Since I have left this website alone to fend for itself for over a year, a lot has happened. Today I’m home from work because of a blizzard, so I have updated my PHP and WordPress versions. I added security to the protocol, which means the web address should now start with https rather than http. It’s fitting to come in and clean up the site back-end after Google published a Google Doodle on the 30th anniversary of the world wide web. Tim Berners Lee submitted a proposal for the http protocol 30 years ago! Let’s see, what was I doing then? In 1989 I was a freshman at a college in Maryland and I was frustrated with computers…I had no way of knowing I would end up managing websites and website content.
I’m now working on state website content full time and have precious little time to focus on this personal blog. I’ve also let go of Adobe Premiere and Dreamweaver so I may not be able to do video tutorials until I find time to learn another video editing tool. Adobe is so pricey that I pared it down to a Photoshop and Lightroom-only subscription.
STC
I’ve upgraded my membership in the Society for Technical Communication (STC) and I anticipate attending their annual summit this year. This year it is time to invest in my own career growth! Working on the web can be rewarding. I will focus on attending workshops about user experience and content strategy.
A Bit of Nostalgia
I’ve been working on the web for about 20 years now. In 1999 I learned Dreamweaver back when Macromedia owned it. The web was a wide-open field of possibilities. My first job earning money for website services? I freelanced for a woman who wanted to build and sell a screensaver for people who liked watching soap operas in 1999 or 2000. So I used Photoshop and Director to make a little self-playing slide show of all the soap opera stars she told me to put in. I didn’t recognize a one of them because I never watched soaps! I haven’t thought of that in a decade. I wonder where that project is… I don’t think I could even find a screenshot of it. I remember I had made it look like it was a reel of film moving left to right, with the little holes at top and bottom. Each frame was a different character from a show. And I suppose she offered the zipped file for sale on her website so users could buy it and install it to be their screensaver.