Comment for students of the next semester

Take the class and see how it works out for you; you do need to finish homework on time and last but not least, try to finish your homework in the way you would like it to look, but not just finish it :( (oh well, I actually need more than one sentence).

Re: Student Websites

Firstly, I love Laura's website. The very first thing that I extremely in love with in her site is the good blend of different backgrounds in different sites. Her idea is quite similar to my inital intention, as I searched for different backgrounds sharing black as their main color. However, I failed to do this because there werenot so many backgrounds with black so I was amazed at her great job. Moreover, she organized everything in a greatly neat way and it is super easy to navigate among her different pages.

Secondly, I also love Leslie's Navbar and her font. They are awesome. The only thing I do not really like is that her backgrounds (though they are super nice and stylish) get really distracting and complicated sometimes. As a result, I do not really pay attention to the content but only her backgrounds. Moreover, as the image she used as background image is too small, many have to be used and they create kinds annoying borders among them. Other than that, her site is really stylish and I guess she must be really picky in choosing different pictures to put in her page as all of them are well blended with each other in terms of color and size.

Thirdly, I love the sweetness and simplicity of Kemble's site. She didnot use many images. She didnot use Youtube either. She didnot do any "fancy" thing. But when I look at her pages, I felt peaceful, nice and harmonious. All the pages except from default one share one theme, text color and font. The only thing she should consider is to make a little more impressive nav-bar, to keep stronger attention from the audience.

Overall, my class made a great attempt. Congrazt, all of you guys :D

website

Please visit my personal site at http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~hbui
First of all, making a site was ways much easier than what I thought it should be. When we first learnt about hand-coding in Notepad, I thought that we would have to hand-code every single detail of our personal site (the idea would be ridiculous) and remember every code of adding links, adding pictures or tables. However, thanks to Expression Web, things have become much easier. Only one thing I got trouble with Expression Web is the initial difficulty to open my site with this software. I thought I continually clicked Open while I was supposed to click "Open Site" and that explains why I didnot get what my classmates had on their screens.

The page that I mostly proud of is my default. I spent so much time on just choosing the background because I know that most people will just look at my homepage to see if there is anything interesting. If it is not able to capture people's attention, it is no point building other pages. At first, I decided to use the orange and yellow dot background, which seems more harmonious with texts and pictures. I also experimented with other banal backgrounds, another which is similar to the dot and the other with retro decorations. All of them were nice to some extent, but too banal to attract attention. Finally, I changed my mind to use the black one with the letter/symbol I myself cannot define it just with the hope that my site can become more attractive. I was also proud of my Nav-bar though I know that it doesnot look the way it is supposed to be. But I am happy with my picture and my decision to change the hue/saturation to make the pictures look less weird.

My biggest technical problem is to navigate among a huge number of pictures I stored in the image folder. I didnot know that once I moved the picture from one folder to another, it would not show up in the published page. As a result, all of my pictures in places disappeared when I moved them into a sub-folder inside images. I was totally freaked out but luckily calm enough to figure what was wrong with my page. I also had problems with the way I put images in the table. When I saw all my images in Expression Web, they looked nice and neat with one next to another. However, when I published my site, they spread out all over the place and made me so annoyed. As a result, I tried to increase the pixel of the table and it worked. Super nice!!!

I will show my site to my sister and my friends, who were continuously keeping complaining about my bad computer skill. They should know how my IT skill has improved since I got to Trinity. Besides the page, they also could have a look at what I have been doing in IT class so far as I already put all my CSCI products into the Computer Science's Work page. They should know how I worked with superb Excel table, changed the texture of images and made them look more professional as well as my postcard with the help of Adobe Photoshop.

And lastly, just wanna say MY PAGE IS AWESOME :X and I definitely will create others for other classes.

Larry's talk about computer purchase :)

Today, Larry came and talk to us about different parts of a laptop, explained to us how expensive they are and how careful we should be when using our laptops.

But the first thing is about backing up. He brought us both the good news and the bad news. The bad news is that how you can lose your files and fire your laptop so easily. He gave us two examples of 2 young ladies. The first one lost all her images of 4 years in Trinity because her hard-drive got crashed. And the other lost her dissertation as her laptop fell down to the pool and hence got fired. I have never evaluated the true importance of backing up until I heard those sad stories. As much money you can put on, you will never see your files again once your laptop gets fired or your hard-drive collapses. But the good news is that we have tons of ways to back them up. Here we go!!!!  Thanks to the technology, Trinity students now have space to store their stuff, not like years ago. As a result, you always want to put all your essential files into Y-Drive, or a portable hard-drive if you have one.

So BACK UPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP AND DON'T WAIT TO DO THAT UNTIL U LOOSE SOMETHING IMPORTANT.

The second point is that you always want to be careful while using your computer. Below are few bullet points you need to remember:

Never spray anything on your monitor.

Make sure ur laptop is unplugged before you wipe it.

Be careful whenever you eat/drink something while using laptops because any drop/spiltting can fire everything.

The third point is going with a Dell. He made me regret because I already purchased a Toshiba at the beginning of the semester. However, now I know it and I am gonna tell everyone who is gonna buy a laptop to choose Dell. If any problem ever happens with your Dell laptop, Dell will replace them without any cost. The story about his son was really funny and woke me up after a long day of classes but I think I am not brave enough to pour one gallon of iced tea into my Dell and watch how it fires.

Awesome class, full of information and Larry is a funny guy too.

my picture that tells a white lie and a bunch of analysis. Let's have a look :D

If you ever had the same concern with me about ethical issues in image manipulation, I bet that you should read this entry. Some think that it's unethical to alter any images and deceive your audience whatsoever. From the view of these people, pictures are pure realities without any prejudice or preference. However, it turns out that every image ever captured is in some way a distortion of reality (Salvo). The way in which the photographers crop their views even before pushing the buttons or putting the images into the computers already distorted the pure truth. The truth can be a whole thing, but what if a photographer only pointed the len on a proportion of the whole?

As a result, it is not image population through either Adobe Photoshop, Picasa or Picnik that deceives the audience in a negative way. Image population, in a positive side, can really change people's minds and question their obsolete assumptions. That's what so many social issue advertising campaign did, and that is also what I tried to do with my own.

What I chose to manipulate is a picture of beer pouring, and the picture was somehow simple with half a bottle and a full mug of beer. I made several changes to the picture and thus raised awareness of people about drinking. The photo originally was found on istockphoto.com and I just pasted the link here for anyone who wants to know how my editing makes the picture look so much more weird and worse than it was, haha, just kidding lol. http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-2668578-beer-pouring-in-to-mug.php. At first, I came up with the idea of using the beaker, which helps me illustrate the slogan "measure your drink". However, I failed to find any beaker with beer (why didnot lab teacher/chemist do that??It looks fun, haha) and integrate the beer part (in beer mug) with the empty beaker. I technically can do this if I changed the opacity of the beer part, so the beer part looks like be inside the beaker. However, other problem arose as the beer part cannot fit exactly within the area inside the beaker (beaker and beer mug have different sizes and different shapes though). Because of all these above problems, I ended up putting a ruler besides the mug though you donot often measure liquid with ruler lol. Noticing that there was a siginificant difference between the color of the ruler and the rest of the picture, I changed the hue/saturation so they can well fit with each other. And the last thing I did, to ensure everyone get my really really sophisicated and awkward idea, is to put the slogan in the middle.
I have no hope that it will change something in a wide scale, no way no way :(. But I really wish that everyone ever visiting my blog should tell themselves the message "measure your drinK".

Work cited:Salvo, Suzanne. "True lies." Communication World 25.5 (2008): 26-30. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 10 Nov. 2010.

Omg, my presentation was horrible :(

I sucked in this presentation :((. Sorry guys. I wished I had spent more time on it and made it better. And I wished others hadnot done that good so mine wouldnot have looked that bad in comparison with others'. Haha, just kidding though.
I definitely learnt  a lot from today. The first lesson is ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS BEING PREPARED. Honestly, I didnot have much time last weekend because I had to prepare for the upcoming quizzes and tests. That partially explains why my presentation went by just without any strong impression. Also, I should have figured out how to use the mouse of Ms. Belisle's computer. It was so tricky when a mouse is used for 2 computers and u keep looking at the left screen and moving the mouse to the right (the mouse will be moved into the right screen). The second lesson is the one I learnt from Leslie. Both her excellence in design and more importantly, her strong strong strong enthusiasm made her presentation stand out.
Two other presentations I love are Lauren's and Leslie's. I really love Lauren's because her story of Zode is really nice. It is awesome to think that a person spent 36 hours and a half to figure out which way he is gonna take and ended up taking both opposite directions at the same time, which was just more than a brilliant idea. And Leslie's is totally awesomeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. I am really really thinking about switching major now, though one thing I worry about is whether I can handle all the heavy work load of graphic designing classes :(
Anyway, today is a good chance to learn new things. Everything is good except for my horrible presentation. :(

Dr. Chris Nolan and the talk on how to wisely search for information on the Internet :D

Dr. Chris Nolan came to our class on Thursday and talked about how to search for information on the Internet. The computer I used in the class must have had some problems because it didnot save everything I noted. Despite this unluckiness, the lesson I gained from him is so memorable and practical that I figured out that I am writing this entry without referring back to the note at all.

First thing about the share of the searching market. I was really surprised by the fact that Google accounted for only 66%, far less than what I thought it would. Anyway, it was good to know about other searching websites besides Google, such as AOL, Bing, Baidu (a couple of my Chinese friends use it) and Yahoo. Set aside from these figures, I learned a lot more about how to navigate among a huge source of information coming out from Google. I, as well as my classmates, often look at only several results on the first page so we should be able to make sure that what we are looking for is reliable, academic and relevant to the topic. However, what really happens is that in 99% of the case, the scholar source would not appear until the very end page. To solve this issue, Dr. Nolan strongly advised us to search for scholar source on the top right of the screen before going any further. The other good thing to know is how to search for the definitions by putting the word define and the colon before the word.

Second useful thing is how to determine which source is academic and how to navigate to the academic source much more efficiently. Any academic source should include footnotes and references, which can help you choose other better sources from a magazine or an article. For example, the magazine might be an interview between the journalist and a famous expert in the field, whose works might be useful for you. Utilizing the advances search and typing in the domains like gov and edu are also several methods that Dr. Nolan gave us.

Thank you so much for bringing us so much much much information. I am sure to apply all of them in the research process of every paper I am gonna write.

Power point-things I hate and love

Honestly admitting, I am not a powerpoint person, might be excel person as I mostly use excel for almost all of my classes. However, I am glad that I still have some experience with powerpoint to share.

• Firstly, I really hate the way songs are added in PowerPoint. Because there are so many slides in one powerpoint file, what I often want is to match the music (in terms of lyrics and tone) with what is going on in each slide. However, I could never do that and I do not really know if Powerpoint does not allow us to do so or simply because I do not know how to get to it.
• Secondly, animations sometimes make me feel annoyed. I do know how to add animations to each of my slide, but I do not know how to make them well matched together. Sometimes I put all really complicated animations into one Powerpoint file so it did not look really professional. But I personally do not want to use the simply an dull ones either (namely fading, sliding to the left or to the right). The key is how to mix these ones smoothly together.
• Thirdly, I am totally screwed up each time I am trying to add background pictures. What happen most of the time is that the pictures I find are not large enough to cover the whole slide and I have to stretch them a little bit. However, stretching them will make them look awkward like the tiger we made in class today.

Despite these disadvantages, it is undeniable that I love powerpoint, though less than excel because it is really a useful, convenient and time-saving tool of presentation. Back to the time when I didnot know how to use powerpoint, preparing for presentations was a real pain with me. It often took me days (DAYS, not hours guy) to draw outlines and pictures. However, things have now become much more organized and faster with Powerpoint. All you need is to choose layouts, add background pictures (optional though), type in key words and hit enter. Things will get done amazingly quickly.

the trip to CLT

Today I and my class had the visit to the CLT center. Honestly, I have never been there before so it is kinda cool to visit the first time, see a bunch of Macs and Pcs together. As every other lab in Trinity have only , it was so exciting to know that I can use Mac here. Moreover, thanks to Mr. Chapman, I learn a lot more about what I can take advantage of in CLT. It is the place where I can look for personal help in editing videos and images. Also, the computers here look much much nicer and more modern than those on the third floor of the library. Personally, I think I might need to go there pretty soon as I have to create an ad campaign for my Creativity and Entrepreneur behavioral class. I will need to make either a video, or a Power Point slides which require graphic skills while I obviously have no understanding about. However, learning new stuff will be awesome and I will soon come back. anyway, I wish CLT was on the third floor so walking seems less than a pain :(

And I bonus u guys with my own superrrrrrrrrrrrr nice picture/scan file.

Have a good weekend and I am getting excited about the fall break.

Image manipulation

The first thing captured my attention in this picture are these horns coming out from rabbits' heads. Later on, I realized that they donot suppose to be really weird with any Americans, but I, as have never seen them before, or at least have never been to Colorado, thought rabbits with antlers were an amazing and somehow crazy idea.  But honestly, I find quirky ideas pretty creative and it is also the reason why I chose this one out of 24 pictures. Rabbit are often the most tamed animal ever in the world and you hardly see them evoke. But what happen if they are added horns? They related me much to a strong and highly aggressive buffaloes which are willing for a harsh fight.

The comment on the right didnot mention much about image manipulation. But what I guess is that photographer might have changed the composition into black and white, as well as added the antlers to the rabbits. The black and white composition was a marvellous idea, as it created mythical and classic context for jackalope coming out. And despite the seemingly unmatch between horns and rabbits, it is such an intelligent idea because it brought a completely original thought to viewers: rabbit might no long be rabbits, if they are added strong horns.

And I chose a short video in Youtube, naming Retouching: Before and after. This was kind of long than what I really want, but then I found it so interesting. Did you ever know that 100% of fashion photos are retouched before being published? Though I am not totally agreeing on retouching because it can cause false expectations in most women and men, I feel that retouching is essential with magazine editors. Noone will ever lift up the magazine if you post an overweigh, wrinkled woman at her middle age, except from health magazine anyway. 

But then, knowing that there is certain level of lie behind each picture really helps. It awakes most women and men from their 100% perfect models

Lots of revelation about Excel.

What did I know about Excel before going to Trinity? It is a Microsoft program which can help people do calculations faster, more conveniently and also give out always exact answers.

But how could I use it to help me? Don't ask me because I simply had no idea.

And then after 2 weeks, I feel Excel is the unlimited resource with uncountable already set-up functions which I may never use up. Like so many other students, I learn Excel for my real life and my real Statistics and Chemistry Laboratory class. If it was not for Excel, how could you calculate the mean, the standard deviation, variance, confidence interval and so many other difficult-to-remember terms of more than 20 different elements? The same question for the value of different cations' concentration in a five or six significant figures. But Excel is not simply about calculation, I just found out that I can also use some other functions like "If", which is totally new to me. Honestly, I havenot used "Filter" and "Sort" before, so I think that these functions are marvellous. Besides this awesomeness, Excel formatting seems somehow unappealing to me. It is more complicated than dealing with Microsoft files as you have to edit both the cells themselves and the inside content. Also, the conditional formatting may be sometimes confusing.

After all, Excel is a wonderful program and it is really helpful with Statistics students like me.

COPYRIGHT AND SO MANY UNKNOWN THINGS

This Tuesday, we had a talk with Mr. Jason Hardin about copyright and how to avoid copyright infringement. It is truly a lesson with so many original things dominating my mind. It is the first time I have ever used "Turning Point", the software that I found in a computer in the Coates Library later on. And also It is the first time I have been fully aware that something I did in the past was illegal, but lucky me, I was not in the US.

Personally, copyright is the term I have barely heard of before. In my homeland, the idea of copy-right is not so widespread, not to mention that someone can be totally ignorant of it.

I have gained much information about US copyright law dated from 1790 which aims to develop the useful contribution of art and sciences to better develop our society. Basically, if authors know that everyone using their products has to pay them a certain amount of money, they will have greater incentives to follow their inspritation. Also, the term of copyright for US published works is now author’s life plus 70 years. I and so many other students wondered about the 70 additional years but then Leslie and Mr. Hardin successfully answered our curiosity. Though this extension as well as the copyright itself is somehow monetary, it does contain "fai use", which allows limited use of copyrighted material free of charge for some purposes such as commentary, criticism, news reporting, research, teaching or scholarship.

Now I know a lot more about it, which also means that I have to be much more careful whenever I involve in making a copy, downloading a song or sharing files with my friends.

Thanks Mr. Hardin, Ms. Belisle and all my classmates for such a helpful class.

COPY RIGHT AND SO MANY UNKNOWN THINGS by HANG BUI is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

MY TRINITY NETWORK DIAGRAM

Last week, I and my class joined a tour of Trinity's Server Room and met Jared Pack, a Trinity alumnus as well as asystems administrator. After the talk, I learnt a lot about back-ups, security and how ITS administrators maintain and update the huge system. Once I put all my essential files into my personal Y: Drive, I will never lose them even when my computer crashes. Not only safer data, I also can enjoy safer web-surfing thanks to Trinity firewall system. But the most important things I gained from the tour is Trinity University network and how data is transmitted among different building on campus as well as off-campus, also what I tried to reflect on my diagram. I should have elaborated more on how personal computers, wireless access points and data closets link with each other but actually I run out of space. Anyway, I hope you can still understand how the system works. Thanks so much for taking a look at my diagram.

Where is the Trinity mystery spot in my picture?

The place may look similar to those living in nearby dormitory halls, but if you live in Herndon, Beze or McLean, I think it will be much more tricky. Though I myself live near this location, I actually did not discover it until last week, when I and my friends walked back to my hall from Calvert. Surprisingly, what captured us was neither the chair nor the flower pot, but a flock of cats in different colors. They impressed me so deeply that right after hearing of the assignment, I immediately know what would be in my picture. There would be cats, flower pot and chair, (but when I came there, I could not find any cats around so I ended up with a no-cat-picture) and absolutely Picnik. I used Picnik mostly to rotate my picture, crop it into a smaller size and change the composition into "cross process" and sharpen the picture a little bit. It hurt me so much to think about whether I should put some text or image into my picture or not; but then I decided that it would be so crowded for such a small picture. 

I want my picture to be a little classic and relaxing so there was not so much adjustment to it. Hope that all of you will love it and more importantly know where it is.

Best Tech Tip (6)

Joe Hatch’s Computer Survival Skills was far more interesting and beneficial than I had expected. Mr. Hatch talked a lot about different ways I can protect my computer from threats, phising and virus. However, the most important part of the talk, in my opinion, is about CCleaner. I felt so much merrier when knowing that I can use this efficient program for my Toshiba, and knowing that with merely a few simple clicks, my laptop can run much faster then. Another major theme of Computer Survival Skills was computer securities, which I was totally ignorant of before. Now, thanks to Mr. Hatch, I have become much more alert to replying the suspicious emails, clicking on any link from unofficial addresses or unknown senders and giving out my personal information on the Internet.

FRIENDS

Let's try chewy chocolate chip cookies.

Thick, Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

James Carrier

If you are of the school that thinks chocolate chip cookies should be soft and chewy, you'll love this recipe. Store these cookies airtight for up to 2 days.

Total: 40 minutes
Yield: Makes about 28 cookies

Ingredients

• 1  cup  (1/2 lb.) butter, at room temperature
• 1 1/2  cups  firmly packed brown sugar
• 2  large eggs
• 1  teaspoon  vanilla
• 2 1/2  cups  all-purpose flour
• 1  teaspoon  baking soda
• 1/2  teaspoon  salt
• 2  cups  semisweet chocolate chips (12 oz.)
• 1  cup  chopped pecans (optional)

Preparation

1. In a bowl, with an electric mixer on medium speed, beat butter and brown sugar until well blended. Beat in eggs and vanilla until smooth, scraping down sides of bowl as needed.
2. In another bowl, mix flour, baking soda, and salt. Stir or beat into butter mixture until well incorporated. Stir in chocolate chips and pecans, if using.
3. Drop dough in 2-tablespoon (1/8-cup) portions, 2 inches apart, onto buttered 12- by 15-inch baking sheets.
4. Bake in a 400° oven until cookies are lightly browned and no longer wet in the center (break one open to check), 6 to 8 minutes; if baking more than one pan at a time, switch pan positions halfway through baking.
5. With a wide spatula, transfer cookies to racks to cool. If hot cookies start to break, slide a thin spatula under them to release; let stand on pan to firm up, 2 to 5 minutes, then transfer to racks to cool completely.
Note: Nutritional analysis is per cookie.

Nutritional Information

Calories: 208 (48% from fat)

Protein: 2.1g

Fat: 11g (sat 6.3)

Carbohydrate: 28g

Fiber: 0.3g

Sodium: 165mg

Cholesterol: 34mg

Sunset, NOVEMBER 2003

How to make a Toffe-Chocolate Chip Shortbread at home? Let's check it.

Toffee-Chocolate Chip Shortbread

Photo: Ryan Benyi; Styling: Lynn Miller

Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 14 minutes
Yield: About 2 dozen (serving size: 2 cookies)
Cost per Serving: $0.29

Ingredients

• 8  tablespoons  (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1/4  cup  confectioners' sugar
• 1  teaspoon  vanilla extract
• 1  cup  all-purpose flour
• 1/4  teaspoon  salt
• 1/2  cup  mini chocolate chips
• 1/2  cup  toffee bits

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 350ºF and line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper. Using an electric mixer on medium-high speed, cream together butter, confectioners' sugar and vanilla until smooth. Stir in flour and salt just until a dough forms. Fold in chocolate chips and toffee bits.
2. Using your hands, roll dough into 1-inch balls. Place on prepared baking sheet, 1 inch apart, pressing down lightly on each one with a moistened palm.
3. Bake until cookies are firm and just golden around edges, 12 to 14 minutes. Place baking sheet on a wire rack for 5 minutes, then transfer cookies to rack to cool. Repeat with remaining dough. Store cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days.

Nutritional Information

Calories: 222

Fat: 14g (sat 8g)

Protein: 2g

Carbohydrate: 22g

Fiber: 0.0g

Cholesterol: 26mg

Sodium: 114mg

All You, MARCH 2010

The Seventh day in San Antonio

What I definitely would say after a week in San Antoni, it is AWESOME. I don't have so many friends here, but they are AWESOME friends. Those are who help me when I am really in need, who have been besides me since I came here and will stay side-by-side with me in the future, who drove me to Walmart and explained to me the differences between all kinds of snacks Walmart has on the shelf. The classes are second AWESOME thing, where I can meet fellows and professors coming from every walk of lives. They come here, of different races, with different intonations, wearing different clothes, but we know we share the love for Trinity and a strong academic endeavor. NSO is also an awesome event that I almost forgot to mention. Other students, staff and professors have welcomed in the warmest way I can ever expect and they are truly making an AWESOME Trinity.

Finally you found my blog

I am Hang Bui, a Vietnamese freshman in Trinity who is thinking about majoring in Business Administration and had her very first Microeconomics class tomorrow. All I have to say that I have had great college experience up to now, some very good and helpful friends, great classes with great professors, nice room and indispensably, delicious food. That's part of the reason why I really want to get involved in campus activities, including Leadership Academy, Community Excursion and Intervarsity events. Besides, I also want to improve my Computer skill, especially in PowerPoint, Website Design and Photoshop. I'm not feeling very good to reveal that it is my first computer class ever (I know it sounds so strange); however, I hope that I can make the most of it.
To tell you more about my secret, I AM A FAN OF CHEWY CHOCOLATE CHIPS. With most Americans, you eat them everyday, buy them every time you go shopping but with me, I have not eaten any American chocolate chips until I am 19. That's the reason why I think they are awesome, sweet and really delicious.
Feel free to shoot me an email at hbui@trinity.edu.
Hang.