I'm about ready to scream! In another class we have to create a quiz using forms. Okay, fine, I've done forms before. But it's different this time. Each question has to be on a different page, then we need to carry the variables from the first page to the last page. This requires scripting. Well, I've never used scripting other than HTML before. Well, I think I have the majority of it done. Well, make that the required parts of the assignment are done (as long as it all works when I upload everything!!!) But we're offered an extra 10 bonus points if we can figure out how to calculate the total percentage of correct answers. Me being the overachiever I am, has been searching for days to figure this part out. I've googled my brains out, surfed the web to the best of my ability and I'm coming up empty-handed. I have this HUGE FrontPage 2003 Inside Out book that isn't very helpful, but then again, I guess I'm dealing with scripting (like VisualBasic) rather than FrontPage itself. But I've looked in Programming in Visual Basic 6.0 without much luck as well. I'm the type of person who needs to see an example of what I need to type and I get it; I have a hard time teaching myself just exactly how to do anything. Oh well... I suppose I should quit blogging and get back to scripting! If anyone can offer advice I'd very much appreciate it!
Tuesday, November 16, 2004
Friday, November 05, 2004
Booklets
Ok, so I feel I'm pretty proficient in Microsoft Word. I know the basics, plus a little beyond. But Wednesday I taught myself something new, using Help (and I wish I would've known this way back in May...). My boss wanted me to make a booklet of all the assistive technologies we have in the office, and a lot of the assistive technologies that are "out there". So I went and gathered the information and put it in Word. When I was finished I thought to myself there's gotta be an easier way to put this in a booklet form than when I did the program for my wedding (back in May).
A long, long time ago... sometime around the middle of May, I was working on typing up the program for my wedding, which included all of what the Priest said, and our responses, plus the readings, congregation responses and whatever else that is part of a Catholic Mass wedding. Well, this program ended up being 8 - 8 1/2" x 11" sheets of paper, or 16 pages when folded in booklet form. I looked around Word but I couldn't find anything that would do that automatically (unfortunately for me then, I didn't use help, or I tried but it didn't work...I don't remember which). So, if I wanted it to be nice, and in order (especially when I made copies) I figured I had to copy and paste the text where I would need it. Long story short, I don't remember how many hours I spent working on it. I finally had the layout right, so when it printed, and I put the pages back to back (since my printer would only print on one side) and folded it, the text flowed and was in the correct order!!! YAY!! That part was done! Making copies was yet another deal, keeping the order straight when putting the booklets together, but I regress.
So anyway, back to this booklet thing. If you click on File, Page Setup, around the middle of the box that pops up is a drop down menu where it says Multiple Pages. If you select Book fold, Word automatically makes the orientation Landscape, and sizes each "page" down to about 5 inches. When you play around with the Inside and Outside margins you can get your text where you want it. Word shows you the document in order. And when you print, Word is smart enough to change the pages around, so when you do put it in a booklet form and fold it, all the pages are in order. I was so happy to find this out, I shared it with some people in my office, and I taught them a new thing! Now, if I had only known how to do this six months ago, I may have been even less stressed with my wedding!
A long, long time ago... sometime around the middle of May, I was working on typing up the program for my wedding, which included all of what the Priest said, and our responses, plus the readings, congregation responses and whatever else that is part of a Catholic Mass wedding. Well, this program ended up being 8 - 8 1/2" x 11" sheets of paper, or 16 pages when folded in booklet form. I looked around Word but I couldn't find anything that would do that automatically (unfortunately for me then, I didn't use help, or I tried but it didn't work...I don't remember which). So, if I wanted it to be nice, and in order (especially when I made copies) I figured I had to copy and paste the text where I would need it. Long story short, I don't remember how many hours I spent working on it. I finally had the layout right, so when it printed, and I put the pages back to back (since my printer would only print on one side) and folded it, the text flowed and was in the correct order!!! YAY!! That part was done! Making copies was yet another deal, keeping the order straight when putting the booklets together, but I regress.
So anyway, back to this booklet thing. If you click on File, Page Setup, around the middle of the box that pops up is a drop down menu where it says Multiple Pages. If you select Book fold, Word automatically makes the orientation Landscape, and sizes each "page" down to about 5 inches. When you play around with the Inside and Outside margins you can get your text where you want it. Word shows you the document in order. And when you print, Word is smart enough to change the pages around, so when you do put it in a booklet form and fold it, all the pages are in order. I was so happy to find this out, I shared it with some people in my office, and I taught them a new thing! Now, if I had only known how to do this six months ago, I may have been even less stressed with my wedding!
Tuesday, November 02, 2004
FrontPage 2003
Microsoft FrontPage 2003 is considered a WYSIWYG web page editor (stands for What You See Is What You Get). It was fairly new to me because the web pages i have created in the past were by a site's (like Angelfire) editor, or by writing out the HTML codes myself. I learned the HTML language in high school, and as tedious as it is, I enjoy writing the coding for web pages. But FrontPage makes things easier. (There are also other WYSIWYG editors out there, but I have never used them before).
FrontPage 2003 allows you to create your web page by formatting it like you would, say a Word document. If you wanted to increase the font, or change the font, it basically only requires a click of the mouse. FrontPage works in a similar way. If you want a graphic as your heading, you import the graphic as a picture and you place it where you want to (left justified, center, or right justified). If you want a background color, pattern, or picture you tell FrontPage what you want and you see it. Unlike if you were to type out the codes, you would see a tag such as *BODY BGCOLOR="#000000"* which tells the browser to load the color black as the background color. Now, since standard font color is black, you'll also need a font color tag to change the color of the font. You can see how complicated something like this can get, if you don't know the color codes or miss a tag here or there. FrontPages elimates this hassle and makes it easy for you to select the text that you want to change colors. Another example is say you want to put a table on your page. If you were to write out the codes, you would need your table tag, then inside the table tag you need the table row tag, then for the number of columns you want you need a table data tag for each column within each table row. It would look something like this (but substitute <> for the *):
*TABLE*
*TR*
*TD*First column of first row*/TD*
*TD*Second column of first row*/TD*
*TD*Third column of first row*/TD*
*/TR*
*TR*
*TD*First column of second row*/TD*
*TD*Second column of second row*/TD*
*TD*Third column of second row*/TD*
*/TR*
*/TABLE*
(The * were used because Blogger wanted to read my HTML tags and put them in place... and I wanted to show the coding so I had to improvise.)
In the above example, I would have two rows with three columns each. And if I wanted to add color to those, I would have to have additional tags in each of thetags. So you can see how time consuming writing out HTML can be, and why having a program like Microsoft FrontPage 2003 is a good thing.
FrontPage also offers pre-made buttons that can be used on web pages. This is one feature that comes with the program that allows a novice user to create a professional looking web page without much effort.
FrontPage 2003 allows you to create your web page by formatting it like you would, say a Word document. If you wanted to increase the font, or change the font, it basically only requires a click of the mouse. FrontPage works in a similar way. If you want a graphic as your heading, you import the graphic as a picture and you place it where you want to (left justified, center, or right justified). If you want a background color, pattern, or picture you tell FrontPage what you want and you see it. Unlike if you were to type out the codes, you would see a tag such as *BODY BGCOLOR="#000000"* which tells the browser to load the color black as the background color. Now, since standard font color is black, you'll also need a font color tag to change the color of the font. You can see how complicated something like this can get, if you don't know the color codes or miss a tag here or there. FrontPages elimates this hassle and makes it easy for you to select the text that you want to change colors. Another example is say you want to put a table on your page. If you were to write out the codes, you would need your table tag, then inside the table tag you need the table row tag, then for the number of columns you want you need a table data tag for each column within each table row. It would look something like this (but substitute <> for the *):
*TABLE*
*TR*
*TD*First column of first row*/TD*
*TD*Second column of first row*/TD*
*TD*Third column of first row*/TD*
*/TR*
*TR*
*TD*First column of second row*/TD*
*TD*Second column of second row*/TD*
*TD*Third column of second row*/TD*
*/TR*
*/TABLE*
(The * were used because Blogger wanted to read my HTML tags and put them in place... and I wanted to show the coding so I had to improvise.)
In the above example, I would have two rows with three columns each. And if I wanted to add color to those, I would have to have additional tags in each of the
FrontPage also offers pre-made buttons that can be used on web pages. This is one feature that comes with the program that allows a novice user to create a professional looking web page without much effort.
Monday, November 01, 2004
PhotoFiltre
PhotoFiltre is a free download that I found using Alvin's links. I've used it a few times, and for freeware, it's not a bad program. It has many features, more than some free trials provide. It was easy to use, nothing too hard that would require a thousand page manual to figure out. For the average person looking for a cheap or free program to create graphic art, I would recommend it. It is up there with Adobe Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro.
You can read the review for PhotoFiltre http://www.webattack.com/get/photofiltre.html of course, as I said before, I used Alvin's resources to find that.
You can read the review for PhotoFiltre http://www.webattack.com/get/photofiltre.html of course, as I said before, I used Alvin's resources to find that.
Tuesday, October 19, 2004
Animation Shop 3
In another one of Alvin's classes we had to make some graphics and one had to be an animation. Well, I don't have any programs that do animation so I had to download something. Jasc has a program called Animation Shop 3 which has a free trial. So I tried it. Amazingly enough it is very simple to use. It doesn't create the graphics, I had to use another program to do that, but once you have the slides you want to animate it is real easy. Animation Shop asks you which files you want to import, so you find the slides you want, put them in the correct order, and continue and it's put together. Then you can go in and add transitions between slides or text/image effects within each slide. This program was very simple to use and it had many features. I would recommend it to anyone who needs to animate graphics.
Jasc's website is at http://www.jasc.com/ and Animation Shop 3 is at http://www.jasc.com/products/animationshop/
Jasc's website is at http://www.jasc.com/ and Animation Shop 3 is at http://www.jasc.com/products/animationshop/
Wednesday, October 13, 2004
Paint Shop Pro 9
Well, I wasn't having much luck with Adobe Photoshop, not to mention, the computer it is installed on is in the spare room and not hooked to the internet, so I decided to download the trial version of Paint Shop Pro 9. With my high speed connection, the 98MB file didn't take very long to download. And once installed, I was left to fend for myself on how to use it, since I didn't have a manual in my lap (and I can't stand to read long documents on computer screens, makes my eyes bug out). I figured it out, similar to Adobe Photoshop, and I created the graphics for my Assignment 5 using it. I really haven't had the time to go in and explore all of the options it has, but it looks like a really great program. Unfortunately, I don't have the $130 to buy it, so I told my mother-in-law about it as a Christmas gift. So hopefully, by the end of the year, I'll have the full version.
Sunday, October 03, 2004
Pen Drives
There's a new thing called a pen drive and it's not much bigger than a keychain but it can hold upwards of 256 MB and 512 MB and I'm sure there are (or will be) some that will hold over one gigabyte of information. So instead of carting around thousands of 3.5" floppy disks you can wear these pen drives around your neck (the one I purchased actually came with a laynard) and they just plug into an empty USB port on your computer or notebook. Now, of course these aren't cheap. The 256 MB pen drive I purchased cost about $60, but there was a mail-in rebate, so I got the pen drive for about what an external 3.5" floppy drive would have cost me!!!
Now that I think about it, I think someone else has blogged about pen drives. These are definitely a new wave that is very practical.
Now that I think about it, I think someone else has blogged about pen drives. These are definitely a new wave that is very practical.
New Notebook
Well, I had been talking about it for quite a while, never really had the money, but I finally broke down and bought myself a notebook... ie laptop computer. I asked my husband instead of him trying to figure out what to buy me for Christmas, my Christmas present would be that he makes a few payments for the notebook and he agreed. So after doing homework on the web, we went to BestBuy and got a notebook. I was dead set on an HP... that is until we got there and talked with a rep. He said he could not sell me a HP with a clear conscience. Supposedly HP has the highest breakage rates. Who knows; my husband has a HP desktop and we haven't had any problems, and he knows other people who own HP's and have never had any problems.
I knew which HP notebook I wanted, so I asked the rep what other brands they had that were equivalent to what I wanted. He suggested Toshiba and eMachine, and explained that eMachine bought out Gateway. He showed me an eMachine comparable to the HP for a few hundred dollars cheaper, and it also had a better processor. That's when I learned a 2 gig AMD 64 Athlon was better than an Intel Pentium 4 - 3 gig processor. Okay, so with a cheaper price and more speed (flashbacks of Fast and Furious come to mind) the eMachine was looking better and better. I asked if they had any Toshibas comparable, and he found a couple, but they were a lot more. So after I finished asking my questions, and listening to the rep's (might I say rehearsed) bit about the $300 extended warranty, I moved on to my other questions. I knew I wanted a mouse, originally I wanted a 3.5" floppy so I could easily transfer files from work, to desktop to notebook (I changed my mind when I found out about the new "pen drives"), I needed a carrier, and I also got a surge protector.
So in the end, I spent over two grand on the notebook and accessories... and all I can say is hoorray to UF for providing cheap Microsoft products!!! I've only had the notebook about three days now and I am in love with it! I like the portability, I have can do all of my work on here whether I'm at home or at work so I don't have to transport disks or put stuff in the digital drop boxes. I just love it!!!
I knew which HP notebook I wanted, so I asked the rep what other brands they had that were equivalent to what I wanted. He suggested Toshiba and eMachine, and explained that eMachine bought out Gateway. He showed me an eMachine comparable to the HP for a few hundred dollars cheaper, and it also had a better processor. That's when I learned a 2 gig AMD 64 Athlon was better than an Intel Pentium 4 - 3 gig processor. Okay, so with a cheaper price and more speed (flashbacks of Fast and Furious come to mind) the eMachine was looking better and better. I asked if they had any Toshibas comparable, and he found a couple, but they were a lot more. So after I finished asking my questions, and listening to the rep's (might I say rehearsed) bit about the $300 extended warranty, I moved on to my other questions. I knew I wanted a mouse, originally I wanted a 3.5" floppy so I could easily transfer files from work, to desktop to notebook (I changed my mind when I found out about the new "pen drives"), I needed a carrier, and I also got a surge protector.
So in the end, I spent over two grand on the notebook and accessories... and all I can say is hoorray to UF for providing cheap Microsoft products!!! I've only had the notebook about three days now and I am in love with it! I like the portability, I have can do all of my work on here whether I'm at home or at work so I don't have to transport disks or put stuff in the digital drop boxes. I just love it!!!
Wednesday, September 22, 2004
TI-84 Part Deux
Well, I did a little reading in the manual (when I say little, I mean 15 minutes before I had to leave for class!) and I found what I needed to know for graphing functions. I found where it talked about the derivatives and I quickly learned what I should've known from classes I took in high school. Anyway, I learned how to put in the x-value of a point to find out if that point is on the graph (the first thing I need to know which tells me if I should proceed with the calculations or if I just have to say that the point isn't on the graph). Then I learned how to find the derivative using the "Calc" feature and made the conclusion that when I use that to find the derivative I also (without having to do all the computations) know what the slope of the tangent line is (if I have to find the slope of the tangent line at that point). I already knew how to input the function to get the graph, but these newfound insights will help me double check my work. It's been 5 years since I've been in a higher level math class, and I've found I don't remember it all. I wish now I would've taken Calculus as soon as I started college because I'd be way ahead of where I am now. But that's okay, I enjoyed my time before, the second time around has to be better right????
Tuesday, September 21, 2004
TI-84 Plus SE
I am pursuing an AYA Math License for grades 7-12 which means I'm enrolled in a couple undergrad math classes. Well after meeting with some professors to get myself on track and know where I'm heading, I find out my good 'ole TI-85 doesn't cut it anymore. It at least wasn't on the "Prohibited" list like the TI-89 is, but it's outdated, and after some searching on TI's website I found out the TI-85 is retired. So I'm stuck with keeping the TI-85 and possibly not having functions and programs I need or buying a new calculator.
Well, I am a woman, so I chose to go shopping! But I did my research first. I wanted to know what the difference was between the TI-83, TI-83 Plus, TI-84, TI-84 Plus, TI-84 Plus Silver Edition, and the TI-86. Thankfully TI (which stands for Texas Instruments) has a useful website and they actually have a document that you can download that compares all of these calculators, plus a few others I wasn't interested in. I learned my TI-85 was replaced by the TI-86 and functioned similar to the 'ole TI-85. But when it came down to it all, the TI-84 Plus Silver Edition had more RAM, a faster processor, and more programs. What does all this mean to me?! I still don't know 100% yet, but I know more RAM provides more space for me to download things, add programs, store information; the faster processor means overall it performs quicker, and the more programs were just bonus for me to play around with, if I ever find the time.
My biggest decision was to decide between the TI-83 and the TI-84 because most schools use the TI-83, but with the TI-84 being new I had to wonder how quickly the TI-83's would be phased out for the newer TI-84's. That's another reason why I spent a little more and went for the TI-84.
Okay, so I have this handy-dandy brand spanking new calculator. The first difference (other than the color) I notice is the cover slides off in the opposite direction. (Okay, fine, not a big deal.) Next, the TI-84 doesn't have "Function" keys (yanno those 'F' keys at the top of your keyboard???) The TI-85 had 5 of those 'F' keys that made my life simpler. There isn't a custom menu that I can program my most frequently used functions either. This made it easy for me because I could put 15 different functions in this menu and have them all in reach with one button to scroll through the menu and my five function keys; instead of going into each separate menu and locating the function that way. But all in all, it's a new play toy! I'll get used to it! I haven't touched the TI-85 in quite a few years anyway, so I don't remember much of what it can do anyway!
Sad part is, I don't know how to use half of what the TI-84 is capable of. It came with a user manual, but it's only a small portion of the actual user manual which you need to download off TI's website. Also, I learned how to use my TI-85 in my high school math classes because everything was explained by the teacher and how to use the calculator (okay, mine was a little different since they used the TI-83's in class, but I still had step by step instructions, and once I found how to do it on the TI-85 it was a breeze). Well, now, I'm supposed to know how to do everything on my calculator; know how to find the slope of a tangent line at a specific point of a function, how to find the derivative using my calculator. Well, I know how to graph, so that's a plus, but I need to teach myself how to zoom in on the graph, and use the features above. So, there will be a part two to this rambling mess. If I learn nothing else, I need to learn how to use the derivative function on the calculator so I'll at least be able to use it in my class!!! Wish me luck!
Here are a couple links:
TI's Website (this is Texas Instrument's main website for everything they have) http://www.ti.com/
TI Education Website http://education.ti.com/educationportal/
TI-84 Plus Silver Edition http://www.84silver.com/
Well, I am a woman, so I chose to go shopping! But I did my research first. I wanted to know what the difference was between the TI-83, TI-83 Plus, TI-84, TI-84 Plus, TI-84 Plus Silver Edition, and the TI-86. Thankfully TI (which stands for Texas Instruments) has a useful website and they actually have a document that you can download that compares all of these calculators, plus a few others I wasn't interested in. I learned my TI-85 was replaced by the TI-86 and functioned similar to the 'ole TI-85. But when it came down to it all, the TI-84 Plus Silver Edition had more RAM, a faster processor, and more programs. What does all this mean to me?! I still don't know 100% yet, but I know more RAM provides more space for me to download things, add programs, store information; the faster processor means overall it performs quicker, and the more programs were just bonus for me to play around with, if I ever find the time.
My biggest decision was to decide between the TI-83 and the TI-84 because most schools use the TI-83, but with the TI-84 being new I had to wonder how quickly the TI-83's would be phased out for the newer TI-84's. That's another reason why I spent a little more and went for the TI-84.
Okay, so I have this handy-dandy brand spanking new calculator. The first difference (other than the color) I notice is the cover slides off in the opposite direction. (Okay, fine, not a big deal.) Next, the TI-84 doesn't have "Function" keys (yanno those 'F' keys at the top of your keyboard???) The TI-85 had 5 of those 'F' keys that made my life simpler. There isn't a custom menu that I can program my most frequently used functions either. This made it easy for me because I could put 15 different functions in this menu and have them all in reach with one button to scroll through the menu and my five function keys; instead of going into each separate menu and locating the function that way. But all in all, it's a new play toy! I'll get used to it! I haven't touched the TI-85 in quite a few years anyway, so I don't remember much of what it can do anyway!
Sad part is, I don't know how to use half of what the TI-84 is capable of. It came with a user manual, but it's only a small portion of the actual user manual which you need to download off TI's website. Also, I learned how to use my TI-85 in my high school math classes because everything was explained by the teacher and how to use the calculator (okay, mine was a little different since they used the TI-83's in class, but I still had step by step instructions, and once I found how to do it on the TI-85 it was a breeze). Well, now, I'm supposed to know how to do everything on my calculator; know how to find the slope of a tangent line at a specific point of a function, how to find the derivative using my calculator. Well, I know how to graph, so that's a plus, but I need to teach myself how to zoom in on the graph, and use the features above. So, there will be a part two to this rambling mess. If I learn nothing else, I need to learn how to use the derivative function on the calculator so I'll at least be able to use it in my class!!! Wish me luck!
Here are a couple links:
TI's Website (this is Texas Instrument's main website for everything they have) http://www.ti.com/
TI Education Website http://education.ti.com/educationportal/
TI-84 Plus Silver Edition http://www.84silver.com/
Monday, September 13, 2004
Text to Audio
Since I work in the Office of Disability Services at UF, I have been doing some research for my boss on assistive technology for the students who use ODS. One of these technologies happened to be a program called "Text to Audio" and it is put out by Premier Assistive Technology (you can visit their website at http://www.premier-programming.com/home.htm). My job was to look into the program, see if it would work for us, and find a price (which was pretty easy since they actually have it listed on the site!!!). ODS orders books on tape for students who have difficulty reading and need the auditory support, so my job was to see if this particular program would work if we scanned in the textbook and used the program to read back to the student.
In the end, it doesn't work that way. This program takes Word documents (it also can read HTML, Rich Text and Standard ASCII file formats) and "learns" the text and then it reads the document to you. The program actually creates a WAV or MP3 file of the document. This program also includes software to burn CDs so another program is not needed. This makes it a little easier. And since it can put the documents on a CD, you can tell it to make each document a separate track (just like how music CDs have a different track for each song). The other big "feature" this program boasts is that you can actually bookmark sections you want. So if you're reading through the actual textbook and wanted to highlight a definition, you could theoretically do this on the CD using a bookmark. Plain and simple, the bookmark is just another track on the CD. But if you know that the definition for "technology" is in Chapter 5 and the track for the definition is #12, then you could simply skip to track 12 to hear the definition of technology.
There are a couple "How to use" videos on the website, which give excellent explanations on how to use the program. The program itself is simple to use, it takes approximately five minutes or so to convert a Word document to a WAV file, but that also depends on the size of the document. The program also has different voices to choose from. And you also have the option to change the speed and pitch of the voices as well.
In the end, it doesn't work that way. This program takes Word documents (it also can read HTML, Rich Text and Standard ASCII file formats) and "learns" the text and then it reads the document to you. The program actually creates a WAV or MP3 file of the document. This program also includes software to burn CDs so another program is not needed. This makes it a little easier. And since it can put the documents on a CD, you can tell it to make each document a separate track (just like how music CDs have a different track for each song). The other big "feature" this program boasts is that you can actually bookmark sections you want. So if you're reading through the actual textbook and wanted to highlight a definition, you could theoretically do this on the CD using a bookmark. Plain and simple, the bookmark is just another track on the CD. But if you know that the definition for "technology" is in Chapter 5 and the track for the definition is #12, then you could simply skip to track 12 to hear the definition of technology.
There are a couple "How to use" videos on the website, which give excellent explanations on how to use the program. The program itself is simple to use, it takes approximately five minutes or so to convert a Word document to a WAV file, but that also depends on the size of the document. The program also has different voices to choose from. And you also have the option to change the speed and pitch of the voices as well.
Thursday, September 09, 2004
My First Blog
Well, this is new to me since I have never heard of a blog before. It is pretty cool; an online journal is so much better than having to sit down and write in a paper one because I can always find time to be at the computer, but I hardly have time for myself to sit and read a newspaper! I seem to always be the last one to find out about new stuff, so maybe this whole concept will keep me on top of things and instead of being the last to know, I'll be the one to initiate new things!!! I like learning about new things, and I want to be able to share all of this stuff with others.
PEACE =oÞ
PEACE =oÞ
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