Thursday, November 13, 2008
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Sears Bad Ad Show
In my Essential Computer Skills class, each student was assigned a "Bad Ad" from the phonebook and asked to redesign it using Photoshop Elements. Whether an ad is considered "good" or "bad" is dictated by these four design principles:
Proximity- the closeness and organization of information related to each other
Alignment- the order of information in straight lines in order to create a neat, organized appearance
Repetition- the reproduction of themes throughout an ad
Contrast- creating variations in design to emphasize importance
The show I have created illustrates how I used each of these principles to improve the original ad. I encourage you to watch the show and leave me feedback or suggestions for improvement by commenting on this blog post.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Website Analysis
The Delugan Meissl Associated Architects website is very creatively constructed and appropriate for the subject of the page but is unnecessarily complicated. First of all, finding out information about the company itself was extremely difficult and I was entirely unsuccessful in that endeavor. I have no idea what the purpose of the site is, who created it, what Delugan Meissl Associated Architects is, where they're located, and furthermore have no idea how to go about locating that information. The home page consists of black and gray rectangles placed in a stagger, all varying in size, some with pictures, some without, some moving and some stationary. When you scroll over each link with the mouse, a small, vague, obscurely placed description appears in the top right corner of the page. What was even more disappointing was that clicking on the link did little to relieve my confusion. I was merely presented with more unlabeled shapes to decipher.
I can't even say for sure whether this website was legitimate or not. The lack of information about the company coupled with the uncommon URL (.php) and lack of advertising make the reliability of the site questionable. From what I could find, there are no dates indicating when the site was created or last updated, no links to other related pages, and no contact information. While my exploration of the page produced none of these things, that does not necessarily mean they were not there somewhere. It is very likely that they were, but the organization and accessablility of the page was too difficult and complex to know for sure. Though the site was impressive in its design and the information seemed pertinent to the subject, the layout and organization of the page made the clarity and use of that information almost impossible.
I can't even say for sure whether this website was legitimate or not. The lack of information about the company coupled with the uncommon URL (.php) and lack of advertising make the reliability of the site questionable. From what I could find, there are no dates indicating when the site was created or last updated, no links to other related pages, and no contact information. While my exploration of the page produced none of these things, that does not necessarily mean they were not there somewhere. It is very likely that they were, but the organization and accessablility of the page was too difficult and complex to know for sure. Though the site was impressive in its design and the information seemed pertinent to the subject, the layout and organization of the page made the clarity and use of that information almost impossible.
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Fair Use
Under the fair use rule, an author may use copyrighted material without paying royalties under certain conditions. These conditions include using an excerpt or quote from a work when writing a critique or review, new reporting, using a quote or passage for a scholarly arcticle or scientific work in order to clarify the author's point, photocopying portions of a work for nonprofit educational purposes, and parodies. The copyright act also specifies four factors used in determining whether or not a work is considered fair use:
1)the character of the use, for example, whether or not the work will be used for commercial or nonprofit use
2)the nature of the copyrighted work: published or unpublished, fiction or nonfiction, etc.
3)the amount and importance of a piece of copied work in relation to the whole work
4)the effect of the use on the market or value of the work
Open Access is the idea that research should be available to anyone via the Internet at no cost, immediately after publication. Many large-scale publishers object to this idea because the costs of subscriptions help to fund their companies. In addition, many commercial journal publishers argue that Open Access is government interference and a threat to peer review. Some even argue that there is no need for anyone outside of major academic institutions to have access to their research. This is highly inaccurate. Anyone interested in finding out more about a scientific issue can make good use of these articles.
The high cost of subscribing to these articles and the difficulty of obtaining them are both inconveniences that can be avoided with Open Access. Promoters of the idea include students (myself included), librarians, and universities. Open Access is capable of saving universities millions of dollars a year by granting access to those same journals online for free. Authors of the articles and journals are also benefitted by this principle. Making their work available to more readers will increase recognition and allow their works to make a bigger impact on the academic world.
1)the character of the use, for example, whether or not the work will be used for commercial or nonprofit use
2)the nature of the copyrighted work: published or unpublished, fiction or nonfiction, etc.
3)the amount and importance of a piece of copied work in relation to the whole work
4)the effect of the use on the market or value of the work
Open Access is the idea that research should be available to anyone via the Internet at no cost, immediately after publication. Many large-scale publishers object to this idea because the costs of subscriptions help to fund their companies. In addition, many commercial journal publishers argue that Open Access is government interference and a threat to peer review. Some even argue that there is no need for anyone outside of major academic institutions to have access to their research. This is highly inaccurate. Anyone interested in finding out more about a scientific issue can make good use of these articles.
The high cost of subscribing to these articles and the difficulty of obtaining them are both inconveniences that can be avoided with Open Access. Promoters of the idea include students (myself included), librarians, and universities. Open Access is capable of saving universities millions of dollars a year by granting access to those same journals online for free. Authors of the articles and journals are also benefitted by this principle. Making their work available to more readers will increase recognition and allow their works to make a bigger impact on the academic world.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Trinity: A Wireless Campus
My experience with the wireless network here at Trinity has been mostly nonexistent. My laptop mainly stays in my room where I use it to type my papers, check TLEARN and Blackboard for upcoming assignments or notes, and to email my professors or boss about questions and whatnot. Although, as my workload is becoming increasingly heavier, I finding it increasingly harder to do my homework in my room. I am sure that eventually I will find myself using the wireless network in the library like the majority of students here at Trinity do.
In this blog by Naval Ravikant, the author discusses how Dartmouth was one of the first wireless networks in America. He goes on to talk about the technical side of having a campus-wide wireless network and also all of the different uses for it. These conveniences include faster searches on the internet, faster email, and mobile internet access.
In this blog by Naval Ravikant, the author discusses how Dartmouth was one of the first wireless networks in America. He goes on to talk about the technical side of having a campus-wide wireless network and also all of the different uses for it. These conveniences include faster searches on the internet, faster email, and mobile internet access.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Assignment 01: Interests, Secrets, and Computers
My computer experience is pretty limited. The last time I took a computer class was my sophomore year of high school so I have a lot to learn. I have used Power Point quite frequently and I have a little experience in Excel. Of course I am most familiar with Word. Hopefully this class can improve my understanding and comfort level with these programs so I can use them to my advantage in other classes and in my life in general.
A secret fact about me, and I will probably regret revealing this later, is that I was voted Prom Queen at my high school prom! I'm pretty sure it was some kind of mean joke. No offense to any other prom kings or queens out there...
My academic interests include religion, philosophy, psychology, and just people in general. I was also on the swim team at my high school for six years and I am taking a swimming course this semester. I did consider joining the swim team here at Trinity but decided that I wanted to have a life while I'm in college...
I live in Athens, Texas which is a small town of about 12,000 in East Texas. Because Athens is a retirement community, my friends and I learned to be creative with entertaining ourselves. When we really wanted something fun to do we would drive to Tyler, which is about half an hour away, or even Dallas which is an hour and a half away. While Athens isn't the most "happenin'" place around, I sure do have some fond memories of those times playing Marco Polo and Hide and Seek in Wal Mart.
A secret fact about me, and I will probably regret revealing this later, is that I was voted Prom Queen at my high school prom! I'm pretty sure it was some kind of mean joke. No offense to any other prom kings or queens out there...
My academic interests include religion, philosophy, psychology, and just people in general. I was also on the swim team at my high school for six years and I am taking a swimming course this semester. I did consider joining the swim team here at Trinity but decided that I wanted to have a life while I'm in college...
I live in Athens, Texas which is a small town of about 12,000 in East Texas. Because Athens is a retirement community, my friends and I learned to be creative with entertaining ourselves. When we really wanted something fun to do we would drive to Tyler, which is about half an hour away, or even Dallas which is an hour and a half away. While Athens isn't the most "happenin'" place around, I sure do have some fond memories of those times playing Marco Polo and Hide and Seek in Wal Mart.
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