My Website!!!

Please visit my website at www.cs.trinity.edu/~ajalan
Initially it was a little complicated to understand how the hyperlink's worked for the nab bar but then with all of Dr. Belisle's help, it became easier. I thought it would be much harder to make a whole website but it was an easy and fun exercise. Initially I started with using Kompozer because you could use it on a mac but then I had to switch to Expression Web for all the hyperlinking. My favourite page of my website is the one on the Grey-Crowned Crane. I like the layout and colors of the page and am proud of it. I really like my website but I would have probably used better or custom made backgrounds. Even the layout could have been a little simpler. My biggest technical challenge was to understand the hyperlinking. Specially because I could just not do it with Kompozer and it worried me. My biggest design challenge was making the pictures, layout and background all coordinated. So that it would look all in sync. I would obviously show my website to my parents and family. Also, my friends at Trinity and high school friends. Even bird-lovers would be interested in my website. Yes, definitely. I would love to make another website for another class or for my own personal experience or something. This was a really fun and useful exercise and hopefully I will be able to make use of it some time later.

Larry Hechler's Visit

Larry was a guest lecturer in our class today. He works in the Hardware Department at Trinity. Also, he's been working in this field for the past 30 years.
He started with emphasising the importance of back-up specially for a college student. We should back-up almost every week. He gave us examples of how students at Trinity had lost either their complete photographic history or 200 hours of thesis work due to an accident and without a back-up everything is lost.
After he told us that the monitor or the touch pad of a computer must never be cleaned with alcohol, acetone or ammonia. They would ruin the finish on the screen and maybe make the LCD stop working.
Only a lint-free cloth with a dab of water must be used for cleaning purposes.
He pointed out that the laptop must not be kept directly on  the carpet or on the bed because it blocks the wind intake point. And the computer needs to take in air for cooling purposes.
For the battery's health and long life, he suggested to run down the battery to the warning level and then full charge it. This way the battery remembers that it has to work for the full amount.
He also explained the complete care packages of dell and apple.

His visit was really helpful for all of us.

Image Manipulation!

I chose this image of a tiger and lion and made them into one picture. Because I always believed that both are really royal and grand animals and there amalgamation would be the King of the Jungle.
Also, a bird serving the tigion food was also very amusing to me. And the food that the tigion is eating is also just a simple worm.
I adjusted the Color, Brightness and Gradient fill of all the layers.
Also used the eye-dropper tool and the magnetic lasso.
This was a really fun exercise.

Powerpoint Presentations

I am studying Economics and Marketing here at Trinity. Thus, I decided to make my presentation an amalgamation of both my majors. My presentation was a marketing technique for Economics Majors.
It talked about the importance of Economics and how it is essential in almost every field today.
Also, I included a video of the Economics Breakdown Song. We had watched this video in my Economics class and I thought that it would bring a good laugh to the audience.

All the other presentations were really good too. I really liked Danny's presentation style and her different ideas. She had a lot of audience interaction and everything in her presentation was very easy to relate with. Thus, she definitely was my favorite. All her animations and pictures were really interesting too.

Chris Nolan's Presentation

I really enjoyed his presentation. It was very informative and also interesting. He explained us how all the various search engines worked. Why Google has 66% of the market share wheras Yahoo, Bing etc. barely even get 10%. This is because of all the various types of algorithms and techniques google uses to give the best results as per everyone's needs. He also explained us how we can better use the "Advanced Search" option and narrow our search results. This has been very helpful.

Powerpoint! Useful or not?

Powerpoint presentations are an essential part of any business or venture. But sometimes presentations can be really boring and slow. The five things that I dislike about a powerpoint presentation are- 1. When the alphabets come out one by one and it just keeps going. 2. When all the slides have a different theme or background color to it. 3. If there is too much word art and pictures al clustered in one slide. 4. When all the colors are differently matched so you cannot read anything properly. 5. If there is too much excel data or too many clustered charts that you can barely even read the data, let alone even understanding it. 

But even with all the negatives of a powerpoint presentation, it is definitely a very handy tool. If we have to present an idea in class or a business is presenting its contract to a large group of investors, powerpoints are definitely the way to go. Instead of using the standard white board, powerpoint gives you a chance to add different kinds of themes/backgrounds, there can be custom music, custom animation, any kind of data whether basic excel sheets or charts can be added, even pictures can be used. Pretty much everything is possible to be presented by a powerpoint. And thus it makes for a good presentation. And as I mentioned earlier, specially for a business idea presentation, powerpoint is definitely the best bet. Because it covers all the aspects of a presentation. 

Pictures that lie!

This is a picture of a University of Wisconsin magazine cover. They not only specifically used a black students picture to show diversity on campus but also used a 1993 football game picture, 1994 snapshot of a black student and used it in 2000 to show the diversity. 

I chose this picture because it was related to University and since this was for a class project, I thought it may be a good match. 

So, the 1993 football game picture was taken, then the black student's picture was added and mixed into it so that it looked like one picture. And to give it the final touchups, the 2001-02 line was added. 

This manipulation was not exactly harmful but i was definitely misleading. Because the university may not actually be that diverse anymore but anyone who read that magazine would believe so. Thus, it was not exactly very ethical of the University to do that.

I chose this video because it very simply explains the basic starting tools of Photoshop. From a simple picture, how you can create a very different and artistic picture. The steps were all explained very well and even the background music was well-suited.

Copyright and Related Issues

Copyright issues are every important. Being able to protect one’s own work from others is essential in competitive times like these.

It was really nice of Mr. Jason Hardin to come and explain us about copyright and all relates topics. He is the manager of access Services at The Coates Library and also oversees reserve services.

He explained copyright as the legal ownership of an idea or a self-creation or the government recognized ownership of some kind of property which you can control.

Plagiarism is basically an academic sin, ethical lass or a moral sin whereas copyright infringement is actually a crime.The copyright law has been a part of the constitution since 1790.

If people believe that there information and property is protected then they will be able to flourish more creatively and they will be able to develop everything more freely. Copyright only comes into existence from the date the actual work is published. It is a felony to commit a copyright infringement involving more than 10 copies and a value of more than $2500 can be charged to someone who tries to do that.

He explaines what Fair use was and told us how it was very important even in everyday life. Fair use is the provision within copyright law that allows people to reproduce works.

Jason Hardin also explained us how derivative works are different and that parody and satire are protected.

Like Meet the Spartans was a spoof of 300 and it still did not violate any copyright.

A major issue in the world of copyright infringement is the younger generation downloading music illegally. Many college campuses have had issues with their students downloading music off illegal sites.

In Trinity itself, a girl was mad eto pay around $14,000 as she had downloaded 10 old classical songs. The question that comes into play is whether the student who lives on a very small budget is trying to get some music or whether the music producer who is already earning millions should get paid for his job.

I would like to support the student because even if the student downloads a few songs, it will not make any difference to the millions that the artists and the producers already earn.

Copyright and related Issues by Asavari Jalan is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

My Trinity Network Diagram

I made this Trinity Diagram on the basis of what we learnt during our tour of the ITS center.

The ITS employee was very helpful and explained us how the network worked.

Now, I have understood the working of the internet.

Trinity Mystery Spot!

So I thought of using a picture of this specific staircase while I was going to visit a friend. It just seemed like an interesting picture to modify. I really like this location on campus because even though I don't live in this building but I cross it everyday. Also, that stairs have become ignored now. Everyone only uses the elevator. And thus I used this picture. Try guessing where it is???

Best Tech Tip!

For our second class, we had a guest speaker, Mr. Joe Hash.
He manages the student computer center and was also very knowledgeable about computer protection techniques.
Also, he started with explaining the basic difference in the vulnerability in a Mac compared to a Windows PC.
Thus we knew that since on Macs, no software can get downloaded without the owner's permission which makes it much safer. 
He went on to explain us phishing and how there are people whose sole purpose is just to get other people's private information. So to protect ourselves against this, he said that we should clear our history timely and empty the cache.


Later, he brought to our notice how important it was to update our computer regularly. If it was possible to do it on a daily basis then even that would be very desirable. At the same time, he taught us how to work this new software called ccleaner which would help protect a PC against phishing and other types of such scams.


I believe that this lecture was very helpful and taught me a lot about my computer and its protection.


We should protect now, so that we don't regret later.

Hello There!

Hi! My name is Asavari Jalan. I am from New Delhi, India.
I love photography and dancing. Adventurous activities are also among my top favorites.
I am the public relations officer of International Club and hold positions in the Asian Subcontinental Association and Hindu Student Union.
Also, 4. I am allergic to peanut butter and I am the only girl among nine first cousins. I do all my work on my Windows PC but I have never actually taken a computer class so I don't have any professional training.
You can reach me at ajalan@trinity.edu.