Websites

Websites were by far my favorite part of class. I had been planning to make one for a while but could never figure out how or what program to use. Expression Web is a great (I repeat, GREAT) program to use; it's easy, efficient, and looks really nice. Thank you so much for this part of class. What was even more fun than making a website and being pleased with the final product was seeing everybody else's websites. Some were just so amazing! Here are my favorite three, though I wish I could pick my favorite 18:

1. Cole Gray's website had the most interesting design. I really like the black and red theme with the typewriters. It really seemed like a professional website--definitely an artistic layout. Also, I have to give him credit for those amazing drawings that he posted on there. They were placed on the web is a neat, easy-to-follow way. I like how you can click on them to magnify them, I'm not sure how he did that, but it was a great touch. I really like the first picture there the best. Also, the poetry is nice.

2. Angel's site was the prettiest, I have to say. I really love the blue background on the home page and the font on that page just fits right in. She has an excellent taste in design! I also really think that the image map is very well put together. I like the heart in the hand in the middle. Very beautiful. Also, the content of the website was very interesting! That's awesome that she played in a mariachi band! How awesome!

3. Jordan's website really impressed me because of the precision! There are so many links and interesting information. (And that band picture rocks!) Interesting choice in design with different fonts and colors, yet consistent. It was nicely put together. It's also a very nicely designed photo gallery. I can see a lot of time went into it, and it really paid off.

Thanks so much everyone. Visit my own website at www.cs.trinity.edu/~cferrari, if you wish.

Message for the Next Class

I know that some of you are probably not too eager about this class because you're convinced that you know enough about computers and should have passed the placement test, but if you pay attention, I promise that you will learn something useful and this class will be worth your time. CS is helpful and interesting as long as you're willing to be creative, and I guarantee you will use the information learned in academic work as well as for fun. Make cool websites!

Why know HTML?

Why learn HTML code even though there are programs out there that design websites for you? This question is similar to asking your mother why she bakes her own pies when she could easily go out to the store and buy one. While buying one takes less time, baking her own allows her to customize it exactly as she wants and to change little details. Also, it makes her more knowledgeable on ingredients when she goes out to buy pies at the store.

One, it's important to be knowledgeable of programing code even if there are software packages designed to help so that you can use all of your abilities to make a website exactly as you want it and for you to understand how you made it that way. Also, that makes you more credible as a web designer. I think that the most important distinction is that HTML is harder to learn and takes a lot more time, but it is easier to customize and to be independent in designing the website. On the other side, web software is faster and easier, but it is harder to customize, and the person usually become dependent on the software. If something does not look right, they don't know how to manually do it and, therefore, need to sort of submit to the software package. They are at the mercy of the software, so to speak. In all, it is wise to use the software for efficiency, but to know the HTML code so that you can fix/modify certain things or know exactly what makes up part of the website. You can use a mix of both in designing a website to be truly how you picture it.

I went online, and I found an article that explains the advantages and disadvantages of HTML code as well as using software, comparing both.

Check it out for more reasons as to why HTML code is important to know: http://www.htmlquick.com/articles/why-to-learn-html-code.html

Class Presentations

All the powerpoints presented in class were just marvelous. They were all informative, and nicely made. I think that everyone understood the concepts behind good design and presentation of information using powerpoints. Though it was super hard to choose just two, my favorite powerpoint presentations were Ashely's and Brian's.

Ashely did her presentation on Antioxidants in food, which is great because I don't think enough people know about the great things that antioxidants do for you! Great topic! One thing that I really liked was the fruit background. I could tell that she made it fade a little, so it wasn't too intense-just a subtle display of her topic. Also, as far as contents go, the bullets did a good job summarizing the important parts of the points she described. She didn't just read from the presentation, and she surely told me some facts that I didn't know. For example, I didn’t know the blueberries had a lot of antioxidants! I'm so glad she told me that because now, after I heard that, I usually eat blueberries with my breakfast. The presentation also had a nice consistency of designs (text on the left and the pictures pointing inward on the right). It was nicely put together, and I learned about antioxidants. Thank you Ashley.

Also, I really liked Brian's. He did his on the LSAT (Law School Administration Test). I don't really know anything about the field of law and how one pursues it, so I was interested right from the start to learn something I didn't know. One point of interest is the music that he played in the background. It sounded serious and business-like, and it was appropriate for the presentation. It wasn't distracting, and it added to the mood. Good choice. Also, what I found really nice was at the beginning, before the first slide came up, there was a sound of that thing that judges pound to create order in the court. It caught my attention and had the class ready to listen. It was a very good idea! I didn't know a lot about the LSAT, and I learned the components that make it up and general information about it. He covered the general basis of the test, and it was a great presentation. Good luck Brian, for when you take it!

(I also have to give "best animation award" to Angel and "best background award" to Rishi).

Awesome job to everyone! Thanks for all that great information!

The Scoop about Search Engines

I learned so many things from Mr. Nolan’s presentation; I’m so glad he came. The information he shared will truly be helpful in research and everyday use of search engines. He also told us some background facts that I thought were really interesting. He told us that Google has about 60% of the market, but that’s understandable, because Google’s the search engine we are most familiar with. But, besides Google, there is also Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL, and Ask. What I found interesting was that Yahoo was the first search engine and that it was made by some graduate students. Also, it started out as mostly a directory. Then, Google became popular because they came up with a method to rank search results according to relevance. Documents appear on the top if the searched words are in important parts of the document, like the title. Relevance also depends on the number of times the searched words appear on the document or page.

I knew that Google made all of its money off of advertising, so I found it surprising when Mr. Nolan pointed out that there are advertising links only separated off to the right side and one or two highlighted at the top, BUT only in those specific areas! I had never noticed that before, and I now realize that that is such a convenience, or else browsing the web would be so annoying.
I learned that Google also keeps track of how many links are directed to a website; if there are a lot, then the page appears on the top of the search, if not, it will appear on later pages with lower relevance. With this in mind, of course Google gives certain weight to a website (for example, if a website is linked from my personal website, it won’t be as important if it was linked from, CNN or a government website). Therefore, academic research is hard to find because scholarly papers and sites are lower in the results because not many people are familiar with the certain academic topics or interested in them, so they don’t have as many links directed to them.

Now, here are little tips that help to narrow a search. “.gov” is mostly posted by federal government agencies. Government information can be a little biased, especially in politics, but mostly it is very reliable. To know if a source is reliable or not, it is a good idea to look for credentials (organization and author information is written on the bottom of the page. What also helps is to see when it was last modified and the list of references to formulate an opinion on the site). “.org” is non profit and not a commercial site; it is usually selling ideas (for example, political parties). “.edu” is usually for universities in America (such as Trinity.edu).

What should you type in for a search? If you only want some specific domains, you can go to advanced search. You can choose the language and which words are excluded and included. Cached saved a page in Google, so it highlights the search words and can be helpful if page is down or changed. One can type “define: term” and Google will define it. You can use Google Scholar for more academic searches. Trinity eText shows what articles the school subscribes to. Google indexes everything on the web, but directories are collections of links people have found and put into categories—it doesn’t have the majority of sites on the web, but they’re specific for a certain group.

Powerpoint

I found that all three articles gave very important tips for designing effective and appealing powerpoint presentations. What I find most annoying on powerpoints is cheesy graphics and too many pictures, and all the articles mentioned not to use those in one way or another, so I guess it's what upsets most viewers. Another thing that makes powerpoint presentations irritating is too many bullet points or information on one slide. It gets hard to read and too much to take in. Also, if that happens on a slide, I usually find myself reading the slide instead of listening to the person present. The first article, "Top Ten Slide Tips", gave quite a few tips against that. In that same article, I especially liked the section where the author described what graphs are appropriate for what kind of data or information portrayed. It was helpful because sometimes it's hard to know which one to use, so that's a helpful tool. In the second article, I especially like the point that when we make powerpoint presentations, we should use the slides to "reinforce not repeat words". I think that is such a good way to put it--don't read from the slides, give the basics and voice the details in the speach. The YouTube tutorial is also good because sometimes, if you're a visual learner, it's good to watch to learn instead of reading. From the information gathered from the articles as well as my own personal opinion, here are my top five tips for creating successful powerpoint presentations:
1. Don't read from the slides--That bores the listeners.
2.Engage both sides of the brain--provide both interesting logic as well as images or songs.
3. Space out information--give yourself room to discuss and time to transition to other points.
4. Use big fonts and appropriate color schemes--make sure viewers can read what is put on the slide. If all the text can't fit without making it small, then that's probably too much information on one slide! Also, don't pick contrasting colors or colors that don't fit with the presentation's mood.
5. Make sure there's room to adapt--if it's a long presentation, keep the terms on the slides general so that there's room to adapt if the ideas flow a different way or your viewers take you a different direction. Audience is important to keep in mind.

Excel-lent!

I had taken a class sophomore year dealing with Microsoft, and we learned some excel, so some of the material we learned in class was review (such as SUM and making graphs). But, I also learned a lot of new things, like the IF formula and the Formatting skills (like Merge and Center) that really help to finalize a project and make it efficient and professional. I know that especially in my Bio Lab 1111 class, being comfortable in excel really pays off. We have to deal with a lot of data sets in that class and it's important to be accurate as well as quick, so knowing excel has really paid off. I've been talking with others about it too, and they say that knowing excel in Lab class is a must! This class has helped a lot with that. In the same boat, excel can be used in the future by one who goes into lab research as a profession. My dad is a Nanotechnologist and operates a lab conducting research on the field of Nanomedicine, and he hires people who are skilled in programs like Excel because they can produce the most accurate results in a short amount of time. That's why Excel important in academic fields and business-it keeps data organized and easy to manage.