MILES to GO || before I sleep

You've been Flashed!

Wed, 21 Apr 2010 03:37:10 GMT

So I'm working on my final project for my Flash class, and it's really like putting together a puzzle: I'm assembling my efforts from previous weeks and trying to turn them into something shiny and cohesive. Of course, we have requirements (have to use at least 2 of our previous assignments plus embed audio, have a title area, a text area for the work that's being loaded, and have a viewing area for the visual assets), but generally it's pretty free-form.

So far I think I'm doing okay, except for the audio...for some reason, mine keeps loading whenever I test the movie, rather than when I press the Play button in my control area. I've made sure the Play and Stop buttons work, and they do, but the audio still starts up on its own when the whole file loads. I have Mute and a Volume Max buttons too, but they don't seem to do anything, despite using the same ActionScript that we used for a previous interface for audio:

on (press) {
test.setVolume(100);
}

and

on (press) {
test.setVolume(0);
}

Anyone know enough Flash to tell me what I'm doing wrong here? If I at least get this figured out, then I think I can focus on the more aesthetic parts and extra information, along with getting last week's lab to load properly (that was way more confusing than this final project).

I seem to remember one of my former co-workers from CSUN making an awesome web design in Flash...she must have had a knack for it (or a really good professor or a fabulous textbook or all three)! I wish I had asked her more about it then!

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An educational joke?

Sun, 28 Mar 2010 03:25:52 GMT

I'm starting to think my "education" with DeVry is a bit of a joke. It's probably misplaced frustration from over a week without a laptop, and, now that I've got a new one, trying to play catch-up in two classes that overwhelm me.

For starters, in my Information Design class, I feel like it's a re-hash of my last class where the teacher is just doing things "according to guidelines/rules." We have a textbook that I feel reads as horribly outdated (especially the part about justifying why a restaurant finder application should be delivered on CD-ROM versus a Web application--this book was written in 2005, which is like centuries in Internet time), assignments that don't seem very clear, and quizzes with even more trick questions (dependent wholly on the textbook too, which is the polar opposite of what my CSUN professors did: they actually wanted you to read/listen to the LECTURE and DISCUSSION).

Then there's my Flash class. The professor's cool, but the fact that DeVry is still using CS3 when they don't even SELL CS3 anymore is pretty frustrating. I think the fact that CS3 is no longer supported by Adobe should be a big clue for them to, at the very least, provide the CS4 methods of doing things for assignments, labs, etc. IN CONJUNCTION with the CS3 methods, if not use it primarily.

Flash intimidates the heck out of me. Even though it's a Macromedia/Adobe product, it looks and acts different from all the other programs I'm used to, and things just don't work the way I expect them to. My stuff doesn't look nearly as awesome as some of my classmates', and certainly is not anything I'm wild crazy about putting in a portfolio. It's nowhere near on par with the basic Flash you see on websites everywhere these days. Of course, that would be expecting a miracle, right? Going from 0 to 60 in just four to five weeks: I can't expect my understanding of Flash to hit me like an epiphany and I just start GETTING IT. It'd be nice, but it doesn't work that way. I don't work that way.

So I'm going to do my best and muddle through it, and hopefully not end up as part of the disappointingly-large statistic of people that don't graduate from DeVry. It has a miserable graduation rate, from what I found: about 34%. And here I thought California state schools were pretty bad.

I really wish they offered these classes in-person at the Daly City campus. I just don't think I do well in an online environment, odd as that is for both me and the program I'm in (Multimedia Design and Development).

I wonder if it also has to do with my environment here: lacking a job and the money to really buy something like a Fast Pass (monthly transportation pass), I don't go out unless I can spare the change or I really need to (or someone's driving me). Otherwise, I think going to the library with my laptop might be a good idea. I wonder if getting a Fast Pass for April might be a good investment, considering I actually do have some cash now? I really don't want to spend it on things I don't NEED though, since I should be paying my bills and such more than anything else. Still, a Fast Pass is probably a better investment than a bag of bagels (much as I want those bagels).

Plus, I have to treat all of this--getting a job, taking these online classes--like I were at a full-time job and still taking classes in a real university environment. If I can do this, maybe they won't worry and frustrate me so much. That's the hope, anyway.

Any advice from folks that know this sort of stuff--interface design with wireframes, Visio, Flash, etc.--would be totally appreciated.

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Only stupid answers?

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 08:33:25 GMT

I have a class assignment to create a website. This usually isn't an issue; for the last assignment I had like this, I made a resume website. But this time we've got to have the usuals (information, feedback, contact info) but ALSO a shopping cart capability.

I've worked with and seen plenty of sites that have shopping cart abilities, but what about one FOR ME? I don't want to be lazy/uncreative and just pick from the two samples (a non-profit equestrian society site, or a home business for baby-ware), but I'm not sure what I could do.

...Any tips?

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Well, that didn't go well

Sun, 21 Feb 2010 22:14:03 GMT

Bad News: Yesterday I bought The Sims 3 at $20 off MSRP from Target. I opened it up this afternoon with the intent of installing it only to discover...no DVD! I thought at first that maybe that's why they give you the "plumbob" USB drive, but nope: nothing but music, wallpapers, and other such extras on that. I also didn't get the green carabiner as shown on the box.

I wonder if I have to go back to the exact same Target to switch it out? I know I'll have to open the new copy in-store, since I don't want to go home and end up gypped again.... yeesh.

Also, Frustrating News: still no solution on getting my bookmarks OFF my Android myTouch 3G phone. All kinds of ways to get my bazillions of computer bookmarks ON THERE, but that's not the point. I don't care about that. I want my bookmarks OFF, and I can't even do it when I plug in my phone to my laptop, because of all the data recognized when I mount it, none of it seems to be "bookmarks." Maybe it's hidden, or under a weird name or strange file type...any suggestions? My Google-fu has failed me in this regard. It's no good if I have to get another phone browser, unless it can IMPORT the bookmarks from the default phone browser and then allow me to export them elsewhere. There are bookmark apps, but none I've seen with export. Does this mean I just have to wait for Android 2.0 or a Bookmark Sync feature from Google? *le sigh*

Good News: I did finally get a gel skin, a wrist strap, and a new protective screen. I still intend on switching out my ZAGG screen that got fuzz-covered for a new one, but maybe AFTER I've gotten more settled here. Hopefully this means the back of my phone won't keep coming off and letting the battery pop out.

More Frustrating News: Still no solution as of yet for how to edit my custom Layer Style on LiveJournal that I use for getting an RSS feed of my Friends' Page, even the authenticated entries. NetNewsWire is the only RSS reader I know that lets me log in and stay logged in, and while it's been working mysteriously good for the past few weeks, it's annoying trying to decipher entry subject lines among HTML. Other RSS readers convert it to actual links; I don't care either way. I posted to everything_lj, but no response yet. :( I'd try figuring it out myself, except I don't want to break the layer altogether, especially not when it's actually working!

Good News: I started reading a new Egyptian historical fiction, Michelle Moran's "The Heretic Queen." So far, so good. I'm actually getting somewhat inspired for CO7, which is better than nothing. I'm starting to develop the opinion that to write something--anything--is better than to write nothing at all and be stuck in this rut of "have to write in order!" At least if I have some scenes down, I can work with a beta or someone to fill in the blanks.

Eh News: I've got a few ideas for some GD articles, but they're comparable to the form of clouds: light and wispy. I'll need time to get them solidified, and in the meantime, there's homework!

Oh! News: Turns out my DeVry professor was right about the whole Photoshop slice badge thing in my last quiz. It was a trick question; the slice badges CAN display whether or not a slice is linked, but only in the optimization process, not with normal slices (although the question probably should have specified that, using "normal slices" instead of just "slices" in general), and rollover effect badges aren't seen since ImageReady went the way of the dodo. So...yeah, layer-based. Whoop-de-doo, it's only 2 points. I'm still getting an A. And it feels good to at least have clarified and asked, because otherwise I would still be confused and a little angry.

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Sick + Smallville + Strange Dream

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 06:31:13 GMT

A few days ago I had a dream that I was relocating a bunch of gold chains (like the thin kinds used for necklaces) from one box to another. They were very shiny but had no pendants on them, and they were pretty tangled up. I looked up the meanings of "gold," "necklace," and "chains," but the meanings were all so mixed I don't know what to make of the dream as a whole.

Also, very much into Smallville now. Very bad, since I should be thinking of WDKY and writing the rest of that, but instead I'm reading lots of Smallville fic (well, what little "good stuff" I can find, and putting up with a lot of mediocre stuff to pass the time while finding "good" things) in-between homework assignments, NSLS stuff, and being sick.

Yeah, I'm sick. Grandpa says I have the flu, but I have yet to get a fever: just a horrible phlegmy cough, lots of body aches, and many, many headaches. It sucks, to put it mildly, especially since flu shots are impossible to find here, regular OR H1N1. Needless to say, I hope I just have the regular flu, if one at all. I've been sleeping it off, mostly, and I do feel better now than I did earlier, but the aches are still present and they make me want to just curl up in bed.

Being sick means that I feel like I'm not getting anything done, even if I should just acknowledge: I really am. I just have MORE to do. Like, I still have DeVry Web Design class homework to finish up (zip and upload, really), stories for my Senior Narrative Seminar to read/write, and 1919 and Johnny Got His Gun to read. Gaah.

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Oh, blather

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 22:04:16 GMT

I don't think I'll expect more than a "C" out of my one midterm. I just finished taking my American Literature midterm, and because I completely neglected to study T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land" and spent more time on the Harlem Renaissance than on the earlier poets we studied, I know I have several very weak parts to my exam.

Yeah, I definitely mixed up Countee Cullen and Wallace Stevens. For some reason I had it in my head that Stevens was more of a rhymer than Cullen. Oops. I wonder if I can still get credit for my explanation of the significance of the passage, even if I got the author and title wrong.

I mixed up Schuyler and Alain Locke, too, even though I was positive there was no way that was possible, because Locke writes so much more pretentiously than Schuyler (or at least I think so; Locke was incredibly difficult for me to get through).

And then there was the essay where I completely blanked out on how ritual plays into "The Waste Land." We only went over it FOR A WHOLE DAMN WEEK (that is, two days worth of classes) and talked about the "ritual" of life and death and the necessity of death to bring about new life, etc. How did I space on that?

*sigh* On the one hand, yay, it's over, regardless of what grade I get. I don't think I bombed so miserably that I'll get an F and be in danger of failing the class. There's still another essay (which I PRAY we don't do in class), and I think I'll make a habit of, oh, I don't know, actually doing the reading! I didn't think it was that bad while I was cramming last night, but then again, I did screw up some major writers, here.

The professor noted I was "very expressive when taking an exam." This was because I got halfway through the essay and realized I didn't remember a damn thing about "The Waste Land," and I was trying to knock my brain into remembering even the tiniest little thing that I could wax eloquent on. I got nothing. And now I find out I screwed up the identification parts, too? The parts I'd actually been semi-confident about? Grrrreeeeat. Expressiveness isn't going to save my grade.

This bites.

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