Advice for the Newbies

If I could pass on just one bit of advice about this class, it would be this - slacking off is easy, the assignments are easy to overlook, and there are a huge number of them, so it's really easy to let a few slip through the cracks, but doing so will absolutely murder your GPA, so keep a close watch on the workload and don't ever get behind or else you'll never catch up.

Favorite Websites

So I was going through the long list of great webpages presented in class, and I found that they were all so good I could hardly choose any of them as being "the best" without overlooking the generally superior quality they all shared, so congratulations to everyone on a job well done! After a great deal of thought, and a looming assignment, I finally narrowed my selection to three webpages that stood out from the crowd; Ralph's, Joy's, and Greg Cobbs' from the 2:10 class. I think Ralph's showed a generally superior grasp of the visual aspect of website design with his picture oriented pages and incredible links, while Joy demonstrated an amazing mastery of photoshop in a personal website that was both informative and fun. Greg's caught my interest because of his wonderful use of humor and amazing taste in music. His talent helped him to create a personal website that was both visually appealing without being overstimulating and sublime in its portrayal of the daily life of an ordinary college student.

Visit my webpage at www.cs.trinity.edy/~ssheppar

HTML

So the more I learn about HTML coding, the more important I start to realize it is. Even with programs that can do the largest part of the work for you, it is still very necessary and useful to know the HTML code because, it goes without saying, even advanced programs can make mistakes. It is good, therefore, to know what to look for in the code and to be able to rectify problems with the web design manually, rather than having to rely on a computer program 100% of the time.

Power On!

So I really think that judging the presentations has to be one of the hardest assignments yet just because all of them were of such high quality. It seems to me that everyone in the class has such a solid grasp of how to make a great presentation that almost all of them were flawless. That being said, I think my two favorites were Robert's presentation on Coach Carroll and Alexis' presentation on the accounting internship. I think the best things that Robert did on his presentation were: using the matching USC color scheme and exquisite use of matching music (love that fight song), as well as a generally superior presentation demeanor. Alexis', on the other hand, was stunning because of the sheer breadth of her knowledge and amazing use of layering and her general visual superiority. The backgrounds were stunning, her stage presence was very strong and I was especially impressed with her ability to make even a seemingly mundane topic incredibly exciting. Great job to everyone!

That's Incredible

So I think the best thing I got out of Mr. Nolan's presentation was how even official looking websites can contain massive amounts of polarizing, or sometimes just flat out wrong information. I was shocked, in something of a humorous way, when I visited the Martin Luther King Jr. webpage only to find that it was actually run by a group of radical segregationists. That, to me, was a learning experience about how untrustworthy trustworthy looking sites can be. I was quite impressed by his analysis of the credibility of many webpages, with one exception. I think Wikipedia is a more credible source than it is given credit for. Even in the example that Mr. Nolan gave about the attempt by Colbert to drastically change the elephants page seems to reinforce the idea that Wikipedia is never far from the unwavering eyes of the moderators. As he said himself, they locked the article to prevent people from adding false information to the page, an act which I think speaks volumes to the credit of the oft embattled web encyclopedia.

How to Make a Bad Presentation

So I think Microsoft PowerPoint is probably the simplest program to use horribly wrong in the entire Windows suite. While everyone thinks that they know how to create a perfect presentation, I have compiled a list of my top five PowerPoint pet peeves in an attempt to dispel some presentation myths and mistakes.

1. LOTS OF TEXT - Having waaay too much text does not mean you say more, in fact, PowerPoint is a true champion of minimalism, and often embodies the literary truth that less is more, more or less.

2. Too Much Animation - Lots of moving pictures and text are an attention deficit nightmare. If your PowerPoint has to have a surgeon general's warning that it may cause seizures, then it probably isn't getting the message across.

3. Overpowering Music - Music can be a huge helper for most presentations, and can even be the difference between a bad presentation and a good presentation when used properly, but even good music can go horribly wrong if it drowns out the presenter.

4. Don't Just Read What's on the Page - The slides are meant to guide, but too often they become the main device of communication within a presentation. If notes are being used, they should be directly to the point, but should be expansive and shine light on the bullet points presented on the slides.

5. Not Proofreading Slides - It takes very little to destroy even the best buildups, but poor spelling ensures that that even a good presentation will crash and fail.

Excelleration

So I think the best thing about learning excel now is that I won't have to deal with learning about it later. So far I've learned a great number of new things about the program, such as the proper use of formulas to calculate standard deviation and to discern an absolute cell reference. I find these formulas especially useful because they make calculations far more simple and help to reduce the amount of effort and time spent making them. The useful experience I have gained here with the use of formulas and charts and other goodies would be easily applicable in a business field, or any teaching field so that they could easily calculate averages and standard deviations.