Thursday, March 27, 2008

Week three

LECTURE:

How things have changed:
About 300BC,people used to research information from the ancient library of Alexandria. But when it got burnt a lot of documents and information were lost and only a small proportion left.

During that time, the information were stored in written copied,but when a new technology was introduced everything changed.And now all information are stored in especial devices,which made it easy to access any information from other part of the world.

Online libraries and database.

-online libraries are electronic books, online journals, online text repositories,

musicals & art works.

-online database & libraries are very useful source of information and very similar.

-many subscription are free,current and informative.

-essential for uni work(research).

Advantages of online Libraries & Databases.

- are convenience.

- are hidden for academic use not for market.

-currency-journals and other articles are updates.

-Electronic formats- easy to access at any time.

-comprehensive.

Disadvantages of online Libraries and Database.

-The content is hidden & only accessible by subscription(specific databases).

-most search engines do not access database & library index, therefore require skills.

- they are full of advertisement.

- overloading information.

- difficult to navigate.

TUTORIAL:

At tutorial we were asked to find a journal article on a online journal addressing the topic "the economic impact of global warming on business".This was to give a basic knowledge on how to search information on articles using online database.To be expert in searching,you need to learn some searching styles and strategies such as,searching tips,which will help you to gather a basic information.The following are example of search tips;

a. 10 useful functions/ search tips from the ECU library site, giving a brief explanation of each.

1.using subject;Searching using subject is one of the best thing to use because,it may be built for broad area or specifit topic.

2.searching using Keyword; This is also another way you can use to search.When using it use synonyms.use exact phrase and directory search to better your result.put most important keyword first.Example:effect on health care.

3.use the plus (+) and minus(-) signs in front of words to force their inclusion in search.

Example:+tea-sugar.no space between.

4.Using faculty;searching using your discipline;example on the topic "health risk",you will use faculty of computing,Health and Science(FCHS) to search the topic.

5.use double quotation marks(" ")around phrases to ensure they are searched with the words side by sidein the same order.Quotation marks is not use around a single word.

6. using Boolean search,alway use capital letters e.g AND,OR,BUT,NOT.Example,Euthanasia AND effect on health care.

7.using wildcat and truncation(e.g.,*,%)to look for variations in word form.Example is %aluel%this will lists all words started with (A) and finished (L).Example2,inter*returns interact,interaction,interactive.
8.when searching within a document for loction of your keywords(s) use the command on the page.
9.combine phrases with keywords,using the double quotes and plus(+) and minus(-) signs.Example: +school+"university"-Primary-child care.
10,Know the default(basic)settings your search engine uses(OR or AND).

a,we were asked to search for a journal article on Economic impact of glabal warming and screen shot it.

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us

QuickPost Quickpost this image to Myspace, Digg, Facebook, and others!

b. Who do you think might use a service such as the MEDline plus website and what do you think they might get from it?

Medline website is a trusted site which contained health information and accessed by diferents people all over the world,mostly to get information about medical issues.This site can be access by anyone who is interested,and mostly by the higher level student such as postgraduated.

Medline interactive tutorial screen shot;


Reading one.Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us

QuickPost Quickpost this image to Myspace, Digg, Facebook, and others!


Reading 1 Summary- ‘Finding what you want on the web’

Finding what you want on the web.
Though Google is the largest, fastest and most usable search tool, it needs to be avoided.
Avoiding the addiction to Google, may not be possible when it is taken seriously and making it as a resolution.
To get better at searching can be truckle at different ways. Search for credible sites and blogs.
Wide- ranging web indices.
Search for blogs which are available online because their information illuminates stories and subjects and gives pointers to other online resources.
There are a lot of resources available online, The World Wide Webs which are accessed by search engines.
Searching well
List different resources, each suitable for different sorts of search, “Much web content is hidden behing firewalls or subscription service”, to get this information you need to search it using different search engines and by typing a couple of keywords and phrases.

Reading 2 Summary- ‘Bare Bones Lesson 7: Basic Search Tips’

Bare bones lesson 7: basic search tips.
Search tips are very important, because they help us gather information. Search tips work hand in hand with most search engines. Example of search tips; use the plus (+) and minus (-) signs in front of words to force their inclusion. Example + salad – tomatoes.

Thursday, March 6, 2008

week two

Lectures:

We learned the common tasks of PC such as word processing, creating/editing spreadsheets, creating presentation, internet browsing/surfing etc.Also we learned how to access these tasks.
PC is use to achieve tasks such as File Handing, Presentations etc and their applications.
All tasks do require knowledge and skills at a certain stage.

Tutorial.

We were taught how to excel and build a table with the labels and headings also we learned how to create charts using chart wizard.
Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us

Quickpost this image to Myspace, Digg, Facebook, and others!

We did exercise that were designed to extend our knowledge on Microsoft word.
By opening a word document and copy then paste the text, then adjust the text to the word document by:
- adjusting the typeface
- adjust the margins & alignment
- adjust line spacing
- create headings using the document map features
Also copy and paste the table to contents then create dot leader.
Displaying & researching
Viewing & editing
Sorting
Searching
Setting the output style.

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us

Quickpost this image to Myspace, Digg, Facebook, and others!

Reading 1 Summary- ‘Using MS Word for APA tasks’

Using Microsoft word for APA Tasks.
Delete keys
Backspace & delete are the two deleting keys.
Backspace deletes letters spaced to the left and delete key, deletes them to the right of the cursor.

Adjust the typeface (fonts)
11-pt or 12-pt serif black typeface is the best for the text.

Setting typeface in ms word.
Click format on the toolbar, select font, and click format on your choice in the font or right click the mouse to get the font menu. But most screens have the font type and size on the tool bar.

Margin and Alignments.
Margins are 1 inch all around.
To change the margins
- Click, file, page setup.
- Click the margin tab, if not available, set the margin for a whole document.
- Select to return to editing screen.

Alignment.
- Text is always aligned at the left unless when it is a special design or when a sentence is aligned the right or at the centre.
- To align text at the left click the left align icon on the toolbar.
Line Spacing

- Don’t use single-space text
- Don’t use any other spacing
- Use only double-spaces.
- Don’t press the enter key twice to create double-space.


Setting double space in ms words

Method one

click the double space icon on the toolbar
Set the line spacing to double space.

Method two
click format
Click paragraph
Set the line spacing to double space.

Keep headings with text

- place cursor at beginning of heading
- click format, then paragraph
- click on the line and page breaks tab
- click keep with next
- click ok
Set dot leaders

- go to toolbar, click format & then tabs to open the tab formatting
- Highlight delete any existing tabs
- Type what you want to tab stop
- Align to left
- Set leader at 2 (for dots)
- Click both set & then ok.

Reading 2 Summary- ‘Graphic File Formats’

Bitmap (.bmp)
Definition: - BMP is “the standard windows bitmap image format for PC”
- To save an image in BMP, you need to prevent the effect of the amount of colour & file-size of the image by selecting a specific bit out of 24 bit.
- For 4-bit & 8-bit use (RLE) which is less loss and have no effect on image quality.

Compu serve (gif).
GIF is a squeezed format of maximum 256 colours that is designed to short time to transfer phone lines. GIF is use to “display graphics & images in HTML”.
Joint photographic Experts Group- or jpeg (jpg)
- JPEG is used to “display image on the internet”
- JPEG keep all “the colour information in an RHB image”
- When saving an image in JPEG reduce the size of the file.

The tagged- image file format (TIFF)
- TIFF is an exchange files between “applications and computer platforms” which is read by both Macintosh and windows computers.
- The TIFF support LZW by reducing a method of image which uses mathematical formula.
Photoshop Document;
-Photoshop has layered image formats, which support at least two or more layers of visual data.
-These layers have transparency space and allow another layer at the top.

Week One

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us

Quickpost this image to Myspace, Digg, Facebook, and others!

Lecture
During the lecture we covered the following topics, introduction to the university life; we learned where to find unit materials, ECU library search, enrolment details, student email etc. Introduction to the unit course and its schedule. Introduction to the course structure with its 5 modules. We looked at Assignments and plagiarism policy and their consequences.

Module one using computers

Why basic computing

Personal computers have become vital tools for" business, personal productivity and leisure". And for students, accessing PC is important for research, presentations and communication in many ways. As you learn new things, it will take time and become very complicated, so patient is essential. The equipments needed are my ECU working profile, thumb-drive & ECU email account.

Tutorial
- we learned how to create the blog at www.blogger.com
- we learned how to set up an image storage account at www.imageshack.us
- How to create screen capture/shots by using the scrn/sysRq key on the keyboard using ms pains and save as a jpg.

the followings are the screen shot of blog homepage and the imageshack homepage

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us

QuickPost Quickpost this image to Myspace, Digg, Facebook, and others!

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us

QuickPost Quickpost this image to Myspace, Digg, Facebook, and others!

READINGS:

Reading 1 Summary- ‘PC Lube & Tune’ -

PC lube & tune is a supply station & available store in business since Feb., 1994. This station provides gas, sodas, repairs, maps and advice.
The main point of PCLT is to supply an important subject such as “usable introductions, tutorials & education on technical” to all computer users.

Introduction to PC hardware

Articles are available on the following web http://www.yale.edu/pclt/default.htm which covered topics such as “An introduction to PC hardware”, Exception Handling in Java and C#, the graphic user interface so on.(PC Lube and Tune,1994)

Reading 2 Summary- ‘How Stuff Works’

Introduction to how PC works “PC is a general purpose tool built around a microprocessor” PC is made up of many other parts such as computer memory, hard disk etc. and all these work together. PC is a multi function device. PC has it ‘brain’ system known as “CPU” central processing unit. And memory as storage of data.
Computer has a motherboard, which is the main circuit board which connect the other internal components to CPU. For more information visit http://www.howstuffworks.com/pciht.