I've been self employed again for a few months. So I wonder if I have learned anything since last time. The biggest problem I had before I still seem to have. Time-management.

I became self-employed because I am an Adobe Instructor. I train maybe 10 or so days a month. A normal job wouldn't allow me to be a Instructor. So I fill the other part of my time with production work. This time around I paired up with a marketing firm downtown. I thought it would be good because they had nobody that did web. Well, it turns out, they don't even have a website themselves. Wow, yep in 2008 they didn't see a need. Amazing.

I also thought I'd be able to do some design work, but it turns out that he didn't want to insult his print designer and I am never going to be able to design there. Her designs look like print. Plain and simple she has never cut up a page for HTML so she has no idea what it takes to make a web page and it shows. We had a bit of a fight about her designs once because I mentioned I don't do tables. She thought I was a nut. You could hear the laughter in her voice. Amazing. She was laughing and looking down at me because I use pure CSS to lay out my web pages.

Lets say it didn't make me want to go hang out down there. They have a client that keeps me semi-busy so I just do the work from home. Again, turns out he didn't want me working at home and was expecting me to hang out down there so he could ask me questions and learn about the web from me. HA! Seriously thought I'd just hang out and work from there even if I wasn't working on his stuff. No thanks, my office is much more comfortable.

I still do some production work for the guy I train for, but none of it makes up what I made at my last contract gig. That was nice making that kind of money. So the question is do I help get more training gigs? Do I just market myself better? What do I do to get my career back on track without having to go back to work for someone?

The biggest issue I have is time-management. I tend to get up early with our 3 dogs, work for awhile, then take a nap. Then I get back up and do a few chores around the house. I get back to work and then get dinner ready. It seems that after 8 o'clock is when I really like to dig in and work. I sometimes work until 2 or 3 in the morning.

So I have decisions to make. Can I actually learn time-management? Can I be more productive? I like working for myself. I've become tainted over the last few years. Only getting a job at somewhere like Adobe would give me enough incentive to stay happy at a job. I do miss working with a team. I'm a pretty social creature. I look for my UGM and Community Expert friends online and I couldn't do that in a regular job, so I guess I'd better make it work is my conclusion.

Dee

Just wanted to let you guys know about the new public betas available on Labs. Dreamweaver, Fireworks, and Soundbooth are the newest Adobe programs on Labs. I've been using Dreamweaver for several months and I have to say they've done an amazing job. There are still some things I can't talk about that aren't apart of the public beta, but Dreamweaver didn't get just a facelift for it's 10 year anniversary. The Dreamweaver team gutted a lot of the old junk in Dreamweaver and rebuilt from within in a lot of places. There are some amazing new features. Can't wait for you all to see.

The Adobe Labs DW beta home: http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/dreamweavercs4/

Dreamweaver Public Beta Forums (Please direct any/all public feedback, bug reports, feature requests and such to this URL, thanks): http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/webforums/forum/categories.cfm?forumid=72&catid=674

Dee Sadler KCWebCore Manager KCDesignCore co-manager KCDevCore VP manager@kcwebcore.org

We are having such a great time on our blog, we decided to let more people know about it. Technorati Profile

I'm not sure how many of you keep track of what's new in resources out there on the web. As an instructor, I'm constantly seeing who thinks what, and what new tidbits are out there. For myself, but also because I know some young kid right out of school is out there looking too, and will ask me a question about it.

Of course, you know I'm going to start with Adobe.com. Luckily, they have kept the resources left over from Macromedia, and update them all the time. Many old Macromedia people visit these sections of the website, but those who started with Adobe, may not know these jems exist.

They have both a designers section and developers. Kind of a nice mix of old Macromedia and new Adobe. Right now, they have a couple of great new articles on Best practices in Flash. Of course, there is tons of Flex stuff, a litle Acobat and my favorite, a look into AS3.0. As a designer who codes, this is formost on my mind. Flex developers I'm sure are thinking this too.

Think Vitamin is a fairly new site from all the guru's in the CSS world. It should be a bookmarked site, if you haven't done so already. Eric Meyer, and a whole slew are giving CSS insights and some great interviews and articles. One of my favorite site, especially since you can get to all the guru's sites from this one location.

Both Lynda.com and Total training are sponsors of our user group, so I highly recommend those.

I have also been listening to my fair share of podcasts lately. If you just look at iTunes>podcasts there are a fair number for us geeks. There is a bunch of Mac related ones, a good one called 411 podcasting to learn podcasting, CSS ones, and of course, Photoshop TV, Boagworld, and Practical WebDesign, my favorites.

More to come later, have to get back to work.

Dee KCWebCore manager

As CFUnited closes and I return home, I look to my next trip. I'm off to Adobe headquarters in San Jose in a little over 2 weeks. Right now I'm still reeling from all that happened at CFUnited, so it seems a little too soon to be back on a plane.

Why another trip? This time I'll be in my element instead of feeling like an outsider looking in. It's called the Summit and Adobe is putting it on for the User Group managers, as a thank you for all our hard work.

I've been the manager here is KC for a year now. Wow, that doesn't seem right, but yep, a year. I think we are on our way to accomplishing a lot, but we are not there yet. Adobe has set up training for us, and I hope to learn lots about being a better manager.

One of the perks to being there is Flex training. Very exciting stuff to be learning there at Adobe. Many of you know I'm an Adobe certified trainer in 4 programs. I make a horrible student. In college settings I'm fantastic. I'm crazy about keeping up my GPA, but in smaller classes, I'm horrible. I type slowly and my Mac has been cursed since the day I brought it home.

Any-who... going to Adobe for a trainer like myself is like going on a pilgrimage to the holy land. It's hard to explain. Knowing I'm so close to 1 Infinite Loop is just as amazing, and only a few of you will know what belongs at that address. Those will understand my giddiness at the prospect. The 2 things that make what I do for a living day in and day out a joy.

I had another life before web or even graphic design. Before I knew what options were out there, I was a stylist. Hair Stylist. I was expensive and only worked in the best Salons and Spas. I taught color and was extremely good at it. The problem was I was an artist. I only did hair because I did it well. I had been a fine artist in school, but didn't want to be a starving artist. I draw, paint and do photography still.

So, I came into the web world late, 1997 I think. Graphic artist before that. I started with Photoshop but didn't actually buy it until version 2.0. It was so exciting then. I loved typography and the combination of Photoshop and Illustrator was intoxicating. My Photography teacher, Stu Beals, told us on the first day of Fine Art Photo back in 1987, that if we didn't embrace Computers, we should forget about being a Photographer. Well, I was hooked and never looked back.

So being at Adobe is an amazing opportunity. It might advance my career talking to the right people, you never know. A friend of mine, Will Hammond, who is one of the smartest people I know as well as the best Photoshop Expert to boot, says he got where he was in the business (Will's name is on the credits of Version 1.0 of Photoshop) by being in the right place at the right time. Not many are more passionate about the programs than me. You have to put yourself out there to get noticed these days. There are not just seas, but oceans of designers and trainers out there. Everyone has a blog these days. It's harder to make yourself unique in the crowd. The person wearing a red hat in a sea of black kind of stand out.

As I make efforts to make myself known, I am trying to do the same for KCWebCore. I know our little KC community can make a difference. We can educate, share, network and all make a little more money because of knowing each other a better. KCWebCore can be an opportunity for people like belonging to MacCORE made a difference to me years ago. I knew nothing, then started volunteering. Soon I knew all the members who came to meetings. I made tons of friends, got voted onto the Board, then started doing the newsletter. That lead to me doing the website. That lead to my first paying web design job. It was an amazing year.

I owe any and all success I have to that User Group. I hope to make KCWebCore that kind of group for someone else. All it takes is a little effort and some free time. I wouldn't be going to Adobe if I hadn't.

Dee Sadler KCWebCore manager