Advice to Next Years Class

The most important piece of advice I could give to the next semester CS1300 class would be to attend every class an pay attention. This class is truly a class you have to go to in order to understand what to do on the assignments. By going to every class and watching what Ms. Belisle demonstrates will make completing the assignments easy and fun. I end by saying good luck to all those who participate in this course in the future.

My Favorite Class Websites

Of all the websites showcased in class, three stood out as the best. The first of these great websites was made by Neyaz. Her website was very detailed an interesting. The way she used hyperlinks inside of photos was really unique and added a lot to the site as a whole. The second great website was authored by Erin. This site was great because of the professional look it possessed, which is perfect for who the site was geared to intentionally. Additionally, the site contained an embedded video that worked really well. The third and final great website was created by Chelsea. This site was superb due to the fact that the entire thing was created in photo shop. This allowed for the background to be two different photos that blended together perfectly. I was amazed by the skill and creativity of all of the websites created by this class, and these three websites were especially well done.

My New Website

Please visit my website at www.cs.trinity.edu/~stargoff.
Overall, it was easier than I thought it would be to put this website together. Using Expression Web made the process much easier and less tedious than it would have been to HTML-code the entire site by hand. I also used Kompozer a little make some small changes to the site. My favorites page is probably the page that I'm the most proud of because of all the different thumbnail pictures that I used to represent some of my favorite movies, music, and television shows. At this point there isn't really anything I need to change on the site; however, as my tastes change and I make new friends, certain pictures will need to be updated. The biggest challenge of this site was formatting all of the thumbnailed pictures into tables that stayed put in the center of the page. I plan to show this site to my friends and family. I think that if the opprotunity to create a website for another class occurs in the future, I will be able to make a great website with very few problems.

HTML Code

HTML code is the language used by your computer to determine the way a web page appears on your screen. Since typing out each and every code for an entire website is tedious and time consuming, several web page authoring programs have been created. These programs allow you to design a web page as if you were viewing the finished product on the Internet, while simultaneously creating the HTML code. Although these web authoring programs are incredibly useful it is still important to understand how the process of HTML coding works for a few reasons. The first is that if there happens to be a problem with the web page, you can simply right-click and view the entire code for the page. Using this code you can pin point the exact location on the page where the problem is and quickly fix the code and in turn the problem. The second reason why knowing HTML code is important is if you visit a website and like something particular about it that you don't know how to code properly. Again, by opening up the source code you can locate the code that was used to create whatever you find interesting and simply copy the code into your own web page. HTML coding is long and boring to do, but it is something that must be understood by anyone looking to create a web page.

My Lying Picture

In order to create my own photo that lies, I decided to focus on the epidemic of obesity in the United States and show how someone could easily trick children into believing that eating fast food is good for their health. I used images that I found on the websites of various fast food restaurants and placed them next to a photo of Terry Crews, a professional body builder and actor. By placing these images together and using the text "Fast Food Makes You Fit" I was able to create a poster that lies about the harmful effects of overindulging in fast food. Although I created this picture, it's not a far stretch to assume that a company like McDonald's or KFC would create a similar poster targeted toward young people who have the potential to be a huge market for increased profits. The harm in doing something like this is two-fold. The first is the fact that eating large amounts of fast food is detrimental to a persons physical health. The second cause of harm comes from the mental trick that is played on children who see this poster and begin to believe that fast food is good for them. In looking for other examples of how photo altering can have harmful consequences I found a short excerpt from a book titled 'Photo Fakery: The History and Techniques of Photographic Deception and Manipulation.' It explained how photographs have been altered for decades, even before the invention of computers and digital photography. A quote from this article that I found interesting dealt with the various ways to detect a fake photo, "fakes can be detected--with microscopes, x-rays, infrared spectroscopy, chemical analysis of photo paper..." While these tests may work for a person with acsess to a chemical lab, they don't really help the everyday person who would most likely stumble across a fake picture while surfing the internet. The most important thing I learned from reading the article, as well as creating my own photo fakery, is that the ability to alter photographs is available to almost anyone and when using pictures to draw conclusion, you have to be absolutely sure that the image you are viewing is true. The Citation for the article I used follows: Seamon, Richard M. "Books of interest." U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 126.1 (2000): 85-86. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 12 Apr. 2010.

Powerpoint Presentation Evaluations

Of the many Presentations given in class last week, the two that I found the most interesting and enjoyable were given by Lucy and Erin. Lucy's presentation was on the career field of Neurology and more specifically brain plasticity. I found the information she gave to be very interesting and was something I was previously unaware of. Additionally, the video that Lucy used in her presentation was exceptionally good at not only showing the audience what she was talking about but also due to its content the video connected on an emotional level. The second presentation that I liked was given by Erin and dealt with working in the news room on TigerTV. Again I learned several things that I didn't already know, and the presentation did a great job of peaking my interest in this subject. Overall, I thought the career presentations given were educational and more importantly gave some insight into the futures that my classmates are interested in.

Powerpoint Presentation Tips

After reading the assigned articles I feel like I have a much better understanding of what goes into making a good Powerpoint presentation and why some presentations fail to engage their audiences. The first helpful tip would be to pick a template that engages your audience. By either statrting from scratch or by simply maodifying the colors on a pre-made template, you can really bring a presentation to life using the right background template for you slides. The second tip is to choose the font that most appropriately fits your presenation. The third tip is to use a little text as possible to get the message across. People want to listen to the speaker and use the the Powerpoint as sort of a note sheet, not the other way around. The fourth tip is to use video and sound effects to enhance the presentation. The final tip that I took from these readings would have to be to keep it simple. Powerpoint is designed to aid the speaker in giving a presentation, not to act as the entire presentation itself.

Photoshop Collage

Here is the collage I made using photoshop. It shows the many emotional sides of me.

Chris Nolan Lecture

The lecture given on Tuesday by Chris Nolan regarding Internet search engines was very educational. I learned several things about Google that I didn’t previously know. I already knew that Google is the most popular search engine; however, I did not know exactly why. Mr. Nolan explained that Google is so popular because it is incredibly easy use and searches for the most relevant information regarding whatever someone might search for. Google ranks the results of a search by looking for key words in documents and document titles as well as by evaluating how many times other people have clicked on that specific link. One thing that surprised me about Google is that you can change the language of the site to made up languages such as pig Latin and pirate talk. Overall the lecture was informative and enjoyable.

Pictures That Lie

For the Pictures that Lie assignment I chose to analyze the picture used by Harper's in 2005 that shows seven US marines above the title AWOL in America. I chose this picture because I think it is important how not only pictures themselves are altered, but also how these pictures can be used to misrepresent a title. The photo itself is clearly manipulated as one of the soldiers appears to be fading away. Obviously someone simply increased the transparency of this soldier in Photoshop. I beleive the photo was altered in this way to help draw attention to the title of the article, AWOL in America. The actual harm resulting from this photo was probably minimal, however, the use of an altered photo in order to sell a title better is a deep ethical violation more than anything else.

CLT Visit

Last Thursday we were given the opportunity to visit the Center for Learning Technologies in the library. This visit was both beneficial and enjoyable. We were shown all the different workstations in the main room where the newest PCs and Macs were ready for students to use. We also saw the video conference center that allows students and classes to communicate with people all over the world. We were shown the digital audio and video equipment that is used to create videos and sound effects for presentations. This equipment can help make projects for other classes easier and more affordable. I think that this school is very privileged to have such a technologically advanced center for its students and faculty members to utilize.

Jason Hardin Lecture

The lecture given by Mr. Hardin on Thursday regarding copyright laws was very informative and beneficial. I learned several things that I was previously unaware of and that possibly might have led to complications in the future regarding these copyright issues. The first point that was made was the difference between copyright infringement and plagiarism. Copyright infringement is legally a crime whereas plagiarism is merely an academic and ethical violation. This is important because it draws a distinct line between these two wrongful activities. Another useful fact that I learned about copyright laws is that copyrights last for the length of the author’s life plus and additional seventy years. This is important because copyrighted properties can be inherited once the original author dies, which means that family, or whomever is chosen, can benefit from the work. A third important part of the lecture dealt with the higher education opportunity act of 2008. This act obligates universities to provide a network where student can download and upload materials legally. This is meant to keep students across the nation from downloading copyrighted materials over the Internet illegally. The final import aspect of the lecture was a brief guide through a website called creativecommons.org. This site allows the creator of any work to place one of several copyright licenses on their work. Overall I found this lecture to be educational and enjoyable.

Jason Hardin Lecture by Steven Targoff is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.

Trinity Network Diagram

Here is the diagram I just made that shows and explains how Trinity's network functions.

Top Tech Tip

The most important tip that I took from the short lecture given by Joe Hatch would have to be the article he refered to called 12 things computer users should fear in 2010. This article offered a variety of useful information on everything from email attachments to social networking. I feel that after reading this article I have a much better understanding of what to watch out for in order to keep my computer safe and private over the next year.

Introduction

My name is Steven and I'm from San Diego, California. You can email me here. I've lobbied to members of Congress. My computer background is very basic. I know how to perform most of the important functions in programs such as Microsoft Word and Excel, as well as use the internet for both research and entertainment. I hope to learn some of the more advanced functions that these programs can do throughout the rest of the semester.