Learning New Things in Familiar Applications

One of my favorite applications to use on the computer is Adobe Photoshop. In fact, its one of my favorite things to do, period. I love to fire up my computer and open up Photoshop for any reason, some times, just to take my mind off my troubles. (And with the new upgrades in my computer's hardware it it opens up faster than ever! No more waiting on fonts, filters, and plugins to load!) I've been a Photoshop enthusiast for the better part of 15 years, since Photoshop 5 and now I'm on Photoshop CS5. This is my primary design and graphics editor. Sure there are others I could use and have used, like Illustrator, Fireworks, and Flash (not to mention Corel Draw), but I feel so much at home on Photoshop, why go somewhere else?

However, after 15 years of using this program, there are still so many things for me to learn about it. In my last blog article I talked about the need to learn more about using paths and the pen tool. Always committed to life-long learning, I look for ways to learn more in any area that interests me. And, even after 15 years, Photoshop is no different. One of the best ways for me to learn about something on the computer, other than the obvious, dive right in and see what it can do, is through tutorials. Some times I search for specific tutorials and other times, especially in Photoshop, I rely on sight and go by a picture that looks cool to me. There are many free tutorial sites out there on Photoshop (Planet Photoshop, Photoshop Cafe, and Adobe Tutorialz to name a few.) with great mini-lessons that teach you about the tools while you create a work of art. I love these tutorials as compared to other lessons where you sit down open it up or play the video, and they start out by, today we are going to learn how to use the pen tool... (Snooze! Sorry, already lost me!) Show me some eye-candy first (follow these steps and you can make something that looks like this) and I go, oooh!

I came across a tutorial that helped me create the image at the top of the blog article while pinning around in Pinterest the other day. I almost passed it up but then noticed that it was a tutorial on creating a lace stroke effect on text. (I'm sorry I can't remember where/who I originally got it from on Pinterest.) The pin lead me to a site (Web Design Library) I wouldn't have thought of for a Photoshop tutorial (although, I now know to go there as they have MANY Photoshop tutorials and lots of other great tutorials!) I love tutorials like this one because they show you step by step with pictures of the interface you are using and what to click on and where. The screen captures allow you to work at your own pace without having to keep pausing a video at each step and then replay it. (Although video tutorials work well at times, too.)

The original image in the tutorial looked like this:

Through the course of the tutorial I learned about using the Polygon Tool (and adjusting options on it), defining a pattern, using Paths (which is what I was looking for), working with text, and much more. If you have never tried an online tutorial, I encourage you to try it - start simple, find an image you like, and start there. You will feel very good about yourself when you finish the tutorial and will have something really cool you can show. I altered mine slightly to fit in with my Moulin Rouge style kitchen (a project that I will hopefully get to this fall when the weather is cooler and more accommodating for painting cabinetry). If you would like to see the tutorial for the the Lace Stroke Text Effect shown in the picture above, click on the picture to go to the page.

Twitter - The New Web 2.0 Chatroom

As I was sitting here hanging out in Twitter, one of my favorite spots on the web, it occurred to me that Twitter has become the new chatroom. But, what I also realized was how much better than a chatroom Twitter has become. In the old days of chat (5-10 years ago, after the realization that AOL members rooms and AOL was not for me) I used to frequent a Yahoo chatroom about and for web designers and offer help and advice to those that wandered in. There were other regulars (regs) that would hang out there that we would chat with and get to know, some on a more personal level than others. For me, it was a chance to develop my personal learning network (pln), learn more about web design and graphic design, show off some of my skills, teach others what I know, and to relax and unwind while still maintaining some intellect. For others, it was a place to spam their wares or business, have things done for them, or to look for companionship. We would have the spammers and the porn bots that would come in and invade our chats, but there were ways of dealing with them - usually either through our chat client or by placing them on ignore (into the iggybin).

I liked the fact that it was topic based and that unless you were into web design or graphic design, unless you were a bot or a spammer, the topic stayed around the interest of web design. Occasionally, when I had questions I could not answer about my Macs, I would venture into the MacIntosh room, and always found the regs in the room very helpful. But looking back, it was room hopping and just didn't feel very much like "home".

With Twitter, I can choose who to follow under a multitude of interests and topics, I can follow different (hashtag) conversations, share tweets I find of interest with others that follow my feeds (through retweets), join regularly scheduled weekly chats of my interests, and have the luxury of not having spammers or bot posts show up in my time line feeds. Instead, the spam feeds are kept private to mentions and I can click a button to delete their post, block the sender, and report them as a spammer all in one click of the mouse. My followers never need know of their post unless I choose to share it with them. And with 140 characters to a post, it forces people to think more intelligibly before they post, and we don't end up with those just wandering in saying, "Hai frnd". I really like how I am not limited to a single topic in Twitter, and do not feel like I am wandering from room to room if I want to follow another topic of interest other than web design or STEM teachers. I also don't have to worry about others coming into the chatroom with the obnoxiously large red font crying for help or the "perdy" rainbow font wanting to be your "frnd" as they used to in the old days of Yahoo chatrooms.

I am still able to learn from others, and share my knowledge with others, as I was able to in a regular chatroom, still able to offer help and advice, and able to do all the things I loved about being a reg in a chatroom, only now I can follow the feeds long after I have gone to bed or while I'm busy in school during the day. If anything, I've found that I have learned more in the short time that I have been active on Twitter than the years I have spent hanging out in chatrooms. My PLN has grown by leaps and bounds ever so much more than it has in the chatrooms, and I am finally accepted as an intelligent, funny, interesting, talented woman rather than some geeky chic, Kinetic's girlfriend, or the room's FM (freak magnet).

Child-like Discoveries

"Childhood is measured out by sounds and smells and sights, before the dark hour of reason grows." ~John Betjeman, Summoned by Bells

Children are a wonder. They have this natural curiosity about all things that allows them to explore and discover their surroundings. They lack the sense of danger that comes with age and experience that allows them to learn without hesitation through their explorations.

All too often as adult we are afraid to try new things for fear of failure or fear of breaking something (like ourselves - our bones, or the machines we are on). But what could we accomplish if we approach these opportunities with child-like optimism?

Many times I'm asked, "How did you learn how to do everything on the computer? Did you take classes?" Sometimes I do tell them of classes and training sessions I've had, but most of the time my response is simply, "I've learned from trying and not being afraid to push buttons." And then I see the look, that puzzling, timid, shocked, scared, well - what if I break something look. And here's the beauty of it all, and my reply, its only a machine and can be fixed or rebuilt.

Last week I got a new Android phone and have been trying to learn a new user-interface because I'm not familiar with Android OS. I think I gave the battery a pretty good workout this weekend on an photographic excursion to Naples (Florida). Although I brought my dslr and all its bulky lenses and equipment with me, sometimes it was just easier and more practical to slide out my handy cell phone and snap a picture or two. While I've been taking pictures and uploading them to Facebook and Google Plus, I've also been playing with the settings and seeing what each setting was capable of. Sure, I could have read manuals, blogs, and other articles about my phone; they all would have helped me learn about its capabilities. But I find the best way to learn something is to just play with it and see what it can do. Some may be saying, what if I broke my new phone? Well, my thinking to that is that I have all of my Contacts backed up elsewhere, and my pictures are all saved onto a memory card (and most have been uploaded to my computer), so if I really messed my phone up badly, I could always reset it as a LAST resort, so no harm in pushing buttons!

My mom has a smart phone and hates it. She says she doesn't understand it and doesn't know how to work it. On a recent visit, my children and I played with her phone for about five minutes. The interface was different than what I was used to, but I was still able to figure out a few things on her phone. We made her a video and showed her some things on her phone she never knew existed. She wanted to know how we knew how to do those things on there so quickly. My question to her was, well, have you played with it? She didn't understand the question.

When many adults think of the word "play" the word is interpreted as something children do. Yes, children do play - it's how they learn. When children play house, they are learning how to communicate with one another, and they are learning how adults do things in the real word. When children play games, they are learning about sportsmanship and strategies. Younger children love to learn, because to them, learning is fun. They have not, yet, equated learning to work. I think we as adults need to spend less time working at work, and more time playing at work. If nothing else, it would make work a more fun place to be. Have you played today? :)