Websites

Everyone did a very good job on creating their websites. They were all very creative and interesting and fun to look at. I especially liked Emmalee Bannon's, Ashley Gabbert's and Katie Kies' websites. Their websites stood out to me because they were very unique. Ashley's was very artistic and I liked how she scanned in items to create her imagemap. Emmalee's was very different than all the other websites because her website was not about her.
Visit my website at http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~dkeith1.

For The New CS Students

Computer Skills is a very interesting class. I learned many things about different computer programs that I did not know before. I really enjoyed learning about creating websites and working with photoshop. I recommend to not procrastinate on your homework and pay attention in class.

HTML Code vs. Expression Web

Before the development of sophisticated web-authoring software such as Expression Web amd Dreamweaver, web designers created websites by using their own knowledge of HTML code. Because of the development of these softwares, many web designers no longer possess knowledge of creating websites on their own. It is important to continue to have knowledge of HTML codes in order to have a form of control over your creation. If a web-suthoring software does not include a feature you want to include in you website and you have knowledge of HTML code, you can incorporate any feature you like. You also can make your website more unique.

Power Point Presentations

Everyone did a very good job on creating interesting and unique presentations. It was very hard to choose my two favorite presentations. Out of all of them, I believe Ashley Snow's presentation on "The Taste of France" and Cristina Rodriguez's presentation on the musical "The Lion King" impressed me the most. Ashley's presentation was very interesting, including appropriate backgrounds, fonts, and color themes, along with pictures and a map of France. She also an animation of a wine bottle which was really cool. I believe Cristina's presentation got everybody's attention. Along with excellent pictures, she used a video clip of the musical "The Lion King" which included sound and alot of movement. Cristina was very enthusiastic about her topic and she knew her stuff. I was very impressed by all the presentations and the topics people chose.

Finding High Quality Information on the Web

I learned a lot of valuable information and interesting facts during Chris Nolan's presentation on finding high quality information on the Web. Being the Assistant University Librarian, Chris Nolan is very knowledgeable about finding proper sourced of information on the internet. One very interesting fact that I learned is that Google.com is the most commonly used search engine on the internet, being use by 59.8% of the population. Other search engines such as Yahoo.com are used by 21.3% or less. Unlike Yahoo and other search engines, Google ranks things on how often other sites link to sites. Google is an excellent search engine which provides many resources to help you find what you are searching for. Some examples include which provides users full version books that can be read online, and , a sub-site of Google which picks out more scholarly sites. Unfortunately, popular sites are linked and appear more often on search engines than scholarly sites.
There are various other sites on the internet which can serve as reliable resources. Every website on the internet is created for a particular purpose. Websites ending in '.org' are run by non-profit organizations. Those that end in '.gov' are federal government sites, and those that end in '.com' are commercial sites. On Google, you can limit the type of site you are searching for by using that advance search.Also, titles that match with the keywords you are searching for appear first in the results list, in addition to how often the keywords appear in a site. Because words which occur in a phrase are ranked higher on search engines, it is not necessary to include words such as "and" or "on" are not necessary to include in a search box.

Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007

Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007 is tool which helps display information through slide show presentations. Because PowerPoint is such an easy tool to use and offers a variety of multiple options for design, it is very easy to take all the tools for granted and make a very bad slide show. An example of this is using excessive sounds and animations throughout a PowerPoint presentation. Also, the use of uncoordinated color schemes and unnecessary text makes a slide show seem overwhelming. I believe there are 5 important guidelines:
1. Limit text
2. Use appropriate fonts and colors.
3. Limit sounds and animations
4. Use higher quality graphics
5. Keep it simple
In order to gain better knowledge of "Do's and Dont's" for Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007, I read the articles "Top Ten Slide Tips" and "Really Bad Power Point - and How to Avoid It". These two articles summarize the important guidelines to create a successful and well created slide show. I found these articles to be very helpful and informing so I can create better PowerPoint Presentations in the future.

Excel

I have learned a lot of useful information about Excel that I can use academically and later in life at work. I learned some excel skills in high school in a mandatory computer class, but I had forgotten most of what I had learned. Before I took Ms. Belisle's computer skills class, I had very minimal knowledge of Excel. Now, I know how to function Excel properly, such as inputting functions and changing layouts.
Excel is a very useful tool when it comes to creating and formatting spreadsheets. I have already started using Excel on a daily basis to help me organize my money balance. It has helped me watch how much money I spend and calculate how much money I have total. I also use Excel to organize my grades and figure out what my overall grade is for certain classes. In the future when I have a job, I plan to use it to keep track of business records and spending. In addition, having a good knowledge of Excel always looks good on a resume.
I am very grateful of how much I have learned about Excel and look forward to learning how to use Photoshop and all it offers.