Tuesday, July 1, 2008

They did the mash...


For those of you following the previous post, I haven't written because I was waiting to hear back from Steve at Lynda.com (no reply just yet). I also submitted a ticket on Adobe's support forum with a link to the "An inconvenient truth..." post. The status there is "Open - Pending Adobe Response". I will keep you informed.

Just a side note here: I signed up for Layers Magazine's Tip of the Day. I got my first "tip" and at the bottom of the email was a big, fat link that said, "Upgrade to Adobe CS3.3 at CDW and get one free month of online training at Kelbytraining.com". Uh-huh.

In the meantime, I have taken my own words to heart and ordered my first e-book. I don't know if you have ever read an e-book before. It's a bit different from your regular paperback or hardcover, it's onscreen which means nothing to hold and I am chained to the laptop to read it. But, because of the topic of said book, it's actually much easier to click on links than to type them in. I am learning about mashups. If you haven't heard of them, you have probably seen them in action and weren't even aware that this is the future of Web 2.0. I've spent the last two days reading, learning and experimenting with mashup APIs. I'm getting it, but I haven't had my "ah-hah" moment yet. Yesterday I was actually wishing I had a third screen just to keep track of what was where. If anyone out there has a bit of advice to offer, please, by all means, pipe up! I could sure use it!

Still living virtually, I also did a bunch of online banking tasks. It is so much easier than having to go in person or making a phone call. I clicked on the live chat window and went to town. Sure, some of the replies are stock answers, but they are clear and why reinvent the wheel? I was done in ten minutes and it didn't leave a footprint!

My next big adventure might be ordering groceries online. I need to get a grip on my time management and I'm trying find ways to put my available time to better use. Aside from giving up the daily NYT crossword puzzle (no way!) I figure I can buy about 2 hours each week by having the victuals delivered to my door. (Maybe I could then apply that time to the daily walk/workout session?)

The mind boggles at what can be done online these days. If you haven't downloaded Firefox 3, here's a link. Then sign-up with iGoogle and start adding widgets to your homepage... fly yourself around the world with Google earth...

You'll catch on in a flash...

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