My Digital Media Adventure

The Early Days

This blog is going to be about my thoughts throughout my Digital Media experience. Before I jump into my Digital Media experiences, I'm going back even further, back to 1983.  My first experience with AB Tech started with me throwing the school catalog open and picking the first program I saw, Mechanical Engineering.  Yes, I really did not have a clue of "what I wanted to do when I grew up".  After about three years and less than an stellar GPA, I completed the Mechanical Engineering program. That was about the time Top Gun the movie came out and suddenly I got the desire to see the world. Long story short, I joined the Navy, saw the world and ended up retiring 20 years later ( by the way, the Navy was nothing like Top Gun).

Post Navy

I was back to "what do I want to do now that I've grown up". I had worked with electronics in the Navy so I decided to work at getting certified as an electrician. After about two years I decided that being an electrician was not my "cup of tea" and I had the GI bill (money for college). Once again I grabbed a AB Tech catalog and threw it open. I' m kidding, it wasn't quit that degree of a clueless decision (but close). I enjoyed digital photography and making slide shows so the Digital Media program seemed the logical choice. After all, how hard could it be?

The Beginning

My fist class was DME-110 that was completely full, at least for the first week. The class was a brief (very brief) introduction of what was to follow throughout the program. About half way through I started question my choice of majors and the realization started to set in, this was not going to be the "cake walk" I had envisioned. Little did I know at that time that the Digital Media program would be, in my opinion,  significantly harder than the Mechanical Engineering program I had squeaked by 20+ years ago. The program has three tracks that students can focus; Programming, Video and Artistic. Unlike many of the other students I did not have any idea which track I would focus my efforts. My instructor, Jonathan Ross assured me that I would figure it out later.

Half Way There

By the end of the first summer semester I had concluded that the programing track was not "my cup of tea" and the struggles with the animation classes were making me think that the artistic track was not looking promising either. By now I was  thinking that crawling under houses or in attics running wire was not that bad vise sitting in front of computer for long periods, struggling with code or being creative. However, to my surprise I really enjoyed the the DME-140 Introduction to Audio and Video class.  I was staring to think video may be the track for me.

Light at the end of the tunnel

I'm about to finish the spring semester which included the big scary DME 285 Systems Project class. I have a DME 270 Professional Practices and a couple of electives to finish the my degree. Its been very difficult journey, not the "cake walk" I anticipated. There have been some stressful times involving both school and family. I'm sure there were times that my instructors ears were burning when I'm at home struggling with homework.  Looking back I see this program is/was a difficult one to teach and I know my instructor Jonathan Ross had/has a sincere to desire for us the students to succeed in a field that is extremely complicated and competitive.

Conclusion

I'm proud and happy I stuck it out. I commend my fellow students that also stuck with it and will graduate this coming Friday.  Now I look forward to using all the tools that I have been given to hopefully make my mark in the videography business. Its a little scary but I know without any risk, there are no gains. Hopefully I've finally figured out what I want to do now that I'm grown.

CMS Templates

As newbie web designer, its very tempting to find a template that will meet my needs rather than starting from scratch.  In this blog I'll discuss my thoughts about which road I think would be the "path of least resistance". The school project I'm presently working on I'm using Joomla for a content management system and I must say Joomla is a real challenge.  That being said, a template at my present level of experience, looks mighty appealing and will be my angle of attack.

Template Resources

My Google search revealed some pretty good sites for free Joomla templates that would even provide a live demo. The templates I found were pretty attractive and being free, made them even more attractive.  The following web sites were just a few out I found:

• Joomla Shack
• Joomla Shine 
• Best of Joomla
• Site Ground 

However if you feel the need to design your own template, I did find a couple tutorials for designing templates for Joomla. Compass Designs .net  had a good tutorial that explained Joomla's structure in a way that even I could understand. Another excellent site is Joomla's site itself that gave extra incite for Mac users.  Apparently Joomla can have issues with the way Mac OSX handles files and the site explains how to prevent it. One more tutorial worth mentioning is from Net Nuts.  I found this site really easy to follow and it starts with the installation of a local server, WAMP for Windows users and MAMP for Mac users.

Art Space Charter School

As I mentioned earlier, I'm working on a Joomla site for the school above and had to first find a template that would match the the schools desired look and feel.  The  look and feel being a school of fine art rather than day care with kids finger painting.  The site would also serve as information source for parents of kids enrolled and looking to enroll.  The template pictured below was what I envisioned for structure. The imagery and color scheme would be different to match the school's desired theme.

In closing,  I mentioned earlier Joomla has been a challenge however I'm finding that the more I use it, the more I'm starting to like it. I highly recommend that you buy a book or find tutorials on line or both. As my experience with Joomla increases, designing templates from scratch will not seem so daunting. For now, I'm going to tweak an existing template.