Advice

Do all the homework all the time. Even the blogs assignments. It will really help buffer your grade.

Website Favorites

One of my favorite student websites was Erin Dooley's. I like how she created an entire website that functioned as an interactive resume. It not only gave the necessary information about her abilities and experiences, but also presented it in a form which showcased those skills and abilities. I also lived that you figured out how to embed a video into a website and I liked the design of your homepage picture. Another website I liked was by CJ Robinson. I liked the continual consistency in his layouts, which made it look very professional. I loved the blue colored tigers and found that they made each page go with the next. A third website I liked was John Nathan's. I liked how he decided to have a website about critiquing his favorite sports teams, which made his website stand out. He also had very professional pictures and designed the texts around them in a professional manor.

Website

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

Making a professional looking website was relatively easier than I thought it would be. I sort of cheated and avoided using either Komposer or Expression Web by designing all of my webpages in Photoshop Elements and pasting it into Expression Web as a picture. I am most proud of the background/navbar that I designed for all my pages. My favorite page that I designed was the Trinity Life page, just because I loved how the text and pictures balanced out on the page. I would like to have had more information per page, since the text size of the body paragraphs are somewhat overwhelming and it would've looked lovely in a collumn format. My biggest technical challenge was inserting a thumbnail picture after I did the majority of the website in Photoshop. I had to use layers in Expression Web to put it on top of the main page. My biggest design challenge is making it look nice and be readable with a longer horizonatal page than verticle. Part of the reason I wish I had thought to put the text into collumns is to make my website more readable with the long horizontal layout. I already sent my website to my mom, who will probably show it off to mutual family and friends. As long as I have photoshop, I would consider doing another website for another class.

HTML Code

Even though programs like Expression Web and Kompozer make it easy for everyone to create their own websites without ever dealing with the HTML code, it is still more beneficial than not to know HTML code and how to manipulate it. Knowing HTML code makes it easy to name specific dimensions and format, that would be hard to reproduce with only the visual side of the website. Knowing HTML code also makes it easy for you to dissect another person's website that you like and figure out how they produced the graphics or font. One can also go in and take out whole chunks of HTML code out of another person's website and insert it into your own. Also if something goes wrong, sometimes the easiest solution is to look under the hood of the website and find the problem that way.

Pictures That Lie: Love-War

I chose to manipulate a picture of a B-52 Stratofortess airplane dropping bombs during the Vietnam war. The picture was originally from an image gallery on the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and I liked the original picture because of the scattered and detailed bombs in the picture, which made it easy to move and manipulate the individual bombs in the picture. The main manipulation of the picture was using the magic selection tool and copy/paste to move the bombs into a subtle heart shape in the middle of the bomb-dropping area. The clone tool was used to remove nearby bombs to make the heart more distinctive. Finally, the hue and saturation was adjusted to bring a light, barely-noticable red tone to the original black/white photo. The manipulated photo is a commentary on the slightly oxymoron about how peace is garenteeded through war and force. The jutaposition of the heart and the bombs with help to excepify this seemingly controdictory statement that a country's safety is dependent on it's ability to threaten and force its neighbors to coorperate with it. The heart is also a nod to the protests in the United States which ended the Vietnam War with out our success. I don't think my manipulation was particualary harmful, since it was first off pretty obviously manipulated because the probability of bombs making a heart shape is very low. Also I chose to manipulate an event that has already been closed in our history. If I had chose to manipulate photos from the Iraq War in a similar way, it would be more harmful since the people can still be manipulated into believeing one thing or another, such as the Lcpl Boudreaux case, where a picture of him and some Iraqi children holding a "Welcome Marines" sign was manipulated into saying negative things about the military. Though probably a joke in the internet community, the altered photo resulted in the Pentagon investigating Boudreax and his job coming into question (Casimiro).

Works Cited:
Casimiro, Steve. "Seeing Is Not Believing." Popular Science 267.4 (2005): 70-98. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 12 Apr. 2010.

Presentation Favorites

One of my favorite presentations was Erin Dooley's presentation about Tiger TV. I just loved how she was able to personalize the presentation by making it about a Trinity-created institution. Though I had absolutely no interest in television and news at all, i was very intrigued and impressed by the Tiger TV technology. I especially liked the use of pictures from the Tiger TV website. Erin was also every enthusiastic about her choice, making what would've been a somewhat-boring presentation to me (career- and interest-wise) into something fascinating to learn about. I actually never knew Tiger TV was on cable, which is pretty awesome, or that it was so easy to become involved in the network.

Another presentation is was very fond of was Taylor Stratton's presentation about being an ophthalmologist. I was most impressed by the high quality pictures and the extremely professional layout design. The requirements and other information were also excellent and very detailed. The video at the end showing the animation of a part of an eye surgery was captivating, and helped to show some of the general jobs of an ophthalmologist. Though I have no interest in the medical field, I still found Taylor's presentation to be very engaging.

Presentation Tips

I found all the tutorials and tip sheets full of helpful and informative suggestions on how to make a PowerPoint Presentation have a powerful impact. Generally I agree with most of the points brought up by the websites. The five main guidelines that I think are most important are:

1) Long text blocks are not good-- It's better to have a few bulletin points with key words rather than everything one is going to say on each slide. If one will just be reading off the slides verbatum, you might as well just hand out a printout of the slides and let the audience read them instead of taking the time to do a formal presentation.
2)Pictures are better than text-- Following the above rule, it is much better to have captivating images rather than blocks of text. It also give a point where you can tell a story and explain the meaning of the picture(s), rather than reading off the slide, which will be more interesting to the audience.
3)Have notes to refer to during the presentation-- This will make it easier during the presentation for you to remember all your points for each slide. This will also make it less tempting to write down more than keywords on each slide.
4) Image choice is important-- Depending on the type or presentation you want to give and the audience you are giving it to, this will change the type of images you will wont to use in your presentation. It is best to stick with professional images rather than clip art (which can come off as corny) for all of work related presentations. Only for certain audiences, such as children and a more relaxed/professional audience, can one use clip art and other more comical images in your presentation.
5)Video and audio is best when used appropriately-- Use of video and audio can boost the wow factor in your presentation and make the presentation more entertaining for both you and the audience. As long as the video and audio is extremely relevant and not annoying, it is a great addition to any presentation.

Best Pic Collage

My collage is tried to show the background cat having some slight fuzzy memories of some of its friends with fun thought bubbles.

Searching the Internet

Nolan's presentation on internet searching and how to properly navigate the web was very thought-provoking. I liked how we went over all the domain names, such as .com, .org, .edu, .gov etc. I generally had certain connotations about which domian to use for more accurate researching. I found it very interesting that some non academic sources or non authoritative sources could obtain a .org url, but it makes sense since it is basically denoting a non-profit organization. I always thought that those site would generally be extremely accurate and generally truthful. But the www.martinlutherking.org completely blew that assumption out of the water. I mean just read through what they say. It's awful. And if you look through enough you'll find that the site is sponsered by a white power group. Not cool. Not cool at all.

Pictures That Lie

On August 2006, a picture of the aftermath of the Israeli bombing of Lebanese capital by the photographer Adnan Hajj was published by the Reuters news agency, depicting dark black smoke wafting from the capital buildings.The picture interested me since it was another way to skew people's opinions on the Middle Eastern war front. The picture was manipulated to make the clouds of smoke look more numerous and darker, making it look like a more horrible and catastrophic event. Hajj denies that he manipulated the photo for this purpose, claiming he had used bad techniques to get rid of some dust marks. The manipulation of the photo was not harmful persay, it just skewed the perspective of the bombing, making it appear more devastating.

CLT Visit

The Center for Learning and Technology (CLT) was filled with a variety of resources available to students. I had personally never been to the CLT before this visit and was quite impressed by their facilities. I was glad to see that they have both Macs and PCs available. Though I personally can use both fairly proficiently, it is nice that if you prefer one type of computer over the other you can have a choice. I also liked the way the CLT was organized. The computers were divided up into sections depending on the software that was on them, such as a graphic design section. I was surprised that they had so many other types of equipment for sound recording and such. The presentation room was also extremely nice. I am looking forward to utilizing the graphic design area for our class. Also it is nice to have a group of technicians to help out if I have problems with any of the programs or computers.

Copyright Presentation

The copyright presentation by Jason Hardin was extremely interesting and I learned some interesting facts. It was fun to use the clickers during the lecture and see what everyone thought the answer to the questions were. One of the things Hardin talked about that I knew nothing about was the Higher Education Opportunity Act created in 2008. I was really greatful that HEOA made such provisional exceptions for education and made colleges and universities have alternative resources to prevent illegal downloading. What I found most interesting was the Disney Corporation's role in changing copyright law. When Walt Disney's 50th death-day was coming up, the Disney Corporation lobbied at Congress and was able to lengthen the years that the copyright was valid from 50 to 70 years. I can't wait for the 70th death day of Walt Disney to come up and watch that political debate go down. When it comes to the illegal downloading of music, there are usually two kinds of people: one who think that downloading music for free is no big deal and the second who thinks its wrong, but still does it when given the opportunity. I myself fall in the second group and I think copyright over music is nessecary and that the authors should be given the deserved profits from those songs. I personally think that the best way to discourage illegal downloading is the go after the sites that can facilitate such activities rather than the people that may be doing it. It would make it harder for people to illegally download music if such sites and applications did not exist and it would discourage the activity all together.


Copyright Presentation by Chelsea Lewis is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at clewis1300.blogspot.com.

My Trinity Network Diagram

In my Network Diagram, I chose to go for simplicity and straightforwardness rather than looks. The textboxes hold the majority of the information about what is available in each location and I have 3 types of arrow pathways to show how the signals get from one place to another. Although I probably could've done more with colors and photo editing techniques, I decided I didn't want to fill the entire page with clutter and such. Hey, at least I'm OCD enough to make sure everything is color coordinated and flows in a somewhat logical fashion. Although i just noticed that the arrows keeps getting thicker the closer to the bottom they get... Weird.

Favorite Tech Tip

My favorite tech tip from Joe Hatch's presentation was the website "Maintaining Mac OS-X”- The X Lab. The website had very useful information that I didn't know you should do with your Mac. I'm going to do everything on the list since now I'm as paranoid about people messing with my computer and wiping everything as I am about the zombie apocalypse. >.> The former much more likely but I'm still working on my cardio so the undead will have to catch me if they want my brain. XD

Scavenger Hunt

So i finished the blog scavenger hunt search and learned some fun facts about everyone in the class. After all my Mac connection problems that is... >.> Curses. Here are the two blogs that i commented on:

http://www.emdooley.blogspot.com/

http://www.anag21.blogspot.com/

Introduction

Yo. My name is Chelsea Lewis and I'm from Austin, Texas. I was born in Kansas City, Kansas on November 29, 1990. I'm currently a second semester freshman, though i think i officially have enough hour credits to be considered a sophomore now (thank you, AP Tests). I'm a biology major, psychology minor with my main focus being animal behavior. I'm also completely technology illiterate, hence me needed to take this particular computer class. It was (and still is) one of the main things my friends make fun of me for but let's see if we can change that. That and being a complete star trek junkie. My girl friends and I are completely obsessed with the Original Series. We even have our corresponding TOS characters. *Salute* Ensign Pavel Chekov, reporting for duty. I'm working through the Next Generation right now as well.


I went to LASA (Liberal Arts and Science Academy), and for those who go to Austin schools and don't remember, it was the magnet program associated with LBJ High School. Halfway through my 4 years, the magnet program and home school was split into 2 different schools on the same campus, causing massive amounts of confusion since the school continued sharing the athletics and band. I was in LBJ Jaguar Marching Band and concert band for all four years of high school. I was originally a clarinet player who switched to bass clarinet (non-marching, extra-low and large clarinet). However by my junior year I realized clarinet was lame (sorry fellow clarinets), and, due to the lack of brass players in general, I switched to sousaphone. And yes... That short chick in the newly recreated Trinity Stand Band that carries around the giant metal tuba. That's me. I am the tiny tuba playa. Fo shizzle.

Also during high school, i was a member of the Winterguard team. Winterguard is basically Colorguard (the guys in marching band spinning flags and guns), but in the spring, minus the band, and inside a gym. I did that for three years. I was also a part of the Model United Nations club for 2 and 1/2 years, which was a lot of fun. "Russia thinks the Cuba is full of himself, and vetoes this proposal because it sucks." Nothing like referring to yourself in third person as a country.
You can email me here if you so desire.