Last Blog Entry

My advice for people who take this course: You should always come to class because if you miss a day, then you will be very behind on work in class and will have no idea how to do homework assignments.

My favorite web site

My top three favorite websites are as follows: Autumn Goodin's, Claire Afflerbach's, and Katy Silva's.  I enjoyed the overall layout of Autumn's site. She was also able to have a pictured navigation bar that corresponded to each page, which is also aesthetically pleasing.  Claire Afflerbach's site looked very professional.  It looked like the actual club's site.  I really enjoyed how she had single color theme, and the overall organization of events and officers. Katy Silva's site was perfect for her audience.  Every background on each site had a different colored pattern.  Her site looked like an artwork.  I enjoyed the page with her own artwork.  The pictures blended well with her background, which I also loved.

My website

Please visit my website: www.cs.trinity.edu/~ktavakol
Making a website was alot easier than I thought once I passed the difficulty of understanding web expressions and Kompozer.  I used expression web for my website.  I am most proud of my testing and treatement page because I love my lay-out, colors, and graphics I used to convey my message. I might have changed my nav bar, but i still like the simplicity of it. My biggest technical challenge was the centering and making my table with my information look astethically pleasing.  I had trouble with some of my pictures because I moved some pictures in a different file, and had to change the location of the picture after I did that.  I will show my site to other pre-med students.  My focus for my site was more informative, less decorative, so I think my peers will enjoy my site.  In the future I will create a site probably for my own medical studies.  I enjoyed making this site, even though at times it was frustrating.

\\sol.cs.trinity.edu\\ktavakol\local\ . Then go into the html documents and copy/paste all my websites and image folders.

Larry Hechler

Last week Larry Hechler came in to talk about computer hardware.  He stressed many interesting points that I have found quite useful to know.  With over 30 years of experience in the repair field, Mr. Hechler knew what he was talking about.  He said that one should always back up their information using an external hard drive because the computer hard drive can fail or malfunction.  He informed us that Dells are good computers to buy because they have complete care, which means if anything happens to the computer (accidental or not) Dell will replace the computer or fix it for free.  Knowing all of this, I think my next computer will be a Dell, and I will also buy an external hard drive to back-up my information.

·       

My Picture that Lies: Statue of Liberty

I chose this picture because I wanted to see how funny I would look on the statue of liberty.  I also wanted to see the different effects of lighting and hue to my face.  I got the picture from stock exchange.  I used the eye dropper tool to match my facial color with the color of the statue.  I also decreased the brightness, increased saturation, and decreased the lighting.  It was manipulated to make it look like my face belonged in the statue.  It was also manipulated to show that I was welcoming visitors to New York.  The manipulation was not harmful because most people know that my face is not actually plastered to the statue of liberty.  The article I read was about how big news corporations and magazines manipulate pictures to match their stories.  This is a common occurrence in today's society.  TV guide magazine inserted Oprah's face onto the body of a model.  They do this to make Oprah seem more attractive and glamorous. Similar to Oprah's picture, I took my face and inserted into the statue of liberty to make me look more interesting.  Oprah's picture was harmful because people who look at it might not know what Oprah's body actually looks like, but my picture is not harmful because it is obvious that I am not on the statue of liberty.  Overall, this was a very enjoyable experience. 

Citation:

Lowrey, Wilson. "Normative Conflict in the Newsroom: The Case of Digital Photo Manipulation." Journal of Mass Media Ethics 18.2 (2003): 123. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 11 Nov. 2010.

Presentation

The subject of my presentation was becoming a multilingual medical doctor.  I learned how there are many neglected diseases in the world that many do not pay attention to, which gave me even more incentive to become a medical doctor.  I also learned how to put a youtube video into powerpoint.  I really liked changing the transition of text and slides to something aesthetically pleasing to the eye.  I really enjoyed seeing Langston's presentation.  Seeing how the tectonic plates moved with different types of animation was quite impressive.  I learned a wealth of information about tectonic plates.  I also really liked Mariana's presentation.  She is a Spanish major and I learned about the different cities in Mexico.  She informed us that she had lived in the country until she was nine years old.  She also told us that they call the capital city "D.F."  I loved how her pictures would change to other pictures during each slide.  I thought that was very creative. Overall, I learned alot

Chris Nolan Presentation

I found the presentation by Chris Nolan to be very interesting and informative.  Most of the presentation was about how Google has solidified its role in the search engine market (google's search engine market share is at 66%) and the different ways one can use google. I learned that google scholar allows one to see      journals, books, peer reviews, and other scholarly works.  Google scholar also does not have any advertisement.  Google advanced can narrow your search results and one can use it to see which sites are open to be used by any student.  I was quite surprised to know that google has 99% of shares in the search engine phone market, and that Trinity pays 1.3 million yearly to use published works.  Overall, the majority of Nolan's information was quite new to me.

 

Powerpoint

The Five things I hate about PPT presentations:

1. when the presentation has pictures up that don't make sense with the slides
2. when there is too much information on the slides
3. when you can't read the text because the text is colored with light, bright colors
4. when there are too many animations and sound effects that distract from the main argument
5. when the order of the slides do not make sense

PowerPoints presentations are very useful in today's business world.  Professional looking templates can give consistency to a slide, and different effects can cause the audience to focus on main points.  Key points can be highlighted by increasing font size and organizing the text by bullets.  A perfect situation would be if you were to give a proposal of cutting down waste in an office.  You can use graphs to compare how much money is saved versus how much money is wasted weekly, monthly, and yearly and input it into the slideshow.  Color schemes and templates can catch the eye of even the most distracted audience members.  It's safe to say that a powerpoint presentation is a great communication tool. 

CLT

I was not able to visit CLT because I was not feeling well that day, but I did read Andrew, Autumn, and Katie’s blog entries describing the trip.  I learned that I never knew the location of CLT until I read up on it and found out that it is on the first floor of the Trinity library.  Robert Chapman, an employee for the Center for Learning and Technology (CLT), spoke to the students about the many resources CLT has to offer.  CLT has both Macs and PCs for students to use.  There is a recording studio and there are many computers specialized for specific uses.  For editing pictures, some computers have an advanced version of Photoshop.  For recording videos, there is special software installed in some computers.  This center can be used for many of my classes.  In our computer class using Photoshop is the next section. I can come to the CLT to edit my photos and do my assignments on either a Mac or a PC with advanced software.  There are also employees working in the CLT to provide assistance with anything I need.  As for my other classes I can use the recording studio to create video projects for my senior thesis classes in Biology.  As for my everyday uses, I can edit my pictures and take out any red-eyes or bad shading so that I can show my friends where I went this summer.  Basically this place is great for studying, recording music and videos, and editing photos.  And I will definitely come use it for school.

Photoshop

This original picture is Trotsky seen with other Communist officials. The altered picture is Trotsky removed from the picture after he ran into conflict with the party. I chose this picture because I think it is interesting how the Soviet regime used the art of photo manipulation even before the invention of photoshop. Even today, governments are using different techniques to manipulate the truth in photographs. The manipulation was harmful because the Soviets were trying to cover up Trotsky's association with the Communist party. They covered him up, so that people would think he never even existed in the party, which is quite misleading considering how integral he was to the creation of the party.

To conclude this is the dove self-esteem campaign video. It shows how our modern world has used make-up, and especially photoshop to distort the image of what is beautiful today. Women everywhere look at this manipulated picture and want to be exactly like the woman in the picture, but they really do not know that many advertisements and pictures are manipulated for women who have low self-esteem. I saw this video many years ago, and I still think its as powerful as it was then. Women and men should be aware of photoshop and how today's society has manipulated our own image to satisfy our own desire, but in reality everyone is beautiful. I chose this video because it sheds light on a problem that is seen throughout our culture. This "fake beauty" is revealed here...

Excel Entry

I have really enjoyed the excel homework and class assignments thus far.  I have learned how to copy down formulas, merge cells, format cells, and numerous of other functions in excel. This has actually helped me in my classes now (Chemistry lab), and I know it will help me in future labs as well.  It will also help me in the "real life" because most jobs and internships require their employess to know how to use excel (knowing how to copy down formulas would be quite useful here).  I dislike that the program is not the same in MACs, but I do love how the new excels are so much easier to use with their menu being so simple.  I can see the menu bar clearly on the top of my screen, which is really helpful for finding formatting tools and different functions.  I also really enjoy the built in tables as well, which allows the used to insert data in a pre-made table.

Jason Hardin Copyright Lecture

The other day Jason Hardin, who is the manager of access services, came into our computer class to talk about copyright laws.  I found his lecture quite informative and interesting.  I particularly found his lecture to be interesting when he described that plagiarism is usually just a moral sin or an academic crime rather than a federal one.  Copyright means government recognition of an intellectual property.  That means that the government is actually protecting your work from being copied.  He discussed that the moment a work is saved, published, or finished it is protected by the law, and is protected for the author's lifetime plus 70 years.  I found out that Disney is the reason that this law has been passed by Congress.  In order for them to retain ownership after Walt Disney's death, the Disney Corporation had to lobby Congress to increase the amount of years works can be copyrighted. 

It was good to know all of this information, so that I can myself be knowledgeable of copyright laws if I was to ever make my own published work. I was a bit frustrated to hear that a big corporation manipulated lobbyists to control the law.  Even though I am frustrated to hear that, I believe that the amount of time a work can be retained by the author should be much longer, since it is an original work, but Congress itself should pass it rather than a large corporation.  

I think Joe Hardin did an excellent job on keeping the class engaged by making his lecture interactive allowing the class to ask questions through out his presentation as well as using clicker to quiz the class and feed them interesting topics.

Trinity Network Diagram

Hopefully my diagram will prove to be insightful for anyone trying to learn about the Trinity Network.  I found the tour In hassel very helpful in making this diagram, and through making this diagram I have learned much about the complexity of Trinity's connections.

Joe Hatch

I was not actually present during his presentation, but I did read some interesting facts from what my peers wrote.  I learned that Macs can actually get viruses too, and that it is very helpful to delete the history  to create space and protect the Mac.  I also learned that TU secure, although a pain, is very beneficial to students because it creates a safe online environment, protecting users from viruses.  I own a Mac, so reading that majority of viruses are created for PCs was quite a relief.

I used the effect boost to enhance the green color of the grass and trees.  It was also a useful effect because it draws more attention to the foreground, and hides the background in a way by making it brighter.   This allows me to disguise the location of my picture, while also enhancing the colors of the trees, grass, and railing.  I chose this location because, in my opinion, it overlooks the most beautiful part of campus.

About me

Hi.  My name is Kayvon Tavakoli.  I'm from Houston, Texas.  This is my sophomore year at Trinity, and I am excited to begin a new semester here.  As of now I am not sure what my major is, but I do know that I will minor in Spanish and go through the Pre-Med program.  My goal in life is to become a doctor and help those who do not have healthcare, possibly opening up a free clinic in an impoverished country.  An interesting fact about me is that my parents are first-generation immigrants from Iran.  A a result I am quite influenced by the Persian culture (I also know how to speak, read and write in Farsi).  My extracurricular activities at Trinity include being a member of Phi Sigma Chi, and I am looking forward to join other clubs.  I took a computer class in high school, so I am familiar with some applications.  Up until college I have used a PC, but I currently use a Mac for college.  My email is ktavakol@trinity.edu.  Please email me if you have any questions.