Advice

My advice for new students is to make sure you come to class and stay on top of things because it is very easy to get backed up and lose points.

Favorite Websites

I thought many of the websites were well done. However, one of my favorites was Emily's website. She had tons of pictures and collages on her website that looked really cool. I also loved her crazy cool backgrounds.
Another website I liked was Adriene's website. I was pumped to learn she is a Pheonix Suns fan. I also felt her website was creative and well organized. She did a great job.
The last of my favorites was Nicole's website. I especially liked this website because she didn't do it on herself, but rather on umpiring. This topic has always interested me and I was excited to learn more about it. Her website was very cool.
If you would like to visit my website please click on http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~dmaurer/.

HTML Code

I believe it is important for web designers to know HTML code in case something with their page goes wrong and Microsoft Expression Web can't fix it. Web designers should have the skills to manually fix and or create web pages using HTML code. Although it is much easier to use web design software, HTML coding is a good skill to have in case of a software malfunction or other emergency.

Powerpoint Presentations

I thought the presentations for the class were very creative and well organized. One presentation that stood out from the others for me was Nicole's presentation. I found that she did a good job making accounting seem interesting and fun. I also found her edgy background and her animations were innovative and well structured. I didn't know that if you leave school with a masters in accounting you are automatically labelled an accountant without work experience.
I also found Adriene's presentation was very good. She chose an interesting topic in green business and I felt it kept the audience's attention throughout the presentation. The design with the green background fit the presentation very well. Also the pictures were easy to see and relevant to the topic. Her slide transitions were also very smooth.

The Truth About PowerPoint

I learned many new things concerning PowerPoint presentations from these three articles. The article "Really Bad PowerPoint and How to Avoid it" was a very useful article. I found it funny that the good examples for Microsoft slides are exactly what you do not want to do. I also found it funny that reading off your slides was considered the kiss of death.
These are my five most important guidelines for your power point presentation.
1. Do not have to much information on your page. The audience doesn't want to spend the whole time reading paragraphs on your slide. It also takes away from the attention you get during your presentation.

2. Do not use fonts in which it is hard to read because of the style or color. You don't want to make the audience spend time trying to read your slides.

3. Do not use clip art. At a serious level nothing says unprofessional more than clip art.

4. Do not use slide transitions in which it takes twenty minutes to get all of the information visable on your slide. The audience doesn't want to have to wait for your slide to appear.

5. Do not use to many sounds or other audio. This also makes your presentation seem childish and unprofessional.

Make it simple and full of interesting visual aids that have to do with your presentation.

Search Engines

I learned many new things about search engines in the presentation. I thought one part of the presentation that was very interesting was how search engines rank websites. Google actually weights websites to determine which ones are most useful. Google will also send automotive bots to scan the pages to find key terms. Usually the more key terms the more useful the article is for your topic.

Another thing I learned was how to classify your search. For example, I did not know you could type site: - .com and restrict your search to non .com websites. There are also advanced searches that allow you to limit your search. I learned how to use search engines more effectively and efficiently from the presentation.

Copyright

As the world grows technologically, so do the number of digital files that consist of movies, songs, and many other things. This allows people to easily copy files without costing money or losing quality. Copyright has become a much larger issue because of the easiness to copy files.

I learned many new things concerning copyright and plagiarism from the presentation. First, I learned that the RIAA doesn't care if you have copied 1 or 1,000 songs, they still can catch you and charge you. Secondly, I learned of the dangers of copying files through limewire and the penalties that go with it. Another interesting fact I took away from the presentation was the law that gives rights to the author through their lifetime and 75 years after their death.

An issue concerning copyright is whether Disney should be able to keep their characters out of the public domain and continue to hold their rights. Disney believes they should be able to keep the rights to their characters, while other people want to be able to publicly use the characters Walt Disney created.

My stance on this issue is that they should not create a law extending rights for all works, but that if the certain subject is still making money for the company than that company should continue to hold their rights. Disney should be able to hold the copyrights to their characters until they stop making money or they give them up.