Hello hello!

Hi everyone!

I'll be working as the HRCAP Summer Youth Intern Programs Coordinator for the HRM this summer, and am really excited to get plugged into this community. I've already heard a lot of great things going on across the municipality, and have started to meet people in person as well.

It's going to be an exciting summer! I'm looking forward to it.

Take care,

-Neil Bailey

Year-End Business

Well, I can't quite believe it, but we are at the end of our CAP season together!

After no responses to last week's Challenge, I think it's safe to say that everyone is pretty busy right now with year-end tasks. So this week, I won't be posting a challenge.

Rather, I ask that everyone participate in the discussion section of Glen's most recent post. What has been the primary focus of your work days during your internship?


We will, however, be announcing the WINNER!

With quality, creative submissions to nearly every challenge since she began, and a total of SIX wins..... Shona Bracken! Thank you for all of your hard work! You will be receiving an awesome prize before term-end.

Special thanks, and a mini-prize goes to Lyndsay Belair - with a total of FOUR challenge wins, and lots of other great subsmission.

Mini-prizes also for Glen Dufour and Matt Chamberlain, who have posted many interesting shared stories and discussion topics for us throughout the season.

I hope to work with many of you again in the Summer. There are great things in store!

On one last note, let's take a look at the success of our blog! Here are the stats from our final month.

Great work gang!

Hiring Students and Recent Graduates

As in many other jurisdictions, the Nova Scotia Government faces an aging population. With a large number of retirements on the horizon, the recruitment of youth into the public sector grows increasingly important.

The Career Starts program provides young Nova Scotians with practical employment experience and promotes the provincial civil service as a viable career path. The Public Service Commission funds four youth employment programs through Career Starts:

• Post Secondary Internship Program
• Co-operative Employment Program
• Summer Female Mentorship Program
• Summer Diversity Program

http://www.gov.ns.ca/psc/v2/jobCentre/careerStarts/hiring/

Reflection

As the winter term comes to an end I've been doing some reflecting over what I've been doing over the past few months. As I'm mostly doing training I went though all my records and found that my training fell into these categories:

eBooks and Audiobooks
37.5%

Computer Basics (using a mouse and keyboard, windows, desktop, internet, email, etc.)
32.5%

Facebook, Twitter, Blogging
15%

Word Processing, Spreadsheets, Presentations
7.5%

Other
7.5%

It seems that eBooks and Audiobooks and Basics took up most of my time. Basics training has always been popular at our branch and the eBooks popularity seems to be due to the recent surge in eReader popularity during Christmas. I was surprised that Facebook training wasn't more popular. However, the people I have seen for Facebook training did not originally want anything to do with it, but felt forced into it. It seems people are still skeptical about Facebook due to privacy issues.

What did you guys find yourselves mostly doing during your internship?

Despicable Me!

We had one of our last movie nights the other week, we had a pretty good turnout of 8 kids. On the big screen we watched Despicable Me!
The kids loved the movie, Hillary and Myself also enjoyed it. We are hoping to hold another movie night before our intern ship is over with, hopefully to premiere G-Force to watch the little guinea pigs in their fierce action. :)

Challenge # 2.12: An Opinion Piece

Thank you for last week's challenge submissions. Very light-hearted in the midst of everything going on in our world. The win goes to Lyndsay for her witty ad and digital editing skills!

As I finish giggling over the past two entries, I have realized that this will be our second-last challenge of the Winter Term.

I want to let you each seek out something you're interested in, and do up a little commentary piece on it. Seems kind of like schoolwork, but when it comes down to it, being able to stay informed and articulate about current technology-related developments and events is an important skill to take away from this job.

So, choose a topic, any topic, in our current technology world, that you find interesting, and write up a commentary/letter-to-the-editor-eque piece about it.

If you need any help getting started, try checking out something like the New York Times Technology Section, or a site like Engadget.

Time to let your bright minds shine! (Well, continue shining really, after all you've done this Term)!

HarperCollins and Overdrive

For those in library settings, here is major issue currently facing the eBook format that you may or may not have heard about already.

Introducing The Mouse! (revolutionary new tool)

Tired of having to do stuff?

Having trouble turning lights on and off?

Do you wish you had a tool to help you with every aspect of your life?

Introducing the mouse!

The revolutionary new device that can do just about anything!

Use your mouse to

Challenge # 2.11: Humour Has It...

Thank you Shona, the winner of last week's challenge, for your awesome Reconnect Documentary Link! I know that Joanne saw the link and loved it - watch out for it maybe popping up elsewhere!

This week, we have a fun, less serious challenge.

Dan posted a video on his Facebook yesterday showcasing the difficulties some less-experienced technology-users may have identifying technology gadgets (i.e. a Wii remote, I-Pad, or GPS). If the technology hasn't been described to the audience via commercials or manuals, it truly can look like bizarre alien gear.

This week, post a picture of a technology gadget, and write up a humorous adverstisement description of an alternate use it could be mistaken for. Give it a name, etc. Really pitch it to us like it's an informercial!



The point of this exercise is to take the perspective of someone on the opposite side of the Digital Divide, with a funny spin.

Excited to see what hilarious things you come up with!

Almost the End

Here at the Terence Bay ROC Hillary and myself are almost finished our internship with the C@P. We're sad to leave, but hope to be here again in the summer at some point. This was a great experience for us to have, working with the kids, having Facebook workshops, and helping out at the Prospect Road Community Center. We hope the next interns will have as much of a great experience as we had. :)

CRTC decision

Apparently a Big Telecom-friendly compromise is being pushed behind closed doors. Industry Minister Clement told Parliament he will not allow the same decision to be passed by the CRTC, but has not specified whether he will accept a watered-down version of that decision.

Go to http://openmedia.ca/crtc

All you have to do is click. It's ...easy. Please copy and paste this if you care about your internet bill. This decision will effect C@P sites across the region.

tYpOgRaPhY @ St. George's YouthNet

This week at Youthnet we focused on hand rendered type that could be transferred to a digital media based program and manipulated back to paper and onto canvases to give as thank you's around the north end community within halifax for their support. In order to transfer the type: we taught each child individually how to use the scanner and bring it into a digital format.

The future of hard-copy books?

Here at Woodlawn over half of my training sessions are for the eReaders and eBooks. I teach a lot of seniors and although a lot of them are skeptical about using this new technology for reading, they quickly see the benefits of having an eReader versus buying/borrowing physical copies of books. Because of this recent shift towards digital reading, it makes me wonder about the future of physical books - especially in retail environments. For example, Borders has already filed for bankruptcy protection and is reporting large decreases in revenue. Your thoughts on this shift?

some readings I wanted to share

a few readings I wanted to share with you. . .

I have found a lot of interesting links on here already so thank you! Let's make a habit of sharing research, I love learning something new...even if it has nothing to do with anything

http://ruralco.org/

http://ruralcommunities.gov.uk/2010/08/16/the_rural_challenge/

http://books.google.ca/books?id=p1MIAQAAIAAJ&dq=changing%20places&source=gbs_book_other_versions

http://books.google.ca/books?id=kZH6AwTwZV8C&pg=PA46&dq=Entering+the+Green+Room+by+Edgar+Schein&hl=en&ei=H4FvTfyHGsG1twe8_7SEDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false

http://www.prnewswire.co.uk/cgi/news/release?id=31001

Tutorial Winner

Really, really impressed with the tutorials! Great job, all!
You are making it really hard for me to choose a winner... and I know this challenge took a lot of work. So, because there are only three of you, you ALL get a point in the Challenge roster!

Thank you so much for your participation.

Kids camp

Check out the little video we made at the kids camp in Hubbards! They were such sweet little kids to work with. The audio's a little tricky to pick up, I'll post the script this evening if anyone's interested in following along :)

Julie

Challenge response: Reconnect banner ad

Here is an animated banner I made for the website (www.spencerhouse.ca) to link to the movie preview:

Copy this code to embed it in your site or blog: <img border="0" height="0" src="http://c.gigcount.com/wildfire/IMP/CXNID=2000002.11NXC/bT*xJmx*PTEyOTkwOTA5MjUwNzMmcHQ9MTI5OTA5MDkzMTM*NSZwPTQ1NTkzMiZkPSZnPTEmb2Y9MA==.gif" style="height: 0px; visibility: hidden; width: 0px;" width="0" /><object data="http://files.bannersnack.net/app/swf2/EmbedPlayerV2.swf?hash_id=bc4388c3c345d9e70a336192b1833308&amp;watermark=1&amp;clickTag=null" height="250" id="embededBannersnackFlash_bc4388c3c345d9e70a336192b1833308" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="300"><param name="movie" value="http://files.bannersnack.net/app/swf2/EmbedPlayerV2.swf?hash_id=bc4388c3c345d9e70a336192b1833308&watermark=1&clickTag=null"> <param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="wmode" value="transparent"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"></object>

Challenge response: Photoshop tutorial

Hi all,

I have just uploaded by tutorial to YouTube as  a part of last weeks challenge. It is a super-quick and painless tutorial of photoshop that briefly explains working with layers and masks. I made it with "Snapz Pro X" and then edited it in iMovie. In the future, I would like to use Adobe Captivate, which is a free program specifically designed for these types of video tutorials, but it is only compatible with really up-to-date versions of Mac/Windows.

I do not know why a small part of the top of the screen cut off when I converted it to imovie, still trying to figure that out.

EDIT: I have figured out why the screen cut off and have uploaded it now, so it should be easier to follow.

Keyboarding Tutorial

Hey guys,

Here's my youtube tutorial. It covers keyboarding and basic computer components.



Yes, I made the music myself. Beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep.

Challenge # 2.10: Link It

The Tutorial Challenge was a huge success ! A great resource to have for our CAP sites. Consider making more if ever you're looking for something to do ! *Just waiting for the final postings to announce the winner*

This week, in spirits of the upcoming Documentary release, we want you to spread the word.

Create a visual (i.e. photo & text mix) link to the documentary page. www.hrcap.wordpress.com to display on your CAP site/community/blog homepage.

Very simple, very fun!

As always, post your products here before next Tuesday! (And make sure to display it as a link on your site)!

St. George's Youthnet C@P Site!

Jess and Melissa, c@p Interns!

St. George's Youthnet c@p Site

The past two weeks have been the Youthnet Camp for the kids who are out of school right now. This week has been a culturally themed week where each day has a new country's theme. The kids have been great in c@p site, we worked on basic html web design, uploading photos to the computer, creating a blog for the kids at Youthnet and photo editing in photoshop. All the kids have been so fantastic and receptive to all that we have been teaching them about. We're looking forward to working with all of the kids in the c@p site over the next month!

Below is a link to the blog that we've been working on with the kids. They've been having the opportunity to pick a photo of their choice and then upload it to the blog with their own caption.

c@p Kids at St.George's Youthnet!

Picnik for Seniors

Here's my submission for the challenge - first attempt at video-editing! I've had some questions here about photo-editing so I decided to make something for Picnik going over some common functions like red eye, cropping etc. It's directed more towards seniors but anyone who isn't familiar with more advanced programs like Photoshop or GIMP may find it useful.

New graphing technology

Now that Google has scanned over 10% of books ever published, you can graph the occurrence of difference words of your choice from 1400 to present day. It's called the Ngram Viewer (ngrams.googlelabs.com). It shows some really interesting relationships between words.

Here's one that shows an inverse relationship between science and art throughout history, up until now, where science and art seemed to have stopped becoming so mutually exclusive. Here's a funny one comparing jesus and google (for better or for worse!). It lets you see the raw data too.

Challenge # 2.9: Youtube Tutorial

Thanks to Matt, Glen, and Shona (her post is coming later today) for the Sketchup buildings! I admire your talents and patience... my buildings have always ended up looking like nightmarish rectangles. You all get a point on the Challenge scale!

On that note; all of Dan's tutorials have been very helpful for us amateur Sketchup-ers. Recording oneself complete a computer task is actually a genius idea.

So, for our next challenge, that's the goal! Record and edit a tutorial for our Youtube Channel.

It can be for any level of computer learning, any skill, any program, etc.

Use a free trial of your choice of Camtasia, Hypercam, or any other Video Capture program to record yourself in action. You don't need to worry about perfection, or getting it all in one take, because next you will be able to edit it.

Once you have your footage, e-mail me, and I will give you the sign-in info for our YouTube account. From there, you can clip, merge, and add text to your footage.

I really hope that this challenge takes on! It would be awesome to have some short, easy tutorials for training sessions up on our page!

Spencer House Sketchup

Hey! Not sure if this is A+ material, but I played around with it and here's what I came up with. For now, it does not like quite so realistic because although I was able to grab the photo texture for the roof, I could not do it for the pale building walls because there was a tree in front of it! Nonetheless, here it is:

I am still going to work a few kinks out before I add it as a location for google maps. 

For example, the side here is triangular, and I don't know why!

Google Analytics

Hi all,

I started using Google Analytics on the Spencer House website last month, and it's pretty useless at first, but now that there is a longer timeline, it is starting to show some interesting patterns.

For example, almost all the hits that our website gets is on weekdays. I am pretty sure it is because most of the hits come from the C@P site, and it's closed on weekends. This goes to show how inter-reliant the C@P site and seniors centre are. Sometimes there will be 15 hits on Friday, then none at all on Saturday. The graph is unique hits only. Here it is below -- the yellow dots = weekends.

Keshen Goodman C@P Library Video

Hey,

So I played around with the flip cam to make this short video just giving a little tour of the Keshen Goodman Library. There's some shotty camera work on my part, but for doing it on my own I thought it was pretty good! Don't laugh too much, lol.

Lyndsay

Link Broken

Also, I made it with i-movie. Just wondering if theres any way to export it. I only could see the option to upload it to my youtube account, but maybe one of you guys knows the trick to saving it. And no, there's no File>Save option.

First Creation with Sketch-up

Here is my first creation with sketch-up. It's my junior high school that I went to. I would have done my CAP site but street view was done when the old Empire Theatres was here so it looks very different. Maybe someday I'll take my own photos of the building and try to sketch it that way. It took me a couple hours to get used to the tools and make this. It wasn't too bad since it was only a couple rectangles and minor push and pull. This is addicting though - I'll think I'll definitely be doing more in the future (hopefully much better looking when I get practice!).

Prospect Road Community Centre Premiere Screening

Hi All;

I wanted to see if anyone out there will need a ride to the screening on March 6th...

Jeremy will be leaving from the Chester area and will likely have 3 seats

I am leaving from North End Halifax and we will have 3 seats

Karen will be leaving from Cole Harbour and she will have 3 seats

If there are enough interested, we will look into renting a van. Please try to carpool as much as possible :)

Thank you, have a great weekend everyone!

Joanne

Our Commercial

Here it is, the final product!

Pretty good for on a small camera, with a small amount of time!

Congrats to all who participated, you're famous!



'Intern Interviews' are also now live on our Youtube channel, so check them out while you're there! They'll make great advertisements for our Summer jobs!

Cole Harbour Place

Hey all, here is something I whipped up, which is where my C@P Site is located, Cole Harbour Place.

And here's the adjacent Cole Harbour High School:

And finally the Pope John Paul XXIII Church in Cole Harbour:

All of the KMZ files for viewing in Google Earth can be found here.

Sketchin`it up!

So the idea is to show you what I do when I am bored. I have no CAD training and had never used SketchUp until a few months ago. At first, my buildings looked pretty plain and simple, but over time I have slowly started the understand the tools and the relationships between them.



Used the push/pull tool to shape the eaves....


Wabo's - note that this looks plainer because I did not shape the eaves with push/pull



The entire front of this restaurant is done with draw square tool & push/pull. After you have a basic shape, pull up the streetview image of the front of the building. (use the add photo texture tool). Use this as a template for all your lines and dimensions.



Starting to get a bit more complex. Total time for this model, six hours.



Another church takes shape. You can see that i have used "draw triangle" to make the basic house/pitched roof shape.



Next, using the technique of pulling squares right out of the streetview image as a template - you can start building more detail



Churches are great autodidactic projects because they are a little more complicated than the average house. Don't worry about the images! At this point they are ONLY a template.



Using the shadows in the GE imagery helps you judge HEIGHT.



"ARC tool" is very complicated. Grr.



Use very narrow, tall, sections of Streetview imagery for arc surfaces.



Refining the steeple



More Google Art, pardon the pun.



here, the square on the right is just a placeholder for the image, so that I have something to build by on the left. When the one on the left is done, I'll delete the one on the right.



Some detail of the belfrys


Don't do twice what you've already done. Use the "component" tool to easily clone and position large structures.

Again, using "component tool" to easily place entire sections.


Expanding the back...


Finished model in Google Earth




Oooooooh small repetitive parts! use Component Tool to easily clone and position these rather than spending hours creating each individually, and placing them individually. Component tool saves time!



This looked like it would be easy despite it's size.



Was I ever wrong. Streetview has no good, unobstructed images. The imagery doesn't fit, it's fuzzy at best, and the terrain is not level (cuts off the bottom of all the buildings. This makes positioning the imagery very difficult.



This Foodland had pretty clear images on Google Earth & Streetview. Took 20 minutes to build.


Service station, take two. This time I got it pretty good. Stole the pumps from the previous model, as an entire component.






So this model was rejected to 3D Wharehouse because I made the shrubs in the back in 3D. Shrubs are ephemeral and should not be included in Google 3D models.