Thoughts on Photo Apps: ZCamera

The first photo application I tried was a simple program called Prisma. This week I tried a another program called ZCamera and it is a pretty similar program. I felt like it didn't have as many options as Prisma and gave you lots of more downloadable options for borders and changes but the program itself seemed very simplistic and it took a lot more effort and thought to create any image that looked interesting. Here is the picture I choose to play with:

Here are a few of the changes:

In the end, it felt like there were fewer options using this free app. Most of the things to click were offering other services or more things to add to the app itself. Didn't feel worth keeping and it was uninstalled within 24 hours of downloading. The one benefit I saw to it was that you could make a collage with up to nine pictures that you could use for a Christmas newsletter or just for fun. Here are two examples of collage templates you can use.

Otherwise, this application really didn't do anything for me. Have you tried it? What are your thoughts?

Thoughts on Photo Apps: Prisma

Lately I have been taking a little bit of time to look at different computer applications that let me modify pictures. I am taking a studio art class this semester and I think that helped spark my interest in looking at developing some art myself. Using an application to change the colors and textures of photos I have taken isn't a lot of work and lets me play with looks and colors I don't have the guts to try on my own with a pencil or brush in my hand.

This is a pretty simple and easy to use program. After you open up the program, you can simply upload a picture into it. There are almost forty titled boxes that you can click on to modify and change the image. I intentionally chose a picture with some different shades and textures to play with. Here is my original photo:

Here are five modified pictures using different 'lenses'

This was a fun start. I loved the way the program changed the way the fur and fine details on the ferret are accentuated and brought out with the different ways of shading. What are your thoughts? This is a free app so you can play with it without a lot of extra cost. Feel free to comment with your images if you would like. :)

Thoughts on the CES - Consumer Electronics Show

For the last assignment of the class, we were invited to explore the Consumer Electronics Show. It was a little nostalgic to go the CES website and look at what’s going on this year. I lived in Las Vegas for several years and I went to a few of the conventions and usually left with a hypothetical shopping wish list that was way too long and too expensive. So I looked through the site and I will admit that I giggled as my shopping list was a lot lower. I live in a small building off the grid without running water and so thinking about air conditioners, cameras, phones and video gaming as potential purchases seemed a bit out of reality. I don’t think I would want most of them even if I did have the money. So I decided to look up Blackberry as that is the phone I used to use and I really do like using their products.

I looked at a few links and then I went to this one. http://www.cnet.com/news/blackberry-ceo-we-will-survive-as-a-company/

I was pleased to see that it looks like Blackberry will survive its financial crunch and I looked at other sites afterwards and saw a new blackberry that looks wonderful- I will admit that $599 is a little out of my price range though ;) It looked a lot easier to use and still has a keyboard which I am in love with- hence why I prefer Blackberrys over so many other phones. I thought the review was helpful, but also a sales pitch so it worked as I want one of the phones, but doesn’t tell me how much better or useful than the one I have.

When I went into the Smartphone category, I saw lots of links about using fingerprint technology and eyescanners and how some companies were really interested in the technology and other companies were interested but wanted to wait until the technology was more proven and less difficult or prone to problem- that seemed like a cautious and prudent idea. I also liked reading about the bigger phones and tablets and I found myself pretty interested in them as well. AS most tablets are touch screen but big enough so I feel like I can use them, one of the ‘phablets’ seemed like a potential idea for a large phone that I would like. I tend to not like to hold my phone up to my ear and use the speakerphone feature so that is nice as well. http://www.cnet.com/news/all-hail-the-phablet-jumbo-phones-finally-going-mainstream/

On a side note, I saw the link in the category car tech for ‘Doc Brown and his Delorean’ showing up CES 2014 and that was funny. http://www.cnet.com/pictures/doc-brown-appears-in-his-delorean-at-ces-2014/

I am interested to see what other people thought was interesting on the site, especially people who use technology more than me. I’m pretty curious to see what other people find and find interesting....

Thoughts on a Typing Adventure.....!

This assignment was really interesting with a few websites to explore. I tried all four websites for the typing skills and I found varied responses when using each one. I do not know how to touch type very well and I am much faster typing with my three fingers and looking at the keyboard. I found that my typing was either slower or faster depending on the site and how it arranged its tests. I found some challenges figuring out how to work some of the tests as well so I did spent a lot of time just figuring out how the tests worked on each of the different sites. Here are my thoughts:

1. Typingtest.com – The first thing about this site was that I got lost within a few minutes of getting to the page. I found myself not sure of how to proceed and would click on the sponsored links which would then take me to the same subject on different web sites or offer me a lot of other options and I would realize I had made a wrong turn. Once I figured out what I was doing, I did the typing test a few times, both with the ‘Aesop’s fables’ as a base and the ‘Enchanted typewriter’. I found my average typing speed was fluent or average (between 37-47 words per minute. I tried some of the tutorials and I didn’t enjoy them very much and didn’t find that helpful, however, I suspect that trying to change my typing style now would be difficult and so that was part of the problem. Sitting my fingers in ways that do not feel comfortable to me may be a significant setback on trying to relearn to type, especially if I do not feel really motivated to do it.

2. Mrkent.com – I didn’t enjoy this site very much. I struggles through most of the tutorials and felt a bit like a failure at the end of it. My average was six correct words a minute between the lines of jumbled letters and numbers and I found the totals only got worse the more annoyed I got and the faster I tried to be. The Mosquito Revenge Typing Game was pretty fun though and I found I ‘splatted’ a lot. My son thought that was great! So he will probably keep using the site as he was much more successful than I was. A few of the other links on the home page were pretty neat and I made my ex a ‘word find’ puzzle for fun (Don’t worry, professor! I am on good terms with him and we are dating again so the puzzle was full of nice words! ;)

3. Powertyping.com – I liked this site. I found it frustrating to start with, but as I figured out how to use it, I enjoyed a lot of the games. I started with the “Calvin and Hobbes’ image and typed in the words first on beginner with animals and was very successful. The amount of success I had was gauged on how quickly I was able to pick up on everything. As it got faster, I was less successful, but I didn’t feel as stressed or let down with these games so I think this website is the one I like the most.

4. Typingweb.com – I thought this site was fun, but was also a site I did really poorly at. I couldn’t keep up well or would try to rush and did poorly, but since I am not a touch typist, I suspect quite a few people would struggle with typing ‘zachory, zabba, zaman, zaxy, zavvy, zamn’ pretty quickly. Especially since they spelled ‘zachory’ wrong- I had do look back and change it as my mind automatically corrected the spelling. It was fun, but I wasn’t very successful.

So this week felt like a little bit of a mixed bag but, I think that most of that comes from my pretty poor typing skills. After all you are never going to like a site that tells you through its test that you can only type six words a minutes when you recognize that is partially you but also the test itself. I think I just typed the last few lines in a minute period of time and there are a few more words than six ;) I did find one site I really liked and two that were ‘ok’ so my son can learn how to type correctly and we can have fun together with it. I also will keep in mind some of the other functions for word finds, etc… which can come in handy for church activities, etc…

So, did you give any of these a try? What are your thoughts? Were any of the above sites useful to you?

Thoughts on the Khan Academy...

I started this assignment by looking at the Khan Academy website and watching the video about Saloman Khan and how he started his videos for family use and then eventually developed a public site. Two things struck me right away. First, I used my home laptop at the school and since I was logged into my Facebook account, the home page for the academy told me that three of my 'friends' were also 'friends' with them. That felt a little intrusive and odd that this site I had never heard of had figured out 'who I was' before I even set up an account. I also discovered pretty quickly that I couldn't watch any other videos without opening an account. While I appreciate that the site allows you to sign up for free and then you have full access to all of it, but I am very careful with how I give out my info and I felt a bit trapped at that point. I needed to watch a video or two for the discussion, but couldn't do so without giving my name, email address, and my birth date. I went ahead and did so, but I still feel a little uncomfortable with that.

The video that I started with – the interview with Salam Khan- was really interesting. I liked listening to his journey of the opportunity and the desire to help his nephews learn and how those few videos he put out that seemed to be so useful that he branched out and they eventually became the website that I just visited. I love the fact that it’s free- cost can be such an impediment for some groups of people. I know for me I am much more likely to take the time to check it out if I do not have to shell out money to do so. I next decided to try a few things that I knew to see what I thought about them. I have been teaching BLS for over a decade so I looked up CPR and they have a program for it. The program tries to teach body position and arm angles and hand placement and as soon as I figured out how the program worked I has able to successfully do it. I thought it was interesting but I wonder how much can be really learned when you are using one finger to do it. One of the things we do in class is the do the ‘maneuvers’ several times over a class to try and develop a body memory so that if you cannot mentally remember what to do, maybe your body will. I think this was a great introduction to the topic and gave you a few good ideas so I thought it was useful. I wonder if any users have felt compelled to take a real class from using the program on the site... I would love to know that answer.

I next went to a few medical videos and watch those. I worked for Mercy ambulance in a big city out west for a decade and I saw a few abdominal aortic aneurysms in people- some who survived and some who didn’t. So I did watch the video on the site about it here. I thought it was very accurate and pretty interesting. Covered all the facts I knew and two that I didn’t. I do recommend it for everyone to watch for informational purposes because many people have to have the AAA burst before they recognize they have it and makes it more challenging for medical staff to fix. The video didn’t cover all the ways to recognize them, but an aneurism is a hard thing to recognize because it depends on where they are in the body. But it covered quite a bit and all the testing that doctors do to diagnose it.

The next one I watched was on breathing and asthma that can be found here: It was just awesome and I am going to recommend it to the current teacher of the medical assistant program. I thought it was really helpful and reinforced what I knew and I gained some knowledge as well. I think I might be start using this site as a permanent feature of my education… even if they do track me and my friends ;)

What are your thoughts?

Thoughts on Gcflearnfree....

At the site gcflearnfree.org, I checked out a few tutorials on some things that interested me. This was another site that I hadn't heard of before and after some time on it, I had a little bit of a mixed opinion. Since I struggle hard core with math in my personal life, I thought I would start there. The math portion was divided into sections that covered the basics and a little bit of fourth grade math (fractions), but except for some basics it didn't really do much for me. For instance, it gives practice problems, but doesn’t give a way to check your answers to see if you understood- if they do I couldn't find it. There was a zombie game in that section which I tried and that would allow you to do the math problem and let you know whether you arrived at the right answer or not and it was a little fun, but I thought it might also be stressful because you have to 'rush' the answers or the zombie will 'get you'. That said I realized that I was better at addition in my head than I thought ;)

I glanced through “All the Topics” next and I found that there were a lot of good topics, but not many that interested me right now. I looked at reading because it is one of my favorite things to do and I thought the exercises were great- only thing I would have changed is except for the 'grammar' section, there wasn't much on writing. (I suspect that is because writing is much too complex to put in small bites – at least that's how I see writing.) I also looked at the Microsoft office section because I am currently taking a beginner's computer class and that is something that we are learning about. I found that the topics I already understood well I could understand clearly in the exercises, but I did struggle a little with trying to figure them out if I didn't already have some understanding of the concept discussed.

I think that this might be a site that I would use again, but I didn't feel completed grabbed by the site in such a way that I will be more likely to use it on a regular basis. It was good to learn about and I am interested to see what other people thought of it. I think if I was in a position to be able to use the internet more and to need the information it provided I would be more interested in using it more often. Anyway, it's good to know! :)

What do you think? Have you tried it? On a semi weird note, when I first saw the website title I read it so fast that I thought it was about gluten free stuff and I was really excited... and then confused for the first few seconds of looking at the site... You can't tell what's always in my head, can ya? :D

Thoughts on Onguardline.gov….

** Please visit this federal government site to learn about internet fraud, computer security, and how to protect your personal information if needed***

I was excited to start this week looking at onguardline.gov. I found this topic really interesting, especially due to the recent news about Home Depot’s computers being hacked with a large data loss. On my computer I use a few programs to help me try to protect my data. I use LastPass for my password vault and HTTPS-Everywhere on my computer when I am searching or using the web and that has been the extent of my computer protection with the exception of virus protection.

So when I looked at the site I started with ‘Tips for Using Public Wi-FI Networks’. In one of the tips it mentioned the secure internet program I am using and with few exceptions, I have really enjoyed using it. I haven’t had any problems over the last few years. (Knock on wood!)

I do have a cell phone but I am woefully ignorant on mobile apps for I went to the ‘Understanding Mobile Apps' next. I had heard about being able to use wi-fi with my home instead of just my data plan and I had forgotten about it. The reading reminded me of it- and also reminded me that using it might be a bit risky- and so I left the sight to look up how to do that on my phone and ten minutes later I have finally figured it out. (If anyone wondered why I am taking a computer class, this is why… Even the programs that I have used to secure things were decided and downloaded by my ex. :) I only have two apps on my phone for two things and do not have any other ones, but I did find myself a little more interested in looking to see what options I might have. I am really cheap so I don’t know, but I may look at the ‘app store’ this weekend and look. I do not have a security app on my phone so I should look and see what is out there. The advice on kids and mobile apps was very timely too because my son is starting to show interest in a cell phone and we have started the conversation in the family. I feel like I got some more information to take home and talk with my ex-husband and son about while we are trying to make our decision. The ‘Protect Kids Online’ section which I went to next was a little eye opening. I went next to the video on protecting kids online and then decided I’d made enough notes and questions to take home.

I didn’t know about this site and was glad to be introduced to it. Looking forward to more sites!

Did you give it at try? Have you used it in the past? What are your thoughts....

Thoughts on HealthyComputing.com….

I think this site would be very useful for people who do not know a lot about computer and body ergonomics and if you are having some problems that you think are based on using your computer, check it out.... :)

I spent forty minutes looking over the site http://www.healthycomputing.com. My first inclination was to not find the site very interesting. I am having some significant health issues right now so the first section I checked out was the ‘Your Health’ section and I didn't find anything that seemed to fit me very well. I looked at all four sections and I copied out the stretches- I think that I have accidentally been doing those stretches pretty often over the last few years, but I thought I would put the copy on my fridge and remind myself about doing them more often. Under 'conditions and treatments' only one thing really was pertinent to me and has been pertinent since I was a wee child and that was myopia with slight astigmatism. I am extremely blind/ near sighted without my glasses and so it was interesting to read that my eyesight could be getting worse due to computer use. I haven’t found that it’s really getting worse over the last several years and I do use the computer a lot, but I know that my near vision should be changing soon simply due to age. When human beings reach their forties, the lens in the eye loses its ability to perform ‘accommodation’ which makes the near vision more challenging or harder to use… hence bifocals or reading glasses. Did I mention I am not looking forward to that?!?!?!

I also looked at 'Causes of Discomfort' but I didn’t see any that I tend to have troubles with over the several sections in it. I’m grateful for that! So I didn’t find this site terrible useful, but only because I have already been fairly well educated in the topic. I am determined to not need carpel tunnel surgery for as long as possible. So to sum up, I found the stretching information very interesting and printed it out for future use, but didn't find much of the rest of the information pertinent to me. :)

How about you?

“Introduction to Computing 101” – Introduction to April’s Topic

There will not be very many posts for this class that I can actually put on my blog. I have used a computer for years but I haven’t ever really had any formal training in using many programs and have simply just worked my way along. I took the class for a few reasons; to try and cement some basic knowledge and learn more about the programs that I currently use, to learn more about programs I know very little about but would be very helpful in the workplace, and to see what other resources and programs are out there that I might want to use if I knew how. I knew that this class couldn’t entirely give me everything that I was seeking, but I did get quite a bit out of it and even know how to make some snazzy posters now. :)

What I would like to post about since I can’t post most of my work and it wouldn’t be very interesting to look at is to post about different resources that I was introduced to and my reactions to them. That way I can also introduce my readers to some of these websites that they may not know about which could be helpful to them. I wish I had been able to use some of these sites when I was a few decades younger. So the posts will be pretty short and sweet but hope they will be useful interspersed with the personal postings. Enjoy!

pictures from: http://globe-views.com/dreams/computer.html