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.

CLT experience

I had been to CLT before to watch movies in my Spanish classes however I didn't know the extent of the services available down there. The technology facilities down there are very impressive. I never knew that we have so many Macs and scanners in Trinity. I have a scanner in my room but it takes forever to adjust the settings every time. To be honest, I didn't really understand the whole Trinity network video chat system. I mean since you can use Skype anywhere in the world why bother to spend so much time to establish your own chatting system? It would be awesome if the school can provide some video about the IT system. So we can watch by ourselves instead of coming to library.

Excel

I used the Excel a lot during my internship last semester in SA international relation office. I helped create the contact list for my boss. However, at that time I only knew the basic functions of Excel such as sort the name in asc/dsc order. Now I know much more about the software and am able to use the all kinds of formulas adequately. The knowledge I learned will absolutely help me in the future business class since all kinds of these class will more or less use the Excel. As for my real life, I think it will be even more helpful after I graduate and get a job relate to business. In general, I really like the program because it just makes things so much easier. I just wish the next office suite will be cheaper. I was broke after bought the new Microsoft Office 2010

Copyright Laws

Like most people in my age, I had a very general concept about copyright laws.  The music and game downloading are illegal and violate the copyright laws. However, I didn’t know much about the specific details about the law. For example the Mickey Mouse protection extended the copyright from 50 years after the author died to 70 years. 

As a college student, I have been told all my life that copyright is very important. It is the best way to protect the inventor’s benefit and the creation ability of our society. To some extent, it is true. Without copyright protection, everybody can steal ideas from other people’s work and in a long run; nobody will be willing to create anymore. However, on the other hand, 70 years is a very long time and in a lot cases, the copyright law is not protecting the author’s benefit but simply help the big companies to accumulate money. Take John Winston Lennon for example.  Although he was died in 1980, all his music is still under the protection of copyright law. In other words, people still need to pay to download his CDs legally. Since Lennon is died, the money we paid will not accompany him in heaven. Instead it goes to the CD Company.  Although they are not the inventors of the music nor did they contribute anything to the music creation, they will surely get the biggest share amount of money since the copyright for Lennon’s song is going to last for 70 years until 2050. Therefore, it is very doubtful that our copyright law today is really trying to protect the author’s benefit. Or maybe it just provides another great way for the music companies to make more money. Shortening the period of copyright is probably the best solution.

Nader's Copy Right Blog by Nader is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at nader2011.blogspot.com.

TUNetwork

It takes me a while to figure out how the internet work in the campus. I have to admit it's very complicated but also very effective. The IT department of the school really did a great job. However, I still have some questions about the network. For example all the data will eventually routed to Ruth Taylor so I suppose the wireless and cable network should be the same local internet. But when I actually played the PC games with my friends, we couldn't find other people in the local network unless all of us access through wireless or cables. That means that the wireless and the cable network is not the same one and they probably have different terminal.

Watch your back!

I choose this place because I have been throwed into it two times already. I used Matte effect first to focus on the fountain then used Holga-ish effect to make it look like a ghost picture. I tried to find a really scary ghost feature but failed. So I end up added this skull sticker into the picture.

Best Tech Tip (6)

In Tuesday's class, Joe Hatch gave us a leature about useful computer informations. I never knew that Cisco Clean Access is so important. It prevents the virus from spreading through the school network. He also told us that Sofos AntiVirus is a very good antivirus software and but it works poorly on my computer. Sofos always has trouble working together with the Norton Security on my computer. I also learned that TU Guest is slower and less safer than TU Secure and If something happens to my computer, I can turn to “Support Services” for help.

Windows and Mac are fully supported in campus. Virus, hardware, software…. Literatelly every thing can slow down your computer.

When you browse, the cookies, history records, etc will accumulate and you need to clean them regularly. CCleaner is a good software to clean those junk files mentioned above. Disk Defragmenter can make all fragment files continuous and help your computer run faster. It just takes forever when you run it the first time. NSS security, a website tests the security level of the browsers. Unfortunately, the firefox I use is not so safe as I expected.

Network Server Diagram

The Y-Drive is student's personal disk which can used only by students to store their private files. The class folder is for professor to post assignments and the group folder is for students to submit assignments.

Hey there

My name is Changyi He, but I go by Nader. I come from China. Tennis and soccer are my favorite sports. I am business major and I am not sure about my concentrations yet. I am a big fan of video games and final fantasy is my favorite game. I joined Star Craft 2 team in Trinity last semester. I used to work at the International Relations Office of San Antonio. I am familiar with the Microsoft Office Software such as Words, Excel and Powerpoint. But besides that, all I know about the computer skills are PC games. I like meet strangers and that's why I love couchsurfing.

mailto:che@trinity.edu