tools to alter models in various magazines, newspapers, etc., due to the negative effect that it has on the self esteem on young girls around the world, as well as giving males an unrealistic idea of what women should actually look like. Similarly, the point is made in the video that excessive photoshop usage has become a huge problem in the media, causing an increase in eating disorders and depressions.

Excel

Excel so far has been a pretty eye-opening experience. Honestly, I had never really used Excel before, besides with school assignments such as Bio Lab or Chem Lab, and I never really thought about all the other ways Excel could be helpful in daily life. As far as budgeting goes, I'm awful, which is another reason that it was kind of exciting to see how practical knowing how to create a running balance in Excel can be. Similarly, keeping track of our grades like we do for this class will also be helpful in future classes. As far as Excel goes, I don't really dislike anything. Every time I open the program I learn how something else functions, and each time I do it just makes every task I assigned that much easier. I do appreciate how easy it is to organize everything in Excel as well. I'm one of those people that usually has receipts falling out of my wallet and loose papers in all the wrong folders. Excel is the perfect solution to the fact that I am organizationally challenged!

Copyright Issues

Jason Hardin’s lecture today was really interesting and extremely eye opening. Not until today did I realize how little I knew about copyright laws, even though they are prevalent in almost everything we do. Most of all, I found the information about different file sharing, specifically music related, most interesting. Honestly, I don’t know one person that is college aged, myself included, that hasn’t illegally downloaded at least a few songs illegally. Especially with the recent developments in modern technology, illegal file transfers are easier to make than ever. Although in the past I am definitely guilty of downloading music illegally off the internet, I’ve come to realize how important it is for music to be obtained legally, not only to stay out of trouble, but also to support the particular artist whose work is being stolen by thousands, if not millions of people a year. Even though it’s great to have access to any music you want, I think that both legally, and morally, it’s better to pay the $1.29 on iTunes, especially if it means avoiding thousands of dollars in fines later on in life.


Copyright Issues by Lauren Henderson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. 

My Trinity Network Flyer

This is my Trinity Network Diagram. I used different shapes, text boxes, and image files to try to explan how the Trinity Network works. Right now, I wish I had not just looked at the homework document in my groups folder, because then I would have seen the extra part of the assignment needed to get full credit! Oh well, lesson learned.

Trinity Mystery Spot!

This location is a place that most upperclassmen, sophomores or older, have seen at one point or another in their time at Trinity whether it was going to their own room or visiting a friend. I chose this specific location because it is somewhere extremely ordinary, that is passed frequently without the slightest thought to the surroundings. I have adjusted the photograph using the Picnik website to make it a little bit more fun, and slightly harder to guess. To adjust the color scheme and make the photograph more interesting, I boosted the color, softened the edges, and added the HDR effect available on Picnik. Similarly, I also used Picnik to add a rectangular shape, text box, and symbol in effort to create the "No Robots Allowed" sign. Using the same shape tool, I added the robot that is placed on the stairs. Personally, I have nothing against robots, but that little guy with the angry expression was too cute to leave out of my edited photo. Can anyone tell me the precise location of this photograph? Leave your guesses in a comment! Thanks!

Best Tech Tip

Joe Hatch's Survival Skills talk today was far more enlightening than I anticipated. Not until he began talking did I truly realize how little I knew about how computer viruses are spread, much less how to protect my own computer. Although Mr. Hatch mentioned several ways to protect your computer or make it more efficient, the best information I received today was about the program CClean, and more importantly, how it can benefit my own computer. Even though I use a Mac and CClean does not directly apply to my situation, I was able to use Google to find an alternative program, similar to CClean but for Macs, that would ultimately have the same result. I ended up finding a number of different ways to try and speed up my computer, along with the basics of how to reset the cache, empty the cookies file, and get rid of other unnecessary temp files. After just a few clicks, I was able to see a huge difference in the speed at which my computer worked!

EIT Introduction!

My name is Lauren Henderson and I'm from Fullerton, California. Even though I love it at home, I've actually grown to love Texas just as much. Still, the thing I miss most about California is my family. I live with my parents, my older brother, Eric, who graduated from Trinity this past year, and my younger sister Dana, who is only 15, yet towers over me.

I'm currently also playing soccer for Trinity. Like most collegiate athletes, I began playing soccer when I only 5 years old. Since, then, it has pretty much taken over my life and consumes about 90 percent of my time outside of the classroom. When I'm not on the field, I love reading, listening to music, or just hanging out with friends. This summer, I had the opportunity to do all of my favorite things, when I embarked on 26 hour road trip with another member of this class, Katie Garrett. We traveled from Fullerton, California, through Arizona and New Mexico, and finally ended back at Trinity in San Antonio. It was a tremendously long, slightly boring, but shockingly beautiful drive.
The long wait made finally arriving back at Trinity again that much more exciting.

Back at school, the stresses and worries of classes picked up pretty quickly. Added to my list of worries was this computer class because sadly, for the most part, I am computer illiterate, hence the reason I didn't test out of it to begin with. I've had enough experience to create a decent spreadsheet or pie chart for a science or economics class, but beyond that, my knowledge is minimal. At this point, the thought of writing the code for my own website is still terrifying, but I look forward to the day when it's a piece of cake. Check this out; I've already learned how to link my email address on the first day. Alas, one step closer to computer literacy!
lhender1@trinity.edu