Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Self Publishing, Designs and other Creative Pursuits

This month has been a busy month for me.  I've been reading a lot and getting things organized in my mind and in my life. 

  • I've started to write my first book, a fictional story about just how dark a dark side of a love triangle can get, called "Hurt".
  • I've worked up my first t-shirt design and have two more in the oven, hopefully to be released for sale by the end of May.  I also hope to have the first musical influenced design under the name "Zic Apparel" released in May.
  • May will be the month for the first Chelsea Adobe User Group meeting and I'm planning on making it a big one, a CS5 launch event, that I will advertise the hell out of to drive membership to the new club.
  • I'm looking for new ways to get involved in my community.
  • The launch of "th!nkNadon" web consulting is well underway as well.  I just received my new business cards and I've been working on the website.  The plan is to offer full web design and business consulting in the focus of internet storefronts.

On top of those things, spring is in full effect around my place and I'm finding peace in sitting out on the deck and reading, surrounded by nature and knowing that I'm moving in the right direction.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Adobe says it's moving on and not spending any more energy on Apple

Mike Chambers, the Principal Product Manager for developer relations for the Flash Platform at Adobe, has posted a blog announcing that although Adobe Flash CS5 will release with the ability to publish to the iPhone platform, that they will not spend any further energy in future releases on this feature.

The core of the argument is that Adobe has proved that it can publish content with Flash that would work on the Apple products, but Apple is not interested in allowing developers to create flash (and some other types)content that would be run in these environments.

Apple has strict policies about what will be allowed to be published and what won't be allowed.  This is absolutely there choice to deny Flash and other content that they seem unfit from their platform. 

Flash developers and others interested in cross device deployments with a single runtime should look to other open platforms such as Android based devices, where you can publish contect using your tool of choice and someone won't stop you from doing so "just because".

I'm ready.  No, really I am.

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Declare Detroit - The Social Networking Movement

A couple months ago I read this article online and was pleased to see that someone started a "grass roots" movement to bring Detroit back to a place that people want to live.  It's more than clear that government hasn't been able to accomplish this and in all honesty, government is not the answer folks, it never has been and it never will be the answer.


Nothing good comes from giving power to few to decide for the masses. Organized, focused groups of people can make a difference.  Determination, belief and perseverance are what matters. The question is do you care about Detroit enough to try and make it a better place?

Visit the Detroit Declaration site to find out more and become a fan on Facebook.

Getting Things Done

I'm starting to read this book again this weekend.  I've read it once before and it helped me with organization, setting goals, setting priority on those tasks, focusing on what was important to get done, and clearing my mind of worry and stress by ensuring that all things I needed to do are recorded and not floating around in my brain where they are sure to be forgotten.



Click on the book to get the reviews on Amazon.com, but I'd recommend that you check your local library if you want to save a few dollars and check out the book.  If you read it and enjoy it like I did, you may want to pick it up at Amazon.com to add it to your collection of reference material.  That's what I did... well - ok, I'm lying, I bought the book from Amazon first... see you can be smarter than I was... don't laugh.. that wouldn't be considered a major accomplishment.  LOL. 

Friday, April 16, 2010

Currently Listening...

This audio course was passed on to me by a good friend last year as he had good success with what is covered in this course, especially in the area of understanding what holds us back from achieving what we want out of life.  I started into this around last September and I must admit, it completely changed the way that I thought.  I was in a better state of mind, my goals were clear, I was progressing and moving forward in my career and social life.  Then things changed.

In one section of the course that focuses on the laws of attraction and correspondence, it mentions that you need to stay away from negative influences and only surround yourself with the type of people that you the ideal person you want to be will harmonize with... you should surround yourself with people you look up to, positive people and by doing so, you will be positive and move closer to being the type of person that you want to be at a rapid rate. 

Here is an actual quote from Brian Tracy's website -

Your relationships will always mirror back to you exactly the kind of a person you are. When you are happy and optimistic and at peace, your relationships will be happy and harmonious and loving. But when your thinking is disrupted or negative for any reason, consciously or unconsciously, this will be immediately reflected in your relationships.
As I thought more about this - I realize that I need to focus on making sure I'm surrounding myself with positive energy at all times.  I need to make sure I'm thinking only positive thoughts, for we are what we think, and that's a fact.  In the course he also mentions that sometimes you need to break from relationships as they are unhealthy and not in line with your goals.  Sometimes these can act as poison and keep you from moving forward toward the things you want.

Here are some other quotes from Brian's site that I'll be focusing on in the future.

First, guard your thoughts carefully. Whatever you think about, combined with the emotions of desire or fear, you will attract into your life. Be sure that you are attracting what you want by continuing to think only about what you want.


Second, keep feeding your mind with new information, ideas and pictures of the person you want to be and the life you want to live. By creating this inner attitude of mind, you change the outer aspects of your reality.
This is a fantastic course and I highly recommended it for anyone intersted in learning more about goals, goal setting, achieving those goals and breaking barriers that are holding you back from achieving anything that you want from this life.  I'm almost completely through it for the second time and I hear new areas where I can take action everytime!

If you get a chance - check out As A Man Thinketh by James Allen as well.

Currently reading... Introvert Power by Laurie Helgoe

I am current reading the following book.  It's nice to have alone time at home and not feel guilty about it and this book focuses on why this is ok and shouldn't be looked down upon, but should be embraced and used to focus on building your own inner strength.  So far it's a good read, I'll let you know my thoughts once completed.  Did I mention how much I love the library?  Hit up your local library or go ahead and pick this one up from Amazon, I highly recommend it.

Monday, April 12, 2010

Adobe CS5 Launch!



Adobe has done it again.  It continues to break new and interest ground in the world of web development, production, workflow, analysis and design.

CS5 and the entire new suite of products released today are going to be game changers.  The suite includes new releases of all your favorites, such as Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, Dreamweaver, and more. 

Now there are easier ways and better integration options across applications using Adobe Flash Catalyst.

You can watch the full launch video that gives highlights of each functional area (for designers, for web professionals, for video professionals) here.

The highlights for me though were the branching into online research and marketing analysis as well as full CRM solutions for small businesses.  This will help me turn around high quality sites that can help businesses grow and gather information that would have taken me ages to hand code for capture in lightspeed.

Check out Adobe Business Catalyst which is a business that Adobe acquired last year.... what a smart move... and what a great offering for designers that want to deliver high quality sites, without all the backend coding!  Game-changer folks...

Sunday, April 11, 2010

There is a darkness that follows me...

Sorry for the lack of posts lately.  I've had a few things going on that have had me trying to find answers within myself, a reason to continue, and a path to go forward on.

I can't help but feel that for the past year or so, I've had a dark shadow over me.  Maybe it existed before, in fact I'm sure it did, but within this time I've become aware of it's presence.

I believe that I've made decisions that were in form of self-sabotage, and I've found myself searching for the reason behind why I would make these decisions and not make healthy decisions.

I don't have answers yet, but I am working on healing myself.  I'm working on healing my heart.  I'm working on releasing harbored hatred and anger. My own personal form of Misanthropy. I don't always have a hatred as defined in the Wikipedia definition, but my trust for anyone has gone down greatly, especially over the past year or so... here was an interesting post I stumbled across on the subject of living introverted. I also can't help but feel that a big part of this stems from the discrimination and overall negative view that society gives to larger individuals (oh, but I'll save that rant for another post. LOL)

Lyrics assist me in letting loose feelings that I couldn't otherwise express.  Music is an excellent outlet for emotions and I'm looking forward to working on more in the near future.

Today while watching an episode of "The Sopranos" I saw the following quote;
"No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be true."
~ Nathaniel Hawthorne 

This quote really hit home with me as I feel that for some period now I've been wearing multiple faces.  I've lived split lives not only between my professional career and my social interactions, but I've been living a dual life split by an international border.  I'm quite sure about this, in fact, I think if I took MBTI personality type tests I would need to take one for my personality at work and one for outside of work, because I'm much different in those two situations.

I'm at a crossroads with many decisions to ponder.  My goal is to take my time and meditate on the options, to make sure that I come to decisions clear of the darkness that seems to hover in close proximity. I'll ask for strength from God, and look within for guidance.