Advice!

The only advice that I could give to the future students of CS1300 would be to have fun. I really enjoyed this course because I was creative with the things I did. Therefore, the more creative you are with your work, the more fun you have!

Other Websites I Enjoyed!

I really enjoyed Cody and Sophie's websites. I'm a huge sports fan, so I really enjoyed Cody's website about some of the things he enjoyed about basketball. He listed some of his favorite players, and a couple of reasons why he enjoys playing basketball. Sophie's website was really interesting, also. Her website was about a trip that she took to Italy. She used great pictures and her website was very well put together. Looking at her website makes me want to go to ITALY!

My Website!

Please visit my website, www.cs.trinity.edu/~nmckissi I really enjoyed making my website! This was a great project to do before going on Thanksgiving break. Making my "Diner's" website was something that was very fun and it allowed me to use my imagination. I also really enjoyed trying to think of something to make a website about. My favorite part about my website was trying to figure out what my menu was going to be. If I could change one thing, I would attempt to make my webpage a little more "eye-catching". Unfortunately, I'm not a very artistic person. Also, I wish my website was just a little bit more interactive for the visitors that come to my "Diner's" website.

Larry Heckler Computer Tips

Last Thursday, we had a visitor by the name of Larry Heckler visit our class! He gave us useful information regarding what makes up the inside of computers. One thing that I found interesting was all the different parts of both a Mac and PC. Larry informed us that most of the parts are basically the same essentially. One tip that Larry informed us about was not putting any thing less than six inches close to the system unit vents. By doing this, your system unit won't overheat. Also, another helpful tip that I received was in regards to powering your battery. Larry told us that it isn't good for the batter if you leave it plugged in to the charger all the time. This makes the amount of time for your computer to stay charged on its own shorter. Larry told us that it's better that you allow your battery to go all the way to dead before you charge it. This explains why my laptop will only stay charged for less than 2 hrs!

Pictures that Lie

The picture that I decided to alter was a picture of a sitting bear. In this photo, I inserted two babies, one crying and one happy, by using the magic wand tool and the magnetic lasso. I also imported a sign that says Yellow Stone National park to give the impression that it was a vacation photo. I altered the saturation, hue, brightness and contrast of the photo.

One article that I read was "Changing History: Doctored Photos Affect Past Public Events". In this article a group of people altered photos and allowed them to be seen by the public. These pictures were events were significant public events that happened in the past in Beijing and Rome. The interesting thing about this was that once people saw the pictures their perception of the events that took place were different. For example, people in Rome saw a public protest as more violent and negative.

Applied Cognitive Psychology; Dec2007, Vol. 21 Issue 8, p1005-1022, 18p, 2 Black and White Photographs, 4 Charts, 3 Graphs

My Powerpoint Presentation!

     I felt that my powerpoint presentation on African American Heros of the American Revolution went well. I felt that the audience was engaged with the information that I was providing and they also seemed to be interested. One thing I wish i could have done differently was speak more clearly during my presentation. I felt that I stuttered a bit, which could have made it seem to the audience that I was nervous. I learned that presenting a new topic to an audience can be quite challenging. The main challenge comes from trying to make a topic interesting that might not be of great importance to people. Also, making sure that all the parts of your presentation are in the same folder is something that was important. For example, I forgot to put sound files in my folder, and I had no music when I first tried to present.
     Two presentations that I thought were well done were Lauren's and Sophie's. I could really appreciate Lauren's topic because I'm an athlete and the issue of athletic health is something that affects me primarily. Also, here presentation was very smooth and she knew what she was talking about. Sophie's choice of transition slides and background pictures were awesome! Also, the fact that she has experienced event planning firsthand is something that caught my attention.

Chris Nolan Tips

Chris Nolan came to the class Thursday and gave great tips on how to get good scholarly information. However, due to not feeling well I wasn't in attendence. However, another CS 1300 student, Leslie Green, filled me in on what Chris shared with the class. One tip that Leslie relayed to me was the importance of looking at domain names when searching for information, and that you can also control the type of domain  names that come up during a search. Also, I was informed that Chris Nolan told us about a way to limit your search results to scholarly material when searching on Google by using a subset called "Google Scholar". Another fun fact that Leslie relayed to me from Chris was that more than 60% of people use Google as their main search engine!