Final Blog Entry

My experience in this class has been educating to say the least. This quarter we covered many different areas of both the MAC and the PC computers. I found this class very helpful when it came to learning on the MAC’s. Honestly before this class I didn’t have much experience on them. I also learned many new programs on the PC that I don’t normally use, such as, publisher and excel. Now that this class is basically to an end, I feel very accomplished with everything we have done. I must say we did a lot of work in this class. I think that at the time I felt like it was possibly too much. Today, however, I see that overall I am walking away knowing how to understand and operate the MAC and PC computers
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In this class I believe that I was a hard worker. I wasn’t absent once nor tardy. I did all of my assignments to the full potential that I could. Also, I turned them in on time! I worked through the chapters when asked and looked back over them for the midterm. When we were asked to work in groups I tried very hard to keep the group on task yet having fun. Overall, I’d say I worked very hard to receive the grade that I have gotten so far, which is an “A”, and I intend to keep it that way.

“Lefty’s” Right Hand (Wo)Man Action Agenda

1. Exchange contact information.
2. Get mafia, dame costumes. (Nick and Coriandra)
3. Get police costume photo-shopped. (Freddie)
4. Take pictures of crime scene. (Coriandra, Freddie and Nick)
5. Get clip of car explosion from the movie “Casino”. (Freddie)
6. Obtain/create music for slideshow. (Nick)
7. Gather news articles and information about the crime, and insert them using Publisher. (Coriandra, Nick and Freddie)
8. Accumulate random pictures for “filler” during the slideshow. (Coriandra)
9. Insert Excel spreadsheet on crime scene data. (Coriandra, Freddie and Nick)
10. Assemble slideshow. (Coriandra, Freddie and Nick)

Inside A Donut

My experience with YouTube has probably been limited to what it can do. If I am ever on YouTube I am searching for lyrics, music videos, dance videos, TV and movies. In the past, I have added my own videos just to see how YouTube works. Setting up an account is simple. But as far as using it goes I just save my favorites.

YouTube has definitely become a normal conversation in my life. It’s always, “well let’s post it to YouTube” or” have you seen that video of ‘such and such’ on YouTube?” The most ridiculous videos are able to be found on YouTube. It seems the more stupid they are the more popular they are just because stupidity is apparently funny.

In my experience YouTube is also a good way to get whatever your skill is out there. I know a lot of dancers that put up their videos to get noticed by the celebrity choreographers. In many cases, I have seen this work out well for them. It is also a good memory for whom ever in the long run. I’m sure it is the same for people who want to become a singer, musician, photographer, and of course becoming a film maker.

Viruses

I have had many experiences with viruses and the computer. My most recent encounter with a virus was this last Christmas. At least it had the good timing to come right after I finished finals. I am not exactly sure what I opened that gave my computer the virus, however, this particular virus infected my hard drive and rendered it useless. A trip to Best Buy and the attention of the Geek Squad gave me a false hope that maybe it could be repaired. Ultimately, the bad news came that my computer was dead, fried, and never to be operational again. It took a long time for this diagnosis. I could have used that time to find a good deal on a new computer. At least they were able to go in and save my pictures. I depend on my computer for school. The idea that there are people out there who think it is fun to create viruses or that it is entertaining to create distress for others makes me furious. The people who do this should be caught, arrested, and have to pay people back for what they have done. I ended up having to get a new computer. The only positive thing about this experience is that I now am the proud owner of a new limited edition, pink Sony Vaio!

Picasa 3

Today was a nice change from sitting in class and working on the computers. It was nice being able to walk around and take creative pictures of my group and myself. We came up with some other interesting ideas but the necessities were not there for us. After a while though, we were running out of ideas. The location we were in is relatively the same landscape.

Now thinking back on our journey, I realize there was a pattern. We all switched off thinking of ideas. All the ideas we each thought of didn’t end up being a picture for us. It ended up being a picture for someone else in the group who would look funny or all around better doing it. We also noticed we were taking turns using the camera to take a picture of someone.

Over all the pictures we took today, I do have a favorite and it wasn’t mine. Walking back we all saw a man working on the lawn and other landscape. We thought of how cool it would be to take a picture with the lawn blower on. So we had Carlos go ask him if he could borrow it for a picture. He was really nice and thought it was funny so he let Carlos wear it. Now we have an amazing picture of Carlos wearing his lawn blower.

When we got back we were to choose our favorite six. I’m very indecisive but I broke down and picked what I thought was the best. The uploading, on the other hand, was a little complicated at first. Once I started to explore for a couple of minutes, I had to ask for help. I was then shown how it was done and it really was a piece of cake! I really enjoyed this assignment.

Twitter

I think Twitter is in a way ridiculous. All you do is tell people where you are and what you are doing. I believe that Twitter can up the percentage of stalkers. Stalking basically has its own section but is labeled followers. To me Twitter is unsafe. Twitter can cause immediate drama and put people in an uncomfortable position. An example is the Chris Angel Show Believe. During the show Perez Hilton sent a “Tweet” to his Twitter talking bad about the show and Chris Angel came out on stage and called him out. Now Cirque is apologizing for the incident. If there was not Twittering, with a bunch of stalkers, there would not have been a temptation to run out on stage and say something.

The only good thing about Twitter is that information gets out fast. If you need it out there and you have a good amount of followers, then it will take about ten seconds for people to hear the information. For example Twitter is good for job hunting. Many Jobs will post not only in the paper or on their windows a now hiring sign, but they will post it on Twitter as well. This is good for them because it gets their business out there. It is also nice for the person searching for a job because it is quick and easy.

Learing Objectives

After reviewing the textbook, I have come to find that all of the computer applications are very well represented. I have a PC at home, so I am fairly well informed of how my computer and the functions work. As an interior design major, my computer is going to be important to me in certain areas of my profession. Interior design is a very visual occupation. I know that I will be making a great number of presentations in my day to day work life. I look forward to learning how to use Power Point to create professional presentations. I am hoping to learn more about interactive internet research so that I can provide a broad range of resource materials for my design presentations. In today’s world, it is expected that everything you need or want to know is available at the push of a button or mouse. If a client asks me for price comparisons or availability of a certain material, I want to be able to provide it – real time.

Time is the other thing I hope to learn to manage well. The Outlook application is a very valuable calendaring program. It is widely used by professionals in today’s professional community. I think that Outlook has the ability to do so much more than just keep track of your day to day appointments. I would really like to learn how to use Outlook to not only manage my time but also to contact my clients and track specific design jobs. If there are other aspects of Outlook, which may also help me, I would like to learn about them as well. My laptop computer means everything to me (I would be lost without it). I hope that by the end of this course I will have learned many more ways to use it to its full advantage.