February 2006

I read an article recently about Mac’s being cool again. When were they not?

I’ve always been intrigued with Mac’s.

In the mid-80’s I ran a Mac OS) emulator on an Atari ST. I found it interesting but inconvenient in that form. Finally two years ago I purchased my first laptop and Mac, a PowerBook G4, 1.5ghz. For a period of about a year I lived a dual life of using the PowerBook when I wanted to be mobile between home and work and having a primary Windows PC at home. The natural drift for me was toward the Mac. I found that I enjoyed and felt more productive in OS X then in Windows XP. There was also a more natural design to the hardware that fit my own perception of functionality.

In the spring of 2005 I purchased a PowerMac 2 x 2.7ghz desktop machine. I’ve enjoyed this machine immensely. My Windows PC has been relegated to a game machine. In additional to being fun and functional, the Mac has afforded me many opportunities to increase my knowledge. I now have some basic knowledge of UNIX and am in the process of learning AppleScript along with PHP and SQL. I know that there are many languages and opportunities to learn with the Windows platform, perhaps actually more then with the Mac, but I never seemed to be motivated with Windows.

The Mac seems to encourage my wanting to learn.

Change: definition; to cause to be different, to transform, to lay aside, to switch.

Lately I’ve been thinking a good deal about things related to change, returning to school, switching careers, moving, etc. Change is a condition that’s constantly occurring yet one most people have difficulty dealing with. I’ve come to recognize I’m not comfortable with sudden change. For a major change my comfort period, that time I need to process the information to the point that I’m back within my comfort zone, is 24 to 48 hours. If I can have that much notice prior to a major change I usually will not have any problems accommodating it, otherwise I may be outside my comfort zone. This doesn’t mean that I will necessarily react in a negative way, but I will feel somewhat unsure and uncomfortable. Smaller changes are dealt with quicker.

Something that helps me is to focus on what change actually is. It’s a process not a result. History has shown me that most changes in my life have had good results. If I don’t fear change, but instead participate in the change process, then the results will more likely be something I deem as good.

The general theme of this site is “using technology and processes to improve individual capabilities and understanding”, and the slogan is “moving forward one step at a time”.

In support of both the theme and slogan, I will offer from time-to-time personal reviews of software, services, and possible hardware, that I have personal experience with. These reviews will not be detailed feature-by-feature reviews. They will be overviews.

[click to continue...]

I have spent years working with computers and have enough general knowledge that I can usually sit down and work my way through the basic functions of most programs without having to use the manuals or without any special training. This is good and bad. The good is that I can immediately be productive on the application. The bad is that I seldom learn all the capabilities or am able to take full advantage of an application functions.

Recently I decided to do something to change this situation. After research of on-line training I decided to subscribe to “Lynda.com’s” monthly on-line training library plan. The monthly plan is $25 per month for full access to “Lynda.com’s” on-line training library. This plan doesn’t offer access to the exercise files, but there are other plans available which do. The other plans include:

• Annual - $250 per year (does not offer exercise files). Same as monthly plan except a discount a 20% discount for annual membership.
• Premium - $375 per year (includes exercise files)

One of the reason’s I chose “Lynda.com” was the variety and quality of the training library. There are over 11,000 quicktime training videos in the library and all that I have observed have been extremely well done and easy to understand.

Lynda.com’s on-line training library includes most applications by Adobe, Apple, Corel, Macromedia, Microsoft, and Quark, and general topics such as digital photography, networking, web design, animation, design principles, and even Google search principles.

The QuickTime training videos are broken into logical segments that cover specific functions or features of the application or subject matter. These segments progress smoothly from one to the other and are for the most part under 15 minutes long. This makes it easy to break your training into small bite-size sessions. Most subjects’ start at the very basic’s level and then proceeds up to intermediate level. If their’s one thing I would like to see it would be an additional advance level beyond their current offerings. But I understand that this would probably have a much more limited audience. I must admit that while sitting through some of the basic video’s I picked up on some points I didn’t know. So even if you feel you’re beyond the beginner level it may be to your advantage to watch the basic videos.

Over all, I would give Lynda.com‚Äôs on-line training library an excellent review. With the monthly plan you can easily subscribe for a couple of months and brush up you skills in those applications or areas you feel you need. Since this library is available 27/7 it should fit anyone‚Äôs schedule. The only things required are a PC or MAC with Apple QuickTime for viewing the video’s. I would also recommend a high speed Internet connection.

Maintaining a long-term subscription would depend upon how quickly Lynda.com updates and adds new material to this training library.

Recommended - [rate 4.0]