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.

PowerPoint Tips

When thinking of bad experiences when viewing PowerPoint slides in the past, I feel it comes down to the presenter reading the text straight from the slides and the slides having excessive and sometimes irrelevant information. The articles about what is a good and what is a bad PowerPoint presentation reinforced these ideas as well as gave light into more specific details about what attracts viewer's and how to make a PowerPoint presentation that will inform and keep the audience engaged. After reading through the articles, I have come to a consensus of the five most important tips for making a good PowerPoint presentation. My first two were stated above already.
1.) Do not read straight from the slides. Have the basic idea on the slide then have cue cards with the more specific data that you will iterate.
2.) Keep the slides simple. Too much writing will distract and bore the viewer. Solid visual aids are important as well. Seth Godin the author of one of the articles even suggests that you should never use more than six words on a slide.
3.)Use high quality graphics. Do not use animations or elementary visual aids. The use of actual photographs gives the PowerPoint a much more professional feel.
4.)The color scheme is important. Cool colors such as blue and green work well for backgrounds while warm colors such as red and yellow are good for the text.If in a adequately lighted room a white background with dark text is ideal.
5.)Fonts are important. Sans Serif fonts are the best for PowerPoint presentations, because they are easier to read and work well for less text.

These are my three photos. I was trying to give an eerie feel to pictures that otherwise wouldnt have been so.

Chris Nolan Presentation

I learned a lot during Chris Nolan's presentation, especially about the Google search engine. The things I learned will be very helpful in research projects to come. Previously when using Google, I would simply enter a search term and browse through the results to find an appropriate one. The first tip that I found very interesting was the more menu where you could sort the results by books or scholarly material. Teachers are always saying that the sources used need to be scholarly, and this is a good way of making sure of that. A second tip that I found very helpful was the "show options" menu that allows you to sort your results by timeline or by being close to your location. A final thing that I found very useful was sorting by government sites or school sites in the advanced search menu. You can limit you search results to .edu or .gov websites as well as many more options. This again is a good way to limit results to usable material.
One thing that I found particularly surprising was that when limiting the search results to books, there is a link next to the website that says if it is in Trinity's catalog or if Trinity has that book. This is extremely helpful and was something that I had no idea that Google did.

Pictures That Lie

The mugshot of OJ Simpson that made the cover of Time Magazine in 1994, was altered to make it seem more dark and evil. This was right after OJ Simpson was arrested on murder charges. I chose to look at this picture first of all because it is of a very recognizable sports figure in OJ Simpson. The Simpson case was one of the biggest in the sports world. What I found most interesting was the ability of the modification to completely change the meaning of the photo. In the Newsweek edition with OJ's picture on the cover unaltered, it still apears to be a mugshot, but not for something as serious as murder. One can look at the Time cover and know that this man did something terribly wrong. This brings me to my next point of whether or not this picture was harmful or not. I think that it could be very harmful to OJ Simpson, and can be seen as an attack from Time magazine. It is one thing to portray these messages on someone who has proven to do terrible acts, but OJ was just arrested, not yet convicted of anything. OJ Simpson would go on to be proven innocent as well. So although I do not condon the alleged things that OJ Simpson did, and despite there being much controversy in the verdict, I think it was wrong to alter the photograph to portray his character being a certain way, before he is even proven to be that dark and evil.

Visit to CLT

There are many cool features and resources down in the CLT that I might otherwise not have know about. I didn't really even know what was down on that story of the library. Some of the assets of the CLT that I think I will be able to use for both this computer skills class as well as many other classes is the photo and video editing stations. There are numerous computers located in this section that have all of the newest software to edit photos and video.
The second area of the CLT that I found particularly interesting was the sound studio area. This room has all of the necessary devices and software to enhance or edit soft files. If any project arises where it is necessary to make a video or some sort of audio, the CLT can accommodate all of the needs.
The final aspect of the CLT that I will most likely be using is just the knowledge and availability of people who know everything you need to know about computers. This is a place where one can go if having any questions about how to work a certain program.

Jason Hardin's discussion addressed the issues surrounding copyright laws. Before, I didn't really understand copyright laws, only that it gives ownership to someones work. Through the presentation I learned that the copyright holds for the authors life plus 70 years and that the copyright can be given to a company or family member after the original holder passes away. One issue that is growing daily with regards to copyright is the illegal downloading of music and movies. This is an especially big issue on college campuses because college aged kids are the ones who are doing the most downloading, and therefore are being targeted the most by companies to sue. Being a college student, I know that the high price of movies and music, in addition to the ease and convenience of downloading, make it hard not to download music and movies. Hearing the are cases of someone getting sued for over ten grand scares some college students but by no means makes them stop downloading. It is important to consider who is being affected by illegal downloading though. It could be hard to see with big name music and movies, but with underground or upstart artists, downloading their music can mean basically robbing them of significant CD sales. In my opinion, there should be increased government intervention to work to prevent illegal file sharing, because if simply left up to the person who is downloading, it is most likely not going to change. The illegal downloader should also realize that they are not supporting the artist that they are downloading but rather potentially harming them.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

My Trinity Network Diagram

Above is my map of Trinity's Network. Before doing this assignment and taking the tour, I hadnt really thought about how the whole Trinity network worked. I realized that it is a very complex system, much more than I had imagined. I feel now after doing the diagram I have a fairly good idea of how our Network functions.

Top Tech Tip

Joe Hatch's lecture covering a wide array of computer safety and maintenance tips. I believe the most important and the one that I will be thinking about often was how to avoid the phishing scams that are very prevalent today. A Phishing scam is basically an e-mail that is sent to you from your supposed bank. It says that it needs to verify your credentials and to enter your bank information. Behind these e-mails are frauds who simply use a photo-editing software to make the e-mail appear that it is from your bank. If being tricked by these scams, one is basically giving access to his or her bank account to a complete stranger. People often lose all the money in their bank accounts due to these scams and have no real means of chasing the culprit. Joe Hatch first discussed what a phishing scam is, then basically told us to be aware and not respond to these e-mails. One should go to his or her bank directly, or initiate the contact themselves, to make sure that the request is legit. This is obviously very useful information because if could prevent disastrous situations.

Scavenger Hunt

When reading through the different introductory blogs, I found that I had a lot in common with many people from the class. I found everyone had interesting stories and are very involved here on the Trinity campus. The two people I posted comments on were Zia and Bri. I found out that Zia Lunden, http://zlunden.blogspot.com/ is from Tucson which is where my older brother goes to college. Bri Tammaro, http://btammaro.blogspot.com/, attends the FCA which I also try to attend.

Introduction Post

Hello, my name is Joel Van Essen and I am from Santa Fe, New Mexico. I was originally born in Detroit, Michigan but spent the majority of my life in Santa Fe. I am the middle child in my family. My older brother attends the University of Arizona and currently is spending a semester abroad in The Netherlands. My younger brother is currently a sophomore in high school.

I have been playing basketball since elementary school and currently play on the Trinity basketball team. I enjoy many other sports as well. I ran track and field in high school and also play some golf.

Through my first semester at Trinity I have been fairly busy between basketball and adjusting to college life but am a member of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes.

I do not have a strong computer background. I have taken a few computer oriented classes but still dont consider myself very knowledgeable about computers. I have worked with Photoshop a little bit and know the basics of the Microsoft office programs. I am excited to learn more about these programs in depth.

My secret fact is that when I was in eighth grade my brothers and I were playing baseball in a big open room in my house. When I was sliding into third I smacked my foot into one of the many obstacles and broke three of my toes.

You may e-mail me here