I Almost Beat Michael Phelps!!!

The image I chose for my fake picture was one of my own from a swimming party that I recently attended. I manipulated this picture of me alone in the water and added a picture of Michael Phelps right next to me as if we were racing. The image was manipulated out of fun and it was an assignment in my Computer Skills class. I do not feel like the manipulation was harmful because anybody that views the photoshopped image will more than likely take it as a joke.

This was my first time using Photoshop to manipulate an image and it's almost scary how much control I had in changing it to exactly what I wanted it to look like. It's scary because I know that there are people out there that do this type of thing for other ways than my motive for it; most times their motives are malicious. One thing that makes me feel better is that there are individuals out there taking on the responsibility of detecting fraudulent images and exposing them. The author of an article I recently read had this to say to those malicious Photoshop users, "No matter how good you are at it, there's always going to be some trace left behind." I hope those evil users take this message to heart.

My Two Favorite Presentations On Tuesday

In class Tuesday, we were asked by our professor, Dr. Belisle, to create presentations on Microsoft PowerPoint about our current majors or areas of study. Of course I was a fan of my own work, but the two others that stood out to me were Garrett Biel and Jonathan Alexander.

Garrett impressed me with the design of his presentation along with the information that was presented. He did a very good job of combining the two in a way that kept the viewer's interest throughout the duration of his presentation. I could personally relate to his work because I've caught so many Southwest Airlines planes in the past. I was unaware of how successful they were until Garrett's exposition.

Jonathan's strong point in his exhibit was his oral ability to grasp the reader’s attention and amplify the information being presented. He made it easy for the viewer to identify with his reasoning for choosing Business Management as a major, along with giving some insight to those who might have been considering it as an area of study.

Although I feel like everyone that presented on Tuesday did a great job, these two stood out the most in my opinion. I found this project extremely interesting overall.

Powerpoint Presentation Tips

After reading the articles on how to improve your PowerPoint presentation, I couldn't help but feel guilty of some of the cardinal sins addressed in the reading. For instance, in the past, I always had a tendency to include a lot of words in my presentation. In doing this, I found myself reading from the slides more than I should have; those alone are two of the most important actions to avoid. So I found the reading extremely useful and I plan on putting them to use in my next presentation, due this coming Tuesday.

If I had to choose 5 of the most important rules to aid my classmates, they would include the following: Refrain from reading directly from the slides, Limit the amount of words on each slide, Use as many pictures as possible (No ClipArt), include easy-to-understand charts that strengthen your points of discussion, and make sure to use appropriate, easy-to-read fonts. I can't even count how many boring PowerPoint presentations I've sat through in my academic career. And nothing puts me to sleep more than the disregard shown for these five guidelines.

My Visit to CLT

The day our class went to visit CLT, I was unable to make it due to severe illness. Fortunately, I'd already had a tour of it last semester and the benefits of it are beyond description. Prior to taking my visit, I'd only known about the third floor of the library because that's the only place that I'd really had a chance to use throughout the duration of my freshman year. The most attractive feature of CLT was the resources that I'd be able to use in preparation of any presentation assignments that I may receive in the future. There's everything from Photoshop equipment to audio altering equipment down there. Aside from presentations, there's also a large area of Macintosh and Windows workstations; it's equipped with laser printers, scanners, and a range of multimedia authoring and editing software. This is arguably the area of the floor that receives the most use due to the countless writing assignments that students receive at Trinity.

So far, I've yet to use CLT more than twice in a semester. But I'm only a sophomore and I am sure that number will increase in the time leading up to graduation. For this, I am more than thankful for the necessary accessory that is CLT.

Microsoft Excel

At the beginning of our class, I had no clue that we would be using Microsoft Excel and upon hearing the news, I immediately panicked. I'd used it before but the teacher I had in high school never thoroughly went through the basic techniques with us and as quickly as I'd learned the information, it was forgotten. This time around, I can truly say that I understand Excel in and out, and the information acquired will undoubtedly assist me in my business endeavors in the future. The different techniques and spreadsheets Dr. Belisle taught us can easily be transferred to the real world. For instance, I plan on majoring in Engineering. In Engineering, there is a plethora of information analyzed on a daily basis. My new knowledge of Microsoft Excel will allow me to organize this data in countless ways.

The most important part of the information learned would undoubtedly be the spreadsheets and formulas within them. There is no business in America that doesn't use spreadsheets in one form or another. These formulas in Excel save the businesses countless hours of analyzing data and different types of statistics. When I graduate, I plan to be deeply involved in these exact business corporations that I speak of. And with this knowledge, I feel as though I'll be more than equipped to handle any type of situation in that atmosphere.

Internet Searching With Chris Nolan

In class today, Chris Nolan came by and shared a plethora of information with my Essential Computer Skills Class about search engines and how to take full advantage of them. Though I knew some of this information beforehand, the majority of the information was foreign to me. An example is how big the Google search engine has gotten over the past few years. An internet that was once dominated by the likes of Yahoo and AOL has been overtaken by the Google phenomenon. In fact, 2/3 of internet users prefer Google as a search engine over all the others combined!

We also learned how the search engine actually works. There are many factors that influence the actual search: Whether the words are included in the title of the webpage, The popularity of the sites that appear, The frequency of the word, The number of times other sites are linked to the site you've found, along with many others. I find it very interesting that all these factors are taken into account by just typing in a few keywords and hitting the enter key.

Chris also shed light on tips that can help us sort through the sites and figure out the validity of each. A few of these tips included: Paying attention to the authors of the article or webpage found, Noticing the domain name of the website; For example, websites with the domains "edu" or "gov" tend to hold more validity than the others. Another tip was the fact that normally sights that are valid contain links throughout the page about other research done and other links to help you get a better idea of whats being stated.

Today was a very informative day and I guarantee that most of what he said, if not all of it, will be taken into account in all of my future searches.

Pictures That Lie

Today's technology is improving in ways that most people that lived decades ago wouldnt have imagine. Programs such as Photoshop are in full effect and the thought of what the future holds may seem scary to some. An example of this would be the photo located above this paragraph. At a quick glance, one would think that this picture was taken legitimately. But in actuality, this photograph is anything but that. Instead its a combination of photos that were placed together almost perfectly to fool the viewer into thinking that it was an actual picture of these two ice skaters.

My reason in choosing this photoshopped image is mainly based on the controversy and history behind these two figure skaters themselves. Tonya Harding and Nanci Kerrigan are anything but friends to say the least. They were in comptetion with each other throughout the duration of their entire careers. In fact, the competition was so intense that Tonya Harding even went as far as attempting to put an end to Nanci's career. Tonya and her husband came up with a plan to remove Nanci from the competition, feeling as though Nanci was her only real competition. The couple payed an associate to assault Nanci with a hammer. During the attack Nanci was hit in the knee, shattering it, this made her unable to perform.

This photographed originated on the cover of the "New York Newsday" in February of 1994. Itwas manipulated by taking two separate images and in some way combining them to make it look like the two figure skaters were practicing with each other. The reason for the manipulation would most likely be for monetary profit. The two biggest performers in the sport photographed skating together would draw a great amount of attention to the issue. I feel like the manipulation was very harmful because it was done in bad taste. Neither one of the skaters agreed to be placed together on the front of a magazine, therefore it was completely wrong. It ended up also being harmful to the magazine because once people found out the photograph was fraudulent, the magazine lost a legitimate amount of credibility.