Tech Tool Evaluation

Sam: http://slotted.co
-I like that with slotted, you can organize events easier, and make sure everyone who is invited knows and will be sure to see the invitation.
-the fact that you're able to invite everyone who has an internet access and email, even if they haven't signed up (or even heard of) slotted is also an advantage.
-The website does almost everything for you, you only have to list the invitees and items needed.

Some drawbacks to this program is that
-If you have people you want to invite and send a list out to, but they don't have an email or you don't know it, then it might be a complication.
-In order to make sheets and send them, you need to sign up, and I'm not sure if it's the same for signing up on a sheet
-I honestly don't see any other drawbacks for this site.

So, 2 ways I would use this would be:
-To plan a social event, like a party or even something at school
-To organize a project or other academic group work online and organized so people don't forget and they'll know what to bring by looking at the list

Rachel: http://beta.mural.ly
-I like that you can instantly drag and drop videos straight to murally, and not have to save, convert, etc. anything to them.
-The ability to collaborate is also a plus, as you can both work on it simultaneously, for a project or just if you wanted to
- It's also nice that it's available as an app, so you can work on it even if you dont have access to a computer. All in all, this looks like a great mural/presentation-making website.

Some drawbacks
-I know that dragging videos and pictures can make the computer a bit slow and wonky, so maybe it wouldn't work as fast.
-The app also looks incredibly limiting, since you can't drag and most of the uploads would take awhile.
-Collaberating online does cause a lot of lag as well.

Ways I would use this
-To make a group project
-To make some sort of presentation

White Hat Hacking

What I know about hacking is that you can get hacked by getting your IP address tracked, and through various different viruses as well. I don't know what the term "White hat hacking" means exactly either.
Questions:
What do you gain from white hat hacking?
What is the purpose?
Who gets hacked the most?
Links:
http://www.secpoint.com/What-is-a-White-Hat.html
http://www.techradar.com/news/internet/tools-and-tricks-of-the-white-hat-hackers-515208
Bulletins:
-A white hat hacker can be defined as someone who is payed or asked to hack a certain program or anything on a computer, to find out the vulnerabilities to determine whether it is a fit program to use or to improve the hacked program.
-White hat hackers are also called "ethical hackers"
-The first released records of white hat hacking (for security purposes) was by the U.S Air Force, Who were testing out whether the Multics operating systems was safe enough to use as a top secret system. Their results were that albeit a better system than others, it had vulnerabilities in most of its security branches that could be found with little effort by the white hat hackers, thus normal hackers too.
-From this, 2 people were able to make a free download that had programs they used to describe how to get information from a source and thus exploit it, then how to avoid such attacks, and they called it SATAN.
-This is an employment as well.
How this relates:
This relates to me because all of the programs I have used to do with microsoft have most likely  been white hat hacked to find vulnerabilities and to improve the safety of the program. A question I still have is how do they find hackers to employ?

One college that interests me so far before my research is SCAD (University for Creative Careers) to perhaps study animation and illustration

2 colleges that interest me so far that I've never heard of before are Salem College and Manhattanville College

  

	Salem College	Manhattanville.College	OTIS	college4 name
Does it have an art/biology or chemistry?	Yes to all	Yes to all	Yes to art-Centered on art	details
Cost	$22,720	$35,370	$35,404
# of students	1,063 students	2,695 students	1,226 students
Average GPA	3.46	2.8	n/a
Private/ public	Private	Private	Private
trait 6
trait 7

My GPA: 3.4

Salem's requirements: 3.5
Manhattanville's requirements: 2.8

OTIS: n/a

Well now I am going to try to get at least a 3.5 or above in all of my classes, so I will be thus far eligible for the college I have most interest in, Salem College. I learned I have many many options, and choosing will be more difficult than I thought. I am going to have to look into all of these colleges some more to get a better understanding of where I want to go.

Google day #4

Goals for today:
- Learn how to paint water realistically
- Learn how to paint rocks realistically
- Start painting a full background (probably a forest)
The most helpful links I used for this were a trilogy of water reflection information, where it describes how water reflections differ, what options there are as far as details, hues, distortion and mirroring, and many visual examples to guide you. This was incredibly helpful because while it might not be a complete tutorial on exactly how to paint them (it's more about composition of water in general),  I could extract key information from it. http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/2007/12/water-reflections-part-1.html

This is what I got finished today. I need to make the water darker though. Next time I will make the presentation

Google day #3

Goals
- Make a background for some trees
- Draw some realistic trees
- Shade them in according to the background

This is what I got done today. I painted the majority of the tree trunk and started painting the leaves. Next class I will try to learn how to paint some other nature related thing

Google Day #2

Goals
- Make a background for some trees
- Draw some realistic trees
- Shade them in according to the background lighting
Links:
http://www.pocketmole.com/tutorials/trees/  was very helpful, as it showed me to not draw trees neatly, and how to texture them. the tree bark textures were a giant help, and so was how to make the tree limbs logical.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRPmyIG_chA&feature=related Showed me how to use references to shade realistically and how to use layers to do so. I also learned how to take a snippete of an actual picture from a tree and make a textured custom brush from it, and how to edit it to make it more realistic and natural.

From those main tutorials and other quick ones, this is what I made today:
I textured the bark on most of the tree, and I did the background, but I didn't have time to add leaves or make the shading more detailed.
Next class i would like to learn how to paint rocks and mountains.

DIGITAL NATION

They say that working on a computer  during class distracts many students at MIT, but they also say that teachers can allow their students to use their laptops or not. So if the teachers really wanted their students to listen, they would  not allow computers/laptops while they are giving a presentaion or teaching important information, and perhaps some other times. So i somewhat disagree with what MIT does. They also say that multitaskters can't think as well. I agree with that because sometimes when you're working on an assignment online, you get easily distracted. And students probably spend so much time online, because nowadays the teachers are assigning many projects and other work online, along with the other things they use like facebook and such. I disagree with the fact that being online makes your brain develop more slowly, because if you use it for good uses like learning things from googliing it or whatever, you can perhaps still maintain the progress of brain development. But, like those people in the pc bombs who've died from being online for so long without food or water, that's severely bad. I agree witht he fact that sometimes thy can block out your family or friends. I think it's better that the schools have more computers, so tht they can learn how to do educational things with them. I think, maybe students would want to work more if they were working on electronic devices than on paper, but it might  make them lazy, with writing, spelling etc. I also think that since laptops, computers and other things made kids lazier in general. Like, before there were computers, you don't see the students of that time freaking out because they dont have it.  I think they became more dependant on technology, the more it became available. I think in order to stop the interruptions of learning, that that is partly the parents and teachers' fault.  They should lock down and be more strict with the electronics, like if a student has to write an essay online, they should find a way to block the internet while they write it, and when they finish their work, then they can unblock it. I think that the online multiplayer games are sort of a waste of time, and that even though they get online friends, thay it sucks up too much of their time. And some people who have conferences and work things online and in second life, i dont believe thats the best choice to have it. If you wanted to have a conference call and chat, without being distracted by a game, you would use skype or something else for it, and why have conferences there when you're all in the same office? it's also very strange that you can make kids believe they did something by showing them a virtual version of them doing it, then they will remember. I mean, what do you gain from doing that, and whats the point? it's not like it's going to matter when theyre older and they probably forget. I think that the drones are an easier way to fight wars, but i'm wondering if the enemy has them as well. but with the drones, at least less of our soldiers get killed.

Viruses

What I know about viruses so far:

- There are many different types of viruses, some are named like, "Trojan horse" "phishing" etc. There's various things that must be taken into consideration when you're deciding on whether something is a virus. There's also many ways to make and use them. Viruses are usually implanted by opening a file or website that contains them, then they sit in your computer, and even if you have an antivirus, it can't always detect whether you just downloaded a virus or not. There is keyboard tracking, in which a person puts a bug into your computer that sends them all of the things you've typed, and that is commonly used for getting passwords to your accounts. Spyware is just where they can look at what you're doing on your computer and they can access your files, Webcam hacking allows them to turn your webcam and microphone on, and by this they can get a lot of your personal information, like where you live, let's say, if you were talking to a friend on the phone and you told them your address. I know a lot more but I don't want to explain the whole thing.

Questions: What are some of the well known viruses?
How are viruses created?

- The ILOVEYOU virus was a very impacting and large virus. Released on May 5, 2000, It was sent to tens of millions of windows users, and it  damaged the computer, overwrote image files, messed around with visual basics (which it was also created in), and cost more than 5.5 billion dollars in damages.

- The Melissa Macro virus started in 1999, via email. It arrived in a text (word 97, usually) document attachment, and when the user opened it, it spread to all of the other documents that they owned. If they sent an infected document, it would then spread to the person who opens it. Sometimes, it would send user documents instead of the original file, so then they could send infected sensitive documents instead of the original infected file.

-Trojan horses are usually disguised as a videogame, but they do damage when you try to open it. They cannot replicate automatically, but they can cause major damage to the local computer, like wiping out the hard drive and all of the files in it.

- Common viruses overwrite everything, and often self replicate.

- The code red and code red II worms buffer overflowed everything, so thats when the computer started to replace files. It was released in 2001. The first one tried to contact the white house's web servers all at once, which overloaded the machines.

Links;

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/worst-computer-viruses4.htm

http://www.cert.org/advisories/CA-1999-04.html

http://articles.cnn.com/2000-05-04/tech/iloveyou.01_1_melissa-virus-antivirus-companies-iloveyou-virus?_s=PM:TECH

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ILOVEYOU

I can connect to this because i used to have a phobia viruses, and also my sister accidentally downloaded one of these viruses, and caused our computer to turn to a worthless piece of junk.

Google Day 1

Goals:
1. Learn how to paint clouds on Photoshop, by using tutorials and helpful speedpaints and videos.
2. Learn how to shade the clouds realistically, and how to make the hues realistic and appealing to the eyes.
3 If I finish that, I'll try the same thing, but with grass.

Helpful links I used: http://psd.tutsplus.com/tutorials/painting/paint-clouds/ A simple yet helpful and short tutorial video for begginers, I used this for the majority of my time
http://www.photoshopwebsite.com/photoshop-tutorials/21-clouds-making-photoshop-tutoial/  Many different ways to paint various styles of clouds.
Below is my progress for this class; I learned how to paint clouds and use opacities and gradients for the sky and grass.

Also, next class i would like to learn how to paint/draw cloths and their creases and wrinkles and shading them.

GOOGLE 20%

One of the skills I would like to learn during this project is how to shade realistically on Photoshop/ other digital art programs. I would like to learn how to make it look 'painted', and how to deal with the positions of light, blending, and hues. Another thing that adds onto that is how to customize brushes on digital art programs, to fit how I want it to look. I would like to learn how to 'paint' digitally, and that requires knowledge of opacities, textures, shades etc. I would also like to learn how to paint or just draw background items such as grass, clouds, perhaps buildings, and other things.

I will present how and what I learned by maybe recording a speedpaint of what I drew with the skills i required during the 7 hours. A speedpaint is basically when you record yourself drawing something, from beginning to end, and because it might take so long, you speed it up a bit so it won't be a 5 hour long video. I will explain how to do each of the things by pausing the video or slowing it down, and explain the process in a simple fashion. I already have screen recording technology, but I might need something that will record longer, so I might need to research more on that. That is how I will (hopefully, if I can figure it out) present what I learned to you.

LINK

C/C website