Project Time...

Websites like Instructables, LifeHacker, and EHow have a collection of tutorials for all kinds of different projects. You can literally find a DIY instruction set for just about anything you search for. So, I found a couple of projects I'd like to (eventually and hopefully) try. I'll link to them so you can check them out if you'd like!

1. Make my own nail polish remover in a jar

     I get so lazy with my nail polish, that I usually just end up chipping it off during my lectures. And this is            really so simple I wish I could have just thought of it myself. I'm not going to make much advances with          this project, but it just makes taking nail polish off easier without scraping my nails and cuticles to pieces

2. How to make peanut butter brownie icing

    I've been looking forever for a really good recipe for peanut butter brownie icing, so taaaa-daaaa! I hope     this will be a good one and I can write it down for continued use. I'll don't think I'll gain anything but               pounds from this. Oh well, fine with me :D.

3. How to remove rust from car

    I just bought a used car. Well, when I say new car, I mean I just bought someone else's problem. It has a     little rust (along with some other crap wrong with it). So I found a tutorial I can show my dad to take care     of all that jazz. In the end, I hope my car will at least look better.

Halloween Stuffs

Halloween is today, so here are some simple projects I'd like to do for the holiday.

How to carve a pumpkin 

This project is basic, but I've never carved a pumpkin in my life. I plan on attempting to carve a pumpkin today with my boyfriend. Obviously you carve it, duh. But this step by step tutorial lists everything you need so I won't forget when I go to the store. And I won't be too blind on my first try.

How to make cheap, creepy, cute Halloween decorations

So, Friday I have to help decorate for a Halloween party (yeah I know Halloween is today but ya know..whatever..not my party). The link I followed had an album of very inexpensive DIY decorations that help tremendously. And since the party is after the actual holiday I'll save ever more!

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How Social Media Has Affected The World...

 There's Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, Linkedin and Flickr and so on. The variety of social media available to internet users is really mind blowing. Social media is all around us and has changed the world in many ways.

Social media has changed the way we interact dramatically. It used to take forever to get a message to a relative or friend that didn't live in the same area as you (of course I speak mostly from what I've heard my parents say :P). I have family in Kentucky I can speak to on Twitter in no time. It's almost impossible to lose contact with someone now, as long as they have some type of social media.

Social media allows us to talk to more people at once. You can post statuses, send group messages, or join a forum. I mean you can talk to all your friends or even people across the world who share the same opinions as you. Your opinion has a better chance of spreading on social media. Also, social media is relatively uncensored. You have to have your comments approved to be printed in a newspaper or even on a website ran by someone else. There's no filter or anyone controlling what you post to the people who decide to look on your profile.

Okay so, if you read my post about Google, you should know I'm about to post something negative to go along...

Again, what if this is making us unlikely to socialize? We don't even have to leave our houses to speak to the people we meet. Messaging someone on Facebook is becoming more common than coming up to someone in person for the first interaction. Many people say things on the internet they would NEVER have the courage to say in public. You really learn a lot about your peers when you creep on their profiles as opposed to watching them sit quietly in class, trust me. And we (well, most of us...at least I don't) don't have thousands of friends. We only have a few. It's crazy how many people we're sharing all our personal information with. But to each their own.  

Oh, and one more complaint before I move on...while yeah you can get your opinion out to a wider range of people..you typically only form into groups of people with people who share the same opinions as you. So we're not exposed to different opinions which might make us a little close minded. And if someone feels different than a group, they get excluded or even worse, bullied. Social media has made bullying just so much easier I feel.

Social media has become an important source for news. While the credibility of some sources can clearly be contested, news channels tweet or give updates on significant happenings all over the world. Their availability on social networks makes news more accessible. For instance, when I want to know anything going on at my college, I check the school's twitter page for the news:

Political awareness has definitely increased with social media. Some countries aren't even allowed to log into Facebook because it enables them to see everything going on in the world. News channels make information known to us all. This was apparent to me during the presidential elections in the US. CNN went above and beyond to keep their Facebook connected to everything going on.

The last subject I'll tread on is how social media has changed advertising. It seems like more companies are less TV based and more social media based. When you buy something, it will usually have "Check us out on Facebook/Twitter" somewhere on it. And because social media is all about you and your desires, the sites will tailor the adds to you. You're more likely to find ads for what you want and buy more of it.

It's debatable whether social media has changed us for the best or the worst, but it's needless to say it has changed this generation indefinitely. Who knows what will come next for social media?

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Photo Manipulation

Today I will be using some programs that edit photos. All of which are online and free for use by everyone. Enjoy!

BeFunky:

Okay, I don't have vision. I don't edit with a purpose. I just wanted to make a dramatic change. BeFunky allowed that with their many color altering features. Also they have a lot of frames and other things to put on the image. But you can look through all my blog and see my one true love...and that is a good collage..which BeFunky can make for you. 

Here, I've detailed a couple of the things you need to know when making a picture collage. I will continue to use this website and depart from my old site. (You'll see in almost all of my posts I've made collages from a site called Fotor) I liked the collage making more than the picture editing capabilities to be honest. And you'll see I've use BeFunky to make the rest of my Before and After pictures in the post.

Photoshop Express Editor:

This program is based off the software Adobe Photoshop, which is a paid software. So this website will not have all the features of its parent software, but to be free it does have much to work with. There are the basic tools to crop, resize, and altering the saturation. Then there are some other tools on the bar that can edit photos....as such:

In the photo I edited, I tried to change the color of the car to a brighter blue and (while sloppy) I did such. The website offers sharing with Facebook, Flickr (reviewed in my last blog about "Photo Sharing"), and Picasa along with many others. There is an online community attached to the website that allows you to surft through some other galleries and rank the pictures because you are given 2 GB of free space. I found that large pictures are easily uploaded but for the time being they only upload .jpeg images which is a bit of a con. I actually have the app for this downloaded on my phone now, so I will use it from time to time as it's really easy.

PicMonkey:

I really liked editing on this website. The site has a bunch of themes you can use to edit pictures. For which I used the witch one to edit this girl's picture because she looks purely witchy even before adding anything.

But also had the basics, along with some add ons and allowed collage making...

A lot of the better features are for "royal" users though. While the site is fun and theme filled, I would not pay or even make a username to get into it. So I'd stick to the free version but even that does not offer much to edit pictures.

Psykopaint:

Am I tragically talented and very famous for my paintings yet? Psykopaint is a new kind of online painting application. It allows you to brush over your photos or even create pieces on a blank canvas. It's a little hard to get the hang of when you start. You have to follow the edges of the focal points in your photo. If you have a lot of stuff going on in the picture this can be hard. The site gives you coins that you receive after reaching certain "goals" on the site. These are to get brushes or other features. 

And this is to make you use the site more, so you can get more out of it. It's pretty cool, but you have to have patience and determination to deal with it.

Sumopaint:

On hearing the title of this website, I thought it would be another version of Psykopaint, but it's not. You can actually download the software and use it on your desktop. I just used the online version though to get this picture. I felt like I did not reach it's full potential so I found some examples of what could be done on the website as well as displayed the interface of the website.

The toolbar is much more extensive than seen on any of the editors used in this post. I used the lasso tool for the picture I edited above. Along with letting you paint, like on Pyskopaint, the site also lets you stamp cut out images. There's also a really neat symmetry tool that lets you make spiral-y kaleidoscope pictures. 

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Photo Sharing

For this blog, I will review image hosting websites. To make this just a bit more personal, I will use some pictures of the pets in my life. Might as well, right?

Photobucket: Okay, first off - don't report me for animal cruelty or something. This is my dog, Dodger, on Independence Day from this year. What can I say, he's all-American. But on to reviewing..if you can scroll over the picture and see my username *sigh*...you can probably tell I've been using Photobucket for awhile, like we're talking Myspace days. I've always loved that it gave an HTML code to place pictures within a website. It lets you have multiple albums and you can make these private or public (which allows people to like them similar to Facebook). There are a lot of sharing options and it allows you to edit the pictures to resize or even fix the quality of them.  You can also search through the website for pictures you're looking for. I use it to find patterns to put in layouts for instance. I'm a fan for life.

Flickr: Here we have Snowball. Snowball is my house cat, who I hate in all of his fat glory, and who I also hold responsible for my hatred of ALL cats. Flickr though, I really like how it is connected to Yahoo. It's rare these days for me to find something that is directly connected with Yahoo in this Google world (see my Google is King of the World blog). It is also connected to Facebook, and if I had Facebook, I would find this very helpful in sharing edited photos. The website gives you a terabyte of space, very good for me. Something else I noticed is that though you upload it and it shows that date, but it also shows when it was taken and from what device. Which if you ever needed to know that, is very useful of the site.

Dropbox: Okay, here is the picture I originally wanted to share from Dropbox. These are my brother's dogs. A German Shepherd who was named Spartacus (he has recently passed away and I will tell you he lived up to his epic name, he was quite the epic dog) and a Boxer named Mira (which if you have watched the show Spartacus, is his wife...teehee my brother's a nerd) Anyway, here my rant begins. I hated downloading Dropbox, I didn't get how to use it/play around with it, and frankly I don't need storage that much to mess with it. I get it, yeah, it allows you to access photos within a folder that is on your computer on any website (or the app if you so choose to put up with the crap), and you can share folders and files with anyone but I just didn't like it from the start. I'd rather use a web based image hoster if using one at all. But, being that I needed to upload a picture to complete this review on all the image hosters...I pursued...and this (first picture below) happened. Over and over and over and over after I kept trying to fix it.

But I guess a cool thing about screenshotting this error was I found out that Dropbox with save screentshots. And I totally would have just uploaded that, ya know if I could figure the friggin' thing out. *end rant*

After many failed attempts and many keys torn off of my laptop in frustration...I uninstalled the program. Granted I'm not the brightest crayon in the box, so try it at your own risk.

ImageShack: Meet my sister's Chinese Sharpei Ace who, as my dad pointed out resembles Alf. He doesn't snack on cats though, but if he did that would be totally fine with me (hatred of cats, remember?). I remember a time where you didn't have to sign up for ImageShack and I miss that time. I miss a simple just upload and not having to sign in to get any features. But I guess it's reasonable. The site is pretty simple and easy to figure out. WHICH WAS SO BLISSFUL AFTER DROPBOX LEMME TELL YA! Hmmm...it was so simple there's really nothing more to say about it. It will host your pictures easily and without much stress.



Along with Photobucket, ImageShack would probably be the only other option for my photo sharing on the web.

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Google: The King of the World

If someone were to ask you what search engine you use the most, you'd probably say Google, right? I mean, it's rare to find anyone that doesn't know about the web based search engine. Even my grandmother uses it. Heck, even my six year-old cousin uses it. (Debatable whether that's necessarily good but..I'll get to that.) From a garage start up in Silicon Valley to a multi-billion dollar company that has more than 70 offices in over 40 global locations, in 15 years, Google has come a long way. It has changed life for us all in ways we don't seem to recognize every day.

Above, I have posted Part 1 of a video we watched in class that is entitled "The History of Internet Search and Google" that tells a little about the internet before Google. Clearly, that was just a little before my time, but the video tells that there were no catalogs for links as there exist now. You pretty much had to know the website before you got online, otherwise it was very hard for you to do anything. Yahoo and Excite were the first to start this grouping of links and important information for easier web surfing. But soon after came Google and search engines changed.

The Google logo has made only minor color changes through the years.

Google indexes much of the world's online information, putting any desired public knowledge just a few keystrokes away. You search for something and Google takes those keywords and ranks the links by quality of information and popularity. Typically, you can find anything within the first page and if not it incites panic.

But really, you can go anywhere just from Google. You can not even have a website in mind but search for something to do on Google. Google is the root of the internet. The search engine is by many accounts the single most-visited page on the Internet now. It has not only changed web based search engines...but the way we research anything. Research papers were completely dependent on library resources years ago. Now, you can Google websites to find the information you need. You can Google books you need and quote it from a preview Google will give you. You can find old newspapers on Google. And on, and on, and on it seems. Google has knocked libraries out of the competition. I can't even remember the last time I looked within a library for my resources without being forced to by a teacher.

Far more than using Google to help on research papers, you can even Google for answers to specific problems on an assignment. Then this search is saved for someone else who might search for it. Google has taken a lot of effort out of learning I believe. More often than not, when there is a book assignment I hear people say "I'll just Google it later." Google has become a synonym to "search." So, instead of just looking within the book or using their own logic to figure it out, people (and yes, I'm definitely guilty of it as well when I just give up on finding something in a book). Google will even suggest and correct you if you do not type something right.

 It's almost like we are regressing. Why memorize or learn when Google has the answers stored forever? Plagiary is very much more likely to happen these days because people will just copy and paste anything and everything they find on Google. And while I posted a funny picture, it's almost scary to think a lot of people these days depend upon Google for their schoolwork more than they should. 

Also, Google provides a less....er....shameful (I guess this is the right word to use) way of finding answers to questions that one might not want to ask a superior. Literally...have you began typing something and seen the queries that pop up below? It's frightening, man - look ->

People from the UK really need to know this?

I dunno, that is a good question. Why DO dogs eat poop?

Joking or not....I do not salute you Google users for those. Face palms for life. But even more so than that, people will search medical queries. And take advice from complete strangers who they have no way of knowing if they are being genuine - instead of just asking their doctor. 

Google has ensured people will continue to use the website by updating frequently. Google is now WAY more than just a search engine. There is the Google Drive, Google Maps, Gmail, Google+, and much more beyond those. Now beyond searching the web, you can do many other things that increase productivity. On the way are products like self-driving cars, Google Glass ( Google in your glasses...really though..no joke), and Project Loon (an idea to get people online cheaper and faster than traditional cable-based connections laid in the ground). Google Person Finder was created in 2010 after the Haiti earthquake. So, Google is broadening its horizons and will now be moving from just internet based products to every day products used in life.

Expanding on something I didn't quite cover, Gmail and Google+ have made Google a social network like Facebook. Along with these two are Google Chat and Google Hangouts (tutorials to use both below respectively). You can email or chat in real time with one person or many! Google has now also made communicating easy a feature of their website.

Google has also integrated its features into Android phones. I mean, you can still get your Gmail on an Iphone but almost all (if not all...I'm stilll  using an Iphone 4 beats me) of Google's features are on the Android phones. 

Google has left the desktop and is now on mobile devices.  So, this makes things easier for those who do not even own a desktop or laptop of their own. You just need a Wifi connection and you can do anything a computer owner can with your Android. Actually, you don't even need Wifi if you have a data plan. The service will just run if you have service within an area!

So time to sum this up, I suppose. Before Google was invented, many things we use today weren't available. The search engine is one of the most accurate, and even when it was first starting out it had 10,000 searches a day. Now, it is estimated to have 1.2 billion searches per day! It has expanded its products. It is not only a search engine but the internet's Yellow Pages and a company. This company is every where...powering our access to information and how we connect to others. Google is the way to level the playing field. You don’t need a degree from somewhere to do a specific task. Anyone, anywhere can now teach themselves a language, how to play a musical instrument and I guess they can also figure out how a make a bomb. It’s a different world now. But it goes to say, it's downfall is that it's not ALWAYS accessible.

Of course, Google is trying to make its products very more accessible each and every day, but there are still people who can't get to it.  People that can sometimes, but with no access don't know what to do.  Will we become so dependent upon it that we will not know what to do without it? I believe so. And since, with its popularity, libraries and other research facilities have lost their appeal, eventually will teachers even show kids how to research traditionally? I feel like Google helps us learn but with too much access it makes us lazy and frankly, home bodies or anti-social hermits. It's great that it's updating and adapting to technologic changes in the world...but it was just supposed to be a search engine on the internet. Eventually, I feel like Google will (all in order to make money so I can't really say I blame them) take over the world. You'll be able to do everything on there and we won't escape it :O 

(I'm a usually not much for conspiracy theories I swear)

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3 Free Software Programs You Might Like.....

Now that I have my template fixed and all that nice stuff...*ahem daily calendar has been removed* I'm now going to post 3 free software programs that I think are pretty useful after trials with them all.

The first up is BootMed. BootMed is made to recover failed or malware-infected Windows PC installations. I have to be honest and say that I didn't find this on my own, but in fact my brother told me about it when my laptop was having a mental breakdown a few weeks ago. My laptop just wouldn't boot. My brother had already burned a copy of BootMed to a disc and helped me to get it running. So, that's all I knew of the program. So I looked up all the different things BootMed can do:

Next up...Seesmic.

Seesmic is all of your social media outlets in one. It lets you log into Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn and streams it on one outlet. There are paid competitors so Seesmic, but why would you pay for something you could get for free? (Valid argument for everything) It works on Windows and Mac. Here is a preview of the basic interface when logged in:

As you can tell from the picture, there is a lot to see. I will say Seesmic needs to trim some of the features and make it easier to use. So many things listed at once gets a little confusing. Still, you can switch right through your social medias easier on this software. 

Finally, we have Freemake Video Converter...

The name is pretty much self explanatory for this one. This software will download video off websites such as Youtube, MTV, and Hulu. Videos that could only be viewed online are saved for offline viewing with Freemake. It's a lot simpler looking than Seesmic and it takes a short time (that I've seen) to convert the videos. The most it has taken me to download a 43 minute episode was 10 minutes. You can also edit the videos, which I haven't put to use just yet.  Here are some pictures of it's format as well:

It's probably my favorite of the three and I have used it more than any of the others.

Well, until next time :D

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D'OH!

FOR THE LIFE OF ME I CANNOT WORK WITH THIS STUPID MOTHER CUSSING LAYOUT. I couldn't just go into the fancy template fixer thing Blogger offers...noooooo..I had to mess with the HTML. So it won't let me post a blog title or an about me. So I will be fixing that soon, stay tuned.

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Class Critique

This week, as cruel punishment, we have to critique our fellow classmates' blogs. And if there's anything worse than giving criticism, it's getting it. So I'm anxious to see what all is wrong with my blog -.- But you know what they say.....

Okay...don't hold my complete idiocy against me....please... I will fix it

I'll make links to each blog so if anyone wants to click them and check them out, feel free! And so it begins -

1. Loremli Batausa

I really loved the format of this blog. It was very easily read and pleasing to the eye. I like that you personalized a picture for the header! The poll was a nice touch on your blog, too...I was sure to vote. I think the stats could be moved below your about me, it just seems a little out of place there. And maybe some other gadgets to the side to go along. 

2. Keith Bell

You went all out for your about me and even added a picture which is helpful to your blog viewers, I like that. You could use a few more pictures to splice up the monotony in the longer paragraphs. You should add some other gadgets to the side of your page.

3. Allyson Brewer

So Allyson's my good friend. But I'd also love to see her downfall because she brags about her page views everyday to me. (Hate you Allyson) It really kills me to say there's really nothing wrong with her page. I like the blog title, with the subtitle underneath, it's easy to read, she uses pictures within the posts. But AHA, you could put some more about you on there. :P

4. Alexis Bryant

I'd like to see some type of background to Alexis's page - I already really like the colors together, purple's a favorite of mine. I don't understand the blog title, "avib." I'd say either change it or explain it or spell it out or just whatever you have to do. The blog posts are a bit short, mostly in the first posts though. Also, add some more detailed pictures apart from logos and you're set!

5. Ted Grubb

 I would say your page is just a little plain. Add a different title, put more about yourself, use pictures here and there. And then I just got really nit picky about capitalizing stuff within the blog but as far blog posts go, you're catching up and provide an honest review to each.

6. Rob Heck

I like how in depth you went for each blog, but splice them up a little bit more. The color combo is crazy for me, though I do like them, and maybe changing the font would make it simpler to read. Also the blog archive is located all the way at the bottom of the page, it would be better placed to the side I think?

7. James Hill

Your background is nice and everything is pretty easy to read. You use a LOT of pictures. When you are showing something (the interface of a program or how to do something) this is very useful. Some of the pictures though, are a little unnecessary. The numbers for each critique..there is where it's a bit much. I admire your work though, I wish I could put that much effort into it! Also, put a little about yourself!

8. Tyler Jimison

I really LOL'd at your header. Nice. Very nice. Though you don't have an 'About Me' gadget added, your 'Who I Am' post does a great job of telling everyone about yourself. Some of the blogs are a bit lengthy with no pictures to demonstrate what you're talking about. Just a bit plain.

9. Jane Johnson

You go very in depth about the products but you need to break up the really long paragraphs so it will be people friendly. You have a great assortment of pictures in your posts but they're all over the place. There's no format to them. Make them all the same size and switch up the placement every now and then but not as much. 

10. Scotty Johnson

I see you are catching up on the blog posts. Your profile is a little plain, you would never know any of your interests or about you. Add a subtitle to your blog title and a cool graphic to the background. And also, one of the pictures run over but that's easily fixed with changing the post widths.

11. Christopher Whitt

You could personalize the blog a little more. You do have a picture of yourself and also, you are one of the firsts I have seen post something other than assignments..which ew by the way, so that's cool...just add more pictures or an about me or a background...I dunno really.

12. Chis Ball

Well, well, well...we meet again Chris Ball...and I happen to like my calendar :P But anyway, you also posted about personal experience and not only class assignments and that will make your blog funner to read. Just the usual, add more about yourself and some more pictures.

13. David Porter

The blog is really plain, but very easy to read. There are no pictures throughout the whole blog. I can tell you are catching up on the work, so you're a bit off, but the lengths of the blogs are fine. Just add some pizazz to it!

Let me just sum this up by saying, I'm no techie and apart from putting more about yourself (said it so many times it's etched in my brain) and catching up I would say the blogs are looking better.

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