Fight Back Against SOPA!

OMG longest XP install ever! We managed to take 2 hours and 15 minutes to get a working copy of windows xp installed and then attempt the service pack install. Folks you had better start practicing this kind of thing at home. I was going to lecture from chapter 12 but seeing as the install took so long we ran out of time. Next week it looks like will be a lecture week.

Yay we manged to get through the worst of the book and come out unscathed! I finished up the remaining parts of chapter 3 and for 4 I just could not find myself lecturing on it. It puts everyone to sleep, so I found videos! Yay for videos. YouTube is great when it comes to teaching about network packets, because there are just so many cool animations and informative videos. There are just a few things I would like to finish on the chapter so I'm not calling it quite done.

We will move on to a little bit more social networking in the next class and for Thursday of next week there will be a test on chapters 1-3. Use your Blackboard question sets for the study guide.

So I finally got my videos organized and put up on Youtube and entered into Blackboard. I'm going to try and continue doing this as best I can. We covered the free transform tool, healing brush and spot healing brush more in depth. To help you with getting the angle right when placing one picture into another I also posted a video on using the vanishing point filter in conjunction with the free transform tool. Remember to post your pics to Google Docs

So I've decided to skip around a bit from last semester and begin media days a little early. I may have a media day about every other class just to mix things up. We hit Pandora first which most folks knew about. Then we learned about Grooveshark, and Slacker Radio. Those are by far the best! Lastly we checked out Live365.com and Shoutcast radio.

For homework I want you to blog about each site. Give a brief review of them. What are the pluses and minuses of each. Do they offer any paid services? Throw in a few pictures here and there to spice up your review. Also see if you can find a local radio station or two online. Who are they and what does their site offer?

Arrrgg shiver me processor we be download'n youtube videos! Lots and lots to lecture on this evening. We went over a ton of tools. Instead of just giving a long winded blog entry I'm just going to list what tools we covered.

Handbrake - 2 versions
Saving Videos off Youtube and Hulu using Stream Transport
Converting videos and audio using SUPER
Ripping CD's to mp3 with CDex and the CDDB online cd database
Installing and using AnyDVD (for research/class purposes only!)
We spent a majority of time talking about codecs
The major event of the evening was making our audio sound better using The Levelator in conjunction with Camtasia.

There is so much more that I wanted to cover but we just ran out of time. Next class we will watch your first videos. For homework I want you to be gathering the raw video and music for your next assignment, a music video.

I only lectured for about half the class today. I talked about option explicit and option strict. I also showed you how a radio button and a check box works. Remember when you group controls that if you don't want the border line around the group you have to use the panel tool. For the rest of the class and for homework I had you do the project from the text file on the z: drive. In class anyone forgot it, here it is:

Based upon in class exercises that we have been doing. This is a shopping cart type of system. You are to have 6 items of your choice listed. Users can input prices into text boxes beside the item. You are to calculate subtotal, tax (6%), be able to give a discount, the total and display the output to the screen.

I also want you to be able to change the color of the answer. To do so just add a few radio buttons to give the user color choices.

Bonus: Input the user name and then once the purchase has been made you are to use a msgbox command to thank them. Their name is to be used in the msgbox.

Ahh the gaming trend continues in my classroom today with the networking game. I know it isn't the most fun but I want you to take away from the experience how a packet is formed and addressed and moved around the network. I think fro all the laughing going on at least you had a good time if nothing else. We will finish up chapter 3 and begin 4 next class. Begin working on chapter 3 and 4 questions online. We will have a test on chapters 1,2,and 3 next Thursday. No study guide. Use your online questions.

Here is your work for this week. It will be due next Tues.

Read Chapter 2
Work though chapter 2 questions on Blackboard
Case Project 2-5 from the end of the chapter

And as a special treat I want you to research the recent case of MegaUpload/MegaVideo/all of the other sites they ran. Who are they? What did they do? Who is Kim Dotcom? Research this and give me some facts. What is your opinion on what is going down? Remember to give me the links as to where you got your data from. This should easily be a full page but no less (there is A LOT of material on this case + some of your opinion).

Wow there was a whole lot of zombie killin' going on in our classroom today. At first I didn't think we were even going to get to play. Please make it a point to be on time. :) I'm a much happier camper when I don't have to wait or explain myself multiple times. That being said I'm very impressed by both teams' games. You all put a lot of effort into them and I couldn't be happier.

For homework I want a blog entry out of you. Blog about your gaming experience. What could you have done better? What did you think of the game that your team created? What did you think of the other team's game after playing it? What changes could you suggest?