My advice...

Drink your coffee in the morning

Pay attention during class

Do you work without forlorning

An A you will get fast.

The christening of the websites...

For many of us, it was the first time we have ever constructed and published our own personal website. Considering this, there were a few very well crafted websites that were particularly good despite of the inexperience of our class at website making. I really enjoyed Jordan's website; it was simple and vivid and definitely something I can relate to with all of the beautiful pictures. I especially liked the picture of the waterfall on the San Juan Islands. Jeff's blog was also interesting; the black background served as a good contrasting color to just about everything and he also did a great job on his resume. I loved Roxi's website. The background pictures were particularly artistic and she did a very good job at linking and presenting her website in a "user friendly" manner.





Please visit my website and perhaps you will be sold. http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~jcampbe3/

The beauty of success!

The Colorful World of Power Point Presentations...

Despite having several favorites in our class PowerPoint presentations I epically enjoyed Jessica's, Luisa's, and Emily's. All three of their presentations were fascinating to me because they employed an effective use of visuals. Their presentations also contained concise and purposeful points that were effectively used as a reference for the audience. I believe that these presentations were effective because I already had some preexisting interest in the subjects. I am fascinated with history, ancient culture, and mythology and I it was also one of my dreams to open a wine vineyard in Tuscany or California. Furthermore, I have been keeping track of the drug wars that have been going on in Mexico and only wish for the violence to stop and the government to succeed. The speakers also lectured with confidence and made the material understandable. Finally, the genuinely of the speakers added a hint of emotional fondness to their presentation which made them fun and interesting to me.

Great job lady's bravo, bravo!

Pointers for Power Point...

Though the articles on PowerPoint were helpful, I found them quite demanding. For example, one said that there should be "no more than 6 words no a slide EVER!" I find this quite a spectacular demand but it makes a good point, PowerPoint's shouldn't reflect mass amounts of information but should be short, sweet, illustrative, and to the point; leave the details to an essay or report if necessary. Much like the authors of these articles, I find that PowerPoint's that are long paragraphs of text are boring and put me to sleep. Furthermore, the one thing I can't stand about presentations is if a presenter just reads of their slide, don't include pictures in their presentation, or put annoying "generic" Microsoft sounds on their presentation. Five Power Point pointers I could give to all you readers out there as well as my classmates is:

1) Don't read from your slides! If there is a picture being displayed and you want to point something out then that's fine but NEVER read from your slides.

2) Make your presentation original. Generic templates are boring, mix up the design of your presentation a bit but keep it professional.

3) Visuals are important, text is not. Stimulate the mind of your audience with high resolution pictures and relevant video not boring paragraphs.

4) If you must have text stick to the point. You must be direct with your text in the light that it should be short and sweet.

5)Don't have to many slides. To many times I've seen people change slides every fifteen seconds in order to keep pace with their dialogue; this is not only a distraction to the audience it doesn't allow them to truly take in a visual if it is on display. Furthermore, changing slides that often is not what you need to be doing during the presentation (orating takes precedence).


Simplicity is golden!

An experience with Excel...

Microsoft Excel was a mystery to me before this class, even though it turned out that I knew more and could do more with Excel than I originally thought I could I was still "in the dark." Then of course Ms. Belisle showed me the light, after about four or five weeks of tutelage, on this strange spread sheet software. I learned many things about Excel that I could definitely see myself using in the future. Such thing as how to put together absolute and relative cell references in order to compute just about any information (currency conversions, simple/complex calculations) with relative ease, how to "freeze" the spread sheet so you could browse large amounts of information, and how to make the spread sheet presentable by adding color, refined title founts, and other smooth looking attributes. All of these things previously listed I could see my self continually using (especially the equations and color formatting) for future school projects (perhaps accounting and economics) and other presentations (like any anthropological presentations that require the calculation of demographic data). Excel is extremely useful in the academic and business world because it allows one individual to manage a massive amount of information and make it presentable. I could see Accounting and Financial firms using this software to present data on company profits or company auditing and I could also see the academic world using this as a tool to display a grade distributions at a particular school or university in a presentable way. Even though Excel can seem like a mountain to conquer when you first experience it, once you get to know its intricacies and details it proves to be an invaluable tool to your presentation and data manipulating exploits.

Go from chaos to order in a snap with Microsoft Excel!

CLT, the Technological Bastion...

CLT or Center for Learning and Technology is truly a place of helpful technologies and services. One may do anything they wish within the confines of this tech concentrated place. CLT possesses the video editing software Vegas Pro which allow a student to edit and cut video any way they wish. This software could be useful for putting together video presentations and short clips with sound bites for classes as well as cutting video for a website. Any student/teacher may check out digital cameras, video recorders, Mp3 players, and laptops. This access to technology is useful to everyone because it allows one to complete digital projects for cl assess and allows the gathering and manipulation of digital data in a useful constructive way, again for class projects or presentations. At CLT's Innovation Studio one may give video or electronic presentations on the massive projector or interactive television screen housed in this area which can be very useful for serving as a meeting place or presentation location for any student or teacher. In CLT's Audio Studio a student may burn CD's, DVD's, as well as record and edit music. This studio could be useful for classes where one needed to present a clip off of a DVD or sample of music for a project. CLT has a wide variety of scanners which enables a student to scan any document onto their computer and even a scanner that converts physical documents into digital PDF files. This feature can be useful for presentations or editing pages of documents and books that you do not own. CLT has a wide range of resources that any student and teacher may draw on and learn from. From this bastion of technology many intellectual fruits will spring.

Fakers and Doctors...

I chose this picture because war, as you know, can be a very sensitive situation and pictures/visuals of war have profoundly impacted public opinion of a war in the past and in the present. This picture originated supposedly from Basra and was featured on the from cover of the Los Angeles times in 2003 during the early stages of the Iraqi invasion. This picture is actually two separate pictures that were doctored to create the appearance of this British soldier signaling this Iraqi civilian and his child to sit down and take cover. Now had I not known that bit of information then I probably would have thought that the Iraqi was carrying his dead child for burial or something to that nature and the soldier was telling the father that he could proceed no further. Apparently a journalist from the Los Angeles times thought that combining these to pics of the soldier and the Iraqi civilians would make a picture of "improved composition." I believe that doctoring pictures is a big journalistic crime that should be punishable by firing or at least a severe pay cut because, as I said in the beginning, pictures like these can have a profound impact on peoples opinion of a war. I believe that photo doctoring, in the sense of altering a picture enough to change its true nature, is a form of visual and journalistic lying and therefor I believe that it is wrong!

Chris Nolan - Search Engine Guru...

Even though I discovered today that I was the one lone Yahoo user I still have the resolve to stick to my old and trusty web surfing "board." Chris Nolan did lecture about a lot of cool Google features that seem very useful and before this lecture I didn't even know they existed. I thought that the feature of how you could type in Definition: and then whatever word you wanted to give you its dictionary meaning was useful, however, I'm still a loyal user of Dictionary.com which does the the exact same thing but gives you a more descriptive definition. The ability of a searcher to use the and's, or's, .edu's, .com's, and .gov's to narrow their search makes google very user friendly and increases the ease at which people may find information. There were two features Chris Nolan went over today that were new and surprising to me. Firstly, I did not know that google had a search feature that allowed you to search for academic articles, journals, and books relevant to whatever you were searching for. Lastly, I thought that the teacher/librarian sponsored web site Infomine seemed incredibly useful and reputable, which can be invaluable when your typing a research paper or any long essay that needs several credible source. Ultimately Chris Nolan's lecture was very useful and enlightening and even though I am not a Google convert yet he restored my faith in the search engine.



Thank you, Chris Nolan.

Enforcer Associations and File Sharing...

I believe that the policing of Peer to Peer file sharing networks by associations such as the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America), and the ESA (Entertainment Software Association) is ineffective and pointless. When one thinks about it why do these companies police the Peer to Peer networks anyways? Well one reason is money, there is a lot of revenue lost every year to the file sharing networks such as Limewire, Bit Torrent, and others. As a result of this many artists, writers, actors, directors, and musicians lose part of their livelihood because people don’t pay for their product. The RIAA, MPAA, and ESA or enforcer associations as I call them tend to focus their policing efforts at the students of colleges and universities which makes sense to some degree, practically everyone I know (including my self), has shared music or other data over the Internet but I believe that the enforcer associations are missing the point. It is not just college kids that are doing the sharing but individuals outside of the school domain that are the main culprits. I believe that it is rather pointless for the enforcer associations to try to police peer to peer file sharing because people will always find a way to circumvent or outsmart the watchful eyes of the enforcers. I believe that the enforcers irrelevancy will increase this year due to the economic crisis because when people are crunched for money they often times look to the Internet to provide them with free entertainment versus paying $5.67 to rent a movie at Blockbuster, 99 Cents for a song off of Itunes, or $50 dollars for a video game at Best Buy. The bottom line is policing the Internet is close to impossible because there will always be the few people that circumvent enforcing and continue to make profits off of file swapping and until the consumers, artists, and corporations reach a fair compromise on online file sharing people will continue to use peer to peer networks and continue to get their music, movies, and games for free.

Meet Mr. Enforcer, he will eat your lunch and then vaporize you with his laser eyes if he catches you file sharing!

Facebook and the Gang...

After reading the article on Facebook, I was not surprised to find that more and more colleges monitor their students in this virtual as compared to the past. I personally do not use Facebook. I do not have an account, which for some reason sparks a burst of surprise and anger from my friends. Why don't you have Facebook they ask? Well, I say in reply, I have MySpace. Then I must prepare my self for a ten minute grumbling of how much better Facebook is than Myspace and why I'm a crazy person for not having it. Eventually, I might get around to setting up an ac account because there appears to be a wide range of social, achedemic, networking, and communication benefits that go along with Facebook. Socially, it is a great place to meet people that you would otherwise probably not meet (sometimes that's a good thing, sometimes a bad thing) and, moreover, it is a great tool to stay in touch with friends because lets face it, it is so much more convenient to spend five minutes reading and replying to your friend in a messaging conversation than it is having to spend an hour on the phone chatting. Don't get me wrong, I love having phone conversations with my friends and family but messaging conversations allow me the convenience of multi-tasking that I would otherwise not have during a phone conversation. Facebook is also a good venue to be used for getting academic help on homework, again, due to the convenience of the messaging conversation. On the flip side Facebook could be used as a covert way to Cheat on papers, exams, and other school homework. The bottom line is that I have not quite evolved to Facebook yet but as soon as I move from the Medieval Era of MySpace and advance to the Modern Era of Facebook I'll give you my true take on the social networking site.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1213/p13s01-legn.html

On Word...

After doing the reading my Microsoft Word skills seem pretty up to date. I've used Microsoft Word ever since my 9th grade year as a Freshman in high school. During the past couple of years I have switched between Microsoft Word and Word Perfect, however, I find Microsoft Word much easier to use. I know many of the basic functions of Word however I would like to learn more about margins and tabs. I would also like to learn more on how to place page numbers along with headers and footers. Outside of that Word is not much of a mystery to me.

So until next time, as these guys would say, Word up!

The Joe Hatch Q and A session...

I learned quite a lot from Mr. Hatch on the usefulness of Clean Access. I never really understood what Clean Access was all about (except a really annoying log in program) until Mr. Hatch explained its uses to us. It is comforting to know that I have one more program on my computer that will protect me from viruses, worms, and all other forms of computer maladies. Plus having a virtual shield around you computer in a network of others maintains the integrity of your privacy and bolsters your computers protection.



Thank you Joe Hatch!

P.S: Check out my comment on Joe Hatch on the class wiki at, http://cs1300.pbwiki.com/Joehatch830

A little bit about me...

My name is Justin Campbell and my hometown is in sleepy Victoria, Texas. My family and I moved to Victoria from Galveston, Texas when I was an energetic toddler of about 2 years old. Victoria is not the biggest town you will ever come across but it is certainly not the smallest. With a population of about 63,000 people, one movie theater, mall, mini-golf course, and bowling alley Victoria provides just enough entertainment to keep the its youth, as well as myself, satisfied. I recently graduated Suma Cum Laud from one of the two high schools in Victoria, Memorial High School, with high honors and grades. During high school and continuing up to present day I play for the football team as well as throw shot put and discus for the track team. Sports and physical activities make up most of the activities I do here at trinity but I do make time for the occasional adventure to downtown San Antonio.

URL address for my hometown: http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=28.812831,-97.004264&z=12&t=h&hl=en

I have a deep passion for world travel as well as foreign cultures and have been to several countries such as the island of Aruba, England, France, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Austria, and my favorites, China and Japan. Trust me, if there was a job that payed an employee six figures just for traveling the world I would be the first to apply. I have always been deeply fascinated with Asian culture so as a result I take every opportunity to travel to East Asia. I traveled to China in 2004 touring several cities such as Xi' an, Guilin, Hong Kong, and Beijing and explored several beautiful monuments and national treasures such as The Great Wall, the Temple of Heaven, the Terracotta Soldiers, and the Forbidden City. This past summer my Dad and I visited Japan for two weeks on a trek that took us through the cities of Tokyo, Kyoto, Kinosaki, and Fujisan. We visited a plethora of old Shinto and Zen temples, the famous Golden Pavilion, and climbed Mt. Fuji. My Dad and I even got the opportunity to stay at a Buddhist temple with a group of monks. This also brings me to the hint for the scavenger hunt which is I climbed Mt. Fuji and the Great Wall of China!

This is a picture of myself eating a meal at the Monks Temple.

As far as computer skills are concerned I've taken a couple of classes in the common uses and functions of computers as well as a keyboarding. I don't posses any spectacular computer hacking skills or any specialized set of computer skills, however, I do posses an strong drive to learn and succeed as well as the determination and work ethic to handle any class here at Trinity. I believe that this computer skills class will not only extend my comprehension of computer software, Internet utilities, and other helpful computer functions but will ultimately serve me for the rest of my life.

Thanks for reading, Justin Campbell.

mailto:jcampbe3@trinity.edu