Favorite websites

I have seen all of the websites, and I think my favorite ones are Michelle Rangel's webpage on food; I think it is really nicely done, the colors are beautiful and the pictures sure make me hungry. I think she put a lot of work on this and she did great.
My second favorite website is Christian's. I also think he did a really cool job. He makes people want to go visit Honduras. It looks very professional.
And finally, my third favorite website is Arielle's music website. I think it is really well organized and nicely done.

Webpage

Please visit my website at www.cs.trinity.edu/~eovadia.
When I first got assigned to do a website, I was nervous and thought that the task was going to be of extreme difficulty. As I began coming up with ideas, I decided to do something related to movies because I really enjoy watching movies.
At the end, I thought that creating a webpage was not as hard as I imagined. I used Expression Web to create my site and I thought it was pretty simple to manage and arrange.
I relly like my home page because it includes an animated picture, and some pictures that went through the process of Photoshop. I really like my navigation bar as well.
In terms of design, I think that the most complicated issue was coming up with a nice background; the fact that there were a lot of pictures to upload made it hard to put another background other than black. But I still think that the black backgroung makes my webpage look good.
Also, I thought that the tables sometimes were difficult to orginize because it did not let me move my text and pictures freely but I managed to fix that.
What I changed was the blue border on my navigation bar.
I think I would like showing this site to my friends and family.
It was really cool to learn how to do a webpage and if I have an oportunity I would create another webpage for some other class.

Larry Hechler

Today, Larry Hechler came to class to talk about Hardware. He described all the parts that make up a MacBook and he broke it apart to show us each of the parts. He also mentioned that Apple products are way more expensive than Microsoft ones.
He gave many tips on how to take care of our computers so that they can last longer. For example he told us that we should let our computer battery drain until i hits 5% and then we should charge it, that way our battery will last longer and it will conserve the capacity of charging fully.
Also he told us on how to clean our computers and which chemicals to avoid using. For example, for cleaning the screen we should only use screen cleaners and avoid all liquids that contain chlorine, alcohol, ammonia, and acetate. Also we should never spray the computer directly (this can cause electrical shocks), we should spray directly on the cloth.
It was a very cool lecture and I actually learned many tips on how to take care of my computer so that it can last longer and remain in good shape.

PPT Presentation

I enjoyed doing my Power Point presentation. Ballet is a topic that has fascinated me always, and I have always admired the talent and elegance of professional ballet dancers, like those from the Bolshoi Ballet Company. In a personal manner, I have to say that I had a lot trouble trying to put my music in, but finally I figured it out. I think that it was worth working hard to put the music in because it gave my presentation a special touch. Also, I enjoyed searching for all the incredible pictures and the nice videos. Mainly what I learned was how to put many things in one single slide avoiding it from seeming crowded, but what I really really learned was PATIENCE!!
From the class presentations, I really enjoyed Michel Rangel's presentation on Forensic Science; I thought the topic was very interesting, the way her slides were arranged were in complete coordination with the topic. I actually learned things I did not know from her presentation. The music in the beginning was also completely related to the topic. I really enjoyed this presentation.
Another presentation I likes was Katie's presentation on sushi; I just thought that the topic was so random that it made it sound so interesting and fun. I would have never imagened myself sitting on a presentation over sushi. Also the black background made all her pictures stick out, and I liked the way she exposed her work!



As you can see, both these pictures represent that same scene. The one on the right is the original picture that was taken from the Internet; it represents the Buildings of the Parliament in London, and more specifically the Big Ben. The image on left is a manipulation of the original image, it was created through photoshop. Mainly, what happend on the altered picture was that it became a way more dramatic scene. I decided to play with the weather of this picture, because London is a place that is gloomy for the most part and I wanted to give the image a dramatic modification in the clouds as well as I wanted to make it rain. The rain that was inserted after many trials, gives this image some sort of uniqueness and it also makes it seem real. My purpose in this project was to maintain a realistic image through a picture that definitely lies. Also I played a little with the tones of the picture to make the clouds darker in some areas, the rain was also slanted so it can go in the direction of the clouds (this was to avoid a straight fall of the water). Another effect that I wanted to show was to give the viewer a sense that there was a little bit of sunlight somewhere behind the clouds. This is noticeable through the delicate light that falls on the Big Ben.

In the article I read of Yon Marsh, it says that photography has been manipulated ever since it existed. And now, with technology, pictures have lost their proof value. Since it is possible to manipulate images as much as desired, photos do not serve to prove something, they are not reliable documents. If the manipulated picture shown above was shown alone, people would actually think that the photograpgh was taken on a rainy day in London. And if I did not mention which photograpgh was the original one, people would be confused in determining the manipulated one.

In this case, the alterations produced do not cause harm to the public as pictures that show people involved. For instance when people see pictures of models, they may become psychologically affected.

Sources

Marsh, Yon. "The Changing Flux in the Photograpgh at the Precipice of Change: The Phototrix and the Death of the Photogragh." Journal of Media Practice 10.2 (2009): 267-272. Web. 3 Apr 2011.

Chris Nolan

Chris Nolan talked to us today and he spoke about the credibility o Web Pages. The largest search engine is Google, followed up by Yahoo. When we search something in the Internet, the results that appear first are there not by casuality but because they have been linked the most times with your search, and thsy have been what people are most likely looking for in previous searches over the same topic. Google gets all their money through the advertisements that appears in their Web Pages.
What I learned today that I thought was pretty cool was the idea that you can limit your search in the Advanced Search tab, this helps you find information that is actually usefull to you. Also Google Scholar is a great tool to use because it gives you academic information.
What I found really surprising was what JCPenny did to get to appear in the first positions of any type of search.
It was a cool lecture and also a helpful one!

Reasons to Hate PowerPoint

PowerPoint is a Microsoft Office program that allows people to gather information related to one topic as well as it allows the person to exhibit or present this information to the public through a conference, a class, or a lecture. PowerPoint lets you do so many different things that, if put all together, it may seem overwhelming, unattractive, and most importantly boring.
In the following I will express some of the aspects I dislike about PowerPoint presentations.
To begin with, I cannot stand when people load their slides with text and just read what they have written. If this is the case, I consider the speaker unnecessary because everyone in the audience can read what is on the screen (and that is only possible, if the information is visible).
Another thing I dislike about presentations is the sound effects that are sometimes included in the slideshow, I think they are extra and distracting. Besides, when I had to learn how to insert sound to presentations, I had a very difficult time.
Also I think that some transition effects that PowerPoint offers to change slides or to present text or an image, are sometimes to slow and this makes the viewer lose interest. I hate the effect that put one letter at a time, it takes forever to finish.
I do not like when people use bullet points and do not make themselves clear. It is good to shorten the amount of information, but that should not mean that the points they are expressing should be unclear and incomplete.
When presentations are very long, I get frustrated and lose concentration, I get tired of looking at the presentation. In one of my classes, I have to sit and take a lecture based on a PowerPoint presentation that is 55 slides long, and worse of all I have to study from it for my tests (I do not appreciate that system). In contrast, I also hate when the speaker goes on for a long time but has very few slides to present and get hooked in one for a long period of time.
One very annoying thing is when you can't even see what is on the screen because the font is very small.
One of the most boring PowerPoint presentations I have had to sit through was an Art History one where there were only like four pictures and the speaker kept talking about the same picture nonstop, there was no background, no text, no nothing. I wanted to fall asleep!!