subtitle


A helpful place for SXU Communication majors

Thursday, December 9, 2010

The App about Seasonal Origami: An Origami Christmas Tree Learning Experience



What a long title for such a simple application, huh?

"An Origami Christmas Tree Learning Experience" is an 11-step how-to for making a plain piece of paper become a tree! Sure, it isn't much, but it's fun to try if you're bored and have a bad history of complicated paper folds still haunting you from third grade.

It's really not that hard (until step 10, when it even says "tricky") and it can put you in the mood for the holiday season in case the non-stop Christmas music hasn't.

More information on the Origami Tree application can be found at its website here.

Monday, December 6, 2010

Saint Xavier University's Communication Honor Society, Lambda Pi Eta, Information


Twitter: SXULambdaPiEta
Weebly/More info: LPHPhiAlpha


Lamda Pi Eta is SXU's Communication Honor Society and they want you to join!

Eligibility Requirements:
-Junior or Senior standing (at least SXU 60 credit hours)
-Enrolled for Spring 2011 semester
-3.25 cumulative GPA
-3.5 communication GPA
(this can be determined by viewing your transcript on CLAWS, adding up all the comm major course grades you've earned so far [A=4, B=3, C=2], and dividing the total by how many courses you've added)

If you have any questions or want more information,
feel free to contact Carey or Dr. Robinson
(robinson@sxu.edu, N307, x3162)
___________________________________________________________________

Academic. Community. Service.

(Check out the board outside the Diner!)

Friday, December 3, 2010

Fall 2010 Final Exam Schedule



Final exams are next week, which means no regular classes but exam times instead. Above is the schedule and it can also be found at the Records and Registration site here.

Good luck and remember that the end is almost near!

Monday, November 29, 2010

iPhone App of the Week: Guitar World Lick of the Day



If you want to learn to play guitar or already do, then the Guitar World Lick of the Day application is for you.

It has "sample licks" and provides the notes, tabs, and a video demonstration for each. There are six that are provided for free and more that are obtained after "subscribing" for a fee.

Each lick is labeled with difficulty (easy, medium, hard) and genre (rock, blues, metal, country, jazz, bluegrass).

This app is for a very select group, but for those that are in this group, it can be very fun for the short period that it takes to get through the free six samples. After, the user can decide to pay to get more licks to try and play.

More information on the "Guitar World Lick of the Day" app can be found on the official website here and iTunes here.

Friday, November 19, 2010

A free alternative to Adobe Photoshop: Photo Pos Pro


Whenever I need to download or search for software, I always go directly to download.com. As part of a project for a class, I needed an image editing program because paint just wasn't cutting it. I figured that since I'll probably be using this program for other things besides this project, I decided that I'd buy Adobe Photoshop because I've used it before.

Well, the original version is $699 and not free to try while the extended version was $999 but free to try. I changed my mind about purchasing it.

I browsed the Image Editing Software for cheap alternatives, preferably free. The top five are shown first and Adobe Photoshop Extended is the only one that costs money, ranked #3.

I downloaded the top two downloaded, PhotoScape and IrfanView, to try them out and neither were advanced. Maybe I wasn't using it right because I was unfamiliar with it. I uninstalled them and went right to the fifth ranked, since the fourth's, FastStone Image Viewer, description didn't sound like what I was looking for.

The fifth was Photo Pos Pro. Instead of downloading it right away, I went to the website to view screenshots and it looked close to what Photoshop is, so I downloaded it. I was very, very pleased because the set up and tools are pretty much identical to Photoshop's. It's easy to work with once you get the hang of it.

So if you use/used Photoshop, don't have the software, want the software, and don't want to spend a small fortune, I highly recommend Photo Pos Pro. It does everything that Photoshop does... and for free!

More information about Photo Pos Pro and download can be found here.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

The App about Socializing Travel: Waze



Since the app store's App of the Week, The Tale of Peter Rabbit, costs money, $4.99, and so does the Game of the Week, which it always does, I needed an alternative and it wasn't hard to find. There was a new section of an application list entitled "Traveling Home App Store Essentials." About half were free and the half that wasn't was mostly very expensive from $9.99 to $49.99, although there were cheaper ones.

I chose to download Waze-Social GPS Navigation, traffic & road reports because it intrigued me that any of that could be considered social.

You need to create an account (it says you can skip creating one but I assume that you won't be able to use it if you don't, since that's usually the case) and once that's finished, it takes you to a map of your current location that's different than the Google map on the iPhone.

There's a bar on top with icons and the very first one (and the biggest) kicks you out of the app, which I think is very strange. It even tells you that the app doesn't run if it's not in the background/previously viewed apps/double tap home button function. I think that it should be moved, but that could just be me.

The next is a red exclamation point and a number, the "events" part. It shows a list that consists of police sightings, traffic problems, accidents, and chit chats (which can be tweets or a conversation thread). It tells you how many of each are and if you click on one, it tells you where and how long ago it was reported. This is probably the most useful part because a lot of other apps that are similar cost money, though they may be more accurate since these are all reported by other Waze users.

Next to "events" are three little blue characters and a number, the "groups" part. I'm not really sure what the point of it is. It shows events by other group members, which can be close to where you are or far away.

Next is what looks like a baby sucking on a pacifier and a skull, the "moods" section. You have to drive 50 miles to use this part, but it seems like it a nice touch. In case no one knew that the traffic jam you reported made you mad, you can let them know this way.

There's also a scoreboard feature, just like in foursquare. You can unlock "Levels of waziness," which is similar to foursquare badges but in a scale format.

Whether you want to use this app just to know how your driving route looks or add zing to your travel, Waze may make a trip more tolerable. Instead of checking in at a place like with foursquare, Waze rewards you for the process of getting to the place.

Why you should download it
(in the app store, it has the reasons listed already, so I'm going to use a couple of theirs)
1. It's free!
2. It has voice-guided, turn-by-turn navigation that learns as you drive (which I sort of don't understand, but I'll go with it).
3. See real-time traffic, construction, hazards and police information from other Waze and Twitter users.
4. The little side features make using it more fun.
5. It's integratable with Facebook and Twitter.

More information about the Waze application can be found here.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Fall 2010 Senior Project Presentation Review



On Tuesday, November 9th and Wednesday, November 10th, the communication major seniors that were enrolled in COMM 369-Senior Project presented their projects in the Fourth Floor Boardroom at 6:30PM. Three students presented on Tuesday and four on Wednesday.

Carey's project was "Tweet Me 2010: Personal Branding & Career Development Using the Social Network Site Twitter," a handbook.

Magan's project was "Dark and Light Impressions: An Examination of Skin Pigmentation and Willingness to Communicate among African-American Women," a research paper.

Katelyn's project was "Women at Work: Token Roles and Indirect Aggression Toward Female Group Members in Higher Education," a paper.

Sarah's project was "Social Media Marketing," an e-handbook.

Ryan's project was "The SXU Comedy Festival," an organized event.

Katie's project was "Speakaboo.weebly.com: An Online Outreach," a website.

Morgan's project was "Public Relations Campaign for WXAV 88.3FM."

Jackie's project was "Childhood Obesity: Communication Solutions to a 'Growing' Epidemic," a paper.

Courtney's project was "Saint Xavier University Presents The Harold Lloyd Film Festival," an organized event.

Kelly's project was "Don't Be Silent," an audio documentary of Otep Shamaya.

Mike's project was "Communication and Team Cohesion: A Look Inside a High School Football Team," a paper.

Emily's project was "Computer Mediated Communication Effect on Interpersonal Relationships," a paper.

Jose's project was "Senior Project Handbook: A Guide to Completing Senior Project," a handbook.

Examples of these projects and past ones should hopefully be posted soon, so keep a look out!

Also, if you're on Twitter, follow us @SXUCommDept!

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

The App about Lyrics: Lyrics World



So a song is playing and you know most of the words, but not all of them. The friend that you're with, however, knows them all, so as you two are singing at the top of your lungs, you feel embarrassed when you don't know the part.

We've all been there and Lyrics World Lite solves all the possible problems.

If there is a song playing on your iPhone's iPod, it will automatically look up the lyrics.
If there is a song that is on your phone's iPod that isn't playing, you can look it up and it will find the lyrics.
If you know part of the lyrics but the song isn't on your phone, you can search them to find the song.
If you know the song name, you can search the lyrics.

It also provides a YouTube video of the song, if available.

This is the most convenient lyric application that I've found because of the fact that it does so much and for free. The paid version doesn't include the advertising and it's currently 66% off at 99 cents, so for the uber lyrics enthusiast (like myself), grab it cheap while you can!

Why you should download it
1. It's free! (it really is the best reason for many things)
2. It does automatic and manual searching.
3. It has the music videos right there for viewing.
4. It's the best lyric app that I can find!

More information about the Lyrics World Lite application can be found here.

Monday, November 8, 2010

Blogger image upload gets fancy



Instead of a blank screen of nothing, the new Blogger image upload screen now shows what photo you uploaded and tells you that it's been added. Also, the "Done" button closes the screen instead of having to be manually X'd out.

Cool? Yes. Necessary? Nah, but it is much nicer. No complaints from over here.