CS 1300 Advice

The 2 main pieces of advice I would like to give students entering the course is to attend class and complete assignments! Along with studying for exams and comprehending the material, every student should have the capabilty of getting an awesome grade in the course! Professor Belisle is such a wonderful instructor, which makes the class even have a more positive experience! Good luck!

Favorite Student Websites

My three favorite website were Teka's, Alexa's, and Bri's.

I really liked Teka's website because of how creative she was in constructing it. I really liked her navigation bar and the overall background schemes she used.

I liked Alexa's website because of her home page. I thought the puzzle pieces and her picture were cute!

Bri's photographs on her website were really cool, especially all her traveling pics. I liked the colors and background she used for all her pages.

My website

Please visit my website at www.cs.trinity.edu/~sgonzal6

Making the site was easier than I thought. I used Expression web for the website. I am most proud of my pictures page because of how much it means to me. My biggest technical challenge was the resizing of things. I will mainly show off my site to friends and family. Yes, I will probably make another website in the future.

Why web designers should know HTML...

I believe web designers should know HTML even if web designing software is available because of the importance of how HTML affects the process of web making. For example, lets say there might be a glitch in the software, if the designer knows HTML, he or she can go back and fix the mistake because they know how HTML works. Web designers should know HTML because of it's entire usefulness in their job. If a web designer didn't know HTML, it would be like a doctor not knowing the human body and just letting the other staff members and machines take care of the patients.

My pic that lies: Party in the USA

For my pictures that lie I decided to go a little over the top. In my altered picture, I included a friendly atmosphere between Barack Obama, Osama bin Laden, and George Bush. This picture shows the 3 men in front of the white house having friendly faces. In the picture Obama is pointing at George Bush, while George Bush is laughing at the entire situation. This is definately a picture that lies because in reality, the situtation would be nothing close to humourous due to the tragic events caused by Bin Laden on September 11, 2001. To a major extreme, this picture correlates to the information in the article I chose because many people might actually believe doctored photos even though they know the truth (Sacchi). In the picture I used the magnetic lasso tool to move all 3 men into the White House back ground. I used the transform tool to make all subjects around the same size. I also used the outer glow tool for Osama, giving him an angelic touch. I used the clone tool to remove some exterior microphones both Bush and Obama had in order to make it seem more realistic. I don't think my image can be harmful because it all boils to having a good laugh from the seriousness. As for the text, I used the title of a popular Miley Cyrus song (Party in the USA), to give the picture an even more humourous value. In conclusion, since I have a brother in Afghanistan fighting for my freedom of speech, I believe I am in all my right to express my feelings over the matter.
Sacchi, Dario L. M., Franca Agnoli, and Elizabeth F. Loftus. "Changing History: Doctored Photographs Affect Memory for Past Public Events." Applied Cognitive Psychology 21.8 (2007): 1005-22. Print.

Powerpoint Guidlines

1.) USE PICTURES! Sometimes many presenter just use text as a mean to show their information. Text is good, but by adding some interesting pictures, many people will pay better attention to the information given.

2.)PICK YOUR FONTS WELL! Some fonts may be too hard to read, others may not fit the structure of your presentation, so pick the font that best suites the powerpoint presentation.

3.)PRESENT INFO IN SMALL SEGMENTS! A large quantity of information in one slide may be overwhelming for the audience, therefore separating the information into smaller section will be helpful for learning purposes.

4.)PICK BACKGROUNDS WELL! For a professional presentation, more subtle colors are appropriate while for a "fun"/less professional presentation any color would be suitable.

5.)POWERPOINT SHOULD BE USED TO SUMMARIZE INFORMATION! I hate when presenters read every single word off the slides in their presentations. I might as well just print out your presentation and read it in order to get the information. Powerpoints should be used to highlight the important stuff, the speaker should go off of what the main points are.

My Photoshop image

This combination of the cross, my bunny, and the alcatraz flower symbolize a spiritual unity among nature.

Chris Nolan

Chris Nolan, assistant university librarian at Trinity, presented to our class on different types of search engines, how to search topics effectively, and how to distinguish between credible web sources and the not so credible ones. As far as search engine statistics, between 72%-65% of Internet users prefer using the Google search engine as compared to other search engines. I learned about how Google ranks several pages according to web page hits, credibility, and the general search topic. I also learned about the vast amount of search options Google has to offer that range from language preference to search results from certain types of websites (com, gov, edu, etc). Something quite useful I learned and that I will definitely apply to future research assignments is the convenience of using a directory versus a typical search engine. All in all, Chris Nolan’s presentation was interesting and applicable on how to research topics at a college level.

Pictures that Lie

I choose the picture of the University of Wisconsin's application front page, which was digitally altered by aggregating a 1994 picture of an African-American student into a 1993 football game picture. In my opinion, if you have to digitally enhance A PICTURE advertising diversity on your campus, then you have no business attributing such credit to your University. I saw this picture as "false advertisement" in the sense that minority students may actually believe there is diversity at the University of Wisconsin and when they actually get there, their surroundings may be entirely different than from what was depicted in the University's advertisements. I think manipulations such as this are very harmful because I know for a fact if I choose a school for an attribution it didn't really have, I would feel cheated out of a diverse education I was looking for.

CLT Visit

I honestly had no idea Trinity University had the CLT center even though I come quite often to the first floor to study. As a matter of fact, I always have to check out a laptop if I want to finish some assignments on the first floor, but now I know the convenience CLT has to offer. I really like how everything is set up at CLT. For example, there are so many useful resources like media rooms, scanners, computers, and an extremely friendly staff. Why wasn’t I aware of this place before? CLT also offers a quiet studying environment unlike the other computer floors in the library. I will most definitely be coming more often to the digital media center once we start working on Photoshop and digital imaging.

Copyright and Creative Commons

The main take home point I took from Jason Hardin’s presentation to the class was how important copyright is and how serious the consequences may be if you decide to partake in a copyright infringement. A copyright infringement is a crime and with fines up to $10,000 per song; it is definitely something not worth trying to mess around with. I understand that the entertainment industry is only trying to obtain their money’s worth, but are fines that extensive really necessary to college students. I understand that when you download a music or movies without paying for them then it might as well be stealing, but how are you going to charge mere college students about a quarter million dollars for 1 CD they downloaded? I think the penalties should be implemented, but not to the ridiculously drastic measures they are taken to now a days.




Copyright and Creative Commons by Samantha Gonzalez is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.

My Trinity Network Diagram

I thought our tour of downstairs Halsell to all the servers was pretty awesome. I feel kind of special being part of the 1% Trinity population who has had the opportunity to see the behind the scene's on what goes on with the network. My favorite part of making my diagram was editing the several photos I used. I can't wait until we start playing with Photoshop!

Top Tech Tip

My top tech tip from Joe Hatch that I have already used on my personal computer was downloading the CCleaner. Mr. Hatch was explaining that PC's can store several unnecessary files from the Internet that can slow down a computer. I will be running the CCleaner tonight before I go to bed because it might take a couple of hours.

My introduction

Hello, my name is Samantha Gonzalez and I was born and raised in San Antonio, Texas. Other nicknames I go by are Sam, Sammy, or SWeezy (due to my obsession with the best rapper alive Lil Wayne) but Samantha is just as fine.

I attended a college prep program for low-income high school students called Upward Bound here at Trinity since my freshman year in high school so I'm quite acquainted with Trinity. Trinity not only offered me the best financial aid package but I always knew I would end up here for college. I'm still undecided on a Biology or Psychology major, but I do plan on going pre-med. My goal in life is to become an OB/GYN and give back to the community by serving the underprivileged females of the San Antonio area.

My home is about 10 minutes away from campus, which I think is very nice since my family plays a substantial role in my life. My family includes both of my parents and 2 older brothers. Both my brothers are enlisted in active duty for the U.S. Army. My eldest brother is stationed here at Ft. Sam Houston while my other brother is currently deployed in Afghanistan. I look up to both of my brothers because they are the epitome of what it is to be strong. Both of them have had 2 Operation Enduring Freedom tours over the last 3 years and I am very proud of them for that.

My hobbies include hanging out with friends, cruising around the city, dancing at the clubs, watching the San Antonio Spurs or the Dallas Cowboys play, and basically enjoying my life. I am currently involved with Black Student Union, Intermurals, and Intervarsity.

I would like to say my computer background is fairly decent. I can manage around the basic programs like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and some photoshop. I look forward to learning even more with computers and different programs throughout the semester.

Scavenger Hunt Secret: I am deathly afraid of cockroaches.

For any questions or concerns feel free to email me at sgonzal6@trinity.edu.