Blogging and Final Fantasy.

Wow it's been a long time since I have posted to this blog, I had all my Google accounts all messed up and confused with one another. I have a couple Gmail accounts and the accounts and email user names that they went too were all messed up, but I got it all figured out I hope! I am not going to make a long post tonight because I want to chill out and get me some Final Fantasy in on the PSP. I am playing the 20th Anniversary release and just love the game, although I admit I have to check into the Bradygames strategy guide a lot to figure out were I need to go next and what treasures I have found already. I really don't know what I would do if not for the guide, I don't like to cheat in my games but I need to check the walkthroughs to see what to do next in some of them and Final Fantasy is one of them. Anyway I am going to wrap this up and get to the gaming!

It's getting nice outside!

Oh my god it was so nice outside these past few days that I just had to get out of the house. I did a little hauling of scrap metal for a friend to the scrap yard because he don't have a truck. This will also be a little extra cash for me now and then because I will be doing it more for him. Anyway it was so nice to get out and be comfortable and not freezing my ass off. I can't wait until this winter is over, I have had a very rough winter this year. I burn wood to heat my house and I was burning a face cord a week at $53.00 a cord. I know that that is a little expensive but when I don't cut enough wood to last me the winter I have to buy it, and well this wood was very good wood. Nice and seasond dry red oak, split just right to handle with one hand, in the past I have had people try to sell me green wood as the winter went on and had trouble finding good wood. So when I found this wood I paid the price and had good wood all winter. But this year will be different, I have a new chain saw and I am gonna get on the ball this year and get me about 20 cords for next year thats my goal. And with the weather getting nice I have to make me a spot for my garden, get me some baby pine trees to plant for a wind break, put a fence up around my property so my dog's and other critters wont wander into the road and get me a couple chickens and a rooster to start my little farm I have been wanting. I can feel the winter cabin fever just slippin away, oh yeah come on Spring!

A couple short term goals.

I updated my profile tonight and made some other changes to my blog as well. I also added a link to my Wordpress blog, I have 3 active blogs at the moment. I have been really getting into the blog thing lately, and as I have posted before doing this is helping me get my web design future into perspective. I think that having an online presence is getting me in the mindset to move forward with my web design. I am not quite sure where I want to go with it but doing these blogs has helped me see a lot that I have not seen before. I think that I need to learn more about writing so I can get my thoughts and ideas across in a more efficient manner. When I do a post I usually write it up and then read it and just delete it a couple times before I come up with something that I think gets the idea out that I want to get across. And I also need to get designing more graphics and logos, for my blogs. I think that an image here and there helps the reader grasp better what you are trying to put out to them. I am a very graphically orientated person and I think that most people are, given the popularity of photos and videos on the web today. Take the site YouTube, I can watch a well put together video and really learn a lot more than if I had just read a page about the same thing and I think most people can relate to this as well. So I am nearing my goal and getting my thoughts together to be at a level that I was at a few years ago when I was going to school to learn all that I know about web and graphic design. My current project is designing a header image for my Wordpress blog, and then I will do one for this blog as well, yeah that's it I now have a goal for the next week or so to design 2 header images for my blogs.

One step at a time.

I have decided to take my web design "One step at a time" and that means that I am not going to beat myself up over not doing anything for a day or so with web design. I have been learning to mess with this blog and tweak with the template and I think that is ok for now. I also have installed Dreamweaver 8 on my Ubuntu linux system via WINE "Wine is not an Emulator". What this means is that I can run Windows applications in my Linux system environment. If you would like more info about WINE you can visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wine_(software) or http://www.winehq.org/ to get an idea of what it's about. I learned how to code web pages using notepad, then I learned to use Dreamweaver UD4. Using Dreamweaver really lets you take web design to a new level. You can code in a code only mode, or use the design mode and just build a web site by using the WYSIWYG (What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get) mode kind of like the blogger interface or use both together which is what I like to do. Anyway now that I have this installed on my linux system I can really get more done because I use linux for my main Operating system and now I can just stay in linux and not have to "reboot" into my WindowsXP system, which is what I have wanted to do for a couple years now. So now I can develop my web pages using Dreamweaver 8 while I am using linux so I think that I will be inclined to get more done because I wont have to stop everything and "reboot" to WinXP. So things are looking up as far as my web design because I am taking it "One step at a time". Below is a screenshot of Dreamweaver 8 on my Ubuntu linux desktop.

Time well spent

I posted yesterday that I must start reading the book "HTML Utopia: Designing Without Tables Using CSS". Well I did not start reading the book today but I did get something done in the way of getting back into web design. I first spent some time playing "Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords" on my PSP, well take that back I spent a lot of time playing. Between puttering around and doing this and that around the house I played the game on and off all afternoon and evening. It is a great game and very addicting, I might just write up a review of the game at some future date but if you want to find out about it just Google "Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords" and you will find plenty of info about the game. In a nutshell it's a clone of Bejeweled and an RPG mix, you move through the story and get your quests then battle it out with different enemies by playing a game similar to Bejeweled it's great and is available for just about every platform there is I have it for the PSP and it is also available for the DS, X-Box, PS2, PC, Mac and will be ported to PS3 soon. Anyway when I was not playing this game I was making some different Puzzle Quest wallpapers for the PSP using GIMP which is an Open Source image editing program for Linux and there is also a Windows version. It is free and is similar to Photoshop so check it out if you want to edit like the pro's without paying a few hundred bucks for Photoshop, or using a pirated copy. So I did get something accomplished in the way of getting back into web design, I worked on some graphics. I did about 6 different versions of the wallpaper but I like the plain one the best and am using it on my PSP. You can download it below if you like it. So as long as I can do a little something every day that will get me back coding html, css, xhtml and using GIMP to do graphics I feel that I did have some time well spent.

To much time on my hands

Damn I have not really kept up with this blog and I don't know why. I have all the time in the world to do it because I am on disability and don't really have a lot of responsabilities. I have been disabled for a few years now because of cancer and bad back and other assorted illnesses, some of which are at bay and others that still bother me big time. I have had some training in Web Design and computer graphics and I want to get back into that field and all that stands in my way is myself. This blog, my web design and graphics is what I need to get me back on my feet and headed in the direction that I want to go, but I just cant seem to make myself sit down and just do it. I have gotten into a rut so bad that I just go from day to day and do the things that everyone does like watch tv, eat, play games on the PSP and PS2, clean the house, feed and care for my animals, run to the bank and go shopping and all the things that go with just being me. But this is not what I want! I want to get back into web design and creating graphics for the web and make a decent living doing this. I know what I have to do and have all the tools to do it but I just cant seem to do it! Damn this is really bothering me I would go back to school if I could and that would give me a kick in the ass to get going, but the tuition and gas $$$ to get to and from class are really not in my budget at the moment. So I must make myself learn on my own, I have done this before so it would be just refreshing what I already know and then moving to advanced design and learning more as I go. So I have made up my mind, I have the book "HTML Utopia: Designing Without Tables Using CSS" by Rachel Andrew & Dan Shafer from Sitepoint. I must read and study this book! If I did I would be right back to where I left off before I became ill and well went in some different directions with my life. So starting tomorrow er well today Feb 7, 2008 I will start reading this book and practicing my HTML and CSS and take what I learn and build me a web site. I must do this if only for my own sanity! Yes I will start to study this book today!!! Because I have to much time on my hands and it's ticking away with my sanity!