the fine art of me

Dear Adobe

August 27th, 2008 by lindsey | posted in geek, link | No Comments »

I’m a user of Adobe products - mostly Dreamweaver, Photoshop and Flash. Since I’ve been doing more photography I’ve used Bridge/Camera Raw more often and I also use Illustrator & Fireworks for web design. I know that there are alternatives (a text editor for Dreamweaver, the GIMP for Photoshop, other vector based programs), but the Adobe programs are used most often and that eliminates issues with cross-compatibility. Through school I was able to get a great package with Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Flash, Fireworks, Illustrator, InDesign, After Effects and Premiere for about 1/3 of the cost. Not too shabby. I’ve not yet played with After Effects or Premiere but I’m hoping to find some tutorials to mess around with.

Anyway, Dear Adobe is a website that allows users to submit their suggestions/criticisms/compliments about Adobe programs. It’s pretty interesting because most of the complaints are the same - too slow, Acrobat Reader sucks, too expensive, too many automatic updates. The site also allows for agreements/disagreements so it can keep track of how many other visitors have the same gripes.

I wonder if Adobe will actually take into account some of theses complaints…

[via]

Thanks DOT

August 27th, 2008 by lindsey | posted in philly life | 1 Comment »

So I called about my ticket and found out that the points from Jersey won’t tranfer to PA, which is great because I don’t have to go to court and I can just pay the $85 ticket! That makes me infinitely happy and takes a load off my back.

Thanks PA DOT!

What Does My Name Mean?

August 27th, 2008 by lindsey | posted in general | No Comments »

You are relaxed, chill, and very likely to go with the flow.
You are light hearted and accepting. You don’t get worked up easily.
Well adjusted and incredibly happy, many people wonder what your secret to life is.

You tend to be pretty tightly wound. It’s easy to get you excited… which can be a good or bad thing.
You have a lot of enthusiasm, but it fades rather quickly. You don’t stick with any one thing for very long.
You have the drive to accomplish a lot in a short amount of time. Your biggest problem is making sure you finish the projects you start.

You are very intuitive and wise. You understand the world better than most people.
You also have a very active imagination. You often get carried away with your thoughts.
You are prone to a little paranoia and jealousy. You sometimes go overboard in interpreting signals.

You are balanced, orderly, and organized. You like your ducks in a row.
You are powerful and competent, especially in the workplace.
People can see you as stubborn and headstrong. You definitely have a dominant personality.

You are the total package - suave, sexy, smart, and strong.
You have the whole world under your spell, and you can influence almost everyone you know.
You don’t always resist your urges to crush the weak. Just remember, they don’t have as much going for them as you do.

You are friendly, charming, and warm. You get along with almost everyone.
You work hard not to rock the boat. Your easy going attitude brings people together.
At times, you can be a little flaky and irresponsible. But for the important things, you pull it together.

You are a free spirit, and you resent anyone who tries to fence you in.
You are unpredictable, adventurous, and always a little surprising.
You may miss out by not settling down, but you’re too busy having fun to care.

[via]

Prevention

August 27th, 2008 by lindsey | posted in school | No Comments »

For my Flash final we have to create an interactive PSA from the Philadelphia Mayor’s office for skin cancer - I’ve started working on it pretty extensively and it’s going pretty well. Creating something in Flash is pretty time consuming because you have to create each frame and each frame can have other elements that are made up of individual frames. As such, I’ve decided I have a total love/hate relationship with Flash. For the most part I like what can be produced. I think it can be overused and I can’t stand websites that are totally made from Flash, but I think it has its place. I also like that you can create applications that are interactive fairly easily and without having to code too much. While what I can do at this point is prett rudiamentary, it’s still cool to create a little game or mp3 player, something that actually does something.

My final project is pretty neat looking - on top of a picture of Love Fountain I’ve laid out a pretty basic menu with a content box. After an introduction the user picks from 3 different options - Knowledge, Prevention and Test. It’s pretty self explanatory. The toughest part that I can forsee is creating the test/quiz. The other two sections are basically copy/paste with some nice animations.

Once I’ve finished it I’ll post a link to it.

Whew…

August 26th, 2008 by lindsey | posted in school | No Comments »

Got feedback on my speech - 96/100. Not too bad. Came in at just 8 minutes which was a little close, but I thought I was much further under 10 minutes, so that’s not bad. Lost 5 points on not having a visual aid, but I was rather stumped as to what to use as a visual aid…should have brought a pillow in or something I guess. Overall I’m happy and it gives me confidence for my final speech (No abstinence only sex-ed in schools) in a few weeks.

Tonight’s Dinner

August 26th, 2008 by lindsey | posted in cooking | No Comments »

I told Megan that I’d surprise her for dinner tonight, so I’m going to make something I’ve been thinking about for a little while - Ranch Ritz Chicken, which is chicken marinated in ranch dressing, coated in Ritz cracker crumbs and baked. I was going to just serve it with a salad but our salad looks pretty limp, so I’m going to make a tomato and zucchini gratin, which I have had bookmarked. We have tomatoes and zucchinis that need to be used and I want to try something new. I’m going to try to document it with photos and do a little step by step…though we’ll see how that turns out!

Do You Like Free Speech?

August 26th, 2008 by lindsey | posted in decision 2008 | No Comments »

FauxNews was at the DNC Convention yesterday…they were greeted with a warm welcome by “far left groups” outside.

Bookends

August 25th, 2008 by lindsey | posted in school, webdesign | No Comments »

I’m working on some homework for my php class and really getting into it. I created the HTML and the MySQL database, and then added in the php coding. It didn’t work, so I started the HTML and PHP again and troubleshot between what I had originally created and coding examples I had from class. I finally figured it all out and now I’m left with doing the CSS and general pretty-ness. I’m really happy with what I’ve designed thus far and it’s been fun to see something that was just a basic page with some words on it become something. And not just something, but something with substance and that can be applied in real life situations. It’s been a bit time consuming, but totally worth it.

It’s not yet finished, but you can check it out!
FYI: All of the books and information about them is created using PHP, which means that instead of writing out longhand each book and title, etc. for each page, you create a little piece of code and then it queries a database which inputs all the info. PHP and other programming languages like PHP are what blogs, shopping sites, etc. use to create their pages.

(Look for a super special book on there too!)