Who Needs Role Models?

Memo to self: if you’re going to send a ranting email to a mailing list, it’s best to find out if the person you’re ranting about is also on that list… [[forehead slap]]

I’ve got my new template up and running. I’m sure I’ll continue to find things I need to tweak and fix on it, but for now I’m pleased with it.

This is my first foray into my own images for a design. Or I should say, it’s the first time I’ve ever used a painting or drawing I did. I really like how it turned out. If you’re curious to know more about why I built this template, check out the About this Site link in the navigation above.

My dad used to say to my brother and I “stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about.” As a kid that statement always bothered me, as clearly I had something to cry about - why else would I be crying??? But now, as a parent, I understand the impulse to say that. After a 10 minute moaning/crying jag just now, I was about ready to “give him something to cry about” myself! But let me set the scene: Jaryth had just woken up from a 1.5 hour nap and was in a great mood. We played with his ball for several minutes, then he said he wanted toast with peanut butter, so we made that. Then he wanted water from the fridge. So he got his cup, and I unlocked the water dispenser. He held up his cup and filled it (about half full) with water. Then I locked the water dispenser. And he promptly got mad and dropped his cup. I kept my cool as I dried him and the floor off, calmed him down, and gave him back his cup and unlocked the water dispenser again. Lather. Rinse. REPEAT I didn’t stay as calm this time, as he started screaming (again) because he was (again) covered in water, there was water (again) all over the floor, and he still didn’t get a drink. I tried to calm him down, but I suspect the statement “you don’t get more water out of the dispenser if you’re just going to drop it on the floor” is what triggered the 10 minute crying/moaning jag. Toddlers can be a lot of fun. But sometimes, not so much.

I have a form on my site asking for people to define what they feel a webmaster is. It asks:

“Share your thoughts. What is a webmaster?”

And I received this reply:

“Title: Webmaster description…OMG                 I just read several responses to what others opinion are regarding what a webmaster is and quite frankly, the grammar, spelling, and English are deplorable. If one cannot master the fundamentals of communication, then the game is over. Webmasters will become specialized because of their skills and not because of a simple desire and a minimal education. How would like to go to a dentist who was self taught and just got by in school? Ouch………..”

I started downloading the disk images of CS5 for my reviews today. Yay! Of course, one of the images failed. Hopefully the other one will work. Then I’ll start the second one alone. Downloading Master Collection seems like a bit of overkill. At least I have a nice new BIG hard drive to store the 2 disk images. Then the second image failed as well - of course they wait until they are fully downloaded before they die. But YAY! Second time’s the charm. I got it downloaded this time, and have already started making some edits to a WordPress site using Dreamweaver.

I don’t know why, but I’m interested in puzzles lately, and I thought it would be fun to create an app to let people post and fill out puzzles. Of course, I’ll have to limit how the puzzles work at first, but this should be a fun exercise in planning and implementing a site. And if I’m lucky, I might even have enough documentation at the end to actually get a few articles out of the idea. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. So the first thing I’ll be using is my newest note taking app on the iPad AbleNote. This app appears to have all the features that I was looking for in a note taking app. It’s kinda eerie making that blog post to the universe and then the next day (or maybe 2 I forget when I downloaded it) finding that app. True, it’s not free, but it seems to work better than the other one I was using. (That, while free, now has the “feature” of in-app purchases to try to entice me to pay them, um, yeah…). AbleNote wasn’t $9.99 - yay!

So, today I got fed up with my current iPad note taking app (Sundry Notes) crashing and taking my notes with it and decided to look for a new one. Wow! There are a lot of sticky notes, cork boards, and note taking / drawing apps out there! They could be a category all their own. EXCEPT They all do the same damn thing. Let me tell you, if you’re planning on creating a note taking app for the iPad, your app will not be “stupendous” “amazing” or “revolutionary” (no matter how many times you use those or other superlatives in your description) if all you have is the ability to write notes and change the background color/pattern of the paper. Here’s what I want from a note taking app:

It’s really hard to not feel like everyone in the universe is greedy for more more more when most of the apps that I used regularly on the iPhone have new, bigger iPad brethren that cost more, a lot more. I’m starting to think that apps that are universal will get an extra star from me, or maybe that apps that have an iPhone version that is cheaper than the iPad version would lose a star (or half a star?). I feel like I just bought DDH Software HanDBase for my iPhone/iPod. And now they have an iPad only version for $9.99. I’m sorry, DDH, but you won’t get my business a fifth time. I’ve bought the Mac desktop version (which is crap), the iPhone version, the Palm version, and the Windows desktop version. No way in hell are you getting another dime from me. Sorry, but your app works fine in the version I have, and since you didn’t see fit to make a universal app I don’t see fit to give you any more of my cash.

I’m enjoying the drawing part of my class, but the writing part, not so much. Holy cow! I honestly don’t care about what Margaret Kilgallen’s influences were/are. And it’s frustrating that I have to figure something out to write about them.

Edited to Add…

So, I worked on my paper, and after talking with the professor, got some great ideas. I was still stumped for a while, so I made a little pictorial book of her influences. That was what I needed. I ended up with a 9-page paper that I wrote in about an hour. Whew! And it was actually fun to write!