The New Puppy Chronicles - the saga continues

   I watched Emmy Lou, pictured above, stick her 'baby's head (a very tattered stuffed toy animal) into her own food dish and pretend to make it eat the other day. Thinking I must be daft, I continued to watch as she brought her other 'baby' to the bowl and do the same. In fact, she is just now doing exactly the same thing with yet another, new-found, 'baby' - pretending to make them eat from her dish.

  Yesterday, I watched as she decapitated the only blossom in my sister's beloved Bachelor Button patch - the very first bloom of the year.

  Today, I watched the older dog here - still very much a puppy himself - teach her how to play 'keep away'. He spent several days teaching her with great determination and patience. Hence the reason she is pooped out and crashed - they've been playing all day.

  Had I been hereon, or otherwise distracted, I would have missed these things - hence the reason I've not been posting.

  And, as long as I am making excuses explaining things, there are a couple of other reasons, 'why' that is so. First of all, one of my most important pieces of software - the one that lets me animate - 'gave up the ghost' somehow. I suspect it was my downloading the latest (sic) Windows Service Pack 2. I have avoided doing so for the very reason that Windows 'updates' tend to do that - fuck things up. I cannot re-register now because the creator of that software does not work on weekends - I can't make things 'right' until tomorrow.

  The other reason is a bit more involved. My days are becoming truncated at a pretty fair clip now. I can only function at the level necessary for being creative for a few hours a day - due to the constraints of emphysema. Most of my day is filled with trying to get those things done demanded of me by simply 'being alive' - eating, cleaning, dressing etc. I only have so much time to be conscious anymore. I sleep nearly 18 hours a day now. I must. That is all the air I have. So you can understand why I'd prefer to play with Emmy Lou than play with my computer.

  The software issue will be resolved shortly, a myriad of subjects to which I'd love to turn my attention are at hand and I am fine-tuning my schedule to fit the physical demands of my condition. That said, I hasten to add - things are spiraling out of control very quickly these days in the world. I am aware, concerned and deeply troubled as I hope you are. We should not be sleeping soundly these days - there is a war going on right now and we'd better win it or we will lose our history and our future.

I'll be back and stay as long as I can when I can. Until then - read this.

Comments

[Bernie]

Good deal with the dog.
I am curious - what is the animation software that you use?

[Steel]

Hmmm.

I should elaborate ...

Everything goes into Paint.NET first - it was created by a computer class at U of Washington and is free - it's a clone of PaintShop Pro.

Then it goes into GIF Construction Set Pro from Alchemy MindWorks for simple animation - that's the one that's belly up.

If I need more finesse, I use GIMP, which is a Photoshop clone and open source - also free.

If it needs still more, I'll use Photoshop CS3 - I shy away from this one because it is too cumbersome for most of the trivial things I make.

From there, I go to Swish, Xara, KoolMoves, Serif or Morpheus - these are all flash-able and each has specific goodies I use. They all cost money, but not so much.

The usual path is Paint.NET > GIMP > GIF Pro > Swish to obtain the flash stuff.

I also rely heavily on Watermark Factory, Snap Shot, Recolor, MapEdit and IntuImage.

There's a handful of very specific tools - Advanced Effect Maker, for instance - that I use when necessary.

For code writing, I use PSPad and have Dreamweaver.

I have three different 'viewers' and as many photo specific software pkgs that work with batches and have different advantages.

VUE is loaded but I've yet to use it - it makes landscapes, figures and structures.

There's some software loaded that deals with panoramas/photo stitching - yet to use it either.

I have SiteJot to manage links - free, easy, fast and I love it!

I have had IncrediMail since the beginning and I love that too.

Sounds like a lot and it is, considering that I am using a low end laptop.

My sister can do pretty much anything I could but in Photoshop - she will be getting Maya soon.

I learned how to do things by trial and error and depended on Web 2.0 goodies - very specific online tools and open source stuff when I was learning.

I prefer tools with limited capacity/specific use to PS.

All totaled, I'd guess I have half a gig onboard, but the majority of it won't open unless called upon - so it doesn't interfere with booting or speed.

I have Picasa and a 1 Gig external hard drive to keep 95% of my images and software backup.

Last time I looked, I have over 50,000 images saved. Lost another 35,000 when my last hard drive went belly up - hence the External HD.

I doubt I'll get too carried away with video ... maybe ... and if I did, I'd use my sister's Maya or her son's Premier.

All things considered, I have one helluva setup - it exceeds what you'd find in many pro setups - on a laptop that only cost $398.00.

If I find I can't do something in one program, there'll be a couple of others where I can.

Most of the stuff is intuitive and simple with easy learning curves - has to be because I really am a dummy when it comes to this stuff.

Luckily, my sister has been doing animation for over ten years and I can always ask her if I get over my head.

For instance - that spinning 'game wheel' with all the links?

Way over my head/ability - she cranked it out in minutes.

I recently got some mosaic creation software and am learning that.

I need a font manager - must have close to 300 loaded and am always finding more. Just haven't taken the time to explore them yet.

My next major leap will be to create apps for mobile devices - start with free trials and purchase as needed ... less than 150 bucks in the end for software that I can then make apps with to sell online.

This is a hobby for me, Bernie. Keeps me sane and exercises my mind.

I'm losing my brain cells at a rather disturbing rate these days - all this stuff keeps me learning and thinking.

And it's fun :)

I'd probably be dangerous if I knew what I was doing.

[Steel]

Oh, forgot to mention ...

I am always on the lookout for online tools and have at least 100 bookmarked.

Every so often, I'll crank up StumbleUpon and spend a day or two perusing categories like, 'design', 'computer software', 'art' etc to keep abreast of what's new and out there - how it employed, how it's done.

I do the same with tutorials. Spend some time seeing what's available and watching or bookmarking what I might need.

Same with photo collections and image inventories.

You're probably sorry you asked, but I'm glad you did because it's something I've wanted to pass along anyway.

It sounds like I must be glued to this stupid little box but that isn't the case at all.

Even when I'm posting several items per day - it might take from a couple of hours to a long night and I'm doing other stuff at the same time - that is key.

It's the multitasking that keeps me sharp.

Going from here to the kitchen to taking the pup for a walk and then picking up right where I was with a project hereon really keeps me going.

Heh. I have to retrain if I take more'n about three days :]

And now that I'm on morphine and oxycontin ....

... whoowee - I gotta work real hard to keep focused.

___________________________________________________________

Don't know if you'll see this FireDog - but it was YOU who steered me this way. Thanks!

[Bernie]

Thank-you for the feedback. I need to explore some of software trails you have broken. I take care of a web page for my Vietnam Seabee Battalion (53). When I took it over it was a one page blue screen with some words and a few pictures. So I discovered I had FrontPage, learned how to use it, and built it up to a fairly nice site. It is on angelfire because that is free and that is where the original blue screen site was initiated by my predecessor. I use Photobie for animated gif construction. I also use Wondershare flash gallery, 3D text, and Amara Flash intro/banner maker. I picked up Microsoft Expression a little while back and have just played around with it a little. It has been a real challenge keeping the angelfire site under the 20 Meg limit. I have links going all over the place to keep the home size down. I also do our quarterly news letters - another learned from scratch endeavor. In fabricating the newsletters I just use word, converting them with Acrobat 6 for those that I email. If you want to check out the web site just use the Bing search engine, type in MCB 53, should be the first hit. I am on an XP machine which is just fine and I dread when I will be forced to go to 7 since I will probably lose most of my programs. If you are curious about the newsletters I can email you a few as attachments (would need an email address). I have put a couple of the winter ones on our web site so visitors can see what we do.
OK, two finger typing is exhausting so that is it.
Enjoy the good life.

[Steel]

Bernie ...

I think your site is dandy!

Looks like you've absorbed quite a lot in your own trial and error training :)

If you move it to NetWork Solutions, it'll only be 35 bucks a year and no limits.

AND you can assign a domain name outright.

It may be just my eye - but I prefer things centered when possible - images etc.

When & Where were you There, amigo?

If there's anything I can do to help you in anyway - just ask.

Please DO send your newsletters ...

steelturman-at-gmail-dot-com

As to the switch to Vista or 7 ... external hard drives are dirt cheap.

Buy one, back up everything to it and make the switch.

You won't lose a thing.

[Mouse]

Spider, my cat, does the same thing with his stuffed companion, 'Tigre'. Back when I also had 2 other cats and a dog, my thoughts were that he parked Tigre in front of the food bowl as a form of intimidation towards the other cats. It worked really well in that regard. However, the dog was another story. When the first opportunity presented itself, he got hold of Tigre and proceeded to tear him from limb to limb. I had to gather up the bits and sew Tigre back together again. We got him a brand new Tigre but he wanted the old crippled one instead. Now that we are alone, just me and Spider, Tigre still partakes of the food bowl. She also gets to stand guard in the doorway to the bedroom when we are sleeping.