My favorite website

Zack and Sarah's websites are my favorite websites. I am a big fan of bicycle so content of Zack’s website is very interesting. Sarah’s website is very well done. The background looks great and the decorations as well as the background music are fantastic.

My Website

Here's my website

The website is mainly about my experience of couchsurfing. I spend the whole winter break last year on couchsurfing. I went from San Antonio all the way to Dallas. When I work on the website, the background picture took forever and I didn't get a satisfying results after wasting 2 hours. It's very difficult for me to choose my favorite pictures since there are so many of them. What we learned in the class really helped me a lot. By using the knowledge, I am be able to combine all the pages together. Originally I planned to put lots of text but then I found out that the text didn't fit the images so well. So I end up just delete most of the texts and leave the images along.

Larry Hechler’s lecture

On last Thursday, Larry Hechler gave us a lecture about the computer hardware. I found his speech is very useful. Before that, I didn’t even have the concept of backing up the data in my PC.  Now I know that once the disk is damaged, it is almost impossible to save the data inside. He also mentioned how to maintain the computer in a good condition. When we try to clean the monitor, we should always use the monitor cleaner instead of our hands or clothes. Any liquid is very dangerous around the computer. They could completely mess up the system and destroy the whole equipment. The best time to charge the batteries is when the batteries went blow 5% of its capacity. Overall, I learned a lot from him and more confident when I deal with the hard wares.

Powerpoint Presentations

My PowerPoint presentation helped me know more about Frank Lloyd Wright. He’s one of my idols and I am happy that I can teach other student about him. I like the animation I used and the background music. However, the background music affected the video in the third slide. If I had chance to do this presentation again, I would stop the background music before the video. My favorite PowerPoint are Dam‘s Acoustic Electronic Guitar and Shelby’s Improv everywhere. Dam’s video about the playing the guitar in his dorm is great. It’s the best video among all the presentations. Shelby’s topic is very interesting. I never heard of Improv Everywhere before but through her presentation, I am eager to participate in this activity.

Pictures that lie

I chose three pictures: an angel’s halo, a volcano crater and one of my own photos. I like to watch the volcanoes in discovery channel so I chose it. As for the angel’s halo, there is no particular reason. I chose it just for fun. Both the angel’s halo and the volcano are from Google image. Since the homework is not for any business proposes, I guess I could use them.

First, I used the magnetic lasso and the magic eraser tool to select my figure from the image. Then I put it into the volcano and use wind style to adjust the volcano crater so it looks a bit super realistic. After that, I blurred the all picture and added an angel halo just make the photo look funnier. Last, I made the angel’s halo transparent.

I find the blur effect is kind of harmful and unnecessary. Because it makes the whole image looks very vague, I canceled it.

In the article, Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator techniques, the author mentioned that “It is advisable to save the image as a ‘raw’ Photoshop file, with the separate layers, etc., so that it can be used again with all the information intact.” This suggestion is very helpful. It allowed me to easily revise my image several times. Otherwise, I will have to input the original photos every time I try to make a change.

Citation
McLean, Dee. "Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator Techniques." Journal of Audiovisual Media in Medicine 24.2 (2001): 79-82. Print.

Chris Nolan's lecture

Last Thursday, Chris Nolan came to the class and gave us a lecture about how to use the search engine efficiently. I have been using the Google search since high school but I never knew Google can be so powerful. When I was searching the information for my urban study class presentation, I found the information I needed most is primarily located in the government website. However, at that time, I didn’t know how to filter the search results so it took me forever to finish the data search. Now I know by using edu, org, gov function, I can filter the data and find the real useful information which could save me hours from digging piles of irrelevant statistics.  

As for the Google Scholar, I never use it before. After Mr. Nolan’s lecture, I feel it is such a powerful tool for academic search. The Trinity Library is a huge data pool, however compare to Google Scholar, it is very small. I guess I will use the Google Scholar a lot in the future.

Powerpoint

Powerpoint gives me a lot a convinence. A good powerpoint work makes me comfortable. However, I find the powerpoint can also be annoying. Sometimes people tends to use too many pictures and use unnecessary animation effects. Well, that's not the worst thing. Occasionally, people will try to use photos of authority and 3D charts to misleading others. For the same group of data, a pie chart can looks very different for a columne chart.

Furthermore, when people put everything into the powerpint, the presentation will become very boring because the presenter acts no more than a speaker.