Excel(lente!)

So far, I've had a pretty good experience with Excel. I haven't had any major problems with the program. I've been learning a lot about all of the different features of Excel - before, I just stuck to the basic functions and didn't stray far from the Home tab. I had no idea what conditional formatting was, and it took me a long time to figure out how to format cells. I'm still inexperienced in some areas, but I imagine that after I spend some time navigating through all of the tabs and drop-down menus, it'll be easier to figure out where everything is. Learning about Excel would have made it a lot easier for me to summarize data last year for bio and chem lab reports. I basically entered college without ever having to use Excel, and I struggled a lot first semester when it came to creating charts and graphs and knowing the "rules" of entering formulas and formatting cells. Now that I know (more or less) how to use Excel, I really like it. It makes it easy to organize data and categorize everything. I can see myself using Excel for making budgets, calendars, and (of course) more lab reports. The only thing that is a little overwhelming about Excel is the number of options available on the Ribbon. If you have forgotten where something is (or didn't know where it was in the first place) it can be very difficult to locate a particular command. Other than that, I don't have any problems with Excel. I think it's a very useful tool, especially in college.

Copyright Lecture

Jason Hardin, the Manager of Access Services, came to our class yesterday to talk to us about basic copyright information.  I thought he brought up a lot of interesting points, several of which are pretty controversial.  One thing he mentioned was how a former Trinity student was sued for copyright infringement.  According to Hardin, the student downloaded a somewhat obscure album of country songs and ended up going to court and paying somewhere around $15,000 for her crime.  Upon hearing stories of copyright infringement, it's easy to think that it could never happen to you and that you would have to really go out of your way to get caught for such a crime.  But hearing the story about the former Trinity student sort of made me reevaluate what I had previously thought about copyright infringement.  In reality, most (if not all) of us do it every day, especially because the internet makes ridiculously easy to obtain movies, pictures, songs, etc., in a matter of minutes.  And since violating copyright laws is so easy to do, it almost makes the law less real (or at least less personal).  When you picture stealing something, you probably don't think of clicking a 'download' button.  In the minds of most people, stealing takes considerable planning and effort and involves a tangible item.  

That's why I can't help but feeling slightly upset when I hear stories like the one about the Trinity student.  Our generation is so desensitized to the fact that it IS stealing that they (usually) don't even consider themselves to be breaking the law.  And out of the thousands and thousands of teens that violate copyright laws, it seems that only a handful of them are actually punished.  So when that one unfortunate student is busted for breaking the law and is forced to pay thousands of dollars, the distribution of "justice" seems a little off.  Obviously, a majority of people committing  a crime doesn't make it less of a crime.  And I completely understand why copyright laws are in place.  Copyright laws help stimulate our economy and work to protect people's ideas and creative works.  But the consequences of breaking the law (and getting caught, of course) seem to be on the harsher side.  And especially since I'm a college student, I know that the person who faced the law suit probably didn't have an extra 15 grand just sitting on his/her desk.  I feel like more time should be spent educating teens on what is and isn't legal, what the consequences of breaking the law are, and what some alternatives to downloading illegal files are.  Because simply lashing out at a few guilty individuals does nothing to deter copyright infringement - if anything, it makes it more of a high-risk game for those who ARE fully aware of the copyright laws.

Copyright Lecture by http://rileynewson.blogspot.com/2010/09/copyright-lecture.html is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.

My Trinity Network Diagram

 

This is a screen shot of my Trinity Network Diagram.  I used the notes that I took in class as well as the example network diagrams for reference.  Mine does not look as complicated as some of the examples, but I formatted it a little differently and did not include the Cobb-Racy building in the diagram (since the building was recently torn down).  I enjoyed the tour that I took with my class last week to Trinity's server room in Halsell.  I had never seen a server room before, and I was overwhelmed with the sheer number of Ethernet cables running everywhere - especially when Jared Pack, the Systems Administrator, said that those were only about half the ones used for just the Halsell building.  It really makes you think twice about where your Internet is coming from, and how many different places it has to go in order to make it to your personal computer...

Trinity Mystery Spot

This is a place most of us pass by every day, but I feel like it doesn't always get the recognition it deserves.  It's a very tranquil (and often empty) place... If you pay attention to your surroundings as you walk through the middle of campus, this location will probably be pretty obvious.  I used Picnik to alter the saturation and temperature of the picture and added some artsy-looking trees and flowers to give it a little more vibrance and excitement.  I then saved it to my computer and uploaded it to my blog.  If this looks familiar, please feel free to guess the mystery spot! Good luck!

Joe Hatch's visit

Yesterday Joe Hatch came to our class to talk to us about computer survival skills. He explained what Clean Access was (a security system for the campus that checks for updates and provides Sophos antivirus, but does NOT protect against identity theft).  It kind of surprised me how this is my second year here and that was the first time anyone had explained what it was - I knew that it was some kind of security feature and that it was a pain in the butt to sign into the system every time I open my laptop, but I didn't know the details.  He also talked about Mac support, which didn't apply to me since I've always used a PC, and he discussed network drives.  I have used my Y drive a few times before, but it was nice to hear more about it.  Joe Hatch also introduced our class to ccleaner.com, which allows you to download a program that removes the buildup of temporary files, cookies, web histories, etc. that builds up on your computer over time.  I downloaded it yesterday and ran the program, and I removed about 1200 MB of junk from my laptop... I had no idea that my laptop had been continuously saving and storing so much stuff, especially since I've only had it for about a year.  Overall, I thought that I learned quite a bit about basic computer survival tips, and I will definitely be using the ccleaner program regularly!