Google SketchUp

Above is a series of functions documenting the creation of geometric shapes on Google Sketchup.

The video above indicates how to create three dimensional objects from two dimensional planar shapes.

The above cited video outlines how to manipulate three dimensional objects on a three dimensional plane.

The video listed above explains how to create additional surfaces upon already created three dimensional surfaces.

The video listed above describes how to rotate a three dimensional object on a three dimensional plane using an anchor and axes accordingly.

How to Create a Stop Motion Effect Using Windows Movie Maker

Above is the tutorial proper in which the "Stop Motion" Effect is described in detail.

It is a demonstration of how to create this effect using the program Windows Movie Maker.

Stop Motion involves placement of of images in rapid succession so as to create the impression of movement. The video demonstration outlines the making or a video in which a stuffed-animal-sheep is pursued by fluffed slippers. This involves 13 images being shown in approximately 1 second. As Smart Recorder only processes 5 images per second (maximum), the video within the tutorial is not shown. To countermand this dilemma, the video made during the tutorial has been reposted above as reference material to be viewed after having seen the tutorial (and the explanation of how to create the video).

How to Create Spreadsheets Using Microsoft Excel

Step 1: After having signed onto a computer, on which Microsoft Excel 2007 has been installed, locate the icon. The icon may be found in a number of locations, such as the desktop as a shortcut, the start menu as a recently used listing, or under all programs in the Microsoft Office folder. To ensure that the program is located, move the cursor to the start menu (indicated by the word “Start” in the bottom left of the screen. Directly above shall be a tab called “All Programs”. Under All Programs, there is a Microsoft Office File folder, in which the Microsoft Office Excel 2007 icon and title may be found. Double-click on this tab, after which the program initiates.

Step 2: A number of formulae may be applied in the application Microsoft Office Excel 2007. In the creation of spreadsheets, addition, subtraction, multiplication and division are the only operations necessary. To begin the spreadsheet, begin by organizing the data by placing titles in appropriate places. For the purposes of this tutorial, a mortgage table shall be used. The situation is as follows: “A mortgage is set up with a principal of $55 000.00 at a rate of 7.75% annual rate. The mortgage payment is $675.00 a month. Create a table representing the mortgage payments over a period of two years”.



Step 3: To enter information into a cell, simply click on the desired cell and type the information you wish to input. Continue this process and enter the titles of this spreadsheet. For the purposes of this tutorial, the titles are placed in the following sequence of cells:

A1: Mortgage Table
A2: Month
B2: Payment
C2: Rate
D2: Interest
E2: Credit
F2: Balance



Step 4: The information of the spreadsheet can only be derived when there is preliminary information from which the output can be derived. To begin, we input all information that we are provided with into the table, such as the initial balance, the months, the constant mortgage payments, as well as the constant annual rate. These values are all predictable and/or given, and will help in obtaining values not yet acquired. We shall being with months. Click on the second box beneath ‘Month’ (A4) and enter the number 1. To fill the rest of the months, simply click and drag, such that the first month and the 23 others immediately after are highlighted. Now move the cursor in the vicinity of the top right. Next to the fill command is a small downward pointing arrow. Click on this arrow and a box with various options appears. Select ‘Series…”, which is the second command from the bottom.



Step 5:Yet another box shall appear; click on the ‘linear’ option for series. Since the columns have been highlighted before hand, the ‘columns’ option shall already be selected under the “Series in” tab. Ensure that the “Step value” is set at 1 by clicking on the box and typing in 1. After these adjustments have been made, simply click OK, and the months from 1 to 24 shall be listed.

Step 6: Next, click two cells below “Payment” (B4) and type 675 into the box. Because this monthly payment remains constant throughout the entire mortgage, we must once again highlight the box (B4) and 23 boxes below it (that is, highlight B4 to B27). Similar to the last step, we must now click on the arrow immediately adjacent to “Fill”, and then select “Down” by clicking on it. What this does is re-enter the same information into all of the boxes highlighted. This spares the creator of the spreadsheet the trouble of re-entering the information manually.



Step 7: Click two cells below “Rate” and enter 0.0775. We express the value as a decimal, rather than a percentage, to avoid having to perform the added operation of dividing by 100. Now highlight all of the cells from C4 to C27 inclusive. Click on the same arrow adjacent to “Fill” mentioned in previous steps. Now simply click on “Down”. This simple process has now re-entered the rate for all months represented on the chart.

Step 8: We are now approaching the end of all previously provided information (as indicated by the question listed above). The last bit of information that we are aware of without any calculations is the starting balance. To input this, simply click on cell F3 and enter 55000.



Step 9: Now that all of the information initially provided has been transmitted into the table, the next procedure would be to input a formula which shall generate a series of values for the interest calculated. Common knowledge of mortgage rates would dictate that the interest must be found by multiplying the rate of interest by the remaining balance at the time. Interest is found as a percentage of the remaining balance. For convenience, 0.0775 has been inserted instead of 7.75% to avoid having to divide by 100 afterwards. We calculate interest by analyzing the cells which need to be operated on. For instance, F3 is the starting balance, and C4 represents the rate of interest. To obtain the interest, we multiply this rate of interest by the starting balance to get the amount of interest (a monetary value). Firstly, click on the cell into which the interest must be calculated (D4), and then type in the following sequence into the function box above: =F3*C4/12 (and then press enter). The reason we write the cells rather than the numbers within them is to set a template, rather than a value. Ex: 2x, as opposed to 2(2), can calculate twice any number, while 2(2) can only calculate one operation. The interest shall now appear in the cell D4.



Step 10: Now that the interest has been generated, the credit to principal may also be obtained. This value may be arrived at by subtracting the interest from the monthly installment. Click on cell E4 and enter the following formula into the formula box at the top:
=B4-D4 (and press enter).



Step 11: As a final step in the generation of the first complete line of the mortgage table, we can obtain the new remaining balance. This is procured by subtracting the credit to principal from the previous principal. Simply enter the following formula into the formula box after clicking on cell F4: =F3-E4 (and then press enter).




Step 12: Now that the formulas have been entered into the spreadsheet and the values have been generated, we may again apply the “Fill-Down” method to generate all remaining desirable values. At this point the first of the rate, interest, credit and balance options are highlighted, along with thee 23 rows which follow them (i.e. all of the rate, interest, credit and balance options for the duration of the entire two year period). Now go once more to the fill option and select down after the options appear. The formulas have now repeated themselves over a course of two years, resulting in the completion of the table. The Mortgage Table has now been successfully created.

How to Remove Excess Noise Using Audacity

Step 1 (a): To being this operation, first ensure that you are using a functional computer onto which audacity has been installed. To search for audacity, one might refer to three locations. The first and most convenient location would be the desktop. Once signed onto a computer, attempt to locate an icon comprised of a blue set of headphones with a yellow cloud, transfused with a jagged red streak across its middle. Immediately adjacent to this icon (or likely below it) shall be the title “Audacity”( indicating the nature of the program). If it is located on the desktop, double click on the icon (otherwise known as the ‘shortcut’) to launch the program.

Step 1 (b): If the icon is not located on the desktop, then there are yet two locations where the program might yet be found. Programs recently used on a computer are stored on a temporary basis in the start menu. To access this, simply move the cursor to the bottom left of the screen onto which shall be a Microsoft logo and/or the word “start” (the presence of the word start is entirely dependent upon the edition and model of the computer; regardless, the start menu is usually located at the bottom left of the screen). Click on the start menu. Directly above it shall be a series of icons/programs which have recently been used on the computer. If audacity is present, then click on the icon (refer to Step 1 (a) for a more elaborate description of the afore-mentioned logo).

Step 1 (c): If audacity has still not been located, click once again on the start menu located at the bottom left of the screen. Directly above it shall be written “All Programs”. This is essentially a tab which allows the user access to all programs which are currently on the computer. The programs are usually listed in alphabetical order, although occasionally some programs may occur out of this order depending on how recently it has been downloaded. Simply locate the icon (as described in Step 1 (a)) and click on the icon/word to launch the program.

Step 1 (d): If after attempting to locate audacity in the three previously cited locations, and to no avail, one can download the program at http://audacity.sourceforge.net/. Simply follow the onscreen instructions for installation, and then refer to Step 1 (a)/(b) and/or (c).

Step 2: Before the noise removal effect can be implemented, an audio track must first be recorded on which to operate. When audacity has been opened, there is always an available track onto which the recorded information goes. To begin the recording of the voice track, simply move the cursor to the top of the screen onto the taskbar. There shall be a number of functions near the top left, which shall be designated by symbols for convenience. Each symbol is representative of a unique function. Starting from left to right: the two, purple, leftwards pointing triangles adjacent to the line perform the operation “Skip to Start” when clicked. While listening to an audio clip, simply click this button to return to the beginning. The second button is a green rightwards facing triangle. This button plays the audio clip once it has been recorded. The third button is a red circle. Clicking this circle will commence the recording. The fourth symbol consists of two blue, erect, parallel, rectangles, which pause (or otherwise disable) the recording when clicked. The fifth symbol is a yellow square. This square stops the recording, whether it be while in the process of recording, or while listening to the playback version. The sixth and final symbol in this tab (i.e. those functions pertinent to the recording of the clip) is made up of two purple, rightwards pointing triangles affixed to a line. It is a reflection of the first button, and is thus responsible for the inverse of the “Skip to Start” button. Instead, this button is “Skip to End”, and immediately ends the audio track when being listened to in playback mode (i.e. after it has been recorded). Now you have the tools necessary to record a basic audio track. Simply click on the record button, and then the stop button when you are satisfied with the recording which you have made. Of course, to record anything viable, a microphone must be attached to the computer. Simply use any device which is meant to record audio and insert it into the audio jack on your computer (indicated by the image of a microphone).

Step 3: Quite frequently when recording in audacity, background noise, static, and other undesirable noises are recorded along with the intended audio. Luckily, audacity comes equipped with an effect which helps to eliminate this excess noise. After the audio track has been recorded and listened to for reference, highlight a section of the audio track that is comprised purely of undesirable noise (i.e. the very noise which you wish to remove from the track). After this region has been selected, simply select it by moving the cursor to one end of the desired segment, clicking and dragging to the end of the desired segment. After this has been highlighted, the section shall be a darker shade of blue than the remainder of the audio clip. This is how you are aware that is has indeed been selected.

Step 4: After the portion of excess noise has been highlighted, move the cursor up to the very top. First, move the cursor to the very top left, over the audacity logo and title Directly below this shall be a tab with various functions on it. Immediately beneath shall be the word “File”. File is the first option in this tab. Move the cursor to the sixth option in this tab, “Effect”. Click on “Effect”, after which a box shall appear with a myriad of options. These effects are dynamic and far-encompassing. However, for the purposes of this tutorial, only the Noise Removal option shall be required.

Step 5: Now that the effects tab is opened, there shall be a number of available options. Below “Effect” is the function “Repeat Last Effect Ctrl+R”, and beneath that in turn is a series of other options which are listed in alphabetical order, starting with “amplify”. Go to the fourteenth operation in this list, the title of which is “Noise Removal”. Click on “Noise Removal”. *Depending on the edition of Audacity, Noise Removal may or may not be the fourteenth option from Amplify. If not, then simply locate Noise Removal wherever it so happens to be under the Effect tab*

Step 6: After clicking “Noise Removal”, a new box shall appear, with “Step One” and “Step Two”. The instructions provided at this point are self-explanatory, but shall nevertheless be discussed in this tutorial. Audacity can only filter out noise when it is given proper direction by the user. To instruct audacity on what noise must be removed, a segment of ‘just noise’ is selected, so as to familiarize the program with what is undesirable. Now that the noise has already been selected, simply click on the button that says “Get Noise Profile”. What this essentially means is that audacity shall process the audio that has been selected and classify it as undesirable. Now the program is capable of eliminating only this variety of noise.

Step 7: After clicking “Get Noise Profile”, the box shall close itself, but the noise profile has now been successfully identified. At this point, you may highlight the section(s) of the audio clip which you wish to have the noise removed from. It may range from a small portion to the entire audio track. Simply click and drag to highlight (for more detailed instructions on how to highlight, refer to Step 3)

Step 8: Once more, locate the “Effect” tab and click on it (for more detailed information on how to locate the effect tab, refer to Step 4)

Step 9: After the “Effect” tab has been opened, simply locate and click on the “Noise Removal” option (as outlined in Step 5).

Step 10: Now that “Step 1” of the noise removal function has been completed, disregard it and proceed to “Step 2”. At this point, the noise profile has already been defined and selected. Ergo, audacity is aware of what information should be removed and which information should be preserved. There shall be a long horizontal line, the left end of which shall read “Less”, and the right end of which shall read “More”. Near the middle shall be located a downward-pointing pentagonal bar which may be dragged left or right. The degree to which you move this bar is entirely dependent upon how much noise must be removed from the highlighted section. Be mindful that removing too great an amount of noise may result in the distortion of the original track, whereas removing too little may allow the excess and undesirable noise to obscure the segments of the audio which are important. To avoid an unnecessary and tedious mutilation of the original audio track, there are two tabs located at the very bottom of the box. The one to the left that says “Preview” provides short sampling of the highlighted section, as it would sound subsequent to the application of the effect. This allows the user to experiment with the program, and arrive at a suitable degree of noise removal via trial and error. When you have adjusted the noise removal to your satisfaction, simply click “Remove Noise”. At this point the box has been removed, as well as the noise. The track shall now sound as it did in the preview (or rather the highlighted sections of the track). Congratulations, you have now successfully removed excess noise from an audio track using Audacity.