Ranger Hawk blog

Hey, so after a lot of fiddling around on Blogger, I finally exported my Ranger Hawk blog so that now when I sign in, it's with my Google account instead of my Yahoo account. You'd think that Blogger would make it easier to change the sign-in email...oh well, anyways, here's the link for my personal blog: Ranger Hawk

Woot! =D

All right, well Finals are done and I scored 100% on the Excel quiz, where I had to use the spreadsheet and figure out the total values, averages, etc. And I thought that was the part I was going to be worst at! I got like 71/78 points I think on the other quiz, and the documents I created still have to be graded...but I'm so thankful it went well!!!
Looking forward to Spring break! =D

Week 10

Well, this is it, the last week of winter term. I can't believe that it's done already; it just flew by! I learned so much in class, I'm really glad I took it. Hopefully now I'll be able to utilize Word to its fullest extent, and be able to work with Excel really well. Before taking this class, I had no idea what Excel even was--I think I opened the program once, saw the spreadsheet and cells, and instantly closed it. Now I'm feeling a lot more confident with it, and hopefully the Finals exam will go well, which is next Friday!

I'm really nervous about it, and am going to study study study! I should do well on the quiz portion, they're all questions I've already gotten from both the pop quizzes and the review questions from the textbook. The portion with the Word document should also go fairly well I hope; so Excel's the only one I'm really stressing about, and it's mainly just figuring out how to set up the equations for the questions...I'm not very good at that.

In the tech world, there was a survey taken of students, which had them listening to different types of music in different formats. There was an MP3 compressed type, and another one that was of a higher sound quality. Surprisingly, the majority preferred the MP3's sound, because it's something that they're used to. It would be very interesting to take that test and see which one I would choose.
MP3 sounds

Week 9

Well Week 9 is almost done, then we have one more week and then it's Finals week. It's hard to believe that the term has gone by so quickly. I've learned so much in this class, it's been awesome.
This is something random that I don't think I've ever mentioned before, but on the other wall across from where I sit there are some beautiful horse pictures. One's got a whole herd of whitish horses galloping from the sea, and another one has the silhouette of an Arabian's head and the Arabian itself galloping...I wonder how I could get those into my room...hehe.
We did a lot more in Excel, and I'm not doing so well figuring out just what formulas I need to enter to calculate a problem. I hope Finals go well in that respect...and I've been having a lot of fun with PowerPoint, it is so awesome!

In the news, Facebook has been making some changes to keep up with their competition, Twitter. I don't know much about Twitter, but I've been trying to convince my parents to let me get a Facebook...anyways, some of the changes are that when you update your profile, it automatically updates on your friends' pages, and you can have an unlimited number of friends...yeah, sounds really cool.
Facebook

Week 8

Week 8 has gone by really quickly! We had quizzes on Monday and Wednesday, and to my surprise I scored 100% on them both! =D I've definitely become a lot more comfortable with using Excel, because prior to this class I've never used it before. I think it's safe to say that I've really grasped the concept of relative and absolute references, something I wish I could say about stoichiometry and the mole of chemistry... =P

Anyways, in the news today, I found something that said that there's actually a type of skin disorder that comes from playing video games! When someone grips the controller really tightly, and also sweats due to the tension of the game, they can get really painful sores all over their hands. I do that a lot...haha, not really something to tell my mom about. ;-)
PlayStation palmar hidradenitis

Week 7

This week we did a lot in Excel. I've never really used Excel before, so this is basically all new to me. I've been enjoying it, and I finally understand the concept of relative and absolute references.

I also got a Gmail account, and I love the chat! I've been able to talk with my friends a lot, and it's like having a phone conversation, only you type instead of speak.

In the news world, there has been a delay in the domain name change that ICANN was going to have. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers say that they're going to let people purchase their own domain names (instead of the usual .com, .net, etc.). They're having to figure out some issues regarding that, so the date has been pushed to possibly the end of this year.
Domain name

Week 6

Well Week 6 and the midterms are done. I was really nervous and studied like crazy for them. There were two parts to it, the first half was a quiz, which had review questions from the textbook and questions from our pop quizzes, and the second half was formatting a document (paragraphs, indents, images, etc.). I got a hundred percent on the quiz portion (yay!), and hopefully I did well on the document part. I got stuck a couple of times during it, mainly because I haven't spent a lot of time in Word (since I don't have the program on my computer; I'm only able to do my homework by having my mom drop me off at the computer labs at the college).

It looks like Windows 7 is getting close to its release, and it may be coming out in 2009. It sounds like a lot of people are liking it more than Vista, but I found it interesting how they had had people use the Vista software (calling it something else) and then got the feedback, and it was all positive! I personally like the format of Windows XP Home Edition, which is what we have on our computer, but I will use anything that's faster!
Windows 7 update

Week 5

Well this week in class wasn't as fun because I've been fighting a cold all week and felt pretty bad in class, headaches and stuff. Other than that it was good as usual, I'm always learning so much, and found some really cool sites like Google Maps that our instructor showed us. It was actually kind of scary knowing that technology like that exists out there! I could actually go along a street and see houses!
We also had a pop quiz, and I didn't score as well as I would have liked, and midterms are next week, so I've been really studying hard and trying to fully understand the relationship between the CPU, Hard drive, and RAM. I think I've got it after looking at my notes and some PowerPoint drawings our instructor did.
It sounds like Windows 7 is coming out pretty soon, either this year or next. It's supposed to be an upgrade from Windows Vista (which a lot of people are not pleased with). It looks like it's got some really cool, new features!
Windows 7

Week 4

Week 4 has come and gone really quickly! We learned about IP addresses, and how they're converted from text (like what we type in) into an IP address that the computer reads and understands and uses to find the webpage you're looking for. I'm so thankful we don't have to remember the IP addresses, which are a bunch of numbers! I think I'd memorize Google's IP address and use it to find everything else.
Speaking of Google, apparently they've made it so that people can access their Gmail accounts offline, for those times when the Internet just doesn't work and you just have to read your emails; I've certainly had plenty of those moments! You can view your messages, but can't send them; they get placed in the Outbox and are sent as soon as an Internet connection is detected by the device, whether phone or computer. It's definitely a feature I'll use in the future.
Here's the link to an article about it: Gmail

Week 3

Well, week 3 went by pretty quickly! We didn't have any class on Monday due to MLK day, and Wednesday was powerpacked! We learned about the Hard drive, CPU, and RAM, and how those work together in a computer. I have to admit that it was somewhat confusing, but I think I understand the concept now: the CPU is what makes the whole computer work. It gets its instructions from the Hard drive, which is for memory. The RAM is also for memory, but it's only temporary storage, and thus works much faster. When the CPU boots up, it needs instructions from the HD to be able to function. However, it can't read the HD instructions because it doesn't "know" how. Something called a BIOS instructs the CPU in how to read the instructions, and then it can start working. At least that's what I think. I'll check all of my notes again to make sure I understand it.

President Obama has kept his Blackberry, which is pretty cool! He's using it to email and text people; which is something I don't even know how to do! I didn't realize how dangerous it could be, though; hackers can pinpoint his location through the device, although how they'd do that I have no idea.
President's BlackBerry

Second Life

Second Life is a place where people can live virtual lives and interact through avatars. There are two different sites, one for teens and one for adults, and unfortunately the chances of me being allowed to join the teen one are very small. Anyways, they've got their own type of currency called the Linden dollar that they can use to buy different items virtually. They can explore and create their own land, and it's basically just a virtual world that you can control. I find it amazing that places like Second Life can be created!

Week 2

This week went well, we learned a lot about bits and bytes in class on Monday, I learned so much! We also worked with virtual calendars, and I found out that Google has a calendar that I can access, even though I use my Yahoo email account. In the textbook we're using I learned a lot about the processor and how that operates, and what exactly a Hard Drive Disk is, I've always wondered.

I also learned a lot about MP3, I didn't know that they were actually compressed music files! Apparently, they remove sounds that the human ear can't hear, thus compacting the size, so the sound quality isn't as good as it is on a CD. Fascinating!

I found something about video games (yes, I do get obsessed with them), apparently the Wii system is the most popular this year, along with the Nintendo DS. We have a Wii, along with several games for it, including Wii Play, which was mentioned in the article. PlayStation 3 wasn't quite as popular, and there's no mention of the PSP (PlayStation Portable), which is what I got for Christmas. The PSP isn't as popular as I expected and sadly I haven't found another PSP owner with whom I can play games with through an Internet connection.
Oops, I somehow made the tech part about me...hehe, well here's a link to the article:
Video games

Week 1

First week of my computer class, it's gone well so far! This blog has been so much fun! I work on my homework for class and type up the documents at the college's computer labs, because I don't have Microsoft Office 2007 on my Windows computer. It'll be interesting to see if this way will work well.
As a side note, BendBroadband and KFXO came to an agreement. It seemed to be resolved fairly quickly. Here's a link concerning it (and granted, it is biased): BendBroadband agreement

Introduction

My name is Kat and I'm taking this computer class as part of my G.E. requirement. However, I'm also hoping to learn more computer terminology, and to understand how the computer works, as well as how to use it to its fullest potential. One of the aspects I'm most looking forward to is PowerPoint, because I've always wanted to know how to do that.