Dude.. A Blog??

Tools of the Trade

2008-04-29T17:38:00.000-07:00

For all those taking this class next semester, I believe the best tip that I could give you is do your homework. The homework, is for the most part not hard at all and only occasionally takes more than 10 minutes. Forgetting to do homework can really hurt your grade in the long run also.

Everyone's Internet

2008-04-24T11:36:00.000-07:00

I found it quit hard to find some peoples websites. As I put the names in correctly, it said the website was not found, so with the websites that I could view, I enjoyed these websites in no particular order. Lin Chen for her great use of color in the backgrounds that matched perfectly with her text and great pictures! I really liked the the About Me page. I can't wait till she gets up the rest of her photography. Ashley Conway's who also used her background contrasts very well. I also really like her photography. All her image maps and postcards looked very professional, and my favorite picture is the sun set over Long Pond in Cape Cod. I also enjoyed Jeanna's for her creativity, which of course is always pleasant. I really liked her newspaper art. It was very cool, and her set up was nice. Went well with her website. When you have a chance please visit my website at http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~lcaldar1/.

HTML Why?

2008-04-13T16:04:00.001-07:00

Even though the new technology does not require one to know the HTML code, if you know the code, it can help immensley. Many reasons that one should still have basic knowledge of HTML is because if Expressions Web or Dreamweaver has made a mistake somewhere on your webpage, you must be able to look at the code to try and make the fix. HTML allows you to look at the page source and visualize what the webpage should look like. Knowing HTML helps a great deal also in being able to look at other webpages and take ideas from the other pages that you like and add them to your page.

Present Your Future

2008-04-08T11:19:00.000-07:00

The power points in class where very well presented and made. It was a tough pool of applicants but I chose Meghan's as one of my class favorites. I really enjoyed her power point because it had a great flow of information. Her presentation was very well done and extremely informative. I especially liked the link to the NASA website. She had a nicely made background, and her slides where well represented without much clutter. My other class favorite was a little tougher to decide on, but I think Jeanna's power point was my next favorite. Her creativeness in her slides helped spark interest, and the presentation just kept me listening. I really enjoyed how passionate she was about becoming a Postal worker, and it showed through her presentation. I also liked the finishing touch she put on it with the animation. Both were great presenters.

Power Point Perfection

2008-03-25T13:50:00.000-07:00

The help articles given for us to read were very informative. I believe that the one that included some of the best information was the top ten slide tips. Most of the tips, in the link I surprisingly already believed where what helped make a good power point presentation. I also found the Really Bad Power Point - and How to Avoid It quite interesting. The most interesting part of that section was towards the bottom where he challenged people by saying that there should only be six words per slide. It was very informative for more professional manners and when it showed the templates that were made that were suppose to be good templates for work, I thought they were not that good just like he did.

My five guidelines for a good power point presentation are:
1. Organize the slides in a presentable way
2. Have the least amount of words on the slide as possible. Use the slide as notes
3. Limit animations
4. Color scheme should flow and not clash
5. The font should be easy to read and stick out against the background

My Power Point Pet Peeves:
1. Dull Colors make a dull presentation
2. Cluttered slides
3. Animations on each text line/bullet point

Unlimited Research Lessons (URL)

2008-03-24T10:51:00.000-07:00

Chris Nolan gave an excellent presentation in class helping me familiarize myself with the search advancements of Google. I have been an avid Google search follower for the later half of my life, and from the presentation I learned that the "I'm Feeling Lucky," search means that whatever you search the first Google listing page will be pulled up and you will be directed towards it. I also thought that Google listed its link by popularity, or number of hits on the site. I found out that in a way it is like popularity because the number list is number of web pages linked to the sites, unless it is a sponsored link which means that web site has paid Google to put them as a first link. I also learned that different countries had their own . endings which I had not really ever paid attention enough to to know. For example Mexico is .mx and the Netherlands is .nl. The most common to you and me is .com .org and .edu these are affiliated with America. The most interesting fact that I learned from Mr. Nolan was that in Google you can type in the word : definition and the definition of the word will show up where you usually see links.

Hey You Can Copy..Right??

2008-03-12T19:47:00.000-07:00

I learned many things during our copyright presentation such as: copyright is the authors life plus 75 years, founders copyright is 14 years, and that education usually does not have to pay for copy written material as long as they use it sporadically.

To me the most interesting thing that we learned about copy right was that of the Sonny Bono Act. This act extended the copyright of many things but what I would like to talk about is how it extended the copy right on Disney characters.

The thought of passing legislation that helps extend the Disney characters is far fetched. I mean what makes Disney have so special that the characters should be extended in copyright. It is not fair to others who have not had this opportunity to extend the copyright on their material. The Disney characters are no more important to you and I as Aquaman or Superman. These comic book characters would never get the attention as Disney did.

I firmly stand by this Act for I personally believe that these Disney characters have influenced the life of many children all over the world. The characters are much more distinct than most any film industries characters. I mean these characters not only have movies, but Disney has cartoons also. Disney was the innovator for the children's world of TV entertainment. For this Disney characters should get the perks. I just can not picture any Disney character being used by other companies for advertising or other reasons. Disney was the new era and for that their characters should be saved!

How to Excel

2008-03-09T21:17:00.000-07:00

The use of Excel has helped me tremendously. I did not know really much at all about Excel and now I feel very comfortable making graphs and inputting information into Excel. With this new knowledge it will help greatly if I ever run into a situation where I need to make a spreadsheet or need to make a schedule. It can also help to manage financial transactions or be used for projects where you have to input data and come up with graphs.

Picture Distortion

2008-02-27T19:38:00.000-08:00

I chose this picture because I find it funny that such an established institution would lie to make people believe they are diverse. I mean its a college with an enrollment of about 30 thousand students, so obviously they are going to be diverse. This photo originated at a Wisconsin football game which was taken in 1994 and used for a poster in 2000. I guess as the years go by we don't get smarter, we possibly might be just getting dumber. I mean if we think that by adding a person of African American decent into a picture shows our campus is more "diverse," than maybe we are not as smart as we claim to be. So the manipulation in the picture is the adding a black student, seen smiling at the game, and it was manipulated to show campus diversity. I believe this manipulation was not harmful for the reason that I do believe Wisconsin has students of all race. After all if you had not know that this student was just cropped in, one might not even recognize him.

Wireless On Campus

2008-02-03T22:44:00.000-08:00

Trinity University was voted in the top ten for being one of the best wireless campuses in the US. I believe that this is a good thing for the university considering how big of a role technology plays in our every day life. Personally, I use the wireless network very seldom. My first semester I would bring my computer to Writing Workshop at times when we were asked to. I found the internet to be as big of a distraction as one would let it be. We normally brought in our computers to do research on a topic for our paper that we were in the process of writing. I usually started off looking up research but later faded towards surfing the net and just cruising around on facebook. What I really do enjoy is how all the teachers put up lecture notes online which makes it quite easy to follow along if the student just wants to bring their computer to class. I have thought about just starting to bring my computer and nothing else because it is just as easy to take notes on the computer as it would be to write them down, possibly even faster and more efficient. To some it may also make the sometimes dull classroom more enjoyable by multi tasking, by taking notes and looking on the internet for other information. For more feelings on wireless campuses just follow my link.

Word To Yuh Motha

2008-01-30T16:14:00.000-08:00

Well Microsoft Word, what a great application made to type papers. As far as Word goes, all I personally have ever used it for is typing up notes, assignments, and papers. A few times I have used if for clip art but not many. I would like to learn alternative uses for this program if it happens to have any. Oh and the only thing I must say is when I first starting using Word 2007 it was not pretty, and it still is frustrating at times to find exactly what I want. For instance I still have a tough time finding the double spaced button for my paragraphs. It's just silly.

AHH!! The Blue Screen of Death!

2008-01-22T13:08:00.000-08:00

I sit down at 9pm to do my homework. First of all I am thinking that I have plenty of time to finish this homework since I am starting so early. All of a sudden my computer flashes everyones favorite, the blue screen of death. I take a moment to realize that I now have lost all my files wich includes plenty of music, and the hassle of getting a new computer or running the disk that sets the computer back to its originally manufactured state. I now decide to get on my roommates computer because after all he is a nice guy, and he lets me use his computer to finish my homework.

My Life

2008-01-17T13:07:00.000-08:00

Hello, my name is Luke Caldarera, and I am currently a first year at Trinity University. I was born in Houston, Texas and have lived there most of my life with a short stint in Plano and Beaumont. As far as my immediate family goes, I have one older brother whose name is Ben. He is 21 and was attending Centenary College in Louisiana while playing soccer there. He recently decided school was not for him and is now back at home, well at least temporarily. I also have two younger sisters named Rachel (16) who is a sophomore in high school and Annie who is in the 8th grade (13). A little background about my family is that we are sports orientated, and spend most of our time together running around from one sport event to the next.

Some information about myself is that I grew up playing soccer and basketball, and by my senior year of high school I chose to stick with basketball and drop soccer. I am now playing basketball for Trinity and I really enjoy the team. Our year is going really well so far. My hobbies include basically any sport, hanging out with friends, and just enjoying life. Some of my interests are: art, the mountains, Europe, and old muscle cars, which I was actually lucky enough to have a 69 Pontiac Firebird throughout my high school years. It was a great car, and the sad thing is all it does now is sit in the garage at my house, and my dad wants to sell it.

If you would like to get to know me anymore, my email address is lcaldar1@trinity.edu. This is my place of residence when not at TU http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=29.768738,-95.703964&z=16&t=h&hl=en. My computer background is not the biggest, it is decent because I play an online game called Americas Army. I have taken a web design class, which is the only other computer class I have ever taken in my life.