Some Words of Wisdom

Hello, new computer skills people! Here's a little advice for this class. Make sure you do all your assignments. They're not very hard and don't take up too much time, but not doing them will really hurt your grade. Also try to show up for every class. You go over everything you need for the homework. Good luck and have a great semester!

My Favorite Websites

Everyone's websites were really impressive! My three favorites were Moira Allen's, Alex Holmes', and Larrisa Lozano's. I really liked Moira's unique pictures she used for her navebar as well as all her other pictures . Alex's navebar and cartoons were amazing! Larrisa's design was very nice and looked quite professional. Everyone did a fantastic job on their website and I enjoyed seeing everyone present theirs.

My Website

Please visit my website at www.cs.trinity.edu/~akelso. I enjoyed making this site and am excited to have a website of my own. I mainly used Kompozer to create my web page, but I would sometimes use Microsoft Expression Web when I didn't know how to do something on Kompozer. I'm really proud of my travel section and my friend section because I like all the pictures I chose and I think I set them up nicely. I would have liked to have a few more pages, but I just didn't have time to add them. I think my biggest technical challenge was trying to do some of the things in Kompozer that I only knew how to do in Expression Web. My biggest design challenge was creating my navbar at the top of the page. I edited it a lot over the course of creating the website. I've already shown my site to some of my friends and am planning to show it to more of them as well as my family. I don't know if I'll ever make a site for another class, but I know that I'm prepared in case the need should ever arise.

My Picture that Lies

I chose to use a picture I took on my trip to London last summer. I chose it because when I went to London, there was was scaffolding on Big Ben and on many of my pictures of it, it was easy to see. I wanted to have a picture without the construction work and decided to use that as a beginning for my picture that lies. I decided to use my picture of one of the most well-known symbols of London and create an advertisement for tourism in London. I chose to do so because advertising is almost always photoshopped and manipulated and I wanted to demonstrate how just a few tools and adjustments could make on a regular picture. I wanted to make the scene more attractive by brightening it up and getting rid of the construction obstructing some of the view of Big Ben. I used the clone stamp tool to get rid of the scaffolding and replace it with clouds and sky. I also decided to increase the saturation of the picture and make it a bit brighter to make the picture less dark and more happy. I also decided to add another symbol of England, the British Guard. I used the magic wand to remove the guard from another picture and moved him to mine. I added text as well. I don't believe the manipulation was too harmful. The scaffolding would be taken down at some point and people would not be too upset to not see a British guard where I had put one. I chose to read an article about digital imagery and photography. The focus was not on altered images, but it did speak a bit about it. I agree with the article that it is very hard to determine whether an article or advertisement contains an altered image, and nowadays we can not completely trust the pictures we see. I agree with him and that's why I chose to manipulate something for advertisement. I really enjoyed creating this image and am looking forward to experimenting more with Photoshop on my own.

Citation for my article
Savedoff, Barbara E. "Escaping Reality: Digital Imagery and the Resources of Photography." The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 55.2 (1997): 210-14.

HTML

I believe knowing how to use at least some aspects of HTML code is very important even when other software is available. If there is a problem on the website you can easily examine it and check for spelling errors or other little mistakes. It's also useful to have if you need to edit your website, but your usual program is having trouble working. HTML code is an important part of creating and updating a website, and it is very useful to know how to use it.

Powerpoint Presentation

I really enjoyed watching everyone's powerpoint presentations about their area of interest. Every one of the power points was well done. One presentation I thought was quite good was Tomas Bartanusz's about flying. It was very informative and interesting. The pictures were very nice and the color scheme matched very well. I learned a lot about becoming a pilot and wish him luck in his endeavor to become one. I also enjoyed Alex Holmes' presentation about the increasing role of technology in education. LIke Tomas', it was very informative and interesting. He also chose some good music to play during his presentation as well. I was impressed by the work he had put into his presentation and learned a lot. Watching all the presentations was very educational and all of them were fantastic!

Collage

This collage of my friends is meant to show the tiring fun we had a few weeks ago when we stayed the weekend at my lake house at Canyon Lake.

Chris Nolan Talk

I learned many things about search engines and in particular Google from Chris Nolan's talk with our class on Tuesday. Perhaps the most useful thing I learned about was how to really narrow your search on Google. I had no idea that you could only search on edu or gov websites. It's a good way to avoid using commercial, biased, or misinformed sites for a project or paper. A piece of information that surprised me was how the list of search results was organized. I had always assumed that it was based only on how often the search term appeared in the article, but it also is influenced by how many other sites cite that webpage. Overall Mr Nolan's talk was very informative and I'll be able to use Google much more efficiently now.

Pictures That Lie

An interesting example of photo manipulation is a picture that appears to have John Kerry and Jane Fonda speaking together at an rally against the Vietnam War in the early seventies. It was used during the 2004 presidential primaries to discredit John Kerry who was running for the Democratic nomination. However, Kerry was never at an anti-war rally with Fonda. Kerry had been added to the photograph. I chose to talk about this picture because I find it very interesting how even pictures used in national elections cannot be trusted. The one who created the photo used a picture of Jane Fonda at a political rally in 1972 and a picture of John Kerry at a peace rally in 1971. He also wrote the subtitle underneath the picture speaking about the two of them. It was a harmful picture because it was used against Kerry in an attempt to ruin his reputation and keep him from winning the democratic nomination. This picture is no doubt not the only picture used in a campaign to harm one's opponent and was not the last either.

CLT

When we went to the CLT I was surprised by the place. I had no idea that it even existed, and as I learned about it, I thought about how I could use it in the future. I believe that the most useful area to me would be the area with the many computers, both Macs and PCs. I could use photoshop there which would be very useful since I don't have it on my computer. One could also use computers for designing websites, which is another useful aspect of the area. I also found the Digital Audio Lab to be interesting since it could have so many potential uses. I also liked the small classroom that you can reserve. I think it would be a wonderful place to study or work on a group project with a number of people. Over all I believe that the CLT is one of the most practical centers in the library and on campus.

Copyright

For centuries copyright has existed in the United States and debate about it has taken place many, many times. Today the internet provides numerous websites where people can illegaly download movies or music. This illegal downloading is a hot topic today. Often one hears about a student caught caught downloading illegaly and having to deal with a huge and expensive lawsuit. Like any argument, there are two sides to this debate. Some believe that it is no big deal to download music and movies for free and that the government and labels overreact to a few songs downloaded for free and preventing the owner from recieving a measly sum in comparison to what they have already earned from their work. They believe it takes too long for the copyrighted item to be free to the public. Others argue that it is the owner's property and that they deserve every cent. They are in favor of harshly cracking down on illegal downloading and holding on to that copyright for as long as possible. Personally I stand on the middle ground. I do believe that artists and producers should earn money for the hard work they put into their music or movie, but I also feel that the author's lifetime plus seventy years is a long time to keep a work from becoming free to the public. I think that the best thing would be to shorten the lifetime of a copyright and also being more lenient on those who break the law when the offender has only downloaded a few dollars worth of music. Perhaps someday this debate will end with both sides happy, but until then, illegal downloading will continue to be a problem.


Copyright by Allison Kelso is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.

My Trinity Network Diagram

It was interesting learning about the internet at Trinty and how we connect to it. I think I remembered most of what we talked about and included it on my diagram.

Top Tech Tip

I learned more about the importance of deleting temporary files and other things from your computer and I'll be sure to keep my computer from getting too full.

Scavenger Hunt

I really enjoyed reading everyone's blog and think that everyone sounds very interesting. I hope everyone has a fantastic semester.
I commented on Amanda Patterson's blog and Abby Talley's.

All About Me

My name is Allison Kelso, and I am from Houston, Texas. I'm a freshman here at Trinity, and I'm really excited about the next few years. Trinity has been tons of fun so far! I'm not sure what I'm going to be majoring in yet, but I know it won't have anything to do with math or science. I love english and history so I'll probably do something with that. I love to read, especially historical fiction. I also enjoy watching movies at home or at the movie theater. The last movie I went to go see was Avatar, and I recommend that anyone who hasn't seen it to go and do so! I also enjoy watching television shows, but I usually watch them on DVD. One of my favorite shows is Doctor Who, a show from Britain. True Blood is another favorite of mine. I also enjoy hanging out with my friends and doing fun things with them.

I took a computer course in my junior year in high school, but I don't remember everything we covered. I think when I start learning again it'll come back to me.

Anyway I'm looking forward to learning more about computers and having a good time this semester!

My email is mailto:%20allison.kelso@trinity.edu