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.

PowerPoint

Microsoft Powerpoint is really a great program. Unfortunately, some people (myself included) can make really bad Powerpoint presentations! The most common problems seem to stem from the tendency to overthink or over-"beautify" the slides. Using the custom fill effects for each and every slide makes it look like a kindergartner's cardboard paper cutout catastrophe. A simple custom or preset theme is much preferable for consistency. Same goes for overusing custom animations. It is not necessary to include ever possible intro and outro Powerpoint provides. Irony can most of the time be lost upon the audience. In high school, I thought it would be funny to cut out a picture of my teacher's head and make it move around the slide near the end of the Powerpoint. Even though it totally worked because the teacher's back was turned when I clicked the button, I may have gotten points taken away had he seen it! A Powerpoint presentation should have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Too many slides with too much information can muddle a project. Too little information on slides can leave the presenter with too little to go off of and can and has resulted in many "um"'s and "uh"'s and "errrrrrrr"'s. This leads to the last major pitfall, which is not knowing what is on the slide until it is clicked! The whole presentation falls apart when something should be somewhere else or an animation doesn't fall into place with what is being talked about.

A good presentation, on the other hand, does not have any or has very few or minute variations of the problems listed and described above. I prefer a presentation with a common theme representative of the tone of the subject matter. The animations don't vary too much. The audience is engaged with the speaker. Most importantly, everything should flow together. The speech should go hand in hand with the slides. Ideally, the whole thing should be timed so that no clicks are needed and the presenter doesn't have to look at but can still refer to the slides at any point. In this manner, successful presentations for work or school related projects may be formed.

The Wonders of CLT

Last week, our class took a tour of the facilities in the AT&T Center for Learning and Technology located on the first floor of the Library at Trinity University. When my professor told us we were going down there I thought "Great! A field trip to somewhere I've been before!" and my mind started going to fishing trips or whatever. We went down to the basement-that-I've-seen-so-many-times-lost-in-the-library (last year was confusing, to say the least) and walked into the Video Conference Center. This, my friends, really cleared up a lot of things. One thing, in particular, became clear. As Robert Chapman gave his little speech about the wonders of CLT, I realized that THIS is where all my money was going! They have 26 powerful computers (albeit there are only 12 PCs for the 14 computers-which-must-not-be-named) and 11 scanners; they have the Digital Audio Lab, where students and faculty can use the synthesizer, digital audio importing and editing software including expensive stuff like Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Flash, and even Pro Tools (the last one I was especially excited about); they have a Media Presentation Lab and a place to learn the wonders of TLEARN and the like. Very exciting stuff if I do say so myself...and I do. I will most definitely take advantage of the AT&TCLT for presentations, making music and video, and anything else that my relatively low-end laptop is quite incapable of doing. It is a magical place.





<--Check out my beautiful scan from the wonderous scanning device at the Center.

Photo Manipulation

I chose this picture on the left of OJ Simpson comparing the two mugshots from Newsweek and Time. This photo stood out to me because, while it is manipulated, it is clear to me that it is an obvious manipulation. OJ Simpson has an old-time photo outside and the photo was darkened. Most noticeably (and most commented upon) is his darkened skin color. It was most likely manipulated in this way to make him seem more menacing. Some view this photo as "racist" because it implies that a darker skin color means a more ominous interpretation of the person in question. Do I think Time is racist? No, not really. Since the picture is clearly doctored and the entire picture is darkened, the racism is in the mind of the viewer, not the editor. Therefore, I do not view it as a harmful manipulation, just an artistic representation. I found this picture at http://news.cnet.com/2300-1026_3-6033210-13.html?tag=mncol.



This video shows a woman being taken from her normal state into a more "socially acceptable" state. It is a demonstration and perhaps even an explanation of why and how our perception of modern beauty is so skewed.

Excel

Before this class, I did not know very much about Excel and the things it allows. Looking back now, I was lost in ignorance of the privileges of Microsoft's technologies. I leaned a few of the many formulas that Excel can do. Among them are the functions Average, Sum, and the formatting options. I will be able to use everything I have learned in future business and career situations as well as in such classes as Business Statistics for sure. I really like how knowledgeable, ergonomic, and predictable it is. Thanks Bill Gates, you've outdone yourself again.

Copyright Question: Youtube

In class this past Tuesday, we received an informational lecture on copyright infringement. One very interesting case which I had yet to fully analyze myself was the question of copyright infringement that Youtube was hypothetically doing. They have thousands (tens of thousands, maybe) of illegally copied and uploaded videos on their site. Anyone can see these videos from anywhere in the world and it provides what could possibly be a major hub for video piracy (anyone with video recording software could pirate and redistribute more copies for profit, if they were so inclined). But on the other hand, Youtube is a great tool to share videos than are legal too and, quite unlike the case with Napster, they have space between themselves and the illegal acts made on their site. Since they have tools implemented to aid against illegal uploading and do not do anything that blatantly breaks the law, they have a good gray area cushion on which to sit. I personally side with Youtube. Some of the super-rich artists have a slice of their profits taken away and have it given back to the people of the world! The horror!! I hope they'll live. Poor Lady Gaga, T.I., Lil' Wayne (young moolah, babay?), Michael Jackson's estate, etc.. Now they only get 150 days out of the year for vacation instead of 200. Plus, Youtube provides a means in which starting, struggling artists from anywhere in the world can post their creations online to potentially be viewed by millions (billions, now?) of people.

Yeah, I side with Youtube on this one.



Copyright Question: Youtube by Peter Helmick is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at Copyright Question: Youtube.

My Trinity Network Diagram

This is a diagram of the network at Trinity! I was watching football and realized that I could multitask :). The research involved with making this diagram was a tour of the servers in Halsell. It was very informative and it was pretty cool to see everything down there. Enjoy!

Trinity MYSTERY Spot

This location is somewhere the most studious of Trinity students (most everyone, actually) see every day. I really like this location as it is also near a place said to give you good luck if one were to study there before tests (hint hint, nudge nudge). You may not be able to tell, but I added the apples, blue lady bug, dog, and flowers to the picture. It adds some confusion to where this location actually is and the stickers fit in nicely with the picture. I also added some text to the background to make it seem like this is a "Park" instead of somewhere else on campus. Finally, I auto-touched up the picture to make the colors stand out more and bring the focus to the foreground tree; it is the center of the picture. Please leave comments as to where you think it is! Happy hunting!

Best Tech Tip (6)

The information given to us by Joe Hatch was rich. When he came and talked to our class yesterday he had some pretty great things to say, spending most of the time talking about computer security and maintenance. When he left and class had ended, I walked back to my dorm room and immediately logged on to my PC (because I'm 30 and work at IniTech, apparently). After quickly bringing up my Facebook page and being immediately bombarded by ads and holier-than-MySpace commercialism, it seemed like I should probably check my computer for any extra junk on it.

Download CCleaner -> Install -> Analyze -> CClean -> CCleaned

This program got rid of everything I needed it to, made my desktop look less cluttered and FIXED MY FREAKING REGISTRY that has been in bits and pieces for the past 4 months. Yeah, Microsoft couldn't fix it with the built in fixer and this did.

Needless to say, CCleaner was the best tech Tip of the Day.

Here comes Peter.

My name is Peter Helmick and I come from Colorado. I enjoy many extracurricular activities such as snowboarding, exercising, hanging out with friends, and going to the occasional party. I come from a family of six with two sisters and one brother. I have been using a computer since I was young, but do not have any particular training or expertise with them.

Oh, and I hate olives more than anything in the world.

phelmick@trinity.edu