Only a Quarter Remains

No, not a 25¢ Quarter. These are interesting financial times, but I refer to the Calendar, in this instance. And we'll take up the slack on a few other items that have been rattling around in the junk drawer for a while, too.

A while back we talked of the grand plans we had made for this year. Well, we have only these last three months now, to make a difference. If you were planning on learning a new language, or a new piece of software, or a new technique for doing something you have grown comfortable doing the old way, your sands are running out, now.

Adobe announced the coming of Creative Suite 4, recently. You should probably decide if you are going to upgrade, and when. I strongly dislike having to do anything important under deadline pressure for the first time, so I will want to get my copy installed right away, but there are good reasons to wait, too.

Think about the coming year, too, and not just the one that's ending. With the recent financial turmoil, are there things you may want or need that would be easier to get or accomplish this year than next? Maybe some priorities need to be shuffled or swapped, to make it all happen.

I'm always fascinated by how we use our time. There is a book, somewhere, that holds the dates for the academic calendar going out for years and years. You can go to that book and look up the first day of school for the fall of 2011, I'm sure. And I'm equally sure that someone, somewhere is going to be running around with their hair on fire in early August of 2011 when it suddenly hits them: the kids will be here any minute, now!

Designs On The Future

A committee is already meeting regularly, designing the next new page templates. We anticipate rolling out the new design and all of its supporting pages and materials in August of next year.

If there is some widget or gizmo on the current pages that you absolutely love, or hate, or if you have seen some widget or gizmo on one of the pages you regularly visit and you definitely do or definitely don't want to see it here, this is your time. Let someone know how important the weather is, to you, or the QuickLinks drop-down menu. Or, whatever. The designers are on their own schedule, but you can participate in the Web Developers' Network discussions every second Tuesday of the month, at 2pm, in the City Campus Student Union building. Note that this month's meeting is being held on October 21st at 2pm, due to scheduling conflicts that couldn't be avoided.

Your Papers Please?

Is all of your software legit? I mean all of your software. It's tempting, when you know how easy it is to go out on the interweb and find a "cracked" version of just about every program, to download the one you need for free. Quite a few of us are probably really good at justifying this kind of thing, too. "We buy so many copies, they won't miss this one" or "I only need this three times a year and can't justify the cost" or something similar. Some of the excuses are quite good, but they are each, potentially, career decisions. When the company finds out you've stolen a program and sues, it won't be you they sue, it'll be all of us. And it won't be you that gets the black eye. It'll be all of us. And it won't be you that gets the next paycheck, it'll be all of us. I am forever amazed at the upright (uptight?) citizens who sit in their lofty perches and make moral pronouncements on the fitness of all of the rest of us… while their hard drives are littered with stolen programs, movies and music. I always wonder what they teach their own kids about stealing, and how they resolve the two situations. Don't be That Guy. Cut the check and do it right.