I like to read about different stuff. Mainly because I like to learn about different stuff. Usually most of my reading is done online, but there are times that a book is the better choice. At one time I even bought books to try and be a better salesman. Even got some books on consulting, because my job had me doing some “consulting” work if you want to call it that. I wanted to try and increase my skills and understanding on both of those subjects in hopes it would better my job performance.
One of the things I buy a lot of books on are various computer related topics. When I decided to get back into web design I thought it would be a good time to start refreshing myself on some things. Especially CSS, because my experience with it was limited when I stopped making websites. I didn’t know exactly which book to get, so I got a couple on that subject. Of course after reading them, they all pretty much cover the same things. But each of them do have things that I found informative, so its worth getting them in my opinion.
Ever since I was a kid, I had a talent with computers. I still remember the Atari 800XL I use to play with when I was a kid. I can showing my mom some of the things I use to do with it. BASIC was pretty fun to learn back then. I even took a computer programming class in high school. The teacher was suppose to be teaching us C++, but he was actually more concerned with watching how his stock was doing. Most of the C++ I learned was from self-study doing the assignments at home, which was easy to do since the teacher gave me a copy of the program editor. Doing it at home was actually better for a few reasons: 1) Class was only an hour long, 2) people in the class were more concerned with goofing off, and 3) I spent most of my time humoring challenges from the other programming class. It was actually kind of fun, because someone in the other class would alter the computers startup in DOS and we began having little challenges with each other. I even took a couple of classes while in college, but still didn’t major in it.
The big reason is while I could do it, I found programming to be frustrating. Even now when I am doing things for this site I get frustrated when things don’t work. Its not until I step away from the computer that the answer comes to me. Usually be after a shower or when I wake up the next day, I would ‘magically’ know the answer to the problem I was pulling my hair out trying to solve. Even though I would get stumped at times, I do enjoy it. But I really don’t think I could do it as a career, unless I was working for myself.
Aside from the web design books, I have been reading a lot on photography and Photoshop. Photography has been an interest of mine since I was a kid, though I didn’t do a lot of it growing up because it wasn’t often when I could get the film developed. I did take a photography course while in college and learned how to do darkroom developing. That was certainly interesting and I learned a lot from it. I wanted to get a digital SLR for a while, but it wasn’t until last year that I finally decided to do it. When I got my DSLR I thought it would be a good time to get Adobe Photoshop as well.
I wasn’t a stranger to Photoshop, having used it do my anime wallpapers for Studiotaku. But I was no pro at it and wanted to learn as much as I could about what all the software was capable of doing.
The point I am trying to make is everyday should be a learning experience. You don’t have to be in a formal class setting to learn, all you need is access to information; rather it be online or your local library or bookstore.
