Final Blog!!!

Final Blog entry… I really liked this class a lot more than I thought I was going to. It was hard work but the way it was layed out made it easy to follow along and learn the things that we needed to. After this I defiantly feel so much more capable of taking on computer projects and just using the computer daily for everything. For my final project I was in the "Off The Wall" group. I don’t think everyone in my group equally shared the responsibility of the project. Some people (me) did a lot more work than other people. Well I’m just glad it’s over and I think it came out really well. If I learned anything from that it’s just that I still don’t like working in groups, I’d rather do it by myself. Our project was about a Las Vegas kidnapping. I think deserve an A for this class. I’ve been here every day, on time and ready with my assignments. I got an A on my midterm and I should get an A on my final as well. So I think that I should receive an A for this class. I didn’t think I was going to be able to do it when I started 11 weeks ago, but I surprised myself.

Final Project

Action Agenda for team… Off the Wall
For tomorrow at 4pm
Natasha: Take a minimum of 10 pictures, excel spreadsheet, chart
Priscilla: two 15 second videos, script written out
Sean: get different audio files and sound files ready
Ryan: get some garage band files ready
Well meet tomorrow in the computer lab, put together everything that we have so far and figure out what we need to do next. That way we can have our final project ready to go first thing on week 11.

You tube

You tube… We had to record a short video of ourselves and post it in our blog. First we had to sign up to get a you tube account. I really don’t like being in front of the camera so this was a little uncomfortable, but I survived. I had to record myself on my cell phone and send it to you tube, and from there post it into my blog. YouTube has many ways to help you find and watch videos. You can also interact with other YouTube users and around shared interests. If you make videos, you can broadcast them to the whole world, and maybe even develop an audience for your creations. I didn’t know how easy it was until I actually did it myself. If I can do this then anyone can!

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.