Learning from Chris Nolan

Mr. Nolan’s presentation was very instructive and taught me a lot about useful tools for every day use of search engines. Important common sense information I was unaware of such as the fact that .com signals that it is a commercial site, .org represents non profit organizations, among others. I also found it very useful to learn that Google shows the popular sites in the initial pages, but scholarly journals and information that could be really helpful is in the pages further back. Something that surprised me from this informative lecture was the JC Penney case:

JC Penny contracted a company who created fake websites that linked to the JC Penney webpage so it was on an extremely high place in many search results. Google changed logarithms and took other measures to avoid this to happen and allow more honest search to occur.

This showed Google is valuable and in many ways tries to find the best results for its customers

Power Point Entry

Power point is one of Microsoft Office's greatest tools in my opinion. It helps to organize ideas into a single presentation which portrays them in an organized manner which is visually appealing to an audience. Furthermore, it contains so many small applications within to make the presentation interactive and interesting. Hyperlinks and transitions help the presentation be smooth and easy to use in order for the person giving the presentation to not distract others by taking out posters or other ineffective aids. Lately power point is used more and more throughout businesses and educational systems, one can even suggest that in many ways it is over used or incorrectly used.

Although power point is a fantastic tool, people tend to misinterpret the purpose of it and use it erroneously. Coming to college was very different to what I was used to in my school where power point was used by the students to give entertaining presentations to the class. At Trinity most professors use power point and it really is evident how they use it just to write down information instead of using all its tricks and tools to make the class better. One of the things they tend to do is write a lot of information in each bullet point which just makes it visually hard to see and it drags on the presentation longer. Another thing seen on an awful power point presentation is the lack of organization. Each slide layout is there to help each section and many times scattered ideas and data are found all over the presentation without considering that each sub topic can be narrowed down into one or a few organized slides. Using transitions helps and many times we see this application being neglected, when it takes only a few seconds to add them. Honestly as I learn more about power point I realize how easy it is to make a great presentation and how we could all benefit from it. I just hope to take advantage of this amazing tool once I learn more about its wonders!

CLT visit

This CLT visit was very instructing and interesting. Robert Chapman talked about the many services CLT provides for the students. He mentioned all the new updates that have been done over the years such as the video conference room where students, faculty, professors and really anyone that needs it can use it to communicate long distance. Not only class lectures from teachers abroad are given there, but important conference calls which might include data and many participants. He also mentioned a lot other rooms that are available for video editing and even to practice for a group presentation. I had use the CLT media presentation room once before for a collaborative interview for my business fraternity, but other then that I had no idea of the amazing services this place offers. What I thought was the most interesting of this introduction to CLT was the fact Mr. Chapman mentioned the importance of innovation and how they always get top technology and new systems very fast. They manage their own computers and systems this is why they are updated with all the new technology (ITS has no control over their systems). It is very useful to know this space is available for students to learn, work, and interact with new technology!

This is my self portrait which I drew and scanned it using the technology in CLT.

Excel Progress

Excel is a great working tool and I am learning a lot about it. It is quite easy to follow the book because it is very detailed and it allows me to refer back in the chapter to review over the things I didn't understand. The complicated part is that I have a mac instead of a pc which makes it more challenging to complete the assignments. I wish that the book and the tutorials were a little bit more directed to mac users since I feel that not only within a group of students but also in companies mac systems are used more and more. Besides this conflict I really am enjoying learning about Excel!

Photoshop Manipulation

I chose the picture below because its a picture I actually have seen and actually thought it was too unbelievable to be true. The matter of the fact it is not true, it was originated in 2001. They added the shark to the picture of a U.S. Air Force helicopter. It was manipulated to show the world the amazing power of nature and input more fright to shark attacks. I believe any manipulation that exaggerates or deceives an audience is unethical, nevertheless, this particular one is not harmful since its just trying to make up an unreal, ridiculous event.

To me the following photoshop video showed me how media deceives our society to makes us believe models and famous artists are perfect when they are really just retouched through photoshop. It is unbelievable they provide us with the outstanding presumed fact that 99% of the pictures in magazines are altered in photoshop before being published.

Private Information Now on Facebook!

Facebook is a social network that has had a positive impact on our society, but has also negatively affected our private lives. Many people that try to apply for jobs or for college are denied due to the research employers and universities do on the person’s Facebook page. On your profile you have your personal information, which covers a wide range of intricate information about your daily life, your likes, your friends, and even simple things as your relationship status. All of these pieces can somehow alter the professional impression you made on your future employer for good or for bad. From the prompt given to us we can observe that this could be broken down into three important parts. First of all arguing the degree of ethics in the decision of the friend to post the picture on Facebook, and secondly if the law firm had reason to disqualify this individual from the job.
Social networking is a way to connect to people within your society in a virtual level, meaning that all parties are aware of the happenings within this web page. Once you decided to have a Facebook profile you comply with various legal agreements and with your ethical decision of letting many people look at your information and know about your daily life. This is why there are privacy settings and you choose who you want to befriend. Therefore, the friend had all the right to put up that picture. For me, it was the fault of the applicant since he was foolish to allow private information that could harm his reputation be exposed online. Un-tagging, deleting, and making pictures private are only one of the few options offered to make these pictures private. Blaming his friend for putting up this picture has no legal value since it was reasonably foreseeable because it was posted on a social network where the claimant knew what the consequences where.
The process of hiring for companies is quite delicate since they must take into consideration many aspects of the applicants. For this case, I believe that the company was wise to make a Facebook background research since you can discover interesting aspects of a person just by looking at their information and profile. This could be a great technique if used for the right purposes, if they just research to find all the negative things in a person’s life then they are misusing social networks. No one should ever judge a person by his or her profile or pictures revealed in the Internet. Yes, this picture was quite revealing of the possible incrimination of the usage of an illegal substance, but that should not be the reason why a person is denied a job. Unless, of course if this picture contains illicit drugs that could be harmful to society or have an important legal impact. But then again, I think that Facebook should be a tool not a decision-making advisor. I researched in the United States laws and I found out through the 5th amendment that: “No person shall be held to answer for….private property be taken for public use, without just compensation” (FindLaw, 1). This is an important part of the Constitution since infringement of private property could hold the company liable. In further research I found out that to avoid lawsuits such as these ones Facebook have agreements a person must approve before being part of the social network. The Terms of Use for Facebook are clear therefore both the company and the applicant should look at them to make sure they are using them correctly for business and professional reasons.
My suggestion to everyone out there is to be wise with the information you post online. It not only could become a very dangerous tool against your well-being, or as seen in the previous case to your professional life. Use privacy settings, make sure you accept the friends you want and know, and always try to portray yourself wisely in the pictures posted of you by you and your friends. Be careful always and don’t misuse social networking because every day tools like these are appearing and growing making your private information more public.

Copyrights

Copyright infringement is a very sensitive legal topic in the United States. Everyday hackers are hired to find people who try to download material from the Internet without the right copyright permits. Copyright is very important to this capitalist nation since it encourages innovation. In order to understand all of these topics, schools, institutions, companies and various other entities provide the population with the correct information on how to handle copyrights and what they are. This is considered a crime and if its not respected and applied it could cost somebody a simple take down notice or a very expensive lawsuit such as Harper vs. Maverick.

The Harper vs. Maverick case was a lawsuit, which began with a San Antonio teenager who decided to illegally download a few songs from a file sharing software. She tried to argue that this was "innocent infringement" but the jury and court decided that this was invalid and that she was guilty of this fault. I personally agree that if she was warned about copyright earlier in her life the court had all the right to punish her. On the other hand, if she was unaware, like a lot of young people are, that this great software which offered free music was illegal and could ignite a costly lawsuit then she should not have been held liable. I just believe everyone living in USA should be informed of the copyright laws.

Thank you to Jason Hardin, Manager of Access Services at Trinity University, for all the valuable information on copyrights.


Copyrights by Andrea Pinto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.