First Edmonton Web Design/Developer Meet-up

Just got back from an excellent meet-up, I must say. A diverse group of designers and developers with equally diverse skill-sets and disciplines. Definitely makes me want to get re-involved in the industry. Now, If I can just find out how to get a new 3G iPhone cheap...

Tech-resumé and Portfolio update

So, I have just completed a first-draft of my resumé in this new tech-resumé style. It looks great, a solid approach to highlighting your skill-set and past work experience as it relates to the field or career you are pursuing. I just need to flesh out the highlights of what I accomplished at Dell and I'll be happy with it.

Also, I finally got around to capturing .jpeg images of the majority of design work I have done in the past 10 years. Surprisingly less than I remember. It seems I have lost some work in the various moves and company shuffles I have been through. All in all, I have a solid foundation of work to add to, so it's not all bad.

Looking forward to attending my first Web Designer and Developer Meet-up on Wednesday. Hopefully the talks will motivate me to re-ignite my original career choice.

Resumés for the Tech-savvy

Wow, hard to believe it's been an entire month since I last blogged. Lazy or what!

I just recently discovered an article discussing the benefits of using a certain style for your resumé to target the tech-world. After reading the article and looking over several examples, I must say, there is definite potential in the format. Putting my own twist on things before heading out around E-town to test the waters with it.

Had an idea last night regarding the e-Sports world and professional gamers. I am going to look into writing a basic business proposal about organized tournament play centered around Starcraft 2. I have extensive knowledge of how the leagues and sponsored tournaments work in South Korea (the Starcraft capital of the gaming world) and want to explore the possibilities of taking that knowledge and creating smart, focused and organized tournament/league play in Canada; starting with-in Edmonton of course.

problem is finding folks who understand business plans and start-up knowledge to help focus and guide me in my endeavour.

Back from the Edmonton DemoCamp

There were some very cool things being shown tonight.

First up was a Runners program that you can use to track your distance, elevation changes, plot run routes and share them via perma-links.

After that was a demo from Titan Gaming and their tools for creating and managing game tournaments (online). A very solid project, slick interface, tons of tools and ease of integration. I think this one will be a project to watch.

Following on the previous project was an AI developer who developed a very in-depth AI for a board game called Pentago. A very ambitious project with exceptional results.

Next up was a group that was contracted to develop an interface (and much more as the story unfolded) for Cisco and LinkSyS. It was a dual-hardrive media centre of sorts. Allowed you to browse, listen and watch many formats of music and video. Also an option for Remote access.

Lastly was a demo of a very unique instrument, the Seizure Violin. An instrument connected to Ableton Live using midi controllers and various sensors to allow playback of a set of samples with various parts of the instrument. Very cool stuff.

After the DemoCamp was over, I felt very out of place. I'm a techy and once-programmer that has just lost interest in the ever-changing development world. Fast paced changes coupled with far too many new tools created a landscape of constant learning, but little chance to use that knowledge. I'm feeling strangely depressed after this event. Maybe it's because I just don't have the drive or the knowledge to involve myself in the industry any longer...

Edmonton DemoCamp 5

Just checked out the latest info on DemoCampEdmonton5 taking place at the E1 003, ETLC, University of Alberta on Wednesday, January 7th at 6:30 PM. I'm awaiting word back from one of the volunteer's (MasterMaq) about who is able to attend. I'm asking because I want to know if the general public is allowed to attend this event for the presentations and networking opportunities.

Well folks, turns out the general public can attend this free event. It's a tech/geek kind of demo show. Lots of great software and suites were shown at the last DemoCamp, so I'm looking forward to my first show. If you can spare the time Wednesday evening, you should definitely head down and check it out. It runs from 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM, with a social gathering afterwards. Great networking opportunity with fellow developers and techy-folk.

Happy New Year --「しんねんおめでとうございます。」

Another year has come and gone. Strange, I don't feel any different.  /shrug

I'm still working on the ability to instantly recognize all 46 hiragana ( ひらがな ). Writing them at the same time as learning to recognize them is a great way to speed up the learning process. My end-goal is to be able to read, write and pronounce the 46 basic hiragana, the 25 daku-ten and the 36 handaku-ten quickly. Once I feel comfortable in my ability to read, write and pronounce all of them quickly (near-fluently), I will move on to the katakana equivalents.

I will move on to kanji after becoming completely comfortable with reading, writing and pronouncing both kana sets. The really difficult aspect of the written language is kanji. Each kanji can have one or more readings (meanings); each of which is only understood if the context in-which it was used, was conveyed and understood.

A quick example in English:

i.   I am content with the outcome.

ii.  The content of this article is helpful.

The word "content" is an excellent example of a heteronym; a word with multiple meanings depending on the pronounciation and context in which it is used. The emphasis on CONtent refers to what something contains, while conTENT refers to being happy with an end result.

Japanese is full of homonyms and heteronyms because the basic syllabry is comprised of just 101 "phonetics", or sounds. In contrast, English uses more than 3,000 "phonetics" for 70,000 of the most-commonly used words. A stark contrast indeed.

Samsung SH-S223Q LightScribe™ DVD-RW

Funny how you can go so long without needing something, then all of the sudden, you need it. Well, that is the case for me in regards to a CD/DVD burner for my computer. I have a ton of music that needs to be converted to CD Audio (.cda) so the need has arisen for a CD/DVD burner.

After some pretty exhaustive research (I'm OCD when it comes to computer hardware and peripherals), I have settled on the Samsung SH-S223Q 22-speed DVD Writer with LightScribe™ 2.0. Strange thing is, the media is more expensive than the drive. $29.99 for the drive, $31.99 for 30 Verbatim 700MB LightScribe 2.0 CD's.

My kit consists of two Ion CDJ's that only play standard CD's, so I need to convert my new tracks to CD-Audio (.cda) and burn them up so I can start spinning them. Almost 5 hours of new tracks (see previous post) arrived and I've been listening to them non-stop on shuffle, getting a feel for how certain tracks will work together.

Should be getting the drive on Tuesday'ish.