Piece of Advice

For all the incoming students, I really encourage all of you to come every single day. If you fail to do this, you will most likely fall behind with all your work and trust me, you do not want to do that. As long as you keep up with all the homework, you should do great on the quizzes and tests. Mr. Belisle is a great person and she does not want anyone to do bad in her class so the only way you can fail this class is by being lazy.
You will learn really neat stuff about word, excel, Photoshop, PowerPoint and many other programs so all of you should take advantage of this great opportunity. Do not really stress about this class, instead just do your work and most importantly.....ENJOY!!!!!

Favorite Websites

Honestly, all the websites I have seen are incredible, but there are three of them that I liked the most. In Kemble's website I thought that the decoration she put on was really eye catching, especially the background picture in here default page. I also liked how she linked many of her pictures to really cool websites. Lisa's website was another one I thought was very interesting. Her navigation bar is just simply amazing, I can really tell she put in great effort in creating her website. A third one I really enjoyed reading and observing all the details was Lisa's. I was really impressed when I took a look at the photographs she included. She has visited really neat places and it just makes want to go and visit those cities.
I am 100% sure that every single one of us put in a lot of time and effort in making our websites and all that hard work is evident when we take a look at the websites. All of them are spectacular!!!!

Website

Please visit my website at www.cs.trinity.edu/~pybarra
Making my website was actually way easier than I thought. To be honest, when Ms. Belisle first told us that we were going to have to do a website I kind of felt that it was going to be impossible, but it turned out to be a lot of fun and maybe just a little frustrating, but not much. By using Microsot Expression Web and by getting help from Brittany and Ms. Belisle, I created a pretty cool website. I think the section I am most proud of is the one marked as "My Trips around Europe," because I included many photos I took when I traveled all over europe and then put them all together to create sort of collage. I really don't know what I would have changed because I pretty much included everything from me year in France, but maybe I could have done a better job on my navigation bar. I feel like it is kind of plain compared to the others I have see, but I mean I am still happy with the work I have accomplished. Now, my biggest technical challenge was probably fitting all the pictures and text into the tables. It was a little frustratin at times because I had to continuosly go back and change the dimensions of each picture and make sure they were the perfect size in order to fit in the table. My biggest design challenge was creating the collage of all my pictures I took while I traveled in Europe. It was not a really difficult task, but it did take me a while to complete it. I am definitely going to show off my website to my family and to all my friends and host-families in France since I included them into my site. After learning how to use Kompozer and Expression Web, I am definitely going to make another website.

Larry Hechler

After listening to Larry Hechler in class today I am definitely going to buy a Dell the next time I need a laptop. Larry explained that whenever you buy a Dell there is a 4 year care plan that comes along with the purchase. This 4 year care plan covers your computer for 4 complete years. It has actually saved Mr. Hechler from purchasing five new laptops. Another very interesting tip he gave us was on how to clean our computers. He explained that we should never use any liquid that contains alcohol, any form of ammonia or acetone. This will destroy the screen and cause you to buy a brand new LCD. It is also crucial to make sure that your computer is unplugged whenever you are using a wet cloth to wipe the fingerprints, dust, etc. off the monitor .

He also described several ways of backing up files. We can either use a DVD, an external hard drive or the y-drive which is actually backed up daily by ITS. The y-drive is the best option for backing up files if you are a Trinity student. He gave us various examples of students who had lost many important files because something had happened to their computers and they had not taken the time to back up the important files. One of the last tips he gave us was on how to get out computer battery last longer. He explained that we should run the battery down until we get the warning sign once a month in order for it to have a longer duration. Thanks to Larry Heckler, I have learned many useful tips today and will definitely reflect back to them whenever I buy a new laptop

My Own Picture that "Lies"

The way I created my picture that "lies" (notice that lies is in quotation marks because this picture actually sends out a very important and TRUE message) was by getting a photograph of Barack Obama, one of Evo Morales (president of Bolivia), another one of  Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (president of Brazil) and finally one of Felipe Calderon (president of Mexico), cutting off the head of each president by using the magic extractor and pasting each head on top of the photograph of Mount Rushmore, which I got from Google images as well. After pasting each head on top of the Mount Rushmore photograph I did my best at adjusting the opacity, the brightness, and the contrast of each head in order for them to be somewhat blended into the picture. Below each head, I typed in the name of each country with the font color resembling one of the colors in the country's flag. Then, with a large font size, I typed in "American Presidents," using the colors of the 4 flags in order to decorate "American."
Many of you might not understand the point I am trying to make, but if you stop and think for a while you will understand the cultural and political aspect to this picture. The fact that citizens of the United States call themselves "Americans" causes discomfort for many people living in Central and South America. It might be true that citizens of the United States do not mean to cause any harm when they call their country America, but it is perfectly understandable why people living  in countries such as Mexico, Brazil, Bolivia, Argentina, Guatemala etc. might feel offended since they live in the Americas as well. A great example of this that angers many Mexicans is at the border, when the police officers ask people if they are American citizens. Technically, everybody could answer yes as long as they live in a country inside the Americas. To demonstrate this important message, I used the presidents from 4 different countries to represent the "Americans" living in each country.
I do not believe the manipulation is harmful since I am not necessarily attacking the U.S. citizens who refer to themselves as Americans, instead this is just of way to remind all those people that the United States is not the only country in the Americas. Now, I could have manipulated the picture so that it would cause harm to all the U.S. citizens (something I would never do by the way) just like in the article I read called "When Your Eyes Tell You Lies" where it explains how the Soviet Union in the 1950s, used manipulated photographs and propaganda in their favor. The objective was to convince the countries emerging in the war that the United States was strictly imperialist and racist.

Maier, Timothy. "When Your Eyes Tell You Lies." Insight on the News 16.38 (2000). Academic Search Complete. Web. 11 Nov. 2010.

PowerPoint Presentation

My subject was on the Marriott Hotel and overall I think I did a pretty good job. Some of you may be asking yourselves why I chose this topic. Well, as I explained in class, my dream is to become a manager of a high class hotel, and right in front of my house here in San Antonio is supposedly one of the biggest Marriott hotels in the world. Luckily I have actually gotten the chance of walking around the hotel and even spending a day at the hotel's water park. From doing the research I needed in order to do my PowerPoint presentation, I learned that this whole thing started in 1927 when J. Willard opened a 9-stool root beer stand in Washington D.C. He later opened more of these root beer stands all throughout the east coast, naming them Hot Shoppes. In 1956, J.W. Marriott Jr., who worked in these Hot Shoppes during his high school years, joined the company full time and opened the first 365 room Twin Bridges Motor Hotel in Arlington, VA. It is thanks to this man, that there are now over 2,400 hotels all over the world.
One of the things I liked the most about my presentation is how I was able to incorporate certain techniques that Ms. Belisle taught is in class. Now that I really know to do them, I will definitely be able to create awesome PowerPoint presentations for other other classes. Even though I really liked the way I designed my slides, always trying to keep them as professional as possible, I guess I would have also liked to put in more pictures on my slides and maybe even putting in a sort of "elevator type" music all throughout my presentation. That would have been very cool since my topic was on the Marriott Hotel.
The presentation I liked the most from my fellow classmates was that of Tommie's. I just loved how she set up the background music all through her presentation. She was really clear on all of her points she made and I felt like she was kind of training us. Tommie actually gave us important information on how to dress up and how to behave during job interviews. She included a good amount of pictures which made the presentation really appealing.
 Hang's presentation was also very impressive. The one thing I liked the most was definitely her video. I mean I actually felt somewhat inspired after watching it. Hang used many graphics as well and did a great job on the animated effects.

Chris Nolan

Today in class, Chris Nolan provided us with a lot of valuable information focusing mainly on how to use many of Google's awesome features. The most useful thing I learned is how to narrow down the results on Google by using the advanced search option. We can actually specify the language of the articles we are looking for, the file type, the domain and many other things. Professor Nolan also showed us other features like Google books, Google scholar that are very helpful in searching for articles needed for academic work. The piece of information that surprised the most is how Google organizes the list of search results. I used to think that it was only based on the title and how many times the word actually appears in the article, but it also has to do with how frequently the webpage is cited in other sites. By knowing this information I will now be able to find better quality articles on Google and in a much faster way.

PowerPoint

PowerPoint presentations can be extremely useful and effective when used correctly. In many of my classes, professors use PowerPoint presentations to point out the main ideas of the lessons, and as they speak they elaborate on each topic. This is a very efficient way of teaching, but there is so much more in creating a valuable presentation that one does not actually imagine how important it is to take certain details into account.  
1. When creating a PowerPoint presentation, it is crucial to include only the key words or sentences that describe the main idea you are trying to point out. If you put too many words, listeners might get overwhelmed and not focus on what is actually important.
2. It is also very important to keep the backgrounds simple and professional. If there is too much decoration it becomes very distracting.
3. On the other hand, it is also important to include some pictures or graphics and not just plain old boring data. Including pictures related to the topic makes it more enjoyable to the human eye.
4. When choosing the text color, one has to select certain colors that really stand out from the background. I have seen some presentations in which the text color is very similar to the background color, making it almost impossible to read.
5. Finally, organizing the data into bullets, in my opinion, is extremely important in making the presentation appealing to the audience.
Creating a PowerPoint presentation can actually be very helpful in presenting your objectives, thoughts, conclusions etc., but only if you actually know how to create a powerful one.

CLT

This past Thursday we visited the AT&T Center for Learning and Technology which is located on the first floor of the library. Honestly, I had no idea this place existed and it is simply the BEST PLACE on campus!!! Mr. Chapman explained to us about the wonderful resources that can be found in this place. There are 26 computers in total (14 Macs, 12 PCs) and eleven scanners. Apart from having the basic tools like Word, Excel, PowerPoint etc.  each computer also has advanced features like  Photoshop and web-design tools. With all its amazing equipment, this is where you want to be whenever you need to work on a multimedia project. There are even student workers and employees who will gladly teach you how the programs function. 

The CLT also has its own video conferencing system (in HD) that provides the communication with students who are studying abroad, professors who are not at the university etc. From what I understood, this software can actually be downloaded by students and staff. 
 In general, the AT&T Center for Learning and Technology is a great place to "explore the world of educational technology" or even a nice, quiet place to study. I will definitely go back and take advantage of everything that is available to us. 

Pictures That Lie

 

I  found this picture on news.cnet.com and apart from being an  interesting image I have to admit I did laugh quite a bit when I first saw it. This picture was used as the cover of TV guide in 1989. It was altered by cutting out the head of Winfrey,placing it on Anne-Margret's body and adding color to the image since Anne-Margret's picture was in black and white. The person who created the composite did it without permission of Winfrey or Anne-Margret and it was eventually detected by Anne-Mergret's fashion designer who recognized the dress. In the Hollywood world, I guess artists have to be "perfect" in all aspects. Oprah is definitely admired by millions of people by her public speaking ability, presentation skills, sense of humor etc., but the fact that she does not have the "barbie" body, desired by all Hollywood stars, is a huge disappointment for many people and maybe even for her. As shown in this cover Oprah is falsely portrayed as having this "perfect" body and so now she is definitely "perfect" in all aspects of life, making her a true Hollywood star.

This is the total opposite to the idea that people had in the Renaissance period when being overweight actually made a person more important. Back in that time it meant that this person had the money to nurture himself/herself.
The manipulation might have been disturbing to Oprah since it is kind of saying that her body is not good enough, but the public in general would either find this image attractive or simply not even care.

In this two minute video about Photoshop, we are shown how to add a layer mask to a photo. The purpose here is to blend two faces together. By choosing the correct commands and using the appropriate tools, the instructor is able to line up the inserted face to the background painting. I chose this video because I think it fits in really well with the Oprah/Anne Margret picture I found. My guess is that the person who created that composite definitely used this adding a layer mask technique.

Excel

Lately I have learned a whole lot about excel. I used to not know anything about all the formulas that can be used in order to facilitate one's work, and in a couple of weeks I have learned how to insert many different types of formulas into a cell and then use the fill handle to copy that specific formula into many others, it is amazing!!!!I have also learned about many different tools such as the format painter, the conditional formatting option, cell styes option and many others that are used to change the formatting of your work. These tools are very useful whenever you want to apply a specific formatting to your work.
Before I even started to learn about excel in this class, I used to plug in the same formula to many cells by actually going to back to the insert function option each time and choosing the formula. I have now become more efficient by learning about and using the many shortcuts that exist. I know for a fact that all this will definitely help me in the future to solve real life problems in my job.
I may not be an expert but my knowledge of this program is way larger and by continuing to practice I hope that one day I will know everything there is to know about excel.

Copyright

I learned a whole lot from Jason Hardin’s copyright talk. In my opinion, one of the most interesting things he pointed out is the difference between copyright and plagiarism. While copyright is actually a criminal offense, plagiarism is more like an “academic sin.”  Copyright was started in 1790 when the constitution was written. It serves to protect the original works of authors such as literary, artistic, dramatic and other intellectual works.  Therefore, whenever somebody uses or copies information without the permission of the owner this person is committing copyright infringement and this may even lead to a lawsuit.

Another very interesting topic he talked about was on file sharing which is the practice of sharing computer data such as multimedia, computer programs and documents. This at Trinity is very serious and students have actually been sued for this. Since many students think that sharing music is not a big deal, universities provide alternatives for illegal downloading. I am definitely against the use file sharing because whenever someone downloads songs for example and then makes CDs and actually sells them, it is just morally wrong as well as illegal since this person is selling work that is not even his or her own.

Copyright est mis à disposition selon les termes de la licence Creative Commons Paternité 3.0 Unported.

My Trinity Network Diagram

Everything we learned from the tour and by doing this diagram is crucial information. I now understand how the Networking System works and I can apply this knowledge by explaining to someone how the buildings are connected on campus. I know that there is much more information to be learned, but I think that up to this point I have a pretty good understanding on how the system functions on campus.

Trinity Mystery Spot

The location is someplace most freshmen pass by daily. I changed it a little by using Picnik but it is actually very easy to guess where this place is. I turned it into black and white and added some text and stickers to decorate it.

I sit on that bench pretty often just to relax a little and forget everything else I have to do. Up to now, I guess it is one of my favorite places on campus.
Now, the question is........do you know where this is???

Helpful Computer Tips

After listening to the Computer Survival Skills talk by Mr. Hatch I was shocked by all the things there is to know about cleaning and protecting my computer. He talked about several reasons why one's computer can be so slow and that is due to history that has been stored for a long time, viruses and many other reasons. In my opinion, the most useful tip he gave us was on learning to use the wonderful CClean program in order to get rid of all the junk that slows down our computers such as the painful "cookies". I have now downloaded this program and it is just amazing how it starts getting rid of all unnecessary files after clicking the "run cleaner" option. I also found very interesting to know that Macs are also vulnerable to viruses but maybe just not as much as the other computers. Just to add to this, I am know using TUSecure (just like all Trinity students) thanks to Mr. Hatch if not I think I would have continued using TUGuest for a very long time.

My life

Hello, my name is Pablo Ybarra, I was born in Aguascalientes, Mexico on May 6, 1991. When I was 3 years old we moved to McAllen, Texas where I lived for 15 years. In McAllen I played  a lot of soccer while I was in Elementary School and Middle School. When I got to High School, I concentrated more on school so I just played it as a hobby. Then, in 2009, right after I finished High School I went to France for a whole year with the Rotary Club. This year in France was mainly to learn how to speak French and to have an incredible experience in a culture totally different from mine. Up to now, it has been the best year of my life. I made a lot of friends who were not only from France but also people who live all over the world. While I was abroad, my family moved up to San Antonio so I just came directly here finishing my year as an exchange student. I am also very happy to be studying in Trinity University since it was one of my top options. I plan on majoring in business with a minor in French.

Apart from soccer, I also love playing volleyball, ping pong and racquetball. I'm also very social and I'm always looking forward to meet new people.

I'm not a computer genius, I just know the very basic things so I'm really excited about learning more information in this class.

You can e-mail me at Pybarra@trinity.edu