Advice for next year!

I think the best advice I can give for this class is to do all the homework in advance. There is a lot, and sometimes it can take hours (making a website), but if you do all your homework, then you will have the skills necessary for tests and quizzes. It will also keep your grade high.

Student Websites

Please visit my website at www.cs.trinity.edu/~mfisher2 !!

Expression Web. I think the section I am most proud of is my Starbucks page because I made the background so that it fit the topic and I included a lot of relavent informaiton. I may have changed my layout to the website. I think I would keep the same background for all of the pages so that it is tied together a little cleaner. My biggest technical challenge was making the tables and pictures in the places I wanted them. My biggest design challenge was making different backgrounds for every page. I will probably show my site to my mom and my family. There is a chance I will make another site because I really like making sites and I want to try keeping the same background for a site to make it look cleaner.

Three of my favorite websites are CJ Robison's (because his background is professional and I like the way he linked his photos), Steven Targoff's (because I like the gradient in the background and it is easy to navigate), and Lucy Cevallos's (because the home page is really cool looking- love the picture and colors together).

My Picture That Lies

My picture that lies is a picture of land animals swimming under water. I chose this because I think it would be fun to swim with African and South American animals in the ocean. All of the pictures originated from Google. I manipulated the picture by taking a background of the ocean and cropping out animals from different pictures and placing them on the ocean background. I then adjusted the hue and saturation for each layer to make them blue. Then, I used the smudge tool to make the edges look faded and make the animal blend in with the background a little better. I manipulated it for fun because I love animals and I love the ocean. I do not think the manipulation was harmful because everybody knows that these animals would never be swimming under water, especially all together. This picture relates to the article I read called, "Detecting Fake Images Using Watermarks and Support Vectors" because in the article, they talk about being able to detect when an image is not real by using watermarks and other methods. If someone wanted to see if my image was real or not (as if they could not tell), they could use the watermark method.

Here is the citation for the article I used:

Wei, Lu, Chung Fu-Lai, , and Kup-Sze. "Detecting fake images using watermarks and support vector machines."Computer Standards & Interfaces 30.2 (2008): 132-136. Web. 13 Apr 2010.

Why it is Important to Know How to Use HTML Code

Even though there are programs such as Expression Web and Kompozer, it is still important for the computer programmer to know how to use HTML code. Why is this? It is because it is always good to know the basic building blocks for any program so that if a problem arises, it is possible to know how to fix it manually. HTML code rules the internet and any good programmer knows how to use it.

Power Point Evaluation

The other day in class, we watched classmates as they presented power point presentations about potential future jobs. Two of my favorites included a power point made by Hunter Ramsey and a power point made by Tori Carey. I really liked Hunter's because even though he said he is most likely not going to go into studying sharks, his power point was very informative. He made a really good choice in videos because it definitely caught the whole class's attention! I liked Tori's a lot because her background brought me back to my preschool days with the big letters and shapes. I really like the idea of becoming a preschool teacher and having a profound effect on children. She did a good job presenting her potential career.

Power Point Presentations

In class, we learned about power point presentations: what to do and what not to do. Here are some guidelines:
1) Have a visual theme, but avoid using Power Point templates. Almost everyone has seen every power point theme and people are tired of them! To keep people's attention, make your own template using the slide master.
2) Keep it simple. Avoid using too many bullets or too much text. This makes it easier for the audience to understand what the presenter is attempting to say though his or her powerpoint.
3) Use high quality graphics because they keep the powerpoint professional. When there are too many cheesy animations, the Power Point looks less professional.
4) Keep animations simple. Too much moving around is distracting for the audience.
5) Use video or audio to demonstrate to the audience what your point is or something that adds to your point. However, avoid cheesy sound effects.
One pet peeve I have with Power Points is when someone makes a Power Point with too many bullets and then they just read every single word, as if I cannot read it for myself. People should add to what their Power Point is saying.

My Photo Collage

My photo collage is of three random items that I found around my room. The first is a clorox wipes, the second is dry erase markers, and the third is a deck of cards. I named it "Dreams of Randomness" because I used those three items over and over again, except changed each of their features. The collage is like going through a random dream.

Chris Nolan's Visit

Chris Nolan, Assistant University Librarian at Coates Library in Trinity University, came to talk to our class today about search engines and how to get the best and most accurate results when searching the web. Here are a four new things I learned:

1) There are over 200 factors that influence what results come up in Google when you type in keywords. For example, one factor is: the more a page is linked to as a reference, the closer it is to being one of the top results.

2) When Google searches for your keyword/s, it also searches for synonyms.

3) When typing in your keywords, if there is a word or phrase you don't want to appear, you can just put a minus symbol before the word and it will not come up in your results.

4) There is a tab on the side that you can click to help you get closer to the results you are looking to find. It has different categories of media, different time restraints, local and distant results, and other subjects. This helps to limit the number of results that appear when a search is conducted

One thing I was surprised about was that the way Google makes its money is by letting advertisers buy ad space. I had always wondered how Google became so profitable so quickly.

Chris Nolan also showed us ways to get less commercial items by typing in the words, ".org," or, ".gov" into the search engine.

Pictures That Lie

For class, we had to go to the webpage called CNet and look at pictures that lie. I am surprised by the pictures because they look so easy to doctor and there is so much photo editing technology out there that pretty much anyone can change a piece of media to show exactly what they want it to show. I chose the picture of Gov Ann Richards from the 1992 cover of Texas Monthly. The picture has Gov Ann Richards on a motorcycle in a white leather suit. The actual picture is doctored because they used a headshot of her, but the body is a model’s. The photo editor said, “since the model had such a nice body, she could hardly complain.” I think this is completely wrong because the American public already has a skewed idea of how the normal person is supposed to look. If her body is not perfect, that is okay, because nobody’s body is perfect. I am pretty sure it was manipulated because the magazine feels that covers with “attractive” people on them sell better. It is a marketing ploy. I feel that the manipulation is harmful because it could hurt Gov Ann Richards’ feelings because they are basically saying that her body is not good enough for the cover. It also hurts the American public because it is just reinforcing the “thin ideal.”

CLT Trip

The other day in class, we went to CLT in the Library. I have never seen it before that class and I was astounded by how many beautiful computers and technology they have there. I love Macs and there are quite a few for movie and picture purposes in CLT.
I could use CLT for anything from my sociology class to make a presentation, to making a video of my friends for fun, to making a recording in their sound studio. There is also a video conference room that I could chat with someone from a different part of the world! I could go to visit CLT and use any of the software that is on the computers and this could be very helpful for future projects in classes. I am excited to use it for my education at Trinity.

Copyright Copyright Copyright!!!

I was unfortunate enough to be out of town this past Thursday when the great Copyright expert, Jason Hardin, was guest lecturing in our Computer Skills class! However, talking with some of my friends in the class, I learned a thing or two about copyright.

Firstly, I learned that in 2008, Trinity authorized the Higher Education Opportunity Act. The act makes sure that every year, students learn about copyright infringements (what is acceptable and what is not); the school must make a plan to fight illegal file sharing; there has to be a system that is an alternative to unauthorized file sharing.

Secondly, I started to think about music downloading in a different way. As a college student, I know that I do not have much extra money for music and neither do most of my friends. But I love a constant incoming flow of new music. That makes a dilemma because music is getting more and more expensive. What is a poor college student to do?? Most college students who live on campuses without acts like the Higher Education Opportunity Act download music illegally and share unauthorized files. It is bad, but in my mind, it is understandable.

Sharing unauthorized files such as music is a controversial business because it does take away from the artists who created it, but people love music and it is expensive. On one side, illegally downloading files is completely unacceptable because it is stealing someone else's work. On the other hand, an individual can make it right in their mind by saying, "One song is $1.29, the same price as a hamburger from McDonalds. Why should I have to choose between music and food?" Of course, I will abide by the law, as should everyone else, but it is a controversial subject where both sides deserve to be heard.

Copyright Copyright Copyright!!! by Morgan Fisher is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

My Trinity Network Diagram

This is my Network Diagram of the Trinity University Network. I have Ruth Taylor in the center because it is like the hub of a wagon wheel. Ruth Taylor receives signals and distributes them to the correct location around campus.

Top Tech Tip!

The other day in class, a computer whiz by the name of Joe Hatch came to tell us all about computer basic security. The Top Tech Tip (can YOU say that three times fast?) that I choose is for Mac users, specifically for those who use Safari. It is to reset Safari often so that if a hacker chooses your computer, they will have no idea if you go to banking sites or what your passwords are. I think this is a great tip because I have never really thought about the importance of wiping the browser clean and keeping it secure until Joe Hatch brought it up.

Personally, I think it is terrible that there are these hackers and virus makers out there. How rude! But we learned that it is very important to protect our computers to the best of our abilities. Thanks Joe!

Oh, and the picture at the top is an example of Wordle! I used words from my three blogger entries so far.

Introduction to Me

Hi, my name is Morgan Fisher and I am from a suburb right outside the capital of the great United States of America. Springfield, Virginia has been my home for ten years because my mom retired from the Air Force in 1999. Before Virginia, I lived in Ohio, San Antonio, and Japan. I worked at Starbucks for two years and became addicted to coffee so if you ever see me looking exhausted, it is because I did not have my morning cup o' joe. I am not too broken up about my reliance on caffeine because coffee is delicious. In high school, I ran cross country, track, swam on the swim team, played soccer, and played lacrosse for a while.

My "secret" that I posted on my sticky note was that I played soccer since kindergarten but quit recently and now I desperately miss it! I miss everything about the game and so I go to the pick up soccer games (although they are not very teamwork-oriented) and played intramural soccer. Our team won the championship game!

I am also rushing this semester but have not decided which sorority to join yet. I hope to get involved with TUVAC this semester because I like helping people out when they are in need. Hopefully this semester goes okay with 18 credits.

I like to think that I am experienced with computers. I did not actually take the online computer test because I figured I should learn more about computers so hopefully this class will help a lot!
Feel free to email me here.