Viruses???

My experience with viruses… so far I don’t really have any experience with viruses. Up until about 4 months ago, my computer usage was slim to none. I did everything by hand, projects, art work, anything that I needed to do. I guess next week were going to intentionally load some viruses on our computers to see what happens and figure out how to fix it. I know eventually I’ll get some kind of virus or something that I will need to fix myself. Intentionally giving my computer a virus isn’t going to teach me how to fix everything, but it will help the fear of the unknown. I guess I did have viruses on my laptop before, but I never dealt with it until recently. One of my friends fixed it for me, so I don’t really feel like that was an “experience”. Since I never used the laptop to begin with it didn’t really make any difference to me, or change my daily routine when I couldn’t use it. Things are changing for me though, I can’t imagine not using my computer now that it’s fixed and working. I’ve gone from almost nothing, or never sitting in front of the computer, to doing projects and creating things that never in a million years thought that I would be able to do. So the next step is going to be to learn how to fix the things that go wrong.

Picasa

Picasa…through Picasa you can find, edit, and share your photos. We had to go out and take some pictures of ourselves and post them as a gadget on our blog. To do that you have to go through Picasa and post them that way, following all the steps. It took me a while, but I think I finally figured it out. I couldn’t figure out the part where you can delete the bad pictures, so they all went through. It’s a work in progress. It’s wouldn’t be the first bad picture of me. LOL. There are still some kinks to iron out, but for the most part it’s not so bad. Now we have to create another gadget for out BOC that shows pictures of our life. Just pictures of what we do every day, like work, and school. I had help with this stuff in class because we worked in groups this time. Hopefully I can do this on my own at home. It’s also possible with Picasa to take pictures with your phone and download them directly to the internet, so they can be posted. You can use it to make photo collages or create a gadget to post on your blog. Picasa also lets you edit your photos with all the options that the system gives you. I can’t see myself using it, other than to do an assignment in class, but you never know. It never hurts to know how to do it.

Twitter... a waste of time!

Twitter is a service that allows people to stay connected and communicate quickly. Twitter is a free social networking service that allows its users to send and receive other users’ updates. An update is called a tweet, which is a text-based post of up to 140 characters. Tweets are displayed on the users profile page and delivered to other users who have subscribed to them. If you set up your own account, you can allow anyone to access your tweets or you can restrict it to just those people in your circle of friends. Users can use Twitter on the Twitter website, or just use their cell phone.
Right now Twitter is still free to use over the Internet. I’ve never used Twitter, and I think it’s just a waste of time. I don’t see a point in reading what people are writing about every minute. There is no way of knowing if anything that is written, or tweeted, is actually true. I personally don’t care what other people are doing, and I don’t see any point in reading anyone’s Tweet. Is there really any benefit to sitting in front of the computer, or stuck to your cell phone reading about someone else’s live when you have your own? I can’t see myself ever signing up to use Twitter; I have my own life to worry about. If someone is really interested in what I’m doing, then they should just ask!

New Stuff

Things that I would like to cover that are not in the book… I’m not really sure what to ask about, because I'm not sure what I’m missing. I don’t know what I don’t know. Photoshop and Lightroom are good programs that I would like to learn more about. I know how the basics work, but I’m not completely comfortable with them yet. Those are some of the things that Ill use throughout school and my career.
It would be nice to use my I Pod. I haven’t even put music or anything on it yet. If I could get some help with that, it would be nice. I think I’ve already learned so much in the class, more than I ever thought I would. All of those things I would have never thought to ask about. Just sitting in front of the computer for four hours at a time is like a crash course in computer skills. So I’m not really sure what it is that I would like to cover that’s not in the book. I like what we’ve done so far, and I’m sure the next few weeks will be just as good.