It was 2001 when I took my first photography class. I already knew most of the concepts, like the basic features of a camera, how to compose a scene, and how to develop film. The class did, however, introduce me to the basic darkroom techniques I needed. My teacher was also a big help with critiques. His comments kept me going back into the darkroom to improve.

I met some students that were from the advanced film class, using the lab during the same time. They showed me some extra tips and tricks that I don’t believe I would’ve picked up from my photo teacher or lab assistant. This is also how I was introduced to the larger-format cameras, particularly the 4 x 5 camera. I was excited about how large the negatives were and how much detail they could pack in.

So, through the educational discount, I purchased a Toyo-View 45CX and dove right in. I utilized my teacher and the lab assistant to the fullest. I learned a lot from them and surprisingly got a lot out of a beginner’s photography class.

In 2003, I took my second photography class. This class involved learning about filters, using infrared film, and shooting portraits using a medium format camera.

I had never tried infrared film before and I still had my 4 x 5 camera, so I used it for the assignment.

When it came time to use the medium format, I borrowed one of the school’s Mamiya C220s. This is when I realized this was the format for me. It wasn’t huge like a 4 x 5 camera. It didn’t take that long to set up a shot. When searching out a shot, it was more convenient walking and looking periodically down into the waste-level finder, whereas a 35mm camera would need to be brought up to the face and back down again. After testing out the camera, I borrowed a friend’s Hasselblad. It took a little bit more getting used to then the Mamiya, but within a day I was sold. The images from the Zeiss lenses were outstanding. It was time to sell off the 4 x 5 equipment and take advantage of another educational discount. Soon, I had a Hasselblad 501C/M.

Back in 1999, I started backpacking and would take a camera with me all the time.

When I first started I took the 35mm. Later, I took the 4 x 5. Now I take my Hasselblad. It never mattered carrying all the weight so I could get great shots using a great camera. Nevertheless, with using film and my inexperience came problems.

There was a time when I woke up early to shoot some nice scenes around Yosemite Valley with the 4 x 5. I finished up around lunchtime and wanted to reload the film holders. Unfortunately, the holders were never loaded in the first place. I had been taking pictures with no film!

There was another time when I went to Death Valley. This time I had film in the camera. When I got home to develop them, I tried a few negatives in the XTOL powder developer. I had never used it before, and it did not turn out so well. I could tell that the composition of the shots were good, but the developer had rendered the piece of film unprintable. Luckily, this was only done to a few sheets of film from that trip.

One of the last times I went backpacking was to Mineral King in Sequoia National Park. I was carrying my Hasselblad with me. There were a couple times where I wanted to stop on the trail to take a picture, but then I thought it would be too much trouble to put down my pack, unpack the camera, set up the tripod, meter the shot, and snap the photo. And then, turn around and pack it all up again, and put my backpack on to continue up the trail, didn’t sound like the most fun.

During that trip, I asked my friend and myself, “Why don’t I go digital?”

I think I would be doing graphic design, photography, or computer programming.

Get them while they’re hot:

• Blurt
• Gab

Oh, bad pun!

<em>Practical C Programming</em>

That seems to work, but em renders as emphasized text. Do we really want to emphasize a book title?

According to the Modern Language Association (MLA) guidelines and the Chicago Manual of Style, book titles may be italicized or underlined. Perhaps we could have the book title underlined? It’s probably not a good idea because it would interfere with links which are generally (and always by default) underlined. So let’s try something else.

We’re trying really hard to keep content and style separated. We could use CSS and wrap the book title with span tags.

<span class="book">Practical C Programming</span>

span.book { font-style: italic; }

That sounds good, but if we disable the stylesheet, the italics disappear. Then the book title is like everything else.

If we don’t use em we could revert to using i. Most people wouldn’t even consider this, but I did. The i is not deprecated. But then again, we’re trying really hard to keep content and style separate.

When I first learned how to use cite, I assumed it was blockquote’s “sidecar”. It could also be q’s for that matter. But if you look at Dan’s discussion about titles, you will see some good points about why cite should be used. Take a look at the HTML specification too. When your content “contains a citation or a reference to other sources” you should use cite. Think about that—“a reference to other sources”. Wouldn’t you consider me talking about a book as being another source besides this article? It makes sense.

<cite>Practical C Programming</cite>

How would you mark up a book title?

1. The best way to learn a language?
   I’ll observe methods from several books of how someone can learn a computer programming language.
2. Skillset requirements for today’s web people.
   How far can a web designer go before having to be a web developer? How far can a web developer go before having to be a programmer?
3. What’s the big deal with Javascript?
   It’s one piece of the trio (HTML/CSS/Javascript), but why is it so important to know? How much do we need to know?
4. Web Site Reviews: Luxury Merchandise in Flash
   Sites like Fendi and Persol leave much to be desired. If a Fendi bag costs over $3000, why can’t they budget out a little more for their website? Come on! If I’m actually there to see some bags, it takes me to another site. And is Flash the medium of choice for all these upscale brands? Flash limits your viewing area to a set-sized stage. Try navigating one of these sunglass sites: Persol, Ray-Ban, and Revo. Well, I guess it doesn’t help that these were made by the same company.
5. IE7 is Here. When Will We Stop Supporting IE5/5.5?
   Box Model Hack be gone!
6. Big companies want Ajax.
   It’s time to start caring about Ajax frameworks.
7. Getting a lot of comment spam with Movable Type.
   Maybe I should just turn off the commetns altogether since nobody uses that feature.
8. Books I’ve been reading lately.
   I’ll even tell you what I think of them.
9. Java
   It’s ugly. It requires a lot to even program "Hello World". But is it worth learning?
10. Lose the templates.
    Design individual pages based on your content. Apple is a good example. Even the width of pages are different depending on the product or section of the site.
11. Content writing for people who want to sell product.
    Don’t ask a lot of questions like this is an infomercial. Just tell people why they want your product. Keep it simple and to the point. Educate them on the concepts in your product if it’s new or foreign to most. If you can’t do this, it might not be entirely your fault. It may be the product that needs some rethinking.
12. Beer
    Forget wine. BevMo has a crazy selection of beers that even get ratings on the 100-point scale from the “BevMo Beer Ambassadors”.

Maybe I shouldn’t even bother learning Ruby On Rails till the framework has matured and the frequency of new features has leveled off.

A couple of days ago, I found a post by Molly Holleschalage(sp) regarding the way companies write their job adverts. I’ve been thinking about this as well. Who in the company writes those listings? Do they know what ASP, JSP, PHP, Perl, XSL, and the lot really are? And do they really expect web developers to have all of these skills coming into the job?

Take the case where you see a job listing and the list of requirements is overwhelming. When do you say, "Yes, I’m going to apply", and when do you stop and think that maybe you shouldn’t even bother? I stop and think a lot.

I’ve got the HTML and CSS skills. I can write some Javascript. I know PHP pretty well. Heck, I even took a Java class at a junior college and excelled at it. But do I know about JavaBeans? No. J2EE? No, but it has something to do with Java. JSP? If it’s like PHP then I may have a chance.

What about experience? I have seen listings call for good experience, strong experience, 2+ years of hands-on experience, 3+ years experience, or 5+ years experience. Then there are the must-haves. And don't forget knowing a certain skill can be “a plus”.

The Resume

A couple of years ago I listed my experience in years: 9 years of HTML, 3 years of CSS, 2 years of PHP, …. But what do years really tell you about a person’s knowledge of a particular technology? I could have used CSS for 3 years without ever putting together a stylesheet for a complex design that would end up needing further alterations to work with Internet Explorer. Could I even say I have one year of Perl experience because there was a period of time when I used formmail.pl for form submissions? I’m not sure experience in years can really measure a person’s skills.

Once, during an interview, I was asked to rate my skills on a scale from one to ten. That was tough. “HTML? Uh, 8? No! 9?” I didn’t know how low was too low before looking bad too. I think I gave Javascript a 4 because I don’t do any crazy programming with it. I use it for DOM scripting. If I don’t know something, I look it up in a reference book. Maybe I should have given Javascript a 5 or 6?

Now I’ve updated the way I list my summary of skills. I use three different categories: Experienced, Intermediate, and Basic Knowledge. I snatched the idea from Eric Meyer’s résumé. Thanks, Eric.

But when can we official say we have basic knowledge of something? I just read the book, IBM Smalltalk: The Language, this past week. I now have basic knowledge of Smalltalk’s methodologies, yet I have programmed nothing in Smalltalk. Does this count as basic knowledge? What if I were to read another programming book, typed out the examples as I went along, and completed the exercises at the end of each chapter? Does this count? I took a Java programming class in junior college and a Java/C programming class at a university. Does this count?

One more thing I would like to mention is skills, just to have skills. I’ve used Flash. I was good at tweening and some basic ActionScript in Flash 4. Then Flash 5 came out and I didn’t like the interface changes so I stopped using it for awhile. When MX came out, I got back into it for a project or two, which involved ActionScript-ing. But I found myself getting frustrated. While my code seemed to be written logically, things would not work as expected. I gave up on Flash and I would honestly be happy if I never had to touch it again. But I have the skills; I know Flash and I can do some ActionScript. So I put those words into my resume. Well, 90% of the calls I received, from submitting my resume to a job search site, were looking for someone to fill a Flash position. Now I am removing Flash and ActionScript from my resume because I now know that it’s not always a good idea to include skills, just to beef up the resume. If, during an interview, I was asked about having Flash skills, I could tell them yes but explain where I stand about doing it.

Conclusion

I only touched upon skills this time through. Work experience, what your role was at Company X, and the portfolio of sites which you’ve assisted in completing are some other important parts of the resume.

What’s in your resume? How do you rate your skills? What do you purposely exclude from the resume? And don’t forget about those lovely job listings on all those job boards!

Somehow, I heard about Django. I quickly skimmed the Django documentation to get a feel for what it was and how I would accomplish simple tasks that I had a vague idea how they could be done through Rails. Then, after some Google-ing, I found the Snakes and Rubies video.

Yeah, I’m a year behind, but it was still an enlightening video. Here are some things I learned from it:

• the Django guys really get a kick out of putting silly stuff in their Powerpoint presentations.
• Adrian Holovaty isn’t the greatest speaker. (Hey, I’m not a good speaker.)
• Simon Willison, in the audience, seemed to know more about Django than Adrian. (Maybe he should have spoken for Django?)
• Django is good for making newspaper-style sites, not web applications.
• Adrian likes to write Javascript. David does not. (I do not!)
• There is more magic in Rails.
• Django has a great admin framework built into it.
• David seems to have an answer for everything. Adrian did not.
• Rails is more MVC than Django.
• Django does database creation better than Rails’ migrate.
• There is probably more to say, but I can’t think of it all right now.

Somehow, after watching the video for over an hour, I still think Rails is the better choice for what I would like to do. It’s easier on the eyes. David is right; Ruby code looks beautiful. It is much easier to read and understand. Django, on the other hand, looks promising, but I think it may only be useful for building a customized CMS at this time.

I have even toyed with the idea of creating my own framework. But, no matter how much I think about where to begin, how to make it, and what language to use, I still come back to Rails. David developed it well.

I did another Google search on web application frameworks and saw that a few people were talking about Seaside, a framework built on Smalltalk. I’m not sure how I feel about these at this time. I may have more to say about these soon.

So, any ideas? Should I just stick with ugly ol’ PHP? Maybe I should look at what PHP5 can do. What are your thoughts?

Maybe I should just seriously learn C.

He asked me what kind of watch I was wearing. “Omega.” He removed his watch and handed it to me. "This thing is titanium, limited edition." Damn, it was light. It weighed nothing compared to my Omega Seamaster. The catch: his was the 150th anniversary edition of the Omega Seamaster. He continued to chat about how he liked nice things. He wanted the nice watch. It matched the paint on his Jaguar. He liked going sailing in the Bay Area. He taught me a little about sailing. “Puke down wind so it doesn’t come back in your face. But it’s probably okay because the next time the water comes up over the boat, it’ll get washed off.”

The Oakridge store doesn’t have a checkout counter. I bought an Airport Extreme card for my girlfriend. Richard pulled out a large PDA from his belt, scanned the product, swiped my credit card, walked over to a drawer, pulled out the receipt and a bag, handed me the receipt, bagged my Airport card, and the purchase was done. That was nice, quick, and convenient.

12 o’clock came around and it was time to get my Mighty Mouse fixed. The guy tried his magic. After some rubbing with a damp cloth (not sure what he used to get it damp), the scrolling was a little better. It could scroll, but it wasn’t 100%. I figured he would give up and tell me I had to deal with it or buy a new one. But he went to the back and pulled out another Mighty Mouse. I think, because it was in a cardboard box, it may have been a refurbished mouse. He told me that we could just do an exchange, but I needed to provide some information. Unfortunately, I have never registered an Apple product. But now I see why I should. To make the exchange, Apple would need to track the transaction by way of my registration or by giving them the serial number off my computer. Naturally, I don’t carry the serial number to my computer in my wallet. So the store is going to hold the mouse for me for five days. All I need to do is go home, write down the number off my computer, and come back with my old mouse.

All in all, I believe this was 20 times better an experience than going to Valley Fair’s Apple Store. So what have we learned? Go to Oakridge. Come on, Robert Scoble thinks “Oakridge isn’t too ghetto anymore”.

I have heard that the new Wireless Mighty Mouse has been improved. Yes, it has laser tracking which would be a really nice step up, but I am more concerned with the Scroll Ball. I’m spoiled with that thing. I’m not going to mouse over to the scrollbars when I have it right there in the mouse.

How do I know this new mouse is for me? Maybe I should try it out. Nope! Sorry. Apple Stores don’t have the mice out because they might get stolen. I guess that’s understandable, but how do I figure out if I want to buy the mouse? They could have taken one out for me to try, and after I was done, they could have put it away. Do what jewelry stores does. Take it out of the case. Show it off. Allow the customer to want to buy it. Apple, you could make another person happy with one of your products. You should have made me happy, especially since I came in unhappy because my Apple product has failed me.

Whatever. I’m going to Oakridge. Those Apple Store employees know how to make people happy.