Social Networks

What are they? What are they used for? Have we become dependent on those that spread communication among people? Do we truly know that whatever few secrets we let loose on them can be seen by others with not as good or innocent an intention as ours?

It is pretty clear, I think, that the term social network immediately brings to mind a very nitid image of one of those websites we're hooked to on which we exchange informations about ourselves and our private lives, and, in fact, that's what they are, it just isn't the only type of social network there is.

Twitter, Facebook, Tuenti, MySpace, etc ... they are all alike, with some characteristics that make them different and easier to identify, and the four of them serve a similar purpose, the unceasing, rapid, sometimes overwhelming flow of data. That's the constant that unites these networks: the data.

These last four I mentioned share personal data, things we normally don't say or make public outdoors but that we don't hesitate in publishing there because it's considered normal, because we would be considered to be weirdos if we didn't.

Nevertheless, there are kinds and kinds of social networks. The ones flowing around the writing-reading, author-fan topic. The ones circling around art and artists. The ones mainly about blogging platforms. The work-related ones. And the criminal ones. I could go on and go investigating to edit this post and add more, but as my will-power isn't that strong, I may as well drop the issue, keep the useful information I've learned about it and try to spread it by any means possible so everybody else can hear about it too. Just a little advice, though: use them well. (Harry Potter pun totally intended)

Prezi

First of all, I feel I must apologize for the long absence, but to be honest, there are not many reliable WiFi connections around when you're in the middle of a storm. Anyhow, here I am again, now to write about Prezi, the more advanced, non-linear alternative to Power Point and SlideShare that has undoubtedly rocked my "softwared" world.

I'm a bit ashamed to admit that at first I could not get the hang of it – so many different layouts, frames, typographies, so many uncommon ways to compose (so to speak) an interactive presentation that can change directions, colors, do some insight approaches, loops and a total amount of effects and things you'll be surprised. How was I supposed to master such a complex software in just one or two days? Was it impossible?

Yes, it was. Because, even though I tried my best to turn that mess into something halfway decent, Prezi isn't for amateurs with nearly no motivation and patience (definition of me, by the way). Once you delve into its many parts, you realize how professional it all looks and how hard it must be to learn to use everything.

So, lastly, here goes my slapdash Prezi about Social Networks, a topic I will very soon be writing about.

http://prezi.com/qqlaiqjljief/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share

GIMP III

For the last gimp-related project of this term, the main task consisted of blending all the recently adquired skills together to form a new picture which was supposed to look enhancingly better than the previous ones. The desired outcome was to manage to insert successfully a face into the lemon's picture.

As always, we began with a basic photograph of a lemon. It was possible to choose among the immense varieties that the Internet provides, regardless of color, size or format. My choice, rather simple if you think about it, was to merge the lemon with John Lennon's face. At first, it began as a joke, because I intended to call the project "John Lemon", but then everything got a bit more serious when I started working on the photos and met my first and main obstacles: cutting and deleting completely parts of one layer without it looking too unrealistic. Of course, I am no professional, but I'm quite pleased with the final outcome of every layer.

To add a little extra interest, I duplicated one of the layers so that the whole face of the lemon looked better in contrast with the lemon skin, and by doing so I found myself knee-deep in mistakes. I had, then, to spend an awful lot of time adjusting John's skin to the double layer, manually blurring some parts.

When this came to an end, I thought about whether the project could be considered as finished or not. The final result was more or less splendid, except for the lack of a mane of hair, which I had deleted prior to merging the layers. So I searched for a fitting picture, then came to face the same problem again -- it's very difficult for an amateur to cut parts of the photograph and have it look mildly decent. Nevertheless, some sessions of hard work later, I finished pasting the hair into the lemon, and then proceeded to work a bit more with the layers' appearance.

And here is the result:

GIMP II

As a second project in our GIMP lessons, I was asked to produce an advertisement based on a photograph of my high-school about a play that will be represented as part of our extracurricular program so that my classmates and I could explore the tools GIMP provides and hone our recently acquired skills.

For me, it has not been an easy task because of the layers and the perspectives that I had to work with in order to make the picture look fitting. There were several layers to the photograph, one of them consisting of the background (that is, the original one), then some figures as the main characters of the play (which I decided to place in front of the high-school building), text to advertise the play and a framed picture of the author of this latter to make a bit more funny and pleasant at sight.

Nevertheless, I will most likely not be sharing the picture itself because of privacy reasons.



GIMP I

Photoshop is the main software people use when they wish to touch up a photograph, yet very few know of GIMP, which is incredibly similar as to its functions and luckily cheaper, because it is for free and you can download it from its web page: http://www.gimp.org/windows/

The very first project we started in our Computing lessons was about getting used to work with layers, and the main objective was to successfully insert a picture, not at all related with the one to be used as background, into another  and the result being somewhat decent. Of course, not many of us had used this software before, so it's taken more patience that we had expected, but the results are indeed satisfying.

Working with pictures is something very fashionable these days, making them look better or simply eliminating parts of it that we don't like very much. And whereas it could seem devastatingly impossible to do so without the experience it takes to master Photoshop, GIMP provides simpler, much handier tools to help you.

I am quite delighted with how my project has turned out, even though I'm well aware I could have done much better, but it's a first for me, so I'm really happy about the results.

Networks

Whereas last term I had near to no trouble memorizing and understanding the concepts of Computing, this month of January has proved a point: things get harder as you pursue your dream studies. The new topic started out fine, addressed to be a theoretical theme, then I learned that as easy a subject as it seemed, I was going to need further help to comprehend mildy what the lessons were about without getting lost.

Networks. Sets of computers that working together can share all kinds of information. Until then, no doubts at sight. But networks are complicated, above all if you have never heard about them before. They appear in varying, different forms, with strange, short names that are intended in fact to help you remember what they are. If you mean to clasify them by physical from and linking, you are to learn all the layouts; they come in bus form (all the computers are aligned), tree form (one of the messiest to remember), meshed form (idem)...

Nevertheless, they can also be grouped by components; that is, whether they need wire connections to work or can function wirelessly. Networks can be arranged as well referring to the type of linking they use, P2P and Client-server.

And the way they're organized is only the beginning, because we study how they connect to the Internet, what those connections mean, how to check if the network works properly, how to program your computer to show you their IP, which are given to each computer in the world so that it can be easily identified. Only there are ways and ways to assign an IP and ways and ways to get lost in the middle of the process.

As interesting and necessary as networks are for human life to continue evolving, it takes a greater brain than you'd think to figure them out and not feel like you really cannot understand what you're trying to learn about.

Selfies

A selfie is a self-portrait photograph, usually taken with a hand-held digital camera or cell-phone. They are often casual, taken either with a camera held at arm's length or in front of a mirror, including either just the photographer or as many people as can be in focus.

Nowadays, exploring selfie exposure in the UK there has been denoted a pathological condition triggered by this called selfieism.

The origin of these photos comes from the late 19th century, when people began to experiment with cameras and started taking pictures of themselves in mirrors.

In the present day, selfies are a way of presenting one's body to others, usually in social networks, in a flattering but casual way where the main features of the person are perfectly noticeable. Yet, being as popular as they are, they also have become a way to show off, specially when we talk about young women, who show their bodies on the Internet, exposing themselves to a high level of sexual harassment when specific parts can be seen, mostly when these pictures are in other people's possession, say, a boyfriend of girlfriend, who posts them once the relationship is over as a form of revenge against the person.

Selfies have also been taken beyond the earth. A space selfie is a selfie that is taken in space. This refers to selfies taken by astronauts.