Sun, 05 Sep 2010 23:25:08 -0400 http://www.scorchedsilicon.com/ Scorched Silicon en-us http://www.scorchedsilicon.com/images/logo.gif http://www.scorchedsilicon.com/ matthewp@southern.wvnet.edu http://www.scorchedsilicon.com/Article913.html I would really like to have a student editor this semester. I'm looking for someone that could do a weekly news round up in a style similar to HardOCP or Slashdot. You will need the ability to code some HTML links and possibly a few images(I'll help you). No pay other that my undying gratitude and the ability to put it on your resume. If you are interested please submit to me a sample of your work. I'll choose someone by 9/12/11. Thanks! BTW if anyone wants to write articles for my website of any kind please speak up. Sun, 05 Sep 2010 23:25:08 -0400 http://www.scorchedsilicon.com/Article912.html Met this afteroon and took a quick pre-test for see what you might know. We then went over Creative Commons and watched a few videos on what it means to license your copyrighted work so that others may build upon it. After our little discussion I had you all look up 5 sites that had CC music/sound effects, 3 CC video sites, and 3 CC photo sites. From the looks of the answers we are going to have to try a little harder. We are not going to start using Adobe Premiere Elements 8 right away. Since many students still don't have the book, I want to use Camtasia Studio. It is a very simple editor and it will record your desktop. You can add in narration, call outs, zooms and all kinds of things. I have the demo on the z: drive or you can snag it from www.techsmith.com. We watched the little intro video and that was about the time class came to a close. I want you to be playing with this over the weekend and thinking about something you could teach the class using software like this. For homework due next class meeting, I want you to write a minimum 1 page essay answering the follow questions: What do you think of CC now that you have heard about it? How might CC affect you in some way? Would you license any work under the CC structure? Why or why not? Which license might you choose if you had to release a work and why? Sun, 05 Sep 2010 23:19:22 -0400 http://www.scorchedsilicon.com/Article911.html Intro'd the online labs that we will be doing our question sets on. For those without a book you need to get one asap. There is also a pdf version of the book when you login to the website. Kinda nice esp if you don't want to always carry the book with you. We then took a little stroll over the the lab and had a lengthy quiz on the parts of a motherboard. Looks like there better be some studying going on. Lots of missed answers and blanks. To wrap things up we checked out the items I carry in my tool kit. You do not have to buy anything for this class. That was not what the show and tell was for. The first chapter in the book covers tools and I was just elaborating on what I use all the time. No homework for the weekend. For those with a itlabs login you might want to start in on answering some online questions. Don't forget your articles. Sun, 05 Sep 2010 23:04:59 -0400 http://www.scorchedsilicon.com/Article910.html Really cool class today. We all signed up for Google Gmail and checked out a lot of the features. Gmail, Documents, and Calendar were gone over. We will try out some more tools on Tues. Be ready to sign up for a Blogger account. We will be blogging for the rest of the semester. Sun, 05 Sep 2010 22:41:18 -0400 http://www.scorchedsilicon.com/Article909.html Great to meet everyone this evening. Looks like it will be a pretty good class. Sorry about the 250 question pre-test. I didn't make it up. Don't kill the messenger. See you all next Tues! Sun, 05 Sep 2010 22:26:16 -0400 http://www.scorchedsilicon.com/Article908.html Just type something cool here other than going over the syllabus. Remember to add some sort of weird photo to get their attention. The only thing you really reminded them of is to start bringing a camera to class. They will think you know what you're doing if the blog entry is detailed enough. Yeah all of that sounds good. Thu, 02 Sep 2010 06:53:55 -0400 http://www.scorchedsilicon.com/Article907.html Met and intro'd the course. We managed to go over the syllabus, scorchedsilicon, and take a little pre-test to see what your skill level might be. For next time have your 2 daily articles ready. Just email them to me. Thu, 02 Sep 2010 06:45:55 -0400 http://www.scorchedsilicon.com/Article906.html Spent time meeting and greeting everyone. Went over the syllabus and the website. Nothing for homework today. Thu, 02 Sep 2010 06:33:44 -0400 http://www.scorchedsilicon.com/Article905.html I'd like to take a quick moment and welcome everyone back to school. This semester should be a pretty good one. I've got lots of ideas for really neat in class activities. So hang on tight, the ride might get bumpy, but it will be fun! Thu, 02 Sep 2010 06:32:16 -0400 http://www.scorchedsilicon.com/Article904.html Some things to study for the photoshop final exam (may be on there but not limited too): Animate a gif Photomerge Resize a Photo Add a drop shadow Vanishing Point Filter Layer Masks Replace a color Photoshop Contest! Bring your creativity! Sun, 09 May 2010 21:15:17 -0400 http://www.scorchedsilicon.com/Article903.html Sun, 09 May 2010 20:09:31 -0400 http://www.scorchedsilicon.com/Article902.html Well class finally came to an end. I will see you both on Tuesday for presentations. Everything is looking pretty good. Minor tweaking going on now. Please spend some time over the weekend filling in the fla files I gave you for presentations. All of the other schools ended up with more than a month do get theirs done. I'm hoping you both can pull it off in a few days. Remember it would be cool if you can dressed as your characters. That is an idea I really liked. See you Tues. Sun, 09 May 2010 19:22:23 -0400 http://www.scorchedsilicon.com/Article901.html Looks like everyone is going to make this last program count. Everyone who showed up for class either had their work pretty much done, or stayed very late to get a lot accomplished. The final will be just like the midterm. Study guide will be out shortly, although you won't really need one considering open book open note and it is on the computer. Be ready to present your final project to the class just before we take the exam. BTW if you screw this up, you will look like the guy above. The job market is tough so you better have some skillz to show off. Sat, 08 May 2010 23:38:46 -0400 http://www.scorchedsilicon.com/Article900.html Easy last day of class. Took our exam and chatted for a while about the final. Then headed to lunch early! See you guys at the final. Sat, 08 May 2010 23:38:10 -0400 http://www.scorchedsilicon.com/Article887.html No new stuff today. This time is just for review and for making up work. I will allow everyone 1 make-up assignment that you can turn in next week. For those having medical excuses you can make those up +1. This helps everyone out. The final will not have a study guide. Just go over the techniques we have used since mid-term. The final is comprehensive, but if you didn't get the pre-mid-term stuff then I don't see how you could have gotten anything since then. Sat, 08 May 2010 20:34:52 -0400 http://www.scorchedsilicon.com/Article886.html Looks like we've come down to the wire. You both need to finish up your games and we will be working on a last minute layout format for the final presentation. Since all of the other students still have a month we will try and do them but worst case scenario we will just run out of time. Jeremy is doing better now that he has a functional weapon, he is just going to have to work out a few bugs and spend more time outside of class working on things. Allison is coming right along having 3 levels now. Presentations will be next week so have wiki's updated and final blog posts in. See you Thursday for final touch-ups. Sat, 08 May 2010 20:28:39 -0400 http://www.scorchedsilicon.com/Article885.html Some mad work going into these projects. Looks like you better spend a little more time to polish them off. Getting down to the home stretch. Review on Thursday. Sat, 08 May 2010 19:55:30 -0400 http://www.scorchedsilicon.com/Article884.html Finished up any remains of the last chapter in the book. Worked on several machines that were left over from the computer tune up day.We will have the exam for the last chapters on Thursday. Sat, 08 May 2010 19:54:31 -0400 http://www.scorchedsilicon.com/Article883.html Mon, 03 May 2010 22:17:26 -0400 http://www.scorchedsilicon.com/Article882.html Mon, 03 May 2010 22:17:13 -0400 http://www.scorchedsilicon.com/Article881.html Yay!! Another Free Computer Tune Up Day goes off without a hitch! I'm proud of everyone who showed up and gave their time to gain experience (and brownie points) working on pc's. We managed to fix 30 computers throughout the day for a cost savings of roughly 3000$. That is awesome folks. Everyone was very happy to get their pc's fixed and said great things about us. I hope you all took a little something away from this as it is what you will face everyday when doing this stuff professionally. A BIG THANKS TO ALL! Mon, 03 May 2010 21:47:14 -0400 http://www.scorchedsilicon.com/Article880.html Small turn out this evening! All of the demos for this week are in the downloads section. I focused on tweaking photos to try and show you some basic corrections to common situations. We worked on overexposure, underexposure, how to gradient mask (music example pdf from March), and how to use a channel mask to make an artistic photo. We also have 2 photoshop contests for this week. There will be 6 pics you need to turn in. One each for the folders included in the demo pics. Use your own for the gradient masking. There will be a brief review next week and a photoshop contest or two just before finals. Mon, 03 May 2010 21:36:58 -0400 http://www.scorchedsilicon.com/Article879.html Well looks like the last of the tutorials have been wrapped up and our finish line is in sight for Globaloria year one. We will have one work week to polish our final games in class and then it will be presentation time. Looks like the final presentation will be May 11 @ 5:10pm. If there are any changes I'll let you know. Make sure to finish up any blogging and wiki work that needs to be done. The games are looking great! Remember we will be presenting to the world so please dress accordingly on the final day. No class on Thursday due to the Free Computer Tune Up. Mon, 03 May 2010 21:21:26 -0400 http://www.scorchedsilicon.com/Article873.html Our time in class for working on the final projects in winding down. I'm not seeing the progress I should out of a few of you. Let's step it up and make these projects good! We will not be having class on Thursday due to free computer tune up, but if there is down time you can work on your projects. Next week will be a final work day and then review. Projects are due when we take the final exam. You will need to present them to the class. Mon, 03 May 2010 21:12:28 -0400 http://www.scorchedsilicon.com/Article872.html Went over the majority of the last chapter in the book. We took apart several printers to check out their inner workings. Then checked out a few youtube videos by Lexmark to see animations of how the entire laser printing process works. To wrap up we downloaded several files that we need for Free Computer Tune Up Day. See you guys Thursday bright and early. Mon, 03 May 2010 21:12:14 -0400