Tis a Word too great...

(As You Like It, Act III Scene II)

I have been using Word for most of my life, in it's various forms. I like to write fiction, and find the instant-edit capabilities Word provides to be almost necessary and irreplaceable to my writing. I have no idea, however, how to work this newfangled "Vista" of which many speak. I believe in straight-forward Word, old-school. Unless I am on my Mac, in which case I am slowly learning to love Pages. But as much as I love my Mac and probably prefer it to PCs, pre-Vista Word is still my favorite. I look forward to boning up on my Vista skills in class. Otherwise, for the most part, I know my way around Word quite well.

Presentations and Postings

I commented on Kaileigh's blog (http://kbyrnetu.blogspot.com/) and Kim's blog (http://kferraritu.blogspot.com/).

From Joe Hatch's presentation, I learned more about computer hackers and viruses and the like. I learned reasons why people create spam: to make money for themselves via adware, or in an even sneakier and more destructive way by adding viruses to them ("hijacked links") that put spyware on your computer and allow the spammers to learn your financial information. Not all hackers are spammers, and some just do it because they can.
I was particularly interested to learn a bit more about what adware is, as it is a word I have heard tossed around but never defined. As far as I understand it, adware is a little glitch spammers put in the links of their spam that causes you to a) click repeatedly so as to assure them more money and b) basically causes the spam to never go away and multiply and try and eat you. Or something similar ;)

The Importance of Knowing Elena

Salut, fellow students! Je m'appelle Elena Grout. I am a First Year at Trinity, planning on declaring as a double major in History and International Studies with a minor in drama. I am from Seattle (it does not rain as much as Grey's Anatomy would make it seem), proudly vegetarian, and aspire to be a writer of novels and screenplays. I have two cats at home, Charlie and Cassie. As you may have guessed, I studied French for many years and plan on spending a semester in Paris, as well as an additional semester somewhere else in the world. 

I cannot show you a current picture of my home on Google Earth, unfortunately, because the house pictured there no longer exists due to a fire in December.

I have worked on computers since Kindergarten when we got to use fun programs to enhance our learning. I was a teensy bit of a technology geek when I was younger and technology was far less advanced: I played typing speed games and used math and language programs for fun! Now, I am certainly competent, as most of my generation is, but my best skill is knowing how to coerce someone who actually knows what they are doing to help me! I was required to take a computer skills class in high school, which I was able to test out of. 

My secret fact, if I remember my post-it correctly, is that I have played the mandolin since I was 9. I have learned since then that most people don't even know what a mandolin is, so I will elaborate: a mandolin is a stringed instrument found predominately in jazz and bluegrass music. It has the same strings as a violin (GDAE), but two of each placed close together (i.e. two A-strings are placed less than a quarter inch apart, I would guess). It is fretted like a guitar. See this picture of a mandolin fingerboard for further elucidation: 

You can contact me for any reason at egrout@trinity.edu, and of course via Facebook.