Pictures That Lie

Doesn't Oprah look amazing?  Too bad only the head belongs to her.  The body came from a 1979 publicity shot of Ann-Margret.  The TV Guide cover was created without either woman's permission.  Ann-Margret's fashioner designer recognized the dress and that it was even Ann-Margret's ring on Oprah's hand.

Now take a look at this clip from YouTube.  



I chose this photograph and video because they reveal just how deceiving the advertising and entertainment industries can be.  Images like these place expectations on women and their appearance.  As a result, young girls and women feel pressured to look like the "Photoshopped" women in the media, and they face many self-esteem issues.

Microsoft EXCEL

I like working with Excel because it can keep track of so much information.  I took BCIS my senior year of high school.  Our teacher was also the UIL Accounting coach and so you can imagine we spent a lot of time in Excel.  A lot of what we are doing in class right now, like using relative and absolute cell references, is a good refresher to what I have already learned.  Running balances can greatly assist and organize your personal accounts and budgets.  Excel is also very useful when wanting to calculate and keep track of your grades.  When playing around with different tools and functions there is a seemingly endless amount of knowledge yet to learn, and I can't wait to learn something new.

Copyright 101

What is copyright?  According to Jason Hardin, manager of Access Services at Trinity University, copyright is the government’s assurance that you control the distribution of your property and can profit from it.  The U.S. copyright law dates back to 1790, and is included in the Constitution.  So what is the term of copyright for U.S. published works?  Thanks to Sonny Bono, it is the author’s life plus 70 years.  As students, it is important to note that copyright and plagiarism are not the same things.  Copyright is a legal issue and leads to a criminal offense, while plagiarism is an academic offense.  According to the Higher Education Opportunity Act, colleges and universities must implement a system that provides alternatives to illegal downloading.

According to the Fair Use defense provided by Title 17, copyright infringement depends on the purpose for why you are creating the copy.  Is it for educational and non-profit purposes?  If so, then you are safe.  Also, be aware of the nature of the work, the amount of work reproduced, and the effect the reproduction has on the right holder’s revenue.  

A Relevant Issue Today:

How can embedding YouTube videos into personal blogs and websites put you potentially at risk for a lawsuit?  Simple, you may have used a video clip that already contained infringing content.  Whether done consciously or unconsciously, you have incorporated a copyrighted work into your site without the rights holder’s consent, even if the clip was already posted by someone else.  The most likely outcome is that the rights holder will file a DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) notice and YouTube will pull the video.  However, take precautions because there is no way to tell whether a rights holder will take extreme measures and file a lawsuit against you. 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.

My Trinity Network Diagram

Thanks to Jared Pack, the Systems Administrator in ITS, I now know more about how the network is connected on campus.  Trinity ranks among the most unwired campuses in the country, and dedicated workers like Jared take pride in always looking for ways to improve the Trinity network.

Mystery Photo?

In Spanish class, I can see the Smith Art Building from this window.  What building am I in?  I used Picnik to give my photograph an eerie and haunting effect.  Experimenting with several tools I finally was satisfied with a faded, sketchy scheme.  The rain today complemented the atmosphere in the picture perfectly, too.  And what better way to add a suspenseful story line to my photo than to quote "The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe.