One crucial step closer to fulfilling my evil plan.
I started this year by dedicating a set amount of money toward getting my home computer upgraded and buying the software I need so that I can start recording tutorials that will hopefully be found useful to you, my readers. Obviously, the usefulness will depend on whether or not you want to learn anything about Photoshop, Sketchbook Pro, Art Rage 2, or how I go about drawing the crap that I draw.
Getting the stuff I needed turned out to be a rocky affair.
On the hardware side of things I decided to get a smaller Wacom Intuos 3 tablet that would be easier to use while at my tiny home desk, as well as upping my system's RAM by 4 GB and getting a new video card. The tablet arrived without hassle, and works great. However I ordered the video card and memory from one online dealer. An hour before I placed my order back in the last week of December the video card was in stock. After I placed my order it changed to "Ships in 9 days". I hoped that I'd gotten the last one. Not so lucky. 10 days later after the status of my order hadn't changed I contacted the company's support department by email and was informed the next day that the card is backordered and it will be another 35 days before it's expected to arrive. So, rather than be like Amazon who will break up your order and ship what they have in stock, they were just keeping my RAM waiting for that sunny, far off day when the card showed up. Oh, and not bother letting me know.
So I called the support, cancelled the card and added another 2GB of RAM since the price had dropped while I had been waiting. All seemed roses, and I got a shipping confirmation, a tracking number and an invoice. My order would be arriving on the 16th of January. Well... some of my order would, as it turns out.
When I opened the package at lunch yesterday I was a "bit distressed" to find only 2GB of the 6GB arrived. Then the follow up call to their support led to me being on hold for 30 minutes and then told their database just went down and they would have to call me back. I was stressing a tinch. That's a mild way of putting it.
After 4pm I got a call back and was told the person who had changed my order made a mistake and that they would be sending the RAM that night. I asked if I could have it by tomorrow (today) and he said he could have it here by Thursday for me.
It actually arrived today. I'm now less stressed. I'll be finally relaxed when I get it home and put it into my G5 and everything runs perfectly. I'm not expecting that, but I am hoping for it.
I also got my iMac account set up for hosting the higher resolution movies. I'll still post them to youTube as well for those who would like to view them without the hassle and pain of downloading them. A link to where they will be found is in my sidebar where it says "Tutorials & More".
On the software side of things, everything should be done. I'll try to put a movie of some sort together by Monday. With luck not having the video card upgrade won't be too much of a problem. There will certainly still be some rough spots to work out, like the fact that I know nothing about iMovie or iDVD and will likely be posting raw, unedited stuff until I get it figured out.
So. That's what's new with me. Anyone have any suggestions for what the topic of the first movie should be? I have a few ideas of my own, obviously, but I'm curious what you guys might like to see.
Getting the stuff I needed turned out to be a rocky affair.
On the hardware side of things I decided to get a smaller Wacom Intuos 3 tablet that would be easier to use while at my tiny home desk, as well as upping my system's RAM by 4 GB and getting a new video card. The tablet arrived without hassle, and works great. However I ordered the video card and memory from one online dealer. An hour before I placed my order back in the last week of December the video card was in stock. After I placed my order it changed to "Ships in 9 days". I hoped that I'd gotten the last one. Not so lucky. 10 days later after the status of my order hadn't changed I contacted the company's support department by email and was informed the next day that the card is backordered and it will be another 35 days before it's expected to arrive. So, rather than be like Amazon who will break up your order and ship what they have in stock, they were just keeping my RAM waiting for that sunny, far off day when the card showed up. Oh, and not bother letting me know.
So I called the support, cancelled the card and added another 2GB of RAM since the price had dropped while I had been waiting. All seemed roses, and I got a shipping confirmation, a tracking number and an invoice. My order would be arriving on the 16th of January. Well... some of my order would, as it turns out.
When I opened the package at lunch yesterday I was a "bit distressed" to find only 2GB of the 6GB arrived. Then the follow up call to their support led to me being on hold for 30 minutes and then told their database just went down and they would have to call me back. I was stressing a tinch. That's a mild way of putting it.
After 4pm I got a call back and was told the person who had changed my order made a mistake and that they would be sending the RAM that night. I asked if I could have it by tomorrow (today) and he said he could have it here by Thursday for me.
It actually arrived today. I'm now less stressed. I'll be finally relaxed when I get it home and put it into my G5 and everything runs perfectly. I'm not expecting that, but I am hoping for it.
I also got my iMac account set up for hosting the higher resolution movies. I'll still post them to youTube as well for those who would like to view them without the hassle and pain of downloading them. A link to where they will be found is in my sidebar where it says "Tutorials & More".
On the software side of things, everything should be done. I'll try to put a movie of some sort together by Monday. With luck not having the video card upgrade won't be too much of a problem. There will certainly still be some rough spots to work out, like the fact that I know nothing about iMovie or iDVD and will likely be posting raw, unedited stuff until I get it figured out.
So. That's what's new with me. Anyone have any suggestions for what the topic of the first movie should be? I have a few ideas of my own, obviously, but I'm curious what you guys might like to see.
Comments
Thoughts for longer term:
You're doing this for NO monies?? Educating the masses out of the kindness of your heart?? I wonder if you could put together a collection of these things and market it to the graphic design book publishers or amazon or lynda.com or something... just wondering if you could poistion this to be a nice published money-maker for you too?? Worth thinking about... ;-)