Thursday, September 6, 2018

Resubmit for Better Grade

Written Assignments

You can upgrade written assignments at any time by turning in a new printed copy with the old version (or versions) attached behind.

The reason for this is that we want you to have every opportunity to improve your English skills.

Web and Programming Assignments

Don't bother turning in a technical assignment if you got 80% (usually 8 points) or more on it. I can revise your grade upward, but then I'll have to assess a late penalty.

The lesson is: turn in all your technical assignments on time.

Wednesday, August 29, 2018

Advice for buying a Mac

(Originally posted Tuesday, August 22, 2017)



You might be thinking about buying a Mac at home for doing work similar to what we do in class. I wrote this article a year ago with my general advice for buying a Mac:

http://hotfootspin.blogspot.com/2015/09/my-advice-for-buying-mac.html

For the purposes of this class, keep this additional advice in mind:

Get at least 8 GB of RAM.

The very small "Mac Book" from 2015 that has only one USB-C port is underpowered and  quite slow. The 2016 version is better. A Mac Book Air might be a better choice, especially if you can upgrade the RAM.

You'll need at least 256 GB of disk space if you want to install Xcode and possibly the Adobe suite (Photoshop and Illustrator). My laptop has 256 GB and it barely holds all my work. Adobe software is big.

Adobe software also costs a lot of money, but you can get a student discount of about $20 per month for a year, for a total of $240. If you're going to spend $1000 on a computer, you can afford to spend another $240 for Adobe if you really want to create some nice art.

You can get by with a refurbished Mac Mini in the $500 range if you already have a monitor, keyboard, and mouse you can attach to it.


Tuesday, August 28, 2018

Hungry

If you are hungry because you are not being fed at home or because there is no time for you to get lunch before you come here to SVCTE, please talk to me privately.


Monday, August 27, 2018

Goals of Graphic Design

Three goals of the graphic design process:
  1. To communicate information effectively and efficiently.
    • Examples: medical, scientific.
  2. To persuade an audience to buy a product, use a serivce, believe a proposition, or feel a particular way.
    • Examples: political, health, games.
  3. To solve a problem.
    • Examples: cloud storage, music streaming.



Friday, August 24, 2018

Palo Alto teen builds an app for finding odd jobs

A new iPhone app built by Gunn High School senior Anand Chandra banks on teens who want to do chores.

Chorely, which Chandra describes as a “community-based chore app,” connects residents who need chores done with youths looking for odd jobs.
http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/08/25/palo-alto-teens-app-takes-chore-out-of-finding-a-side-gig/


Thursday, August 23, 2018

Serifs on letters

This YouTube video is entertaining and mesmerizing, and it will help you understand what we mean when we talk about serifs on letters.



Wednesday, August 22, 2018

Typing the Command Key (Cloverleaf) symbol

In an HTML document (web page), you can type the cloverleaf symbol by adding this string to your code:

⌘

It should look like this:

⌘

Make sure you include the ampersand, the hash (pound or sharp sign), and the semicolon at the end.

In a word processing document, such as Microsoft Word or Apple Pages, you need to go to the symbol insert function, and look for "point of interest" symbol. It is unfortunately not called the cloverleaf symbol, and you can't search for it within a word processing document that way.

In a pinch, you can always just search Google for cloverleaf symbol to get this information.