3 weeks at Macromedia…

I’m starting to settle in there–faces are becoming familiar, I’m learning my way around the building, and life is no longer a confusing blur. It helps that my product manager is also new, and is frantically setting up meetings to introduce himself and learn about the product. Since he invites me to all these meetings, all I have to do is tag along in his wake.

Which is a good thing, because right now there’s not a whole lot for me to do. I arrived at the tail end of a release, which would normally mean I’d be going crazy with lots to do, but since I very sensibly decided not to stick my fingers into the machinery and bollux it up with my ignorance, that leaves me mostly sitting and staying out of people’s way until the release is out. At that point, the next release should start kicking in, meaning I get something to do.

Mind you, I’m not being idle: I’m meeting bunches of people and reading through piles and piles of documentation. But the real meat of my job won’t happen until the next release starts happening.

Meanwhile, I’m learning all about Macromedia Flash. I have an undreamed-of luxury in that regard: Macromedia employees are able to drop in on any official Macromedia classes (if there’s room in the classroom), meaning I can get training for free. So I took a two-day class on how to use Flash–which was really helpful–and am trying to get in for a three-day class on how to use ActionScript with Flash. If I can do that and the Advanced ActionScript class, that will set me up well for using Flash Lite. I’ll never be a professional developer, but then I don’t need to be. 🙂 I just need to know how to use the product well enough to get a “feel” for how users will interact with it.

I also need to get better mastery of Dreamweaver–they use it internally for just about everything (meeting minutes, etc.), and my understanding of Dreamweaver is relatively basic. So I am poking around that as well. (It’s not a bad thing: my website badly needs updating, so I have a venue in which to practice.)

I think one of my first projects will be creating (working) Flash buttons on my website, and maybe adding some pizzazz to the front page. Also replacing the photo: that one’s eleven years old, and while I still look pretty much like that photo, it’s embarrassing to have ancient photos on your homepage. But of course, first I have to have someone take a new photo.

(Hmm…maybe I’ll use the photo of me from Farang magazine. OK, maybe not.)

I’ve also discovered knitting on the train! It’s a 35-45 minute train ride to work, and I’ve started bringing my knitting with me. It’s not super fast knitting since the train is pretty bumpy, but it’s going pretty well. I’ve gotten the first thirty or forty rows of my latest shawl knitted. I’m not entirely satisfied with it, but I think it will look OK once it’s finished. In another 20-30 rows I should have a better sense for it.

But my main project right now (aside from work) is learning Dreamweaver and Flash, and that promises to be loads of fun. I just have to figure out what I want to BUILD with Flash! I’m not a graphic designer, so whiz-bang graphics don’t come easily to me. Most of my webpage seems perfectly happy as a static site, so I dunno…I’m gonna have to get creative. 🙂

Oh, and the best news of all: being a Macromedia employee, I get to buy the brand-new Studio 8 for a whopping 50 bucks! (For my own personal use–I get a free copy on my work laptop, of coruse.) Considering it retails for $999, that’s quite a deal. 🙂