My favorite websites

My favortie three were probably Katy's, Rebecca's, and Langston's.  Katy's was very well designed and asthetically pleasing.  Rebecca's had alot of very cool and interesting pictures.  Langston's was the most impressively designed and layed out for sure.  He must know how to use expression web considerably better than I.  My website ended up being a bit off in terms of layout.  I never could quite manage to get it all properly centered like these three did.

Advice

It's pretty simple to get an A in this class theoretically, just do all the work and follow the instructions exactly.

My Website

Please visit my website at www.cs.trinity.edu/~zsickman.  I used Microsoft Expression web to create this website and it was about as difficult and frustrating as I thought it would be.  Any kind of project like this particularly when dealing with software in the Microsoft suite always turns out to be frustrating for me.  The hardest thing for me was getting all the tables and cells and what not for the layout squared away like I wanted.  It took more than a little trial and error and I never could quite get it perfect but I managed to get it pretty darn close.  If I were to have to do this agian I would find a more efficient way to use the formatting tables. the biggest techincal challenge was dealing with these darn tables. This was also the biggest design challenge trying to get this page to look how I wanted.  I may show this site to my geology professors.  I will not be making any more websites any time soon. 

Computers

Larry Hechler came to class today and taught us a thing or two about building computers and doing computer repair and what not.  He made a point of telling us to back up our data on our computers.  If a hard drive crashes it probably is gone. I have kind of been backing up my photos but I really should do more. He backs up roughly every week.  I think I am going to buy an external hard drive. I have been meaning to.  Larry Hechler has been here aound 30 years.  Delll offers a thing called complete care. If anything happens to the laptop Dell will repair or replace it for free. Do not use alcohol ammonia or acetone to clean computers.  A lint free cloth and a bit of water or if that doesn't work a mild detergent are the only safe ways to clean.  The laptop pieces he passed around and we got to look at were very interesting.  I had never seen the individual pieces up close.  He also explained in detail why it is important to to keep your laptop on a flat surface so that the cooling fan can suck in air.  The stuff he said on the battery was interesting as well.  I had always wondered if I should let the battery run all the way down and apparently thats the best thing to do so that the battery doesn't shorten its life.  I just replaced the battery in my macbook this summer actually.  Maybe this new one will last me longer now. I did not know that laptop hard drives are generally interchangable.  Overall this was a very informative talk.

Photos That Lie

I chose for this project to combine two pictures.  I took the picture of the deer at a ranch in South Texas last winter and the picture of the crazy looking fish I used for the head I took probably about 5 years ago down at the coast.  I basically edited the fish's picture so that only the head was left.  I used the magic extractor tool to take the fish out of its picture. Then I had to remove a hook that was sticking out of the corner of its mouth and the ends of a pair of pliers my brother was using to hold the fish when I took the picture. I then decided just how much of the fish's head I want to use and erased the rest of the body.  It was pretty easy because this particular species of fish has this strange almost armor looking plate over its head and the rest of the body is smooth.  I simply deleted the smooth body and was left with the hard armored head.  I decided to leave a couple fins sticking off the head so that they would look like little fin-beards under the deer-fish's head.  I then used the move tool to move the fish's head on to the background of the deer.  I rotated the fish so that it lined up correctly with the antlers and the ears.  I then decided to move the fish's eye down to a more natural looking position so I selected just the eye and moved it down a bit.  I then used the cloning stamp to carry some of the deer's fur down over the fish's head to smooth out the lines between the image and make it look continuous.  Then I had to go in and adjust the saturation, hue, brightness, contrast and shadows of the fishes image to match that of the deer. It was tricky because the image of the fish was taken on a bright summer day and there was a lot of shine off of the fish's head and the deer's picture was taken on an overcast winters day and was much duller.  Luckily the color of the fish and the deer were close enough that it didn't take much adjustment to match them up.  
I manipulated this image this way simply because I thought it would be comical and strange looking.  I don't think this manipulation was harmful at all, just good clean fun.  Im never going to try to pass this new creature off as anything real or try to convince someone the image is unaltered.  The article I read was an interesting one about studying cells from pictures that have been altered.  Sometimes scientists will edit images of cells either intentionally or otherwise to make them easier to see or differentiate.  Often times these scientist do not consider what they may be changing when they do what they think is an improvement.  Changing the saturation or something or an image of a cell may detract from the accuracy of any observations garnered from looking at the photo.  Of course you would never want to studying something biological by looking at a photo edited in the way that mine is but there are certain things that can be done to make important things easier for scientists to see.  They just have to be careful that the manipulation doesn't have any unintended consequences and that anyone else who looks at the photo later knows how and why it has been altered so that they don't see something in it that isn't really there.  


Pinco, Jeffery, et al. "Impact of Digital Image Manipulation in Cytology." Archives of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine 133.1 (2009): 57-61. Print.

Powerpoint Presentations

Overall I was rather satisfied with my presentation.  I felt it went well and that it was reasonably organized and neat looking. I liked the background that I found. I felt that the kind of flowing blue lines went well with the topic of rivers and discharge and what not.  My only real qualm with my presentation was I think it may have been kind of boring.  It was over a reasonably narrow subject that few people ever really need to know about.  It was kind of technical as well and not exactly an add for becoming a G Sci major, unless of course the technically stuff is what interests you.  It wasn't exactly a flashy presentation.  It was really more academic. I think the most interesting thing I got out of this was really seeing how you might go about teaching this stuff. Making the powerpoint I was continually trying to think of the best way to build on each topic so that you had to understand the first slide to really get the next.  I know I didn't really have time to teach the stuff properly nor do I think that anyone in the room cared or wanted me to but it helped me really master the equations and concepts that I was talking about.

Chris Nolan

First and foremost I did not know that google had all of those features.  The basics of image searches and web searches I knew of course but I had never heard of the google scholar function or the define function.  Apparently you can refine your searches to sources that have been deemed scholarly.  Also you can simply type in define then a : and the word and google will give you a definition.  I will definitely be using google instead of dictionary.com after what he told us about the cookies and what not that website installs on your computer.  I also found the lesson in refining your search by using the advanced search feature very helpful.  I like it that you can search only .edu's or .org's

Powerpoint

Although powerpoint is an incredibly useful tool it does have some rather annoying features.  Most of these annoyances stem from people just taking the features over board.  I would not really say that anything about the program or how it functions is particualrly annoy though my experience is not extensive enough to really say that with any authority.  That being said some annoying things include when people using the typewriter effect where the text of every word comes in individually and it uses that loud typewriter tapping noise.  Also excessive use of entry animations from every which way is rather annoying like when every word or the bullet points all fly in from a different direction.  Its cute and what not but really distracts from a good presentation.  Icluding too much information on a a slide also detracts from a presetations effectivness.  Power point slides really should provide bullet notes or a kind of outline of the presentation with perhaps very important details written out so noe one misses them.  This one may just be me but I like to see all the information on the slide at once.  I dont like it when professors go bullet by bullet only showing the next point when they have finished the last.  I understand that it helps focus on the topic at hand but I just like to see the direction a lecture is going and kind of anticipate the next topic.  Finally pictures are great in a power point slide but organization is essential. I am of the opinion that simple is good when it comes to powerpoint.  Lots of different pictures on one slide can make it very difficult to understand or follow. In the end if used effectivly and kept rather simple and elegant power point is really an essential tool in education and just the general presentation of information. It certainly beats using an overhead projector like teachers used to years ago.

CLT

I had been down to the CLT before to watch movies for my Spanish classes but I did not know the extent of the services available down there. I do find it a bit difficult to navigate down there. For some reason I get really turned around as soon as I step off those stairs. Interestingly though in my wandering around trying to get out the other day I stumbled upon a rather extensive collection of Jazz and Classical albums that were pretty cool. Anyway the computing capability down there is rather impressive. I like that they not only have several very nice PCs but also a fleet of cool Macs as well. The number of scanners is nice too. I have a scanner on my printer in my room but 1) I never hook up my printer and 2) that scanner is hard to use. Its difficult to center the thing your trying to scan and to get it to scan exactly what you want it to at the proper size. The scanners down in the CLT were very easy to use and produced exaclty what I wanted them to without any hassel. On top of all this I thought that the video conference room was quite cool as well. All those HD tvs and cameras in there would produce a fine video conferencing experience im sure. Its cool that we have access to those services should we ever need to have a video conference job interview. Im not sure I quite understood the whole Trinity network video chat system, something about it being like skype, but it sounded cool. It would be really cool if Trinity could provide lectures over this system. Not so much like classes over the internet but lectures from distinguished proffesors at other schools that we could watch instead of just the few that come to speak here on campus.

Image Manipulation

I chose this image that appeared in the Los Angeles Times in 2003 because it really frustrates me when news organizations spin news and images to make them more profitable or interesting.  To be fair The LA times did not know this photo was doctored when they published it and subsequently fired the photographer but the idea is still there.  The photographer compiled an image of a British soldier and some Iraqi civilians to create this one image.  This manipulation was of course harmful.  These organizations have a job to report the truth and this image is not the truth.  All too often these days news organizations create substance to make their product more marketable.  They all do it but I can think of instances in which Fox news in particular has used stock footage of a rally to depict something that was supposed to have happened that day.

I chose this video because it describes how two images can be combined into something that looks like originally one image. This example of putting Natalie Portman's face into a painting is innocent of course.  This video is just informative in nature, not any kind of commentary on the good and bad of image manipulation.  It is valuable though to see just how easy image manipulation can be and that we should be wary when looking at images that seem implausible or just a bit off.

Excel

I had to use Excel alot this summer at my job at an insurance company.  they kept track of all of their data on spreadsheets and honestly I had some trouble manipulating the data at times due to the formatting they used.  Now that I know the controls to the program better I feel more confident that I could manipulate formulas and formats more adequately.  I used to have trouble making absolute cell references and I would spend way more time than was needed formating a formula for each cell.  Knowing what I know now I would have been ten times more efficient this summer.  Overall Excel is a wonderful program to know how to use as it organizes and provides avenue to analyze data that might otherwise be convoluted and confusing.

Copyright Laws

I, like really anyone our age, knew about copyright laws generally.  I knew that pirating music and what not was illegal.  It’s called pirating after all.  I did not know all the specifics of the law that we learned though.  I found it particularly interesting that the Disney Corporation had such sway with the system.  As the law used to stand copyright extended for the authors life plus fifty years.  When fifty years after Walt Disney’s death was nearing the corporation lobbied successfully to extend copyright to author’s life plus 70 years.  I find it unsettling that such a thing can happen.  Copyright ought to expire at some point so that things move into the public domain.  Of course the author and his or her immediate decedents deserve the rights and profits of the work but for 70 years? And how long will Disney extend this?

Also as a college age person I find that the issue of illegal downloading affects me greatly.  Of course we all know of such things happening but rarely do we consider the consequences of these actions.  There are of course the possible legal repercussions of being taken to court by a record label or something which cannot be ignored but are these actions justifiable? I personally believe the answer is a very qualified yes.  These record labels certainly have the rights to the music and they certainly should.  They provide the capital to produce and market their product thus they deserve profits from it but suing a college age student for hundreds of thousands of dollars for a dozen songs is beyond extortion.  A couple times the value of the album plus some sort of reasonable damages such as a processing fee for the trouble of filing the claim or something I think would be reasonable.  Threatening to take such a small time offense to court is not only ridiculous but also inefficient.  These companies have to pay the legal fees for this process thus making it more expensive for the defendant.  Of course if someone has thousands of dollars worth of illegal downloads and is selling them to make personal profit the record labels should go after them with all they’ve got.  That’s a legitimate challenge to they’re due profits but a college kid with a couple dozen songs? Give them a slap on the wrist and tell them next time they will come after them for real. 

Copyright Laws by Zach Sickmann is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2175526267235034191.

TUnetwork

The Trinity network seems to be a fairly complex and complicated thing. I suppose it would have to be to support the data needs of an entire university. I can only imagine what a school like The University of Texas would have. I learned quite a few new things whilst studying the network. First of all I had never seen an actual server room before. It was very cool to actually see a kind of physical embodiment of this abstract thing. Also I had no idea how the Ethernet jack in my room connected me to the internet. I didn’t know that those Ethernet cables run to the data closets and must be switched to fiber optic cable before running to the hub in Ruth Taylor.

Mystery Spot

I chose this spot because I walk through those doors multiple times every day going to and from classes. I used two different effects to diguise this photo in picnik. the first I believe is called HDR-ish that affects the color and the sharpness of the image. I then used the Posterize effect and limited it to three or four colors. This effect also changed the detail to give the photo that slightly blury look so that it looks like it was printed on a poster. Finally I added the "Where Is This," at the bottom using the text feature and a font called bandana made to look like the pattern on a bandana. I didn't exactly set out to make it black and white but in messing around with that posterize effect I decided I liked that look.

Joe Hatch

I found Joe Hatch's talk very interesting. I always knew that Macs had generally less problems with viruses than PCs but I was never quite sure why. It makes perfect sense that hackers and the like would want to target the computers most frequently used both by businesses and individuals. I had never really considered the security of the macbook I own but now i think it might be time to be more concious of that. Using secure networks and anti virus software wasn't something I had before been particularly worried over. Its always better to be safe than sorry in these matters I suppose.

Introduction

Hi, My name is Zach Sickmann and I am from San Antonio. I am a junior here at Trinity this year. It is, however, only my second year at Trinity. I transfered at the beginning of last year from The University of Mississippi. I am currently a English major though I am dabbling in the geosciences. I could end up majoring in either one. I could end up majoring in both. I could end up majoring in one and minoring in the other. I don't really know which but I need to figure that out soon. I have played soccer for pretty much my whole life and have been involved in Music since middle school and these days I have taken up cycling. I play Euphonium and have done so in concert and marching bands for about 7 years. While I was attending the University of Mississippi I was in the "Pride of the South," Ole Miss marching band. Since I have come to Trinity I have cut back on my participation in band, last year only joining the jazz band. This year will be my first without being in a schools band of some sort. My computer skills are limited to a java script based programming class in high school and the excel skills I learned this summer working at an insurance company. Other than that I have pretty much the basic knowledge that any college age kid these days has.

 Contact Info
zsickman@trinity.edu