My Piece of Advice

The one sentence version: Do your homework almost as soon as you get it assigned.


The longer version for those who want to know more: Do your homework as soon as you get it assigned. Sometimes the "little things" can add up. You forget to do one assignment here and another there, and soon you've got a problem on your hands. I was lucky enough not to have a class following Belisle's so I ended up just staying after class and doing my homework then. It really doesn't take very long and Belisle is just across the hall if you need her, and then you also don't have to worry about forgetting until the last minute.

My Favorite Websites

Wow. Our class really did an amazing job with their websites. I can't believe they were all made from scratch and I was inspired by everyone's ideas. My favorite websites were Kemble's, Leslie's, and Laura's. I thought Kemble's was great because of how simplistic it was. I loved her homepage and thought it looked very elegant. Leslie's was really cool because of how artsy it was. I'm still trying to figure out how she got everything to line up so well on her pages! Laura's was cool because I felt like it really told her story and there were a lot of interactive things to click on and see. Great job to everyone!! We're awesome.

My Website!

Please visit my website at www.cs.trinity.edu/~tethingt

Making my site was easier than I thought it would be. At first, I was worried that using Expression Web would be really complex, but after awhile I got the hang of it. I primarily used Expression Web, and sometimes I went in to look at the code and change things. I'm glad we learned how to hand code in the beginning! Out of all of my sections, I really like my homepage because I think it looks really nice and I like the intro and I was able to introduce a song that represents me.The one thing that I'm still trying to change is centering my Navbar on some of my pages. Hopefully I will figure it out. My biggest technical challenge was making sure that I kept all of my images and information in its original folder so they would show up on my website. My biggest design challenge was finding backgrounds that worked for my pages. I've already showed my website to people in my family and I might use it to show to future employers someday! I would definitely consider making another webage in the future because it was fun and easy!

All you need to know...

I wasn't able to make it to class the day that Larry came to talk to the class, and I'm so sad I missed it!!! By looking at my classmate's blog entries I see that he covered a lot of valuable material. I thought it was cool that he discussed how Mac's and PC's are the same on the inside. I feel like that's something that not a lot of people know. I also liked that he gave advice on how to maintain the computer you own. Battery life and cleaning techniques are all things I wanted to know about. I also thoguht it was great that he warned about backing up your files. I've had bad experiences with losing information, papers, and projects. It's great that Trinity provides us with a way to avoid those problems. I really wish I could have been there for the presentation, but maybe I can go in sometime on my own and the ITS staff can teach me their ways.

Presentations

I liked the power point presentation assignment. When thinking about my chosen field of communications, I decided to cover something in my powerpoint that most people could relate to and find useful. I covered non-verbal communication. I think I did a good job in keeping a fast pace and making things interesting. I liked my graphics and I like the song I chose to play in the background. I think I could have done better with some of my transistions and maybe have incorporated some layering of images. I didn't get to see all of the presentations because I was absent the first day, but some of my favorites were Peter's because I thought the person he profiled was interesting and also the presentation done about geology. I learned a lot from all of them!

Hide yo wife. Hide yo kids. There's a UFO in San Antonio!

For the pictures that lie assignment, I chose to doctor an image of the San Antonio skyline, inserting a space ship on the horizon. I was mostly inspired by an article I found using EBSCO that talked about how easy it is for anyone (even children) to make photos involving UFO's look believable. I used saturation levels, a grainy effect, and opacity tools on photoshop to make my photo more believable. I first saturated the picture of the San Antonio skyline and added the grain effect and then I used the magnetic lasso tool to cut out the spaceship from another photo and place it on top of the San Antonio skyline. I wanted to manipulate this photo to show just how easy it is to make  a silly idea seem believable. I suppose this image could be harmful if people took it really seriously, but my hope is that people would research the photo more to find out that it isn't actually true.

My question for you, based off of the article I read, is do you really think that people believe these photos?  My article asks, "Are these photos good evidence that extraterrestrials are visiting our planet? Or could there be other simpler explanations for them?" What do you think??

Cohen, Shoshana, and Tyson Gilmore. "How to fake UFO photos." Skeptic 6.4 (1998): 102. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 9 Nov. 2010.

http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=3&hid=14&sid=79e74785-c56d-49c3-9a01-548ebf1108f5%40sessionmgr15&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=a9h&AN=1977410

DUNNA DUNNA DUNNA GOOGLE.

I wasn't able to be in class on Thursday to hear Christopher Nolan speak. However, after reading through the blog entries done by my classmates, I understand most of what was said. Nolan discussed the advantages of search engines like google. I appreciated the information about how to narrow your search using symbols like the minus sign or even quotation marks. I also thought it was interesting that you can use google as a scholarly search engine. In the past, a lot of scholars have viewed google as less helpful than EBSCO or other academic search engines, but it seems that Nolan has showed us otherwise!

{PowerPoint}

Microsoft PowerPoint is a great program that can be used in a variety of ways at home, at work, or at school. However, people don't always utilize PowerPoint to their advantage, and their presentations can come off as being unprofessional, annoying, or disorganized. Here are five things that really bug me about poorly constructed PowerPoint:
1) Bad transistions: Sometimes people's transistions are ineffective. They can be distracting or they just don't make sense for the content. If you're doing a serious buisness presentation, you probably shouldn't include a windmill transistion or something really casual.
2) Lack of variety: Sometimes professors use the same slides for every single lecture, and I think that can get really old. There are so many fun things you can do with excel, so why do you intentionally make it so boring?
3) Too much information: Sometimes people can try and cram too much information onto one slide. Everything you know shouldn't be on a slide. Slides are simply for talking points or for notes. You should expand on your slides using your presentation.
4) Obnoxious patterns/colors: Neon colored slides, really crazy fonts, or TONS of color can just be obnoxious and it really takes away from the content when my eyes are hurting from all your crazy accents.
5) No graphics: Use graphics in your PowerPoints! It helps us understand your points and brings an exciting visual aspect to the presentation!

PowerPoint can be used in a lot of great ways for buisness presentations, notes in class, and lectures. If people try to avoid those five things they will probably be better users of PowerPoint!

The Center for Learning & Technology

I enjoyed our visit today to the CLT center on the first floor of the library. I had been to CLT once before to scan newspaper articles for my potfolio when applying for a summer internship. CLT was helpful then and I'm confident will be even more helpful now that I know more about this place! Mr. Chapman gave us a great overview of everything the center is capable of. I appreciated his information about the people who work at the center and I took down a few of their names in case I need to ask any specialized questions about projects in the future. I also was happy to hear that a lot of the computers have programs like photoshop. This makes high-quality software accessible and practical for the college student and I'm excited to come down here on my own time and check out everything photoshop can do. I don't know very much about sound editing, but I also think I might look nto what the sound booths/audio editing stations are all about. The university's video conference technology also sounds awesome. It's cool they got to talk to The White House! I'm going to try working in the CLT lab for my communication classes where I'm required to do a lot of multi-media work. The Center for Learning & Technology is definitley an asset to Trinity and more students should take advantage of it!

Alterations.

I chose this picture for a variety of reasons. First, I felt that Harper's was a reliable source when compared to some of the other sources like The Enquirer. I was interested in analyzing a reliable source because I wanted to look somewhere unexpected. I wouldn't expect to see as many errors of fact in a respected source. The image used by Harper's was not taken by them, it was selected from a database in Getty Images. The picture wasn't really altered using photoshop, but it was taken out of context. I think that Harper's magazine did this either because they were lazy and didn't want to take a picture on their own, or they wanted to protect the identity of the soldiers. Either way, I don't think that the manipulation was harmful because I can't see any malicious or deceiving intent behind the image. I don't feel as if this image directly hurt anyone.

I chose the following video because I think it really showcases all that you can do with photoshop and just how much you can change an image to look like something it's not. I think that's also why the creator of this video did what they did. They wanted to show the viewer how photoshop can drastically change images.

Let's excellerate this process with Excel....so we can be done with it.

For me, working with excel has been frustrating. Besides the differences in Mac and PC programs, I've found myself confused on a regular basis. This is probably because I don't think in the excel way, meaning I'm not a number person and I hate spreadsheets. I'm better at design principles and other programs that require me to be creative. I'm having a hard time grasping all of the different forumlas and way of doing things. I know that a lot of things we've learned are helpful. It's good for us to find some way to calculate our own finances, instead of just relying on our banks to do that with online banking. Also, excel is helpful in categorizing data and I like the graphing feature.

I won't deny that the program is useful, because I know it is. I guess I just wish it was a little more user friendly. Or maybe it is user friendly and I'm just not good at working with it. I wish it was Tommie friendly.

Copyright Savy!

I learned a lot from Jason Hardin and his presentation on Tuesday. However, what stuck with me the most was his points on the fair use laws. It's good to know that I have access to certain materials and can reproduce them as long as I have good motives. Copyrighted material can often be helpful in preparing presentations and writing papers. I will remember Jason's tips on how to stay out of trouble, while still utilizing the information next time I need to use copyrighted material!

I also thought that history behind copyright was interesting. I knew that copyright was established under the constitution, but I didn't know about the treaty signed in the 1970's by many of the World's leading countries. I find it comforting that my copyright will be recognized outside of the U.S., regardless of different laws. I also thought that Jason's example of Mickey Mouse and Walt Disney was interesting. It makes me wonder if they will extend the copyright longevity again when Mickey is up for public domain.

Finally, I appreciated that Jason differentiated between plagiarism and copyright infringement. I think this is an important piece of information that all students should know.


Copyright Savy! by Tommie Ethington is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License.

Navigating the TU Network

Last week our computer skills class took a field trip to the basement of Halsell. Here, we proceeded to learn about the in's and out's of our beloved Trinity network. With help from a Trinity alum we were able to learn about the difference between certain connection types, firewalls, and who our internet service provider is. We even got to see where things like Tucc-Tiger are stored! Most importantly though, we learned how our network is connected on campus.

Here's a diagram I designed to help you understand!

Trinity Mystery Spot

I chose this location because it's a place that a lot of upper-classmen have probably seen before, especially sophomores. There's also something in the background that distinguishes the location even more. I altered my photo by changing the temperature and saturation levels. I brought the temperature level down to -100 and made the saturation level 100. This change created the blueish-green hue that you see. I then used the sticker feature on Picnik to add in a friendly dinosaur and a heart, because who doesn't love dinosaurs?? I also used the doodle feature to draw a purple top hat on my Dino. By now I thought he was looking pretty spiffy, so I decided he needed some kind of moniker to show off his pizzazz. I selected one of the fonts and put his name up in lights. Finally, to complete the picture I went into the frame effect and selected the rounded edge frame. I felt this was a great final touch.

Do you know where my dinosaur is making a scene?

Talking Technical with Mr. Hatch

After Mr. Hatch's talk on Tuesday I'll admit I became a little paranoid. This new Mac I got ins't actually indestructible?! People can hack into my computer and steal my identity?? We can get a virus just by clicking on an innocent looking link?? What kind of world is this?!

A virtual world, and unfortunately it appears there are a lot of risks attached to the benefits of the internet and computers. However, Mr. Hatch helped me understand how I can protect myself from outside (and internal) threats.

Through explanations of programs like Cisco Clean Access and Sophos, I now understand the importance of the software. I no longer see the programs as "necessary, annoying evils needed to access the internet at Trinity". I now respect and appreciate the the programs for the tasks they perform.

Because of Mr. Hatch, I'm also more aware of what it takes to keep my computer in great shape. I now know that simple things like resetting Safari and clearing URL locations, cookies and downloads can make a difference in the performance of my computer. I'm also planning on updating my computer regularly, instead of just ignoring the pop-ups like I normally would.

THANK YOU MR. HATCH!

Getting to Know Me

Hey everyone!
My name is Tommie Ethington and I am from Jackson Hole, Wyoming where we have snow seven months out of the year and moose in my backyard. I am the oldest of four children and I live within twenty minutes of two national parks, Grand Teton National Park and Yellowstone National Park. In high school I was secretary of my senior class, on prom committee and captain of the debate team. My senior year I was a national semi-finalist for congressional debate and tied for 22nd in the nation.

Here at Trinity, I am a member of Trinity Ambassadors, a news reporter for the Trinitonian, in the sorority Alpha Chi Lambda and a volunteer at the children's shelter.

I am familiar with computers and certain programs like Word, but I know there is still a lot to learn. I'm especially excited to learn more about websites and photoshop/photo-editing.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to e-mail me here!