My Advice for Next Year

The work load in this computer skills class is not great but make sure to do all the work and try to do a little bit every day.

My Favorite Websites

My three favorite websites that I saw in class were Bri's, Luke's, and Chase's. I thought Bri's had a ton of pictures which I liked and had good color schemes. It was not over the top with graphics and other distractions, which I think puts emphasis on the information that she was trying to portray.

Luke's I thought was very simple and easy to follow. My favorite page of his was his major of geology page, where he showed up to date pictures of the volcano that just erupted in Iceland.

I liked how chase incorporated other projects he had done in class such as his picture that lies, which I thought was cool, and his hometown postcard. Although when presenting on the big screen there was an issue with his music page, I think that the background was really cool, having one side dark and one side light.

My Website

Please visit my website at www.cs.trinity.edu/~jvanesse
When working with html coding, I was a little bit worried about the production of my website. It was made a lot easier with the Microsoft Expression web software that we used. Once getting the basics down, I found that it was not super hard making a website. I like all of the pages that I included in my webiste but one in particular that I am proud of is my hometown page. On this page I have the postcard that I made for class, some fun facts about my hometown of Santa Fe, New Mexico, and some thumbnail pictures that can be expanded to better view some attractions of my hometown. I like this page for a couple of reasons. First of all I am very proud of the postcard that I made that is displayed on my page. Secondly I am very proud of my hometown and think this page really highlights why. If going back and doing it again I would have experimented with some different graphic designs and layouts on the website. I also would have tried to make a bit of a different nav bar in photoshop. My biggest technical challenge was creating a navbar that was both helpful to navigate the site as well as being aestheticaly pleasing. Design wise my biggest challenge was using the tables to structure my photo layout, while still making the website look unique and not like it was placed in a grid. I will show my webiste to my family and friends.I most likely will make another webiste for a class at some point in my Trinity career. It is a very helpful tool for portraying and presenting my ideas.

My Picture that Lies

My Picture that lies shows the most well known professional basketball player, Lebron James, with a jersey on of my favorite team, the Detroit Pistons. Though Lebron James will probably never play on the Pistons, I created a fanatsy picture that he did. I first got a picture of a current Pistons player, then a picture of Lebron James, and superimposed the head onto the body. Because there were some issues with the hairstyle differences and sizes differences, I had to use the clone stamp to create the appearance that it was not altered. The skin tones of the two athletes were different so I had to use the lightness tool in the enhance bar to blend the two together. To enhance the photo further, I selected everything in the background and took out the color to make it black and white. The final effect that I put in my picture was to put in text that read Lebron James lands in the Motor City, to aid anyone who is not very familiar with basketball in understanding my picture.
I do not beleive this is harmful in anyway, in less it is used to confuse or misled the viewer. I did it more as a joke, that adament basketball players will most liekely understand.

Pictures that Lie

For the pictures that lie assignment I chose to talk about a photo appearing in the newspaper, The Toledo Blade, depicting the Bulfton university baseball team kneeling for pray after a game. It was found that this photo had been altered after some invesitgation, and finding an identical photo with an extra person in the background, whose legs were shown underneath a banner. After further investigation, it was found that Allan Detrich, the photographer, had digitally enhanced around 71 photos in his career. There was somewhat of an outroar when these facts were discovered.
I did some research and looked up additional photographs by this photographer from the Toledo Blade. The majority of the altercations were made to enhance the point of the picture and to basically clean it up. Other examples were deleting hanging wires and removing unneccesary distractions.
I do not believe this form of manipulation is harmfulbecause it is simply removing any unneccesary distractions so the reader can focus on what is important. I believe this has a similar effect that my picture that lie has. It doesnt serve to harm anyone, but simply portray and idea.

No, Auhtor. "Examples of Altered Photographs." Toledo Blade. Web. 11 Apr. 2010. .

Why it is Important to Know HTML Code

There are many reasons why it is important for web designers to know how to use Html coding rather than just simply relying on software such as Kompozer and expression web. First of all it is always know the source of things and their foundation. Even when using an advanced software, you are still technically using html code. Secondly, it is important for if there is a problem when using one of those software, and you cannot get the specifications exactly how you want it, you can use Html to alter the web page. If understanding how Html code works, one can really understand how a website runs and the different things you can do with a website.

My Favorite Blogs

I really enjoyed everyone's powerpoint presentation. I learned a lot about some possible career paths. My two favorites were Teka Nichols presenation about the Terra Cotta warriors and Luke's presentation about geology, and more specifically volcano's. I thought Teka did a really good job with the images that she used in her presentation and thought the custom animation was very cool. The different images kept me engaged and interested in everyting she was saying. I thought Luke's presentation was good becuase of his apparent passion for the subject. He epitomized the goal to try and persuade others to pursue a particular major. I liked the video inserted as well.