CS 1300 Blog

You're A Computer Genius, Right?

2009-12-08T06:35:00.001-08:00

After taking the Essential Computer Skills class, I have learned that NO one is an actual genius when it comes to computers. No matter what, no matter where, no matter why, there is always something new to learn when it comes to computers and technology in general. The best way to tackle a class aimed at so much is to come in with an open mind and let the learning flow. Do your work, listen in class, and by the end of the struggle, the sun will shine, and you will be MUCH closer to being a genius than you were before no matter your stating point.

My Picture Lies!...(or does it?)

2009-11-11T22:05:00.000-08:00

Below is a picture of a popular glacier taken from Environmental Graffiti, a site that shows different natural elements in an artistic or "graffiti-like" style. I chose this picture because I am quite passionate about the environment but some people tend to take their passions too far and insinuate some unsual things. For instance, in Al Gore's documentary, An Inconveniant Truth, some of the pictures he showed in his presentation of receding glaciers and melting ice caps were in fact doctored beyond the actual recessions. I performed the same manipulation below:

The Original Photo:

The Altered Photo:

By manipulating the same mountainous regions on either side of the glacier and placing them throughout the bottom as if the actual glacier had receded, I have made it to look like the global temperature rising caused the glacier to melt and shrink in size. Al Gore allegedly pulled this same manipulation to raise the level of alert about global warming and its effects.

The manipulation was indeed harmful in the sense that it is exaggerating the glacier's recession. However, from an environmental standpoint, if the only goal was to raise awareness and passion about the issue, which is important in our society with how fast global temperatures are rising, then the manipulation seems morally sound. As participants in the environment who use the natural resources that seem to be dying off, it is our job to do whatever we can to help reduce the problem.

Essential Computer Skills Presents!

2009-11-07T13:00:00.000-08:00

The presentations in class this week were definetly above and beyond the quality discussed in my last post. Most notably, I thoroughly enjoyed two specific blogs for their ability to present the ideas or topics they were focused on.

Will's presentation on bonobos was light-hearted, funny, nimated, graphic, and on the whole was an intriguing topic in my opinion. Will had a strong confidence in his presentation and did not seem to be nervous at all. He also kept the audience's interest by moving around and staying dynamic as opposed to static.

Caroline's presentation, in much the same way, was very graphic and involved. Her personal connection to the theatre topic adds an important quality to the presentation that provides the emotion and strength the articles were talking about. She was confident in what she was saying and kept the topic interesting.

PowerPoint Tips & Tricks

2009-11-07T12:34:00.000-08:00

While reading through the articles about PowerPoint problems and tips for a good presentation, they started to bring back memories of all of the old presentations that I had created thus far for any number of reasons in school, at home, or just for fun. Playing with all the sounds, animations, transitions, and backgrounds was a blast and the more you threw into it the higher grade you got!

It's funny to think about listening to all of our class's presentations in retrospect because the only one awake was the one presenting at the time. Through all the laser sounds, typewriter effects, spinning slides coming into view, I never remembered what any were about as soon as I left the room. There always seemed to be a pattern of one slide filled from top to bottom with tons of words and bullet points that the presenter would just read as the clicking of the typewriter went letter by letter, and then the next slide contained a bunch of stick figure clip art people doing some ridiculous animations.

After pondering the subject for a while the main things I took to heart were:

1. No Clip Art (at least most of the time)
2. Keep it simple in everything you do, text & charts
3. Make sure to get quality photos and do not expand them for fear of pixelation
4. No crazy animations that involve annoying sounds
5. YOU ARE THE ONE THEY CAME TO SEE, NOT THE SLIDES

CLT - More Like HOT

2009-10-22T07:32:00.000-07:00

The Center for Learning Technology, or the Hub for Overly-fantastical Technogear as I like to call it, looks like the place to be if you ever get in a techno-jam. Before today the giant room with the gaping door just looked like a place for only really intense techno-savvy students really in depth in Audio/Video editing and other sorts of high-gear technology projects. But today I was enlightened, awakened some may say, to not only the true power behind the HOT in the basement of the library, but the easy accessibility AND user-friendly programs and staff located there.

I realized thanks to Robert Chapman that I can use the Center and its vast and varied resources to do practically anything I need to technology-wise for any class throughout my time here at Trinity. Not only can they help with the photo-editing software we will be using in Ms. Belisle's class soon, but any media class I may take, or any class for that matter where I may need to produce something, ANYTHING involving technology they can lend their time and knowledge to help me through it. Since I will probably be majoring in business, they will be able to help with my presentations and group projects throughout my classes. Especially since they offer this really amazing room that sets up an environment just like a classroom where a group project will be presented, technology and all!

Excel Overview

2009-10-20T17:28:00.001-07:00

When I was about 8 years old, my dad showed me how to add numbers on an excel spreadsheet. For about the next two weeks, it became my project to see just how high the numbers would go if I just kept adding the sum of my last equation to itself. It looked something like this:

Those two weeks were the time of my life! I loved adding those numbers and seeing how high they got. I even went so far as to actually memorize the sequence I had created (which went into the billions by the end of it)! It actually happened just because I spent so much time looking at it, not even because I intentionally meant to memorize it.

If only my 8 year old self could see my excel abilities now...

With how much I have learned about functions, charts, cell references and all the different kinds of formatting you can do with spreadsheets, I would have spent 24 hours a day just playing with all the numbers I had created and making them go higher then ever imagined! I would have been able to make them different styles or apply different themes to my spreadsheet that really would have made it stand out.

In the future, I plan to use excel to the best of its abilities whenever possible. I thoroughly enjoyed working with the program and all of its new artistic as well as functional qualities. At the moment I am planning to major in business so I am sure I will return to this program at some point in my career here at Trinity, as well as my career beyond the University in order to create spreadsheets to track sales, marketing quotas, and performance reports just like the ones we have already worked on in class. I cannot thank the class as well as our professor enough for teaching me all these wonderful tricks in Excel.

Search the Web? For Class? What?!

2009-10-12T21:28:00.000-07:00

Chris Nolan, second only to the Head Librarian at Coates Library came into our class on Thursday and taught us a thing or two about searching the World Wide Web. Contrary to my prior beliefs and teachings, there is actual credible and scholarly information to be found from searching Google, Bing, Yahoo, and the like. After a lifetime of being told this myth of unreliability, Chris Nolan visited our class to correct it.

Through narrowing a search down to only the essential or most "relevant" pages, a student can actually retrieve useful and acceptable info from the Internet WITHOUT using only library databases. Whereas Benjamin Harris enlightened us on the use of the library website and its valuable and varied databases, Chris Nolan opened our minds to the whole Internet, and its literally billions of resources out there for us to take advantage of. Google Scholar, and search engines of the like with a specific aim, can filter out the irrelevant information and provide a student with what they need to succeed. Thanks Chris!

Voters Betrayed!

2009-10-07T18:59:00.001-07:00

In the 2004 Presidential election, the following photo was pictured on major broadcasting stations:

I chose this picture because it is just like the political world of America today to attempt to deceive the voters of this country at any cost. Regardless of whether or not Kerry was a good choice for president, there is no excuse for falsely slandering his reputation, and putting him where he does not belong.

In the photo, Jane Fonda is speaking at an anti-Vietnam War protest and it appears that Kerry is sitting right alongside of her waiting to speak next. This photo is in fact a composition of multiple photos.

The major part of the photo, Jane Fonda's speech, was taken at a political rally in 1972 against the Vietnam War. John Kerry, is very conveniently inserted into this background after being taken from his original photo at a Register for Peace Rally held in 1971.

The manipulation of the two photos was done because while Kerry was campaigning as a war hero and a proud supporter of the U.S. military, a Bush supporter wanted to make it seem as if he was a hypocrite and therefore lose the favor of the populace.

This conjunction of the photos could have proven extremely harmful had the truth not been discovered. Attempting to mask a politician as a hypocrite when he is not (at least in this case) is a major crime especially when the presidential election is hanging in the balance.

Watch that Copier!

2009-09-23T21:42:00.000-07:00

We may not be watching actual copy machines, but there are humans out there who appear to be these handy devices. The only difference is that instead of copying papers, stapling them together, and automatically collating them for the user, these human-copiers steal documents, files, ideas, and research and claim it as their own.

Why do they do this? Well, for the person who does not want to pay for music they do it so they can jam out for free. For the student who totally forgot about the work he had due the next day they do it so they don't fail a class. For the academic professional who is aimed at fame, they do it to achieve a higher sense of self.

Why is it wrong? Well, to steal is to take something that's not yours. That means that someone else who actually created this thing that you are stealing from them loses the credit, profit, research, fame, etc. By doing so you are claiming that it is yours, which is wrong for obvious reasons. If you cannot come up with your own work or research and are desperate enough to steal then you obviously should consider changing professions or reevaluating your time management skills. If you are stealing music then you are just stealing money basically, because people are supposed to profit off of its sale, its a reason why they made it. It is basically as bad as robbing a bank.

I cannot understand why people feel the need to illegally download, copy work, or otherwise claim what is not theirs. The world works very simply: you work hard to create that which you love and in turn either make a nice living or simply enjoy life. If you don't work hard, you don't deserve it. To steal from this hard work is stealing that nice living or that enjoyment from those who worked for it, an inhumane crime.

My Network Diagram of TU

2009-09-15T06:49:00.001-07:00

Words of the Wise

2009-09-08T07:43:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday before Labor Day weekend, the Essential Computer Skills class at 8:30 a.m. was graced with Joe Hatch's presence. The computer guru knew everything about PC and Mac hardware and operating systems, and walked the class through many things including but not limited to: cleaning up the hard disk, defragmenting it so that files are more congealed rather than split up into millions of little pieces, how to work with different operating systems, and how the Trinity University's network is stored and maintained.

One particular thing I found interesting was the information he gave on how ITS, or Information Technology Services, works on Trinity's Campus. They can help you with any problem ranging from a crashed hardrive to not being able to check email. It makes me feel confident and safe and in my computer usage to know just how protected our network is from outside threats that we would never even think to defend ourselves from.

I was also inclined to download CCleaner, which ended up working wonderfully, thx Joe! =D

Joshin' Josh

2009-08-27T07:30:00.000-07:00

Hello! My name is Joshua Sterling Friedman but everyone calls me Josh (or else!) and I was born in Raleigh, NC (hence the UNC hat) and lived for the past 14 years in Houston, TX before coming to Trinity. I am interested in majoring in philosophy and business, possibly minoring in english or pre law in the hopes of someday becoming a professor or possibly a judge.

I lived in Raleigh for an everlasting two weeks before forcibly (since I had no real motor skills) being moved to St. Paul, Minnesota where my family and I lived for four years. I do not remember much of it except one morning when I went into the garage to hug my dad good bye as he left for work because as he pressed the garage door button and the door began to lift, instead of the bright sunny morning, we found only an entire airtight wall of snow enclosing the whole of the garage opening. Dad stayed from work that day and spent four hours shoveling snow outside.

At the age of four, the now five member Friedman family (my brother was 6 weeks old or so) moved from the one of the most northern states in the U.S., to its most southern state, arriving in mid-january in Missouri City, TX. They say Minnesota has two seasons: Winter, and Construction. Well, Houston only has one season: hot and sticky. Living in a suburb of the Greater Houston Area, where I have lived for the past fourteen wonderful years of my life, was not the most enjoyable climate-wise, but definetly had its benefits when it came to the activities I was a part of and the friends I made along the way.

I love to play futbol, ultimate frisbee, switness ball, basketball, and ping pong among other sports etc. As long as I am with friends though, I could do nothing for hours, or atleast seemingly nothing to everyone else. Just hanging out, talking, joking, laughing together have been some of the most rewarding experiences in my life. By the way, my secret fact was that I have swam with dolphins before.

So, all in all, I am unbelievably excited to have a college experience especially at Trinity and after the first few classes today, I am a little nervous, but fairly certain the work load is doable and the people around me just make it enjoyable.

My email is jfriedma@trinity.edu

Fantastically Yours,

--Josh