Friday, November 26, 2010

HOW TO MAKE A TICKET?

    Making a ticket is very easy. What you need, first of all, is a database- making program. FILE MAKER and ACCESS are two options. File maker began as a MS-DOS-based computer program named Nutshell. It was developed by Nashoba Systems around 1982 or 1983. Nowadays, it is widely used in different centers, such as schools, hospitals and other various institutions. Microsoft released Access version 1.0 on 13 November 1992, and an Access 1.1 release in May 1993 to improve compatibility with other Microsoft products and include the Access Basic programming language.




How to make a ticket in File Maker:
* Choose a new document
*Draw your ticket on the document
*Fill in the different pieces of information:
                                       - Records
                                       - Fields
                                       - Data

NO matter how many tickets you want to make, you just need to create more by clicking new, and automatically, tickets will be numbered for your convenience.


    

Monday, November 22, 2010

RSS, what is it?

          RSS (Rich Site Summary) is the acronym used to describe the sharing of content among different web sites, normally associated with the right to use intellectual property, normally TV shows, newspaper columns..... Originally developed by Netscape, it's most widespread use is distributing headlines on the web. If for example, a web site wants to allow other web sites publish some of its content creates an RSS document and registers it with an RSS publisher. The reader of that document can then re-use it on a different web site. You can also "RSS Feed" your content to whoever wants it, allowing you to stay informed by retrieving the latest info. from the sites you are interested in. Apart from this, you also save time, by not needing to visit each site individually.


      There have been various versions of RSS. The first, created on March 15, 1999 was called RSS 0.90 and was published by NETSCAPE. Different versions have been created and developing until the most recent one, RSS 2.0 version 2.0.11, published in March 30th, 2009.
RSS Info.


     The RSS FEED logo is very easy to find. Anywhere you go, either a blog or an online newspaper, you will easily find the logo above and by clicking on it you will automatically receive any updates on the desired web page.


                              In Summary:


        * What is RSS?
      RSS is an acronym for : Really Simple Syndication
It is also known as: Rich Site Summary
RSS is a simple and efficient way to keep "in touch" with a website without actually visiting it
        *What can you use it for?      *Which format is it in?      *What is a FEED?
            Instead of adding all of your favorite websites into your "favorites" folder in your internet explorer, if you want to keep informed about new updates in your chosen web pages, you use RSS.  What actually happens in RSS is that whenever a website updates, producing an article/news item, it simultaneously produces a document that contains the summary of all the updates made on the website. This document is in the form of an XML document. The ‘XML’ is a specialized language of web (similar to HTML language) which can be accessed by specialized softwares (knows as RSS Readers) that reproduce it in a readable language for the end user. The summary of the updates written on the XML document is known as a ‘Feed’. This XML document usually has an .xml extension. Subscribing to an RSS feed is very simple. You just need to copy the address of the RSS feed of your favorite website in your RSS reader.
    *RSS Tags
         All RSS files share a similar structure. Any RSS feed has Channel and Item tags. These tags are either required or optional.
TAGS:
Title- Required
Description- Required
Pub Date- Optional
Skip Hours- Optional
Language- Optional
Category- Optional
Cloud fields (domain, port, path...)- Optional
Text Imput- Optional
Webmaster- Optional
Editor- Optional
Copyright- Optional
    IMAGES
Title- Required
Link- Required
Description- Optional
                                                         RSS USEFUL PAGE

Sunday, October 17, 2010

HOW TO.......

HOW TO....

BLOG
*HOW TO CREATE A BLOG: It is very easy. If you already have a gmail account, just by going to www.blogger.com you will be able to create one. If you don't have a gmail account, you can also open a blog by goint to the same direction and following the steps mentioned in the page.

*HOW TO INSERT TEXT: Once you have you blog, you can begin posting by clicking "NEW POST". You will be able to give your post title and write whatever you want in it. To publish it, you just have to click "PUBLISH POST"

*HOW TO INSERT IMAGES: While you are posting something, you may also want to include an image to emphasyze what you have written or simply to display graphically what you have written. To do this, you have to click on the icon at the top, in the text options, and then select the image from your computer or insert a web direction. Finally, you have to choose the layout, and you're ready to go!

*HOW TO INSERT AUDIO: You can either add your own music or podcast, or add one from the web. To add one from the web you must:
  1. Visit your Template | Page Elements tab.
  2. Create a new widget by clicking "Add a Page Element."
  3. Choose the "HTML/Javascript" widget.
  4. Enter the HTML code provided by your third-party music service into the content window and click "Save Changes."
WITH YOUR PODCASTS:
  • To podcast, choose a host to store your audio files, then enable 'Link Fields' in your Settings | Formatting tab.
  • Use the link field to enclose audio files in your posts.
*HOW TO INSERT VIDEO: You may also want to include video in your post. To do so, click on the video icon at the top right side of the text formatting bar. Next, browse your computer to find the video you want to upload. Select "upload video" and choose a name for it, and it's all set.

*HOW TO INSERT HYPERLINKS: This is a very useful tool, since many times you use a webpage as a reference, and you would like to mention it. To do so, select the text you want to hyperlink, click on the hyperlink button on the text formatting bar (it looks like a chain) and paste the web direction.

*HOW TO CHOOSE "THEMES": You may want to change your blog themes once in a while. To do so, click on the "layout" icon. Then choose the "pick new template" on the "change layout page".

*HOW TO CHANGE SETTINGS: This is probably the easiest thing to do, since there is a big tab at the top of the page saying "SETTINGS". Just click on it and change whatever you want.

HOW TO CHANGE LANGUAGE: To do this, scroll to the bottom of your blogger dashboard, where you will see the word "Language" has a link to it. Click on it and change your language!



Thursday, October 7, 2010

MY NY DERAM TRIP


After years waiting for this trip and hearing marvels from previous years' classes, we are finally going! Although dates are still not specified, what matters is that we are finally getting to go on the ASB icon trip! All of us have dream trips in mind, with thousands of things to do and visit in that modern and extremely cosmopolitan city that is New York. As for me, first of all, I would like to go to the well known, typical NY icons such as the Empire State Building, Times Square, the Statue of Liberty, Central Park, the lively Manhattan, and of course enjoy a musical at Broadway. However, there are also other things I would really enjoy doing, such as getting to see the filming of any TV show or movie, a baseball match, visiting the Guggenheim museum and Chinatown, and of course, I wouldn't leave New York without doing some shopping or walking through non- touristic streets.

In conclusion, I would like this year's NY trip to be unforgettable, and to have a great time with my class, because, we are now in our last years to finish school.

Friday, September 10, 2010

A Summer to Remember

These summer vacations have given me quite a lot to talk and think about. My story of these summer holidays begins on June 6th. I left school prematurely, and after packing the few clothes and survival items we were allowed to take, Alejandra and I headed south to Madrid to begin our adventure of the Ruta Quetzal. We arrived at the first campsite in Madrid, and after a few goodbyes and a couple of hugs we left our "normal" lives and comodities for the next month and a half. We began to meet people and more people, and no matter how hard you tried to remember all their names, it was useless because the next instant you didn't remember who they were. After meeting swarms of people we finally met our groups for the next 6 weeks, which, apart from being colleagues, would serve as family and friends. Already this first day had been greatly intense, but what was lying ahead for us was the never imaginable.

Next morning, after an early waking up, the 300 of us, with 300 identical backpacks, 300 identical t-shirts and 300 pairs of identical boots, boarded the huge
caravan of 9 buses and 3 cars and headed for Madrid International airport to fly to 40ºC and 95% humidity, or what is the same, VERACRUZ, Mexico.

The next 40 days of my life would remain in my memory forever, crossing dense, tropical jungles, with soaking clothes, walking for 12 hours, visiting places I would never have inagined and feeling dirty, wet and tired the whole time. The Ruta Quetzal, apart from showing me incredible
places and making me live awesome experiences, served as a window to other people and cultures, a window to lives that are much
more complicated than ours and that I had never thought about before.

Summer didn't end there, however. After returning, I left for 7 more days to Tunis and enjoy a more relaxed and cofortable stay in
another country.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

London Trip


Yesterday night we arrived from our London class-trip. We all returned exhausted but with a great feeling of having passed a great time. We did tons of things and visited numerous places apart from living a great experience in a musical. This is what we did during the trip:

Day 1 (Friday 7th).- Encounter at Bilbao airport 8:30A.M. The plane took off on time and we arrived at Stansted airport at 11 A.M. After passing eternal passport checks we finall
y boarded the bus which took us to Victoria Station, 2 minutes away from our hotel, the AIRWAYS HOTEL. After a quick sandwich lunch we got on the london tube and headed for Camdentown, where we had a couple of hours to shop and walk around. After Camdentown we had dinner and headed for the hotel, exhausted.


Day 2 (Saturday 8th).- After waking up at 7:30 A.M. and having breakfast at the hotel we headed for the "TUBE" to buckingham palace, where we saw the change of guard. However, the best part of the day was when we went to Piccadilly Circus to watch the musical "HAIR", a GREAT show in which we even went to the stage to dance! After the musical we had free time until 10:30 P.M. when we met at Piccadilly.


Day 3 (Sunday 8th).- After having breakfast at the hotel we left for Speakers' Corner, in High Park. We heard many people explaining their ideas, but surely there was one woman who topped them all. She was a crazy old woman who said we were all parasites and rats, and a
fter dying Hitler would judge us. After leaving this insane woman we went to the London Dungeon terror museum, which was good but a bit boring in some parts and later we had lunch. After filling our stomachs, we trotted to the London Bridge and London Tower.


Day 4 (Monday 9th).- Today we all left for the British Museum and discovered Egyptian tombs and Mexican Mayan people apart from aincient Greeks. At the evening we boarded the London Eye from which we had a great view of London and its main icons. Finally, as a great ending we went to Hard Rock Café to have
dinner, and ended our last full day in London.




Day 5 (Tuesday 10th).- This morning we woke up early and headed for the London Docks, where we entered a museum which showed us the history of these iconic storeplaces. We hurriedly left for Heathrow airport next, where our plane was delayed 2 hours due to the volcanic ash. END

Monday, April 26, 2010

26/4/10 What is my video about?

For our technology project, I am going to try and join our London trip with it. For my video, I'm going to record our trip, interviewing other people and tourists in London's streets. It's going to be a type of report to picture our trip as well as London's people and ambience. For this, as I said before, I'm going to carry my video-camera and later, I'm going to use Apple's iMovie to edit the video, adding music and adjusting it to the 3 minutes of time we have. I'm going to try and make it short, complete, with varied people and entertaining.

Monday, April 12, 2010

What are we doing in the last trimester?

During the last trimesters, we have been working on various things, including Open Source programs and online blogging. This trimester, we're moving on to different things, including typingweb, digital video editing and online posters.

1. Typingweb- On this online initernet page we are able to improve our typing skills with the objective of being able to type fast, accurately and without looking at the keyboard. There are several levels to pass, from beginner to advaced, and right now I'm beggining the intermediate level.





2. Digital video editing- Apart from typingweb, we're also going to begin editing videos, using either Movie Maker (windows) or IMovie(Mac). The video has to last 3 minutes, it has to be in either avi, mov, mp4 or flv formats and it has to be made with original footage.















3. Online Posters- Lastly, we are also going to work on making online posters, which can even hold sound and movie, apart from text, images and colorful backgrounds. We are using Glogster for this activity.

Monday, February 22, 2010

La JOVEN María Amelia

"Los que en realidad aman la vida son aquellos que están envejeciendo". Esta es una de las valiosas frases que nos dejó María Amelia, quien, a sus 95 años rejuveneció a través de la red. Todo empezó cuando su nieto, por su 95 cumpleaños le regaló a María un blog en Internet (amis95.blogspot.com). Entusiasmada con su regalo, se puso manos a la obra para ponerse al día en la informática y mediante su blog combatir la soledad y el aburrimiento y tener un motivo para vivir cada día. Ella ya se fué hace cuatro años, pero atrás dejó sus ganas e interés por conocer gente y cosas nuevas, y estas ganas sirvieron para que muchos otros ancianos siguieran sus pasos. Hoy, otros blogueros mayores ´como el "Viejo Pescador" están peleando por conseguir fundar un Premio Internacional para Blogueros Mayores.

Hoy, muchos otros ancianos se han abierto a la red, y juntos, hablando unos con otros, se acaban quitando años de encima. Este es su BLOG. En mi opinion, la idea de que ancianos puedan abrirse al muno mediante internet y así conocer a nueva gente es una oportunidad única. Es una oportunidad de dejar de lado la soledad en la que muchos ancianos viven y que así encuentren un motivo para levantarse cada mañana y sonreir. María Amelia nos enseñó que nunca es tarde para aprender, que nunca es tarde para rejuvenecer y que las arrugas del espíritu nos hacen mas viejos que las de la cara.

Monday, February 8, 2010

Other Open Source programs






GNU- GNU is another free source initiative developed by the Free Software Foundation (FSF). The idea that is behind GNU is to create free software that can be modified and redistributed freely. This project was started in 1983 by Richard Stallman at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Linux systems depend greatly on GNU programs.
information from webopedia
GNU WEBPAGE:


LINUX- Linux is a general name given to Unix-like computer operating systems. It is the most used free- operating system, and as all open sourcer programs, it can be freely distributed and modified. Linux icludeas of the supporting software required such as utilities, the X Window System, the GNOME and the APACHE WEB SERVER. Commonly-used applications with Linux systems include Mozilla Firefox web-browser and Open Office application.
information from Wikipedia
LINUX WEBPAGE:




APACHE- Apache is a Web Server software which in 2009 became the first web server with more than 100 million users. It is characterized as an open source software and it is aviable for Unix, Mac, Windows, TPF and other systems. A great apache feature is Virtual Hosting. It allows one apache installation to serve for many different web pages. It is used for dynamic as well as for static web pages.


INFORMATION FROM WIKIPEDIA
APACHE WEBPAGE:


Monday, February 1, 2010

Gimp, Scribus and More...




GIMP:
Gimp is a free software graphics editor and it is used as an image retouching tool. It can resize, crop and edit photos, apart from converting photos into many
different formats. This program can also be used to ceate animated images in the GIF format. It is suitable for amateur and professional use and it is intended to print in inkjet printers. However, GIMP does still not allow CMYK separation and color management. As in Photoshop, GIMP also has options such as layers, masks, plug-ins and many more features.

Here is the GIMP webpage:



SCRIBUS:

Scribus is another open-source program; it is a desktop publishing application which is well known for its wide range of features compared to other non-free programs such as Page-Maker. Among its varied features are scalable vector graphics, CMYK color and ICC color management. It is aviable for Linux, Mac and Windows.

This is SCRIBUS's web page:



APPLE IPAD:

Apple has just released its new IPad, the best way to experience the web, email, photos and video. It is much like an ITouch, just that with a bigger screen and more vibrant color and sharp text. The new IPad also allows you tro read books and newspapers in the way they were designed; one page at a time. The photo design is also new and very intuitive, since they are displayed in a stack, and just with touching, the hole album opens. However the mos
t new and expected feature is the IBook App where you can purchase a book directly from ITunes Store and it is displayed in your "bookshelf". In general, the IPad is very similar to the ITouch, just that with a bigger screen and the IBook App.



Google Wave

Google Wave is an online software application of Google which works as a personal communications tool. It is a web-based service program designed to be used for e-mail, instant messages and social networking. It includes translation into 40 different languages, spelling check and many other features. The key of Google Wave is that it is constantly refreshed, and therefore everything appears in real-t
ime.




AUDACITY

Audacity is a free audio editor software from the OpenSource initiative aviable for Windows, Mac. Linux and BSD. Tracks can be mixed, digital effects added, and you can even change a track's pitch without changing its speed. However, audacity does not include equalizer controls and plug-ins are needed for some features.












Monday, January 25, 2010

OpenOffice programs

OPEN OFFICE



OpenOffice is part of the Open Source initiative, an initiative to freely distribute
software for computers. OpenOffice includes 6 programs; Writer, Calc, Impress, Base, Draw and Math, with similar characteristics to those of Microsoft Office.



1. - WRITER- A word processor very similar to Microsoft Word, with which you can even export PDF files with no additional software. You can save documehts in DOC. format, as well as DOCX., RTF. and XHTML. formats.

2.- IMPRESS- It is a presentation program similar to Power Point. It can export files in flash format, and it can read Power Point's ppt. format. However, while Power Point gives you pre-made templates, Impress does not.




3.- CALC- This program is similar to Microsoft Excel. Apart from having the same features as Excel, it has other tools that Mocrosoft's version doesn't have, such as a system that automatically defines series for graphing. It can also export files in PDF format.


4.BASE- It is a database managemet program similar to Microsoft Access. It can be used to format JET, ODBC and MySQL formats. However, it is the least used and downloaded OpenOffice program.



5. DRAW- It is a program similar to Micrososft Visio with which you can draw objects, connect vectors and you can even make flowcharts and many other diagrams. You can export files in .PDF format.




6. MATH- It is a program similar to Microsoft Equation Editor. You have the ability to create mathematical formulas and insert them into other documents in WRITER, for example. It can also export in PDF format.





In general, and although OpenOffice is a very good option, I personally prefer Microsoft Office, because I am more used to using it, it has more features and you are sure that the formats are going to be comatible.








Monday, January 18, 2010

Open Source


OPEN SOURCE


The Open Source Initiative is a great database of free programs for everyone to use freely. The basic idea of Open Source is to freely give a product with similar chacracteristics to others which centralized companies make.

Open Source includes a variety of programs and software, such as Free BSD and Linux, which are operating systems, Tomcat Web Server and Apache, which are web servers, and Mozzila Firefox, a web browser. Apart from these, the most widely spread one is Open Office, which is very much like Office but without having to pay. Even a web page we all know and use, Wikipedia, is run by Mediawiki, an Open Source web server. And Moodle, a platform for course managing, which is now widely used, is, in its base, an Open Source program.

Open Source goes much beyond what we think. There are Open Source programs for finances, such as "Mifos", for 3-D modelling, for statistics, microscope image processing, geography, video editing ("Cinelerra"), flash animation, firewall and even enkryptioning programs, such as "Seahorse"!

However, the Open Source idea has existed long before technology, in agriculture, markets and health and medicines.

It is very clear that today, Open Source programs and software are a very good alternative to the traditional, costworthy applications which have a very similar quality to the Open Source ones.