Google Apps u r still my hero!

Posted on April 18, 2012 by dustyhale

I’m really busy this week so I won’t be posting anything anytime soon but I wanted to follow up concerning my last post and say that yes Google resolved the issue with my Google Apps account within several hours. A little longer than expected and this was the first time I’ve ever had trouble with Google Apps. The good news is that my faith is only more secured that this is a great product for small business and I will continue to recommend it’s use as a FREE to low budget solution to power your business email, documents, and more, all on the cloud. The best part about it is being able to use the Gmail platform for in-boxes with your own domain name for the email address. The power of Gmail combined with your own web presence is an awesome solution. Maybe in the near future I will have an expanded post or series on this topic.

If you’d like to learn more about Google Apps, feel free to ask me by commenting or go to the official Google Apps site:
http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/index.html

If you’d like to learn more about the free version, hit this link:
http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/group/index.html

If you’d like help setting up either, shoot me a comment.

To your success and mine.

~dustyhale

Why r u doing this to me Google Apps?

Posted on April 17, 2012 by dustyhale

At approximately 12:30pm eastern time today, one of my biggest nightmares became a reality and I’m living it at this very moment so I thought this would be something well worth documenting so that others may somehow benefit from the knowledge of my Google Apps nightmare. You see, I power all my custom domain name apps including my email with Google Apps. Why? Because this allows me to use the gmail platform for my business email boxes. This allows me to have gmail in-boxes with addresses like dusty@dustyhale.com. Gmail is an awesome email platform far superior to programs like Microsoft Outlook. For starters I can keep my email and my documents on the cloud so to speak so I can access them from anywhere on any device. It’s also FREE and that was always a huge plus. But what happens when you try to login to your very precious email inbox and it’s no longer there. You’re in the middle of the work day and depending on it. Here’s a screen shot of what I’m going through at this very moment using Google Apps.

Now the nightmare of it is that there is no immediate place to run for help. I’ve been patiently waiting for well over an hour in hopes that the issue would resolve itself.

The time is now 1:45pm eastern time Tuesday April 17th the day of the tax payment deadline in the USA. Ironically, I was going to pop out an online check today to take care of my owed taxes. All the info I needed was within my Google Apps account. In the help section of Google Apps it states that my data is secure and protected regardless of the error displayed and all the information I could find says that these things usually resolve within a few minutes. However, after the passing of an hour, I feel like I’m in a bit of panic over it. This is NOT a good feeling. The help info goes on to say that if the error does not resolve itself over an extended period of time, to ‘contact us’ yet of course does not instruct who, where, or how to contact ‘us’.

Let the nightmare begin!! I’ll post again as to what happens next. .

~dustyhale

On the hunt for jQuery File Uploaders

Posted on March 29, 2012 by dustyhale

I have a need for a really slick web based file uploading script which I need to place within a website application that needs file uploading capabilities. With that being said, I’ve kind of been on the hunt lately for something using jQuery. I found this one just now with a quick Google search. It looks nice and I may try this out. If anyone has used this code, please feel free to share any thought. Here’s a link to demo it:

http://blueimp.github.com/jQuery-File-Upload/

Tamarindo Power Outages

Posted on March 27, 2012 by dustyhale

In my opinion for a being in a developing country, Tamarindo has an excellent power supply with only very occasional and very brief outages. Usually only a few seconds or a minute or two max. But what’s up with the very occasional organized power outages? Why do they happen and what is the reason behind it? Are we low on power? Being that I’m sitting here at this very moment at the local secret spot that has generators and wifi and because it’s the only place in town with working power and internet. I’m in the middle of several work related IT emergencies and a downed site, and it’s not exactly a good time to deal with a power outage. I was not informed about the one today but evidently it was planned between 8am and 2pm. Maybe there’s an alert system of some kind to receive notifications about it but I’m not aware of one. It’s a word a mouth kind of thing for me until I figure that one out. I found this link for possible a solution. It’s an old post on the ABC realty blog so I’m not sure if it still works. Use at your own risk:
http://abccostaricablog.wordpress.com/2010/09/24/power-outage-notification/

Adobe Photoshop CS6 Beta Release

Posted on March 23, 2012 by dustyhale

It finally happened. I just got word of the new Adobe Photoshop CS6 free beta release. I’m already thinking to myself “damn I was just getting used to CS5.” I also have to confess that yes I am a licensed Photoshop user with a legit version of, ummmmm, CS2, and I must go on to confess that I’m currently using a cracked version of CS5. I really did want to purchase the CS5 upgrades on my Adobe products but honestly I just kept using CS2 until 2011 when I finally downloaded a trial of Lightroom3 and Photoshop CS5 and kind of fell in love with the way the two work together. It’s the perfect combination for the professional digital dark room and digital imaging work-flow. However, knowing that I jumped in the game a bit late on it, I anticipated there would be a CS6 sooner rather than later and decided to wait on purchasing a licensed upgrade. My instincts proved correct and I’m now rewarded with the free beta version of CS6 and the knowledge that the full version is coming soon. I’m downloading it at the very moment I’m drafting this post and doing a bit of research too. I’m learning a few things about it already which I’ll share then I’ll do another post after I’ve had some time to work with it a bit. The following is a brief overview of what I’ve learned so far.

The Download

Be warned! The CS6 download for Mac is almost a full gig and for Windows I’m told it’s almost a gig and a half. Ouch! I’m downloading it right now and my download status indicator is telling me over 4 hours. However, I’m in Costa Rica and it’s Friday so I’m guessing Internet traffic is high and my speed may be a bit slow at this moment. With that being said, prepare yourself and your computer for a rather long download. Click here to download from the Adobe Labs Website.

Possible Problems. Already!!!

As if the large download is not already a problem for some. For Mac, the beta only runs on a 64 bit system. I could not even remember if I was 32 or 64 bit. Turns out, I’m 64 bit so I’m good to go on that one. If you’re using a Mac, here’s a quick link that will show you how to find out if your system is 32 or 64 bit:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3696

New Features that Interest Me

I repeat again! I’ve not actually used these features at the time of this post but here a list of cool things that interest me:

Content Aware Move Option
This feature enables you to move an object from one part of an image to another, while Photoshop figures out how to fill in the background.
Skin-tone Aware Color Masking
According to what I’m hearing, it helps you to more easily select faces in an image.
New and Improved: Automatic Image Corrections
These have been revamped, delivering notably better results. Auto levels, auto color, etc.
Adobe Camera Raw 7.0
Adds useful Shadow and Highlight adjustments and new blur options. I can’t wait to use the blur options.
Vector Layers
Shape layers are replaced by vector layers, which support a stroke and full (solid colors, gradients or patterns); and the Adaptive Wide Angle tool supports fine control over lens corrections.

These are just a few of the many new improvements I’m hearing about but for now I won’t go into detail. The ones above are features that specifically interest me for the things I use Photoshop for on a regular basis.

FREE Training offered on Lynda.com

Finally, I’ll share one more piece of valuable information that I learned today. Lynda.com is offering a FREE full video tutorial series on Photoshop CS6 Beta. Lynda.com is an excellent source of learning new digital skills and I personally use and recommend the service. I wish they had an affiliate program and actually they do. However, they’re not accepting applications at this time. So I can honestly say I’m not earning money to recommend them. Click here to access the FREE Adobe Photoshop CS6 Beta video tutorial series on Lynda.com.

Was it Worth the Wait?

Again, I’m so glad I did not recently purchase a CS5 upgrade as both Lightroom and PhotoShop now have new versions since my last run. Was it worth the wait? We’re soon to find out and assuming I get somewhere with this little project, I hope to share more information with you in the very near future. My policy with posting though, for now, is strictly on a ‘when I have time’ schedule so please be patient with me as I set out on this new blogging adventure. Have a great weekend. The surf is up. Gotta run!!!

Pura Vida,
~dustyhale

My Default WordPress Theme Experiment

Posted on March 22, 2012 by dustyhale

Default WordPress Theme 2011

You’ll notice that my site at the moment is very simple. This is intentional. Those that know me in the work world know I’m capable of producing good custom website designs so why in the world would I launch a new site using the default WordPress theme when my expertise allows me to use an advanced theme or even design my own? Well, let me explain that it’s for a very good reason. Temporarily I’m doing an experiment of elegant simplicity. I plan to use the default theme on this site and experiment with the level of customizations I can effectively produce within its limitations.

With that being said, you’ll likely see intentional slow design progress on this site. I’ll be making subtle changes that are based on elegant simplicity. I configured and launched the site yesterday evening in about one hour’s time. Then I spent another half hour making a custom header image that I thought was a good representation of the subject matter I plan to blog about. The look so far is not really what I’m after but hey, I only worked on it for an hour and a half so not bad. Throw in time for the first 3 posts and call it a 2 hour job so far.

To your success … and mine!!!

~dustyhale

Hello world! From Dusty Hale

Posted on March 21, 2012 by dustyhale

Hola! Dusty Hale here!

I just changed my website system to the WordPress blog format. I apologize that it’s lacking in content at the moment. I determined that it was in my best interest for the sake of time management to go ahead and point my domain name to it and start fresh and develop this slowly as I have time. I’ll be posting more soon on topics like web design, web programming, app development, photography, digital imaging, and all with a bit of surfing mixed in.

Feel free to contact me by one of the means below:

Email: dusty@dustyhale.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/dustyhale
Skype: dustyhale