New students, put your weary little heads to rest

and take some time out of your day to do Computer Skills. Make it routine every other day to just hop on your laptop or go to a study lounge and lean back while you do some excel or whatever the good Professor says. Just make sure to do it as a regularly because getting a bad grade on an assignment isn't the end of the world but missing one can be.

Other than that, have fun!


I'm out.



-Peter

Classmates' sites

The students of 2:10 are, in a word, Tops. Just check out Leslie's, Kaylie's, and Lisa's! Leslie's is great for its cross-page synergy. It takes you in and only lets you go after you come to full appreciate a graphic desginer's psyche. Lisa's has some great pictures! It's easy to understand and leaves you feeling good (and wanting to go to Seattle ;))!! Kaylie's is so great for its interactive interface! It's not only fun, it's informative and engaging!

These three websites stood out to me as well done, thought out, and relevant pieces of computing magic. Great job :)

My Website

Please visit my website at www.cs.trinity.edu/~phelmick! (They made me say that.)

Really, though, I put some time into it, even if it doesn't seem like it. Making a website was a lot harder than I thought it would be. It takes creativity and diligence. At one time I usually can have one or the other. Spontaneity is where my creativity lies, so to sit there and try to design some sort of message was a real challenge for me, even using Expression web. My favorite page is the home page because the background sets the scene for some type of mystical land with its own separate history instead of just "Hello. I am Peter. I am from Colorado. My parents are Unicorns. Blah blah blah." I hate that kind of thing. How droll.If I could have changed anything it would have been to add some more information to my imports (even though I do love the minimalist design of it). My biggest technical challenge was making Expression Web keep the pictures where I wanted them. It was ridiculous messing with those tables. There needs to be a better way! This was definitely also my biggest design challenge but for doing-the-assignment's sake, it was finding synchronization between web pages. I'll show my website to my classmates and maybe my friends. Possibly my family since they're on it as well. As for making another website, I would say there is a high probability of that. First I need to finish finals. Good luck everyone.

-Pter ;)

Computers

Last class, Larry Hechler gave a presentation on the in and outs of computers. Or so I'm told. I wasn't there, I had registration at that time. However, I do believe that I already knew most of what he said. I believe this because I myself have put together some computers from scratch (albeit in middle school) and understand most of the main components. I would like a new tower (non-laptop) for home, but at Trinity, I don't need one. I will looking for a good hard drive, video card (nvidia hopefully, I like them), CPU, excess amounts of RAM, a liquid cooling system (ha, fans!), and a blu-ray player, among other things. This will do adieu to you.

Peter

My Picture LIES

For my Picture that lies, I picked two pictures from stock.xchng, a baby holding a flag and a monkey. I took the head off of the monkey with my bare hands (muahahaha) and put it on the baby (yeah, I'm sadistic like that). I flipped the monkey, cropped its head, put it on the baby, adjusted the color/hue levels, did some (intense) fixing around the head and then voila! Some crazy evil patriotic baby monkey thing! I manipulated it in such a way so that it would look like a baby with a monkey's head holding an American flag, which it does. It was not harmful because 1. it's for computer skills class and 2. I'm not showing it off as a "miracle of science" or some such claim. The article I chose was on photo manipulation. More specifically, it focused on photojournalism vs. photo illustration. In the former the reporter is trying to give the audience a depiction of what happened while in illustration the artist is attempting to convey a feeling or emotion or message. Essentially, reporters can misrepresent the truth, but I would challenge anyone to misrepresent art. I hope you enjoy my craftsmanship!

Peter

True lies. By: Salvo, Suzanne, Communication World, 07447612, Sep/Oct2008, Vol. 25, Issue 5

Powerpoint Presentations

I gave my Powerpoint presentation on the businessman David Sokol. I feel like his work really represents the heart of what I want to do. I had heard about Sokol when my brother gave me a Fortune magazine and this guy was on the cover. I read about how he dabbles in the field of Mergers and Acquisitions, my favorite part of International Business.

I actually did have some fun doing this project because I liked the idea of doing a powerpoint on this cut-throat, no-nonsense goliath. I learned a lot about Powerpoint and had fun making my slides look "modern". Through the process of making the slides, I learned a lot about animation and picture-stacking. It was the hands-on part that provided the real ingraining of the education; it was a real learning experience for me. I wasn't completely happy with my performance, however. I felt like I could have made eye-contact more and I didn't need a note card (it distracted me at times).


My two favorite presentations were Hang's and Pablo's. I really liked Hang's video and thought her presentation was an overall hit. I really like Pablo's because of how well it all came together and how passionate it was. It definitely made me want to learn more about hotels (weird, I know).

Good job everyone!


 Peter

Mr. Nolan's Presentation

This week Chris Nolan came in and gave a great presentation on many things--all web related. His repetoir included the different search engines including Google, AOL, Yahoo!, and the like. I use a search engine every day and Google is definitely my favorite. I love the simplicity of it and the as-I-type searching. It is always very very helpful with anything that I need to find! When Mr. Nolan started presenting, I did not know very much about the function of .com, .edu, .gov, etc.. He also taught me how most countries have their OWN ENDING FOR WEBSITES!! Whoah. Cool stuff, Chris. Thanks for the presentation.