Just finished my first week back to school. I decided to go back for a second BS in Computer Science. Only taking one class this summer: Ptogramming I – Intro to C++. I’m glad that I am finally getting some formal training in an object oriented programming language.

Wow, this has been long overdue.  Allan Branch showed me some neat stuff with HTML last year – most of it I’ve forgotten. (Check him out at lesseverything.com, his twitter is @lessallan.) One of the things I do remember is that he planned out his websites in Photoshop and used it as a guide to start his web pages.

I don’t know photoshop. I need to learn it. So I started this tutorial ”School of Photoshop“ at Tutorial9. I am at Grade 3 (of 9).  Here is a something I made from Grade 2: Working with Layers in Photoshop.

Today I started reading Dreamweaver CS3 Bible by Joseph Lowery. I am amazed at what the new version of Dreamweaver can do.  It is integrated very well to the Adobe products. Also, it supports a wide variety of server side platforms. Dreamweaver is overall a very versatile tool, it seems anyway. I am excited to learn more about Dw, and I will continue to post interesting tips when I find them. If anyone else is reading this then tell me what you think.

A new Borders bookstore just opened up in town!  While I was there a copy of Microsoft Visual C# 2008 Step by Step caught my eye.  I have been using the 2005 version of the book, but it has been cumbersone and confusing at times since it was written for use with Visual Studio 2005 and I am using Visual Studio 2008.  Hopefully I can take a closer look at it the next time I am at the new Borders! If anyone has read the new version tell me what you think.

It has been such a long time since my last post!  I am currently playing around with Adobe CS3, specifically Photoshop, Dreamweaver, and Flash.  Adobe has some good tutorials on their site. 

Also, I am working with Visual C# and Visual Basic 2008 using Visual Studio 2008. In a few months I plan to start working with ASP.NET.  Hopefully my next post will be pretty soon so I can delve into these topics a little further.

I was browsing wikipedia for different programming languages that I have heard of to gain a better understanding of what each of them do.  I have never heard of esoteric programming!  I found this wonderful prograaming language based on popular internet chat especially the type of words and phrases found in the infamous lolcats site.  Take a look at these hilarious examples from LOLCODE: 
Example 1: (Hello World!)

HAI   

CAN HAS STDIO?   

VISIBLE "HAI WORLD!"   

KTHXBYE

Example 2: (if/else statement)

HAI   

CAN HAS STDIO?   

PLZ OPEN FILE "LOLCATS.TXT"?   

 AWSUM THX   

 	VISIBLE FILE   

 O NOES   

 	INVISIBLE "ERROR!"   

KTHXBYE

Wow! This is it! My second official attempt at a blog!  My goal here is to chronicle my trek into learning anything and everything about programming and the web, hence the name IOjourney.  I have been a computer technician for five years, yet I feel disconnected with the digital age in which I live. Don’t get me wrong, I have my IPod and my MMO, yet my presence here on the web is nonexistent.  So here I plunge into this world of ones and zeros.  I think it will be exciting and I am looking forward to learning and sharing! Oh yeah, any great tips, advice, or encouragement are always welcome!