Time Needed

It's been a few weeks since my last post. I am once again finding myself buried under too many projects, too many hours of work and just not enough time. BUT I thought I'd take a few seconds and let you know what is going on.

It's been over a year now since I started working on extending MAS 500 for my "day job" and am currently still adding features. It might have been simpler to write the entire program from scratch and not even have bothered with the "out-of-the-can" system. After creating several modules, I now have the pleasure of creating the custom reports and am sure that I'm going to have to go back and redo some of the modules after the system goes live.

I have also been working on a pawn shop website on and off for the past month. Work has halted for now until I get more info from the owner. At the same time I have been developing a front-end app that will allow him to easily modify the website from his store without having to learn html or knowing how to upload to the website.

In the coming months I will also start work on the Edmonton's Soroptimist site. It is an organization that helps out various women's groups around the world. I will be volunteering my time to create a site that describes their group at the local level. I'm looking forward to start work on this. It's time that my work be seen on a larger scale. I just hope that I can deliver the quality that they are looking for. More on that soon.

GRAPHICS, GRAPHICS, GRAPHICS

Now to get away from the programming aspect, I have also been creating ads for my "day job" and also flyers for Soroptimist. The following Ostrem ad, created in Photoshop CS3, will be shown in Manufacturing Today in the March/April edition and the Soroptimist flyer, created with Illustrator CS3, was handed out for their annual "International Woman's Day" awards. Take a look...

I have just started working on a mini-brochure for a local artist that wants to show some of his portfolio to people at the art shows. I will post that one once it is completed.

TIME TO READ

I just purchased 3 new books today to help me learn more about SQL Server and Crystal Reports. Thanks to the recent help I got from a great SQL analyst/programmer, I realized that I needed to upgrade my SQL skills. Although I could do simple queries and such, I never took the time to actually dive deeper than that. With the help of these books, I should become more efficient and actually be able to do more complex tasks. Here is the list of books I purchased:

• SQL Server 2005 Bible
• Professional SQL Server 2005 Programming
• Crystal Reports Xi Official Guide

So there you have it. I'll be busy for quite some time but I will make sure to write another blog soon. Bye for now.