Advice

Future students! The best advice I can give to you is do your assignments early and if you are lost ask for help immediately or else it is easy to get lost.

Favorite Blogs

My favorite websites were Lauren Henderson's website about Trinity Womens Soccer. I loved the layout of her website it looked so professional. I also liked her website because I love going to all of the games so it was fun to see a website dedicated to the soccer team. The other website I enjoyed was Nyk's blog because the layout was great and all the pictures were awesome. I just got very hungry as I browsed his site because all the food looks so good.

My Website

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

Making a website was a little bit harder than I had imagined. I used Expressions web to make my website. The section I'm most proud of is Positano and Roma. These pages are my favorite because the images worked the best with the layout as well as that these were my favorite places. If I had more time and more experience with Expressions Web I would have fixed the images on each of the sections because some images wouldn't change sizes. The other problem I had was changing the format to have the titles be in heading 1 however, they were set to default to the previous style and wouldn't change. The biggest design challenge was changing the photo sizes and making sure the images weren't pix elated. I will probably show my website to family and friends. I'm not sure if I will make another website in the future but I might have to make one for a future job.

Larry Hechler

Last Thursday in class we were lucky enough to have computer expert Larry Hechler come talk to our class. I know how to use computers however, I don't know the insides of them. Larry took apart both a computer and a laptop in our class. I learned from Larry that both Macs and PCs are essentially the same things. The most useful piece of information I got from Larry was to always let your computer battery run all the way down to zero. If you always have your computer charging then your computer will think it doesn't have any battery when its not plugged in. So, if you continually charge your computer it ruins the battery. Now I know to let my computer charge only when it doesn't have any battery left.

Pictures that Lie

I read an article by Monya Baker discussing how a Dartmouth professor developed a software to detect photo fakery. I think this is extremely interesting because then if there was a controversial image which people believed was edited they could determine this with the software. Monya also goes onto discuss that every image has the potential to be fake. I find this unfortunate because then the art of photography might be questioned because it might be "fake". However, if Monya looked at my image below she might not need this software to determine that the image is in fact a fakery. My image relates to this article in the sense that every image does have the potential of being fake.

I chose to make a photo that lied using the Seattle Space Needle. The original photo of the Space Needle I found online and was probably taken by a tourist. The other photo that I included was of a man who was cleaning the windows of the Space Needle. The final touch I added I got from the movie Austin Powers because I put around the glass STARBUCKS TOWER. Clearly, the Space Needle isn't the Starbucks Tower. I also changed the hue of the two different photos to make them look as though it was always one photo. I thought combining all of these elements into a photo would be funny because Seattle does love their coffee especially Starbucks. However, with the man who was originally cleaning the windows of the Space Needle he looks as though he is repelling from the observation deck. I don't think that the manipulation I did was harmful I think it just gave the picture some humor.

Works Cited
Baker, Monya. "Photoshop Sleuths." Technology Review 108.2 (2005): 82. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 10 Nov. 2010.

Power Point Presentations and Critiques

The subject of my powerpoint presentation was Event Planning. I liked the color scheme of my presentation. I learned how to put a youtube video into my powerpoint. I would have changed how the slideshow of pictures looked on the second to last slide to have them fit the screen better. My two favorite presentations were Biological Warfare and Neonatal Stress. The Biological Warfare presentation impressed me with the layout and because it was a very interesting topic. I liked the Neonatal Stress powerpoint because it had a clean layout and the topic was well researched. Overall, all the powerpoint presentations were very good.

Chris Nolan

Chris Nolan came to talk to our class last Thursday. He gave us a lot of useful information about the Library because he is the Assistant University Librarian. We learned about how to search for information on the internet and change the search options to get more relevant results. I always have used google as my main browser. However, I didn't know all of the advanced search options there were. I learned that you can control what type of sites come up in the result list in terms of whether they are .edu, .gov, or .org. Another thing I learned about was what cached means. When you search something in google usually below the link there is something that says "view cached link" this is the last copy of the site that was indexed. So, when the website is down you can click on the cached version and you are still able to read what was there. Next time when I have to do a research paper I will be able to find better resources by using the advanced search options.

Powerpoint

So powerpoint is a great tool to use when giving presentations. However, there are some major power point faux pas one can make. The thing that bothers me the most is when the person presenting has written there whole script on the slide. Then I just think I can read the slide you don't need to read it out loud. So, instead they should just create small bullet points and have pictures included to keep their audience captivated!The second thing that bothers me is when they don't have any themes to their powerpoint. The third thing that bothers me is when they haven't practiced their presentation so they don't know what slide is coming up next. The fourth thing is when they use too much animation when bringing words into the slide. Finally, the last thing I hate about powerpoint is when there are too many sounds going off on each slide.

CLT

Today our class visited The Studios at Center for Learning and Technology. We learned about all of the software that one can use to edit films, sound files as well as other mediums. There are so many lovely computers to work on here both Macs and PCs. I had never scanned something into a computer before and today I did. It was very easy and now I will be able to do this in the future. Also, I learned that if I wanted to make movie into a dvd I can do that here as well as convert resources into different formants. One really cool thing is that they have a new video conference center and Trinity has its own version of skype and can call up to 20 different computers at once and in HD! I will definitely be back to CLS in the future to edit photographs, create projects, or even if I just want a quiet place to study!

Pictures that Lie

The picture I chose is of Katie Couric. I chose this image because it is a very good comparison that shows the ways in which people alter images. On the left side is the picture before it was retouched and on the right is the retouched image. This photo originated because it was the first time Katie was airing on CBS. The picture is manipulated in a few ways. They have made her more trim and tanner. They manipulated this photo in order to make her look "better". They probably did this because it was the first time she had been on the air with CBS and they probably wanted her representing them well. This image in particular is not very harmful. However, changing the appearance of someone to make them appear better to the audience is harmful because they are aiding media in changing what is acceptable.

Also, I have included a youtube video regarding retouching photos through photoshop. The video I chose displays a model before she is all done up for a photo shoot. Then the picture after it is taken and how people edit the image in order for it to go on a billboard. I think this is interesting because it shows the public how much images are changed and how much work is done to make the person look "better".

Excel

I had known a lot about Microsoft Excel going into this course. I had learned Excel in my high school and then went on a trip to teach other people how to use computers and excel. However, I learned about conditional formatting which is very helpful so that one can see specific data. With my new added knowledge about excel it will help me with my future finances. I didn't like how repetitve some of the lessons were.

Copyright and Creative Commons

This Tuesday we had a guest lecture by Jason Hardin. Jason is the manager of access services in the library, his job is to control what works are being taken in and out of the library. On Tuesday he discussed with our class copyright. I had been exposed to copyright in the past because it is what my father does. My dad is an intellectual property lawyer. So, for my whole life I have been taught never to steal music because it is unfair to the artist. However, what I didn't know was that schools must provide their students with an alternative to illegal downloads. Schools must do this because of the Higher Education Opportunity Act. With the HEOA there are three main things a school must do: 1.They must make an annual disclosure to students regarding copyright and campus policies, 2. They must develop a plan to combat unauthorized file-sharing, 3. They must implement an alternative to file-sharing. I had never known that schools required this. I think it is very helpful and smart because this way the universities are providing students legal ways to get music or movies. I think that the HEOA is great. However, schools need to make sure that they follow through with these three requirements so that students can benefit from learning of other ways of file-sharing that is legal. I also learned that if I wanted to copyright my own work I can by using creative commons. For this blog entry I plan on copyrighting my work!


Copyright and Creative Commons by Sophie Laster-Hazzard is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

My Trinity Network Diagram

This is a diagram which explains the Trinity network. Last Thursday we went on a tour of the server room in Halsell. We learned that every computer is connected to an ethernet cord. Each ethernet cord is connected to a data closet which each building has at least one of on each floor. From the data closet it is connected to Ruth Taylor by fiber optic cables. Ruth Taylor is also connected to Halsell. Depending on what the student is accessing will determine whether they access internet through Halsell or Ruth Taylor.

Trinity Mystery Spot

This is my mystery photo. It is close to where I live and I pass it everyday so I decided to make it my mystery spot. You might not recognize this location if you have never been to upper campus. I altered my photo in several ways. I sharpened the image because I took it with my camera phone so the picture wasn't as clear as I wanted it to be. Then I decided to blur the edges of the image. The last thing I did was use the sticker tools on Picnik to create the train and the men holding brief cases. I added these in because sometimes I wish I could just catch a train to class rather than make the trek from upper campus dorms to class. Have you figured out where this is? Make a comment and I will tell you if you guessed it right! 

Best Tech Tip

This past Tuesday we were lucky enough to have Joe Hatch come teach our class about computer tips. I 'm not a real wiz with technology so everything he taught us was quite useful. The one tip Joe taught that I thought was the most valuable was about CCleaner. This software goes into your computer and deletes cookies and other things which can slow your computer down. I have always deleted cookies off of my internet browser. However, with CCleaner you can get it to clean a file that PC's have which store all your internet browsing history and other things which cause your computer to run slower. I'm just about to start downloading my CCleaner. You are supposed to run it about every other day. The best part about the CCleaner is it's FREE!

About Me!

I'm Sophie Francis Laster-Hazzard. I'm from Seattle, Washington. I'm currently a sophomore at Trinity University. I recently got back from spending the summer in Prato, Italy working as an au pair aka a nanny. The picture above is a picture I took of the Piazza del Duomo in Prato. I lived right off of this square. I'm a member of the SPURS sorority. I plan on being a communications major. I have a bit computer experience because I've worked with laptops a bunch in my life. The things I'm most familiar with are powerpoint and excel. However, I look forward to learning more about graphic design.

If you have any questions feel free to e-mail me at: slasterh@trinity.edu