Adobe CS4 Design Suite

After working with Adobe Creative Suite CS4 for the mac in the  last 2 weeks, I have to say I am very impressed with the updates they have made to the software. The interface is a bit cleaner, it gives it a “apple” look to it.

I was truly excited about the tabbed interface and tabbed project windows. It saves a lot of desktop space even with use of Spaces and Exposé in Mac OS X.

All the apps are a bit more  integrated with each other which makes it easier to work on a project in one application and move it to the other to create a final product. I will post more in details about these applications once I spend more time with each of them.

Active Directory and DNN

I have another project in the works right now at Memorial, We have to create a form for our Department heads to fill out what application access their new employees will need. When the form is complete they will submit and It will get emailed to us in MIS. The trick is, I need the form to have the AD username attached to the form so we know who it is coming from as a “safety”. So I worked on binding and getting DNN to work with AD today. It was quite fun… broke DNN then fixed it, then broke it again, and again, and fixed it again. So now it works and now I need to test it tomorrow. Wish me luck !

WWDC 2009 thoughts…

WWDC was exciting to se what new stuff would appear in the upcoming months. I am particularly excited about 10.6 and some newer features. Expose on the Dock is gonna be great for me when I have many documents or photos open in Photoshop. I am also really happy to know that I will be getting back about 5 gigs of HD space as well.

The new iPhone was less exciting for me, yea ok, faster 3G and come cool new features but nothing that I will plan on running out to upgrade, especially since I do not have as much of an income as I did at Hempfield. I do have to say that Apple will take more of the cell phone market with offering the $99 dollar iPhone, that will most likely piss many of the other cell manufacturers off since they just released new smart phones.

I have mixed emotions about the rebranding of the laptops. I read an article on monday about “Pro” not meaning “Pro” anymore as it used to. To me the pro version of the laptops are those still that are “mobile powerhouses” that can do the work of a Desktop in a laptop form. The difference used to be that the pro level laptops had a dedicated video card that could handle the more graphic intense programs. The new 3 lower end models of the macbook pros do not have dedicated video cards. I hope consumers realize that they aren’t getting a pro level laptop at the lower cost. the pro level laptops are the 3 higher end models of the Macbook pro line. However, those consumers who dont plan on do much in FCP, or high end manipulation in photoshop, or audio editing in Logic Pro, then the 13″ is fine. They still are amazing machines, just not what a “pro” is looking for.

Another week ahead

Things have been busy, but the weekend is over already and another week is ahead. Hempfield High Schools graduation is tomorrow evening, I plan on attending tomorrow evening to see some friends that I have watched grow up for 4 years graduate and move on.

That however, is the high point of the week. The rest of the time will be spend figuring out some financial loans to keep school moving ahead at HACC, as well as looking into Etown for the spring. There are bumps in the road at the moment financially, and I really do not wanna put school on hold for a semester so I need to get things settled. Why does this financial stuff have to be such a pain in the a$$ ?

This week I am finally finishing two videos I have been working on over the past month or so, one being the 30 hour famine video for Wayside Presbyterian Church, the other being Holy Spirit Lutheran Church’s 50th Anniversary video. They were bot enjoyable to edit however, the 30 hour famine video was my own creation so I was able to be creative, while the 50th anniversary video was more of just editing and putting pieces together.

Not only did bad news come about financial info this weekend but a summons for jury duty. Which means I may not be able to play in the HEF golf tournament on the 15th. That is a bummer, I am still trying to figure out details on that one…

Last week I got new pairs of shoes 1 casual 1 dress for work. Thanks Anne !

This week is also Apples WWDC keynote so we should see some cool stuff come out of it. New iPhone?,OS X Snow Leopard and maybe some new hardware.

I was also excited this past week because it was the premier week of “The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien” I have to say its a very cool set on the Universal lot in LA. Conan has brought the entire staff from his Late Night show. I am expecting a lot of the same stuff from Conan. I think everyone else is as well. Its gonna be great !

All and all I have a lot of things going on and am gonna be busy and stressed until I get these things worked out with college and the financial aid office as well as other finances. Here is hoping all goes well !

Peace out.

Another attempt at Visual Basic

I took another attempt at Visual Basic today. A text file was generated from the Paragon system and it was the information we needed as well as the pile of junk that came with it. So I need to read and write a new file with the info and not the junk…. Well I spent two hours working on it and I have it almost done. I have the read and the write part finished now I need to work on the part where I actually tell VB what I want to pull out of the file to write to the new one…. kinda fun to learn. I think it could be easier if I learned C#…….

Going Green…website project

Chiques United Methodist Church new website is going very well. I am almost finished with most design aspects, and now am currently working on content and navigation. The project is supposed to support the theme “going green” I am not exactly sure why a church would go with that but, hey who am I to question church. please visit the site  http://chiquesumc.net as I move further along with the project until completion.

Busy week…many projects

It had been a very busy week with not being able to take the time to make a new post.

I have started another web project this week for Chiques United Methodist Church at the request of a friend and former co-worker. That was on tuesday night and since then I have had the site pretty much built and ironing out some design modifications.

I spent most of the week getting everything in order for college in the fall. I am going for another semester at HACC and going to apply for E-Town College in the Spring and finish my bachelors in Communication with an emphasis Public Relations. I am very excited to finally have a plan on what I want to do. After realizing I would rather do web design as more of a hobby or “on the side” projects for clients, or friends instead of a career choice.

Friday was busy all around. I met Jeff K. and Arlette for lunch on friday afternoon, it’s always great to see Jeff and Arlette outside of work now (since I dont work with them anymore). Friday afternoon I was stopping in to see everyone at the admin building to see everyone and to stop in to see Rich. Rich wanted  to talk about some logo designs as well as a company website that he may wanna start. I have many ideas that I am still finishing up on paper before I send it to him.

Over all it was a busy week, the weekend has been just as busy but enjoyable. Other than working on some website projects, I had Brenden (nephew) over night on friday. Normally he does fine when he sleeps over at anyone others house other than his but once and a while he may wake up around 2 or 3 in the morning and notice he is not in his crib and doesnt know where he is at, its at that point he freaks out. On saturday morning I was trying to figure out some issues with the the church’s website and on saturday afternoon I went to hang out with Doug until we went to a game on saturday night.

Today I got a chance to hang out with John who I really haven’t had a chance to catch up with for a while so it was a fun day, got some drinks, had lunch, had more drinks, had dinner, and more drinks. It was fun.

More website work !

So after having so much fun, and so much pride in working with Derrick on his site. I am happy to report I have 2 maybe 3 more website projects I am doing for some people in the near future. I am really excited to see what they will be looking to do and see if I can test more of my skills and see if new challenges arise.

Another form created and testing.

Today I finished the 2nd form for caregivers at Memorial to either update their information or if they are new to the hospital to enter their information. it is now live and working well. I am especially proud of the electronic form it generates and sends an email to the user.

After I was finished with and was about to sit back in my chair with a sigh of relief, I got another email saying “I got another idea for a form” SO, I now am working on a Medical records change form, in case of a nurse or caregiver enters a name,SSN, etc. in wrong. It generates a form and is sent to our health information services dept head. Its pretty nifty and is the one I am most proud of at the moment since I finished building it a few hours ago and I am already testing to make sure its collecting the data correctly and is generating the right fields for the form to email the Health Services dept.

Modifications complete…..

So I spent the day working at home and made the modifications that were requested by the COO. Added 5 new fields to the form. It took a while because the one field had 25 entries in it for all the departments at the Hospital. The others were pretty easy. We already at 387 people (when I started to modify the form at 1pm) Those people are lucky and don’t have to re-submit the form. The rest of the 613 people now have to submit a longer form with more info because of the issue we had with users not wanting to submit their last 4 digits of their SSN. Its as perfect as it can get until we get the next set of corrections….. Lets hope not.