A little thought

For every door that closes, one more opens. But how do you know that door you closed before is shut all the way. Do we really want it to be? They say the road you leave behind you is another road you will eventually come back down. Is really what is meant to be meant to be? Is there such a thing as an end? Is the "end" nothing more than a beginning of something new? New necessarily doesn't mean is already hasn't happened. It could mean a new way of doing things that from what has happened. Do you believe people have the power to change? Or do the things that happen to them change them. Memories captivate people. They are found deep inside the heart, and are portrayed through the mind called emotions. Some will make us laugh, some will make us cry. But they all tell a story of who we are and why. Isn't amazing that one day you can feel like you’re on top of a mountain and the next day just a dot in this world. Is moving on and leaving the past behind really healing. Or is something we do to run and hide. Time is a never ending wheel in constant motion. No matter how much time has passed and we say we forget, we really don't. All it takes is one thing to change everything. What makes-what is now different from before? We constantly struggle day in a day out to not make the past the present. But instead we find ourselves doing things we never wanted to do again. They say actions speak louder than words. But words are remembered first then the action to follow. Why when we think, we remember the negative and start second guessing ourselves. Do we actually set ourselves up to hurt? Or do we feel since we have been hurt, we can hurt others. What does it mean to actually care? Do we love something we care about? Or do we care to love something? The word love it said with such ease. But what does it really mean? How do you distinguish what you love and what you don’t? To truly love something or someone means to sacrifice. If you have to think about, then it isn't true. What is the difference between truth and deceit? Sometimes we lie because the truth hurts. Everyone has something to hide. Is to not know, better than to know. But then again what is truth. When in reality we lie to ourselves all the time. Is it what really happened or what we want to happen and/or to hear. Can we say we are happy and really mean it? Or is it just a front with a smile when someone asks you. Why do we let stubbornness and pride, detour us from saying we are wrong or sorry. The fact is no one likes lose in what we call the game of life. Is life nothing but a game? But in a hundred years from now will it ever really matter. --Trink

Finals Week

As the week of finals is approaching I am becoming more stressed and upset. Most of my projects require notes and past assignments that I had on my computer before it crashed. In spite of project 3 approaching, I have decided to put the final touches on my website which can be viewed here.

REvisions

For English class on Thursday I was required to take another student's work and revise it for grammatical and structural errors. Below is how I revised the paragraph the way I would do my own.

English 106, a required class at Purdue University, is aimed to sharpen the writing skills of students. I have been given many tools to improve my writing in class, but the one I learned in class on Thursday is my favorite. On Thursday, I learned about diction and how to improve sentence variety. The tool I learned for sentence variety was SVO, VSO, and OVS. This tool shows how to organize a sentence so that the subject, verb, and object of the sentence align correctly. For example, “Sara tossed the ball.” Is the basic SVO format of a sentence. An example of the same sentence using OVS is, “the ball was tossed by Sara.” I like this tool because it gives more than one way to write a sentence while expressing similar thoughts. Another writing tool given was FANBOYS, a tool whose purpose is to help decide when a comma is needed. Because I have trouble using commas, this tool will benefit me in the future.

Becoming a Monster

A lot is happening today with the internet. When people hear of web 2.0, generally they expect a whole new type of internet. When the term web 2.0 is brought up, an idea coined by Tim O’Reilly, people expect a new type of internet such as a new software upgrade like an operating system. This new type of internet is bringing about big changes and is creating a monster.

By monster I don’t mean to imply anything bad, at least not yet. The truth behind the fact is we have been in web 2.0 for years now, but it is a very gradual process that is evolving over time. Examples of web 2.0 applications and sites are Google, Flickr, and Netflix, to name a few. Many believe that the evolution of web 2.0 will be aimed towards “Social Networking.” A great example of this is Netflix. For those who are not familiar with Netflix, users are able to rate different movies they rent. After renting a movie, the user can add friends, look at their rating, rate the movie as well, and find people who watch movies of similar interest. This creates a social network where people can interact and communicate with one another based on common interests. Flickr is similar to netflix because users "tag" their photos with how they would classifiy them. Others can then view the pictures and see similar tags people use to classify pictures.

Another great example of web 2.0 is blogs and Google. Blogs are basically the new personal website. Instead of a user creating a website to express their thoughts and ideas, they are able to create a blog about themselves or about any topic that interests them. The only downside about most blogs are they are someone’s personal opinions. This raises a question about the validity of blogs. The reason the validity is questionable is because a blog is someone’s personal opinion and if they choose, they can write anything they feel.

Web 2.0 is bringing up major issues. Obviously, web 2.0 is causing major issues and is moving at a very rapid pace. One serious issue is the gigantic monster people refer to as “Google.” Google is bringing down the system. For years, when cell phones went wireless, companies created small java programs where people could enter in their location and get a list of restaurants or movie theaters near by for a small price. Google, becoming bigger daily, destroyed these companies’ profit margins by creating a service where users could obtain the same information, from their same cell phone, for free by sending Google one simple text message. Google also is creating a similar service that allows users to post free classified ads, putting e-bay and Craig’s List in jeopardy. Google so far has done many great things that many people enjoy, but the question is when are they going to go over the edge?

For reference, a great article to read about web 2.0 can be read here. This is a very interesting article and relates to many of the services we use in class.

technorati tags:
Web 2.0, Technology, Google

Sometimes Twice is not Enough

As finals are approaching I have one final chance of pulling everything together, that chance being Thanksgiving break. As finals week is approaching, again I feel overwhelmed with the amount of material I have to study for or compose just like the week before midterms. With all these projects, speeches, websites, math assignments, and exams I must prepare for in the next coming weeks, I decided to get a head start on project two. Needless to say, I finished project two and had a nice copy sitting on my hard drive as well as on my jump drive (I make sure I have backups of everything in case something bad were to happen). However, sometimes two copies are not enough.
My computer crashed this Monday causing me to have a sudden loss of all my notes, projects, and homework assignments I have composed and was planning on turning in. To my surprise, I discovered my jump drive had also been corrupted. In general, all my work I have saved from this semester as well as many future assignments were destroyed. I figured this would be a great time to introduce a sale that Best Buy is partaking in on Black Friday. They are having a sale of up to 15% off all removable storage devices. I plan on buying one of these on that day to make sure something like this doesn’t happen in the future.
However not all things have been bad. I entered and won a contest for Microsoft’s 3 day party in the desert which takes place from November 20th to November 22nd in celebration of their new and upcoming video game system which is invite only. I also entered a contest for freshman in dorms here at Purdue, and won a parking pass for the rest of the year so now I can have my car here on campus which should make some of my activities easier. In conclusion, I really can not wait until November break.


technorati tags:
Zero Hour, Microsoft, Xbox360

Monday

In Monday’s lab we looked at many different sites which were going to aid us in our quest in completion of project 3. Some of the sites, such as An Atlas of Cyberspace, gave us a good example of thinking outside the page when it comes to mapping our digital selves. This site has a plethora of different tools, most which are free, that enable the user to take full advantage and create a more graphic atlas of them selves. Another great site we were introduced to was the Library of Congress. This was another site with an abundant amount of information relating to nearly any media. It is very nice knowing that I can access a huge library with many different media sources documented by the click of a mouse.


technorati tags:
Library of Congress, Project3, cyberspace

How To: Custom Header

Here is the pdf to the requested How To. If you have any questions or need help, just get in contact with me. This tutorial describes how to put your custom header into your template so it displays on your blog without removing the viewable title to others.

You can visit my website and navigate to the file by clicking this link and navigating to the custom header page.

The file is also available for download here.


technorati tags:
Creating, How To, Header