Blog

Not Just Chat: Watch Movies and Listen to Music with Friends Online

by Patrick Villanueva, Technology Instructor and Media Lab Assistant
1/16/21 I hope you all enjoyed the holiday season. Until things return to somewhat normal, online gatherings will maintain its role in helping us stay connected to friends and family. We've been using apps a...

Organizing Your Photos

By Kristin Ashley Media Lab Assistant & Technology Instructor Like many of you, I have shoe boxes and flash drives and hard drives filled with my photos. I am also a nature photographer, and I take a lot of family and friends-type of photos. So, as you can imagine, that is a lot of photos!...

Lumpia: The Party Appetizer Favorite

by Patrick Villanueva, Media Lab Assistant and Technology Instructor
12/12/2020 For the holiday season, I'm going to do something a little different. Today, I'd like to share a Filipino dish that is one of our most popular. Lumpia, pronounced "loom-pia," is basically our eggroll ...

Graphic Design and Font Fundamentals

By Kristin Ashley Media Lab Assistant and Technology Instructor Hi, I’m Kristin Ashley and I’m one of the Technology Instructors at the Lake Forest Library Media Lab. I’m also a graphic designer, fine artist and photographer. Even if you are not a graphic designer, at some point many of us...

Nature Photo Basics

By Kristin Ashley
Media Lab Assistant I find that nature photography can be a rewarding and pleasant pursuit. You get to spend time in nature, which is always restorative, and your subject matter may include landscapes, wildlife, plants, trees and flowers all taken in different seasons and...

Intro to Live Streaming

by Patrick Villanueva, Media Lab Assistant Real-time services are all the rage these days and have taken off during the quarantine. With the world turned upside down and everyone stuck at home, it's only pushed us to rely on technology and the internet more than ever before. ...

Making a Card in Shutterfly

Making a Card in Shutterfly By Kristin Ashley Media Lab Assistant If you are like me, you have a number of card-giving occasions throughout the year including birthdays, anniversaries, holidays and weddings. I find it is a hassle to stop by the store for just one card, especially ...

Theater's Approach to Decision Making

By Patrick Villanueva, Media Lab Assistant The GOTE Technique is a practice from Theater and is a strong complement to Design Thinking. When used practically, it can help with a more focused process. How Theater is Practical While taking some business classes many years ago, it ...

Making a Creative Collage in Pixlr

July 27, 2020 By Kristin Ashley
Media Lab Assistant As a creative person, I’ve been enjoying using the Pixlr app for a few years now. I use it for editing and customizing my images, but my favorite thing to do with this app is to get creativ...

Applied Design Thinking

By Patrick Villanueva, Media Lab Assistant From experience, you could say I know a thing or two about the whole creative process. That is another way to describe design thinking. Design thinking is more than something art-related, and that's important to understand. It's a un...

Taking Great Photos with Your iPhone

By Kristin Ashley With the warm weather finally here, I’m taking more photos outside–and I’ll bet you are, too. With the improvement in cameras in the newer smartphones, you no longer need a cumbersome DSLR to get great iPhone photos. In fact, you don’t even need a computer to share, store and ed...

GIMP: The Free Photoshop Alternative

By Patrick Villanueva, Media Lab Assistant Adobe Photoshop is known as the best program to edit images, and it's something we were taught to master in art school for creative industry practice. There are plenty of powerful features right out of the box, and it's more than just adding f...

Using Google Photos

By Kristin Ashley
Media Lab Assistant As an artist and photographer, I’m always seeking out new ways to store, organize, share and edit my photos and videos. I’ve found that Google Photos is one of the best photo apps out there – and it’s free with stor...

Getting Things Done with The Pomodoro Technique

By Patrick Villanueva, Media Lab Assistant During these times, I know it can be a challenge to balance remote work and home life. You have a Zoom meeting in the morning, another in the afternoon. You need to finish work things by a certain time. You also need to fig...

Mac Keyboard Shortcuts

Hi, this is Kristin from the Media Lab. I hope you are all doing well. We miss seeing you in the lab and helping you with your creative projects. Until we meet again, Patrick and I will be posting some tech tips and tricks for you to make the most out of your time in quarantine, whether you are work...