In many instances they must complete their mission objectives with second-rate computers, systems, and promotional media. It doesn’t have to be that way.

At Ice Cave Technology I am employing some strategies to help  non-profit organizations run their organization with world class tools.

SESA is an Anchorage-based organization tasked with providing resources and support to Alaskans responsible for educating special needs children. While they are certainly not operated on a shoestring, they are nevertheless vigilant to operate in a lean and muscular fashion. I am currently over-hauling their database system to utilize elite automation…the type of slick business processes that you typically only see in a fortunate 500 company. But more than that… I’m embedding this new system with system wide video training that will make it a no-brainer to train new employees.

Dr. Gary Rice considers the SLPM his greatest life achievement. Dr. Rice is Vice Provost at UAA’s Office of Institutional Research. I first helped the University refine its core messages. I then conceived and produced 3d visualizations to assist Provosts, decision-makers and legislators better understand the  shortcomings of the current graduation-centric model and the merits of a new metric for higher education.

The entire public portion of the media initiative can be seen here.

But it’s also true that it feels like Christmas when I get a new tool. Lately I’ve been able to invest in Apple’s new MacBook Pro and now an iPad. I purchased the iPad last night, only two minutes after Apple’s website started taking orders.

Based on the news I’m one of a million early adopters of the new tablet. Merry Christmas everyone!

I think it will actually work…for 5% of the market.

There is always a crowd that stands at opposite poles from the the early adopter. These are the “wish-I-never-had-to-adopt-anything-new” crowd. For these folks, who were reluctantly corralled into learning to use a computer…such a device might be just their ticket.

I suggest Microsoft, fresh from Zune and MS Mobile failures…might be happy to carve out 5% moving forward. When I heard Ballmer’s speech: a see a white flag and hear a concession speech.

Dont’ confuse me. Adobe and I go way back together. I was an authorized Adobe trainer/consultant in the 90′s. I’ve generally fought for Adobe in Steve Jobs’ ill-conceived and anti-choice smash-Flash Crusade. But I have to speak up and call a company I love back to its roots—that’s you Adobe!

I typically spend around $1,000 a year, updating Adobe software. I currently own the Master Collection as well as Adobe Director. This year I plan to add Lightroom and possibly Acrobat X. If they can sufficiently debug it and end the customer horror stories I read about, I might even consider Captivate.

Photoshop, Flash and After Effects are three of my top ten favorite software applications and are at core of my workflow. But I’m increasingly looking at alternatives for many of my Adobe apps…and increasingly there are some nice options to consider.

Adobe has become inexcusably sloppy and it’s very hard to avoid the conclusion that there is some laziness creeping in.

1. Adobe so screwed up product fulfillment each of the past three times I ordered direct from them…that I’ve sworn never to order direct again. They even badly bungled the follow-up on their screw-ups.

2. Adobe Flash CS4 had a flaw so fatal that many of us developers couldn’t even reliably use the program. When you would preview the file you’d get blessed with a white screen of nothing. It took half a year for them to resolve it. Now reports are that this bug has reappeared.

3. Another common bug? The entire CS4 suite would belch an “unexpected quit” whenever exiting the program. I almost can’t help but laugh now when I ask Illustrator CS5 to quit…it does so obligingly…and then opens right back up again on it’s own!

4. Photoshop CS5 takes an absurd amount time to be usefully responsive when I launch the app or open a new file. It’s a hundred times slower at this than the previous version. I’ve heard people say, “You have to let it warm up.” Right, LOL.

5. I have seen brush responsiveness with PSD that compares to glacial crawl.

The After Effects team must be hermetically sealed from the rest of the company. They successfully migrated to 64-bit and have markedly improved the product over the past few releases.

Overall in the CS5 suite there are just innumerable little things I see on a daily basis that reflect a lack of thoughtful software design. I can only say: It wasn’t this way before 2007.

Beyond that—philosophically and strategically—I am convinced that unlimited high performance broadband for everyone is vital to the state’s education and business interests. The internet is like a modern roadway system for how we do everything. It’s foundational and indispensable.

Yes, what I just said conflicts with my strong capitalistic ideals and conviction that GCI has a right to dictate its own terms.

I hope at some point we can figure out a way to make it all work better for Alaska internet users, while still providing GCI, ACS, and MTA lots of revenue.

However, from the standpoint of a new media professional…I have no worries. I’ve mastered the techniques to deliver rich media through thin pipes, and I’m getting even better with advanced compression/decompression.

The news drearily proclaims: we haven’t had a cloudless day since April and yesterday we even broke a record for consecutive days with measurable rainfall.

Sadly I concede the rainy weather had given me the blues. So I woke up Saturday morning on a mission to shake out of and get back to having some fun again!

The tonic for rainy-day blues wasn’t any further away than Spenard Lake. In between capturing a lot of Float Plane phographs, I enjoyed taking a few photos of a local area dog-lover and her two retrievers. Fittingly, just when I was poised for some superp shots it started to rain and obstructed my unshielded lens.

I’ve learned that you can’t be afraid to get dirty if you want a nice photo, and I wanted to get the lens right at the level of the water line. I was in a perfect angle while down on my belly. The dogs were splashing about…

But with the rain and a momentary loss of focus it became one of those, “One that got away” photographic moments. Hopefully I can get another session with the retrievers before the summer is over.

Argggh! Nevertheless I still did get a couple of good images and I’m grateful for the moment. Tomorrow I’ll be posting some of them over at my new photographic site, Big Alaska Photography.

Anchorage Video Productions is a video-centric site where I feature some of my work.

I just started on it so it will take some time to whip it into shape. Seaplanes (alternatively dubbed Floatplanes) have been an emerging interest since I came to Alaska. The site celebrates the state’s pilots, adventurers, and the amazing planes they fly.