favorite websites

I think my three favorite websites were Demi's, Ashley G's and Emmalee's. I really liked the design of Demi's,it was really unique and i honestly have no clue how she did it. I liked Ashley's for the same reason; I also really liked the fact that she incorporated her own poetry into it. It was cool how she scanned her poems in; it added a cool personal touch. I really liked Emmalee's becuase she was creative in her topic. It really stood out from the others because of this. It also was designed really well and looked very professional. Overall, all the websites were awesome!
check out my website at www.trinity.edu/~klyon

Advice for Next Semester

I think my best advice for next semester's class is to keep up with the work. If you keep on top of the work and do all your homework you will do fine in this class. Your homework grades add up in the end and if you start to forget some your grade can suffer some. Also, have fun and be creative with projects because usually there is a lot of room to do so. Overall this is a really fun course so have fun and enjoy!

html

Even though there are fancy programs such as Web Expressions, it is still important for web designers to know html code. These programs do not by pass code, they just help you translate information into code. Html code is still used and not a dead idea. Web pages are still written in code no matter what manner the code was written in. It is useful for web designers to know html code becuase it is still the language that web pages are written in. It is important for them to understand how web pages work. The programs make things easier but it is still important to understand what works beyond the programs.

Evaluating Websites

The Internet is an amazing resource full of all sorts of useful information but unfortunately not all information displayed on the Internet is accurate. Because it is so easy for anyone to post information, you have to be careful when evaluating websites. They might not be a credible source. I had no idea about the elephant saga with Stephan Colbert until Mr. Nolan talked about it in class. Colbert told his viewers to edit Wikipedia to say that elephants are running rampant in Africa and that they are not endangered at all. Before the end of Colbert's show, the page had been changed and rechanged and so on until Wikipedia had to lock the page because so many people were changing it to display the wrong information. This is an example of how easy it is to post incorrect information on sites such as Wikipedia that some people see as credible. The only reason the errors on this page were caught quickly was because of the mass amount of attention it was gaining.
Something that surprised me was the way in which google ordered its results in searches. I had never really thought about how they decide which sites are the most rel event. It is interesting that there is a method behind it. They choose the sites that contain your search phrase or word that are most often linked to by other sites. The fact that they are commonly linked to is supposed to demonstrate their credibility. This strategy, however, is not foolproof because when you search for Martin Luther King Jr., the site martinlutherking.org appears which is funded by a white power group. Basically, when using sites such as Google, you have to be careful about how you evaluate your sources to make sure they are credible.

How to Make a Good PowerPoint

1. Keep information on slides short and sweet
Too much words on a slide can be distracting. You want to put the most important information on the actual slide and back it up with your words.
2. Do not read directly from slides when presenting
Since the information on the sides should be to the point, you should back up your slides with additional information and never read them verbatum which would bore your audience to death.
3. Avoid cluttering slides
Having too much clip art and sounds can be a distraction. Blank space on slides is often a good thing. When there is too much on a slide, the audience often gets distracted.
4. Avoid using transitions that might distract the audience
Some transitions are long and to be honest take away from your presentation. Only use transitions when they will benefit your presentation. Just because Microsoft supplies transitions does not mean you have to use them.
5. Link slides together through a common theme or template
Have your slides connect to eachother visually. They should look similar to eachother. When slides contrast with eachother too much, the audience can get distracted.

What I have learned about excel

To be honest I really didn't know anything about Excel coming into this class except that an equals sign makes a function. I have learned so much though that i can use later on. I had no idea that you could create an absolute cell reference before this class. I could not perform any functions besides the basic ones and did not know that you could tell the spreadsheet to compute the standard deviation of the data. Before, instead of creating cell references, I simply typed in the number i thought appropriate. If i had to change one piece of my data, I would then have to find and replace every number related to the number I previously changed. Now, I can have the program do that for me. I wish I knew all these skills before now because they would have helped me on so many other projects.
The opportunities of using these skills seem limitless. You can use them to keep track of data such as grades, sports statistics, and finances. Who knew that keeping track of your budget could be so easy? Businesses can also use it to keep on top of their finances so it is not only helpful on the small scale. It is an easy way to manage lists and charts because they aer easily changeable and adaptable to many circumstances. If you have to make some sort of change to the data you entered early on, you don't have to worry because Excel will take care of it for you and, if you have been using the program correctly, the data you entered after it will be corrected or not harmed by your changes.

Photoshopped Pictures

It is very common for photographs to be doctored using Photoshop before they are published. Sometimes these changes are minor but someitmes they change the perception of the picture completely. Depending on the circumstance and the outlook you have on altering photographs, this act of doctorign can be positive or negative. I looked at a picture of Clement Hurd, the author of the children'd classic Goodnoght Moon. His picture which is displayed next to his biography on the inside cover has been changed since the original publication of the story. The picture used to display him with a cigarette in hand but now the cigarette has been edited out most likely using Photoshop. In this particular instance, I think the change is a positive one. Seeing a popular author smoking can craete a positive affiliation between young children and cigarettes the same way ads create positive relationships betweeen the products and the audience. There are many instances where editing photographs can have a negative effect, but this is one example of when editing can improve the messege of the picture.