I always get the last word.

So the semester has ended and finals week is looming over all of us, but there is still need for good cheer and lots of wisdom, because college is not over yet. So to all of you students, new and returning, here is some advise for you: always pay attention to what Mrs. Belisle says, and ask questions before the due date of projects, because she will not extend when assignments are due, unless you show concern before hand. Use your time wisely or you will fall behind and under no circumstances should you think that you can go through this entire class without doing your homework assignments, in the end it will kill your grade, because you won't know how to do anything! Use your head and you can easily pass the class with flying colors and be secure in your knowledge of how to use a computer. Good luck!

Website look-through

I liked Jackie’s website because everything was in its place and no pictures were floating around the page and her Nav-bar was simple but interesting at the same time. All of her information was easy to find and she brings in a good mix of her life and interests and school to make a wonderfully insightful page.

Teka’s is the most AMAZING thing ever! Everything on her website is perfectly proportionate and nothing is floating, her Nav-bar design is fresh and interesting, all of her hyperlinked pictures are cool and though there is not that much wordage on it, this website is one of the best deisgned things that I have ever seen!!!!

Ana’s was good. There were lots of pictures and good information. All of her backgrounds were great, colorful and bright, each one a little different from the last. However some of her pictures were a little pixilated but good overall!

Sharing myself with the World

Please visit my website at www.cs.trinity.edu/~nmccarte

For this class we had to make a website about ourselves or something we care about. I chose to do it about me, and I was really excited to start it. However, making a website is a very time consuming thing! It is not hard, it is actually very easy but you have to have a lot of patience and ideas or you will never get anything done. For this project I used Microsoft Expression Web, and thank God that the school has it or I would have been deader than a door nail! With Expression Web it is so easy to make the page exactly what you wanted it to be, easy to find colors, to insert pictures and tables too! I am most proud of Family and Friends page, it has the most importance and meaning for me. I don't think I would have changed anything except that I was have spend more time on finding pictures and added some pages about other interests and fun things I have done in my life. The biggest technological challenge was getting the Navbar and thumbnails put in and working the right way, but once you figure it out it is really not that hard to do. On the other hand my biggest design challenge would have had to be getting all the pictures centered and lined up in the tables, since you are only allowed to make five row tables in Expression, if you use the easy way. I will show my site to all of my family and friends as well as my hall mates here at Trinity, they will defiantly get a kick out of it! I might have to make another site someday, but i doubt that I will have to make it for any other class that I plan to take here at Trinity.

Pictures that Lie

What picture you chose and why?

I chose to make a picture of a few different types of animals in a school hallway because it symbolized the diversity of the world and that we must coexist.

Where did the picture originate?

I got some of the pictures from Stock Exchange and some from Google images. Most of the Stock Exchange pictures were from documentations of animal watchers.

How was it manipulated?

The four animals were magnet lassoed out of their pictures and placed in different position in the school hallway.

Was the manipulation harmful?

No, this manipulation was not harmful at all.

Why or why not?

Because unlike the manipulation of pictures in Cytology, where a simple change could mean life or death, my picture was made for the betterment of society, and the establishment of friendships that are unique and out of the ordinary.

How did it relate to the article you researched?

My picture did not really relate to my article very much, because the manipulation that the researchers were talking about was of a harmful and disturbing nature, while my photo is trying to make the world a better place. The only similarity is that they are both manipulated in some way-shape-or-form.

Citation:

Pinco, Jeffery, et al. "Impact of Digital Image Manipulation in Cytology." Archives of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine 133.1 (2009): 57-61. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 8 Apr. 2010.

Hand Coding is a thing of the past...?

HTML code is something that most of the world doe snot think about in our day-to-day lives, we have sophisticated machines that can do all of that for us! But what if that software was down, or get infected with a virus? Could you be able to hand code your website into the form that you want it? Probably not, and that is the reason that we should know it! Always think of the worst case scene and prepare to battle whatever obstacles might be put in your way.

PowerPoint Presentations

Today we finished viewing that many Power Point presentations that we had to do on our prospective majors. I found many of them to be wonderful but there were two that just stood out from all of the rest: Ana Price's presentation on being a Spanish major, and Teka Nicholas' presentation on the Terra Cotta Soldiers.

Ana's slide show was through and very neatly put together, the sound and graphics were excellent (though the video was sadly hard to see)and the background color was perfectly picked to go with the flag of Spain. She had everything that a simple slide show could hold about the many areas of Spain and their differences.

Teka's slide show about the Terra Cotta Soldiers was the best PowerPoint Presentation that I have seen in a long time! Her GIF was very cool and the way that all of the graphics of the Terra Cotta Soldiers was linked to different websites that will tell you more about them was a very interesting and unused idea. She was very through and too the point, she never went off topic and the over all effect of the presentation had me wanting to change my major!

Powerpoint Advice

PowerPoint presentations are difficult to make well because many people try to do too much with it and end but making their presentation a farce.

Nicole's PowerPoint Do's and Don't:

1. Do make it easy to understand and use simple sentences. No one wants to be thinking hard during a presentation.

2. Do not put more than about 15 words on each slide, it gets tiring to read quickly if there is more to read.

3. Do use animations and graphics, without these the presentation will get boring very quickly!

4. Do not have the presentation on a timer, go only as fast as you can, while making sure that your audience is understanding what you are saying.

5. Do Have fun and put some thought into it. Making a presentation in the last minute and by just throwing some information onto the slide will probably get you a failing grade, or tossed out of a job.

Hope these help you on your next attempt at a PowerPoint presentation!

Journey into the Unknow...

This picture, to me, means everything, Life in an unknown adventure and there is always something waiting at the end, a light in a time of darkness. We must follow our fated paths (the yarn that three old ladies are knitting with)and conquer our fears to become the greatest being that we can.

Goooooooooogle

Today Chris Nolan came in to talk to the class about how to use Google to find scholarly sources. I find this fascinating because I never knew that most of the sources that I was looking on the web weren't at least partly scholarly! I had never really known before this class what the different endings of websites meant, and how each had its own area that it solely focus' on. I found it very interesting to compare that I have been using for research to what I should be using! I will now be able to look for the correct sources when I have to write a research paper. What I found most interesting during this class was learning that I could disable the cookies on my computer, this is good to know so that I can do that for the computers that I share with other people, because no one wants what they have been looking up to be known by everyone else!

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words...But What is it Worth if it Lies?

We were supposed to look through some mortified pictures in class today, and choose one that we liked to talk about. I chose the picture of the Jackalopes in Colorado. I wanted to use this picture, because my Dad has told me a lot of myths that he was told about the Jackalopes when he was working in the oil fields of Midland/Odessa, and I have always been fascinated by the thought of a rabbit with deer antlers! This picture was altered for use on a postcard, however CNet cannot determine when the postcard was made. The actual picture was of two rabbits in a field in Colorado, and someone came in a pasted some deer antlers onto their heads. They manipulated this photo so that they could sell postcards, because who doesn't want to get a postcard of a mythical creature? I don't believe that manipulating a picture of rabbits to make them look like Jackalopes is a bad thing, because it can't really hurt anyone, how can a deer-horned rabbit that does not exist hurt anyone? It is a fanciful figment of the Western sub-conscious.

Visit to Wonderland: Trinity's CLT

I first thought that we were going to a different room on the first floor of the library, but then as we were walking to it we turned the wrong way. I got confused and then I saw the CLT room and I was amazed. I have been here before but only for a short time, working with a group from my Seminar class last semester on our final project - a short movie on Punk Rock music and the influence of Green Day. I had no idea before that experience that this facility was here for student use, and since I didn't remember what it was called it would have been hard for me to come back an use it, but I will now!

I learned that the CLT room is not only for doing projects in, you can also come to do simple homework, which I thought would have been and no-no since someone might have need to use the computer for a more important purpose. I loved when we were shown the Innovation Studio and the sound room that is attached to it. I have always loved to make music, thought I am not very musically capable of composing good music, I have babbled with FInally before and I have thoroughly enjoyed the experience! However I do not have the program on my personal computer, making it hard to experiment when the urge hits me. With the CLT I have the ability to use Finally whenever there is not someone already using the Innovation Room! I can't wait to come back and explore some more!

I can see myself coming in here if I ever need help with an assignment, Photoshopping, making web sites and other computer related workings that I have not already learned in the past. This lab will be extremely helpful in any facet of the computer world.

Welcome to Reality...

Today we learned about copyright laws. Not a very fun thing but very informative, since I don't know anything about this. One of the most interesting bits of information that Mr. Jason Hardin, was about the companies and other agencies watching everyone they can.

They are like hawks; they strike to kill, before anyone can touch their nice little nest egg. I can understand that they want to make sure that people don't steal their rightful property, but suing for hundreds of thousands of dollars does not seem like a good solution. A girl downloads some Disney music and suddenly she is a criminal! Instead of attacking their market base, couldn't companies just help teach children that this shouldn't be done? That would solve at least some of the problems.

On the flip side companies do have every right to fight to keep their property and the money that comes from that! People who illegally download and distribute (and not like with a mixed CD, but as in burning many copies of the same CD and giving them away) music, games and movies, should have federal action taken against them, and they will probably always loss, but it shouldn't be such crazy amounts; amounts like these can drastically ruin a persons life.

Everything has two sides, the world is a coin and we must always understand that, though we might not see the other side, it is there and life can turn to favor it. Use common sense and don't do something that you know is wrong and stupid, unless you want to ruin your life by being sued for everything you own. On this issue I can't say if I am for one side over the other, I think I will have to be Switzerland, and be somewhere in the middle, neutral territory.


Welcome to Reality... by Nicole McCarter is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at nmccarter.blogspot.com.

My Trinity Network Diagram

Today we took a tour of the Trinty Server Room on the first floor of Halsell. It was a very eyeopening experence because though I know a bit about how to work a computer I never knew the extent that one had to go through to make a network of computers. I can safely say that I will not be mocking my brother anymore about his love of computer, this tiny look into how everything works together has facinated me! There was only one down side to this adventure into the Sanctum of the Trinty Network, when Mr.Jared Pack opened the floor pannel to show that we were standing on a raised floor, I got some dust/dirt in my mouth and it definatly did not taste very nice.

Top Tech Tip

Today Joe Hatch came into class to talk to us about computers and how they function and all of the little things that can go wrong and how to make your computer better. Most of what we went over I had already knew about, do to my brother and his Computer Science background, but I did learn some interesting things about the Trinity network that I didn't already know. I have had some problems with connecting and using my personal computer on the Trinity Secure Network, and I have never known exactly where to go to get help for this problem, which no one seems to understand. I was ecstatic to learn where to find the Student Computer Support in Winn 103. I plan to make a trip there tomorrow after my class to see if they can figure out and fix whatever is wrong with Emmy (my computer, yes I did name it), so that I can FINALLY get onto a secure network and have better internet access!

On the Hunt

For today's class homework I had to look through my class member's blogs, read them to find their secret fact, and post at least two comments. I was very interested to learn about the people that sit around me, since you don't usually get an opportunity to really get to know anyone that you have a class with, how could you when you only spend a semester together. I commented on Rory Davidson's blog, at http://rorydavidson.blogspot.com/, and Zia Lunden's blog, at http://zlunden.blogspot.com/. I can't wait to see what other interesting tidbits I can learn about my class mates in the weeks to come!

All you will ever need to know about Nicole

Hello! My name is Nicole McCarter and I am from Katy, Texas. I attended Katy High School, where I was a member of six clubs: NHS, History Club, Book Club, Creative Writing Club, Speech and Debate, and Best Buddies. I love to read any book that I can get my hands on, watching the Disney Channel and hanging out with my family and friends. My father is a retired oilfield technician and my mother is an Oncology nurse. I have two older brothers, both juniors in college, one goes to the University of Texas at Dallas for a Communication Technology and Electrical Engineering double major, and the other goes to the University of Texas at Austin and he hasn't exactly decided what he is going to major in. I plan to either double major in Classics and English or double major in Classics and History. Since I am only in my first year at Trinity University I haven't gotten into too many campus activities but I would like to get into a few public service clubs.

I took a business oriented computer class in my junior year of high school and I remember a good deal, however most of it has been forgotten because I didn't use it everyday. Beyond using the everyday Word, PowerPoint and internet I have no experience using computer, my brother usually works things out for me if I ever have a problem.

P.S. Because of my love of books I have accumulated a library of more than 500 fiction novels, most of which I haven't read.

You may email me here