I know I’m going to fail again even as I resolve to do it, but I’m going to try some resolutions again. I’m going to eat more of what I should be eating more of: fruits and vegetables. I’m going to stop eating the things I eat too much of: cereal, milk, crackers, chips, and sweets. My one exception to the “no cereal” rule will be yogurt and granola in the mornings. Two reasons: it’s home-made by my love, and I don’t tend to abuse it. One more food resolution: in order to control how much I eat I’m going to stop having seconds. I will eat what’s on my plate, which is usually more than enough, and no more.

More resolutions: I’m going to exercise every day. I’ve been bike riding a couple times a week for a while, I want to ratchet that up. I also want to start stretching, doing push-ups, and sit-ups, and maybe even some light weight lifting, every day. I’ll keep the house clean! I’m bad at this and want to get better. I’ll sleep at least 7 hours a night. This should be easier now that I won’t be playing video games for a while. Also, I want to cook every night I can. I don’t think it’s possible for us to cook every single night but we’ve been eating too much restaurant food lately.

The rest of the time that I won’t be fulfilling my resolutions or spending time with my love, I will be working on whatever project I think is important at the time. For now it’s my final drawing for art class until our last meeting this Saturday, after that it’ll be my electronics projects for a while. After a while I’ll add Action Steve back onto my schedule. I miss writing Action Steve.

I think true success at improving my self discipline is probably not this kind of self denial, but I’m getting fatter and not getting things done that I want to and this sort of thing has worked before, albeit temporarily. Also, I may (emphasis on may) being going to school full time in the fall. If that happens I think it will be much easier for me to keep these resolutions. School might actually involve more challenging work, but I don’t think it will be nearly as stressful as my current job in customer service. I hope less stress will mean more willpower.

I drew this from this picture.

I like to come up with game ideas. This one was based on kingdom hearts but I wanted someone like the girl from Hairspray as the Sora type hero. I planned to have her sword take different shapes depending on what “software was installed” or some similar silliness.

]]> http://nerdcoresteve.wordpress.com/2010/02/14/sketchbook-2/feed/ 0 nerdcoresteve wasp penguinStarHero http://nerdcoresteve.wordpress.com/2010/01/30/sketch1/ http://nerdcoresteve.wordpress.com/2010/01/30/sketch1/#comments Sat, 30 Jan 2010 22:43:38 +0000 nerdcoresteve http://nerdcoresteve.wordpress.com/?p=120 ]]> Well Partly anyway. Wireless still doesn’t work but I’m pretty sure it’s an issue with the scanner, not my computer.

I do a lot of sketching and have a pretty big back log so I plan to post a sketch a week. Here is the first.

The Crab Clawed, Web Footed, Bat Winged Robo-Turtle-Dogomon

.

.

Here we declare the variables for the guy we’re sending the bcc too and for his email address

Dim someGuy As Outlook.Recipient

someGuysEmailAddress = “Eleazar.Manalo@8×8.com”

.

.

Then attach the email address to someGuy

Set someGuy = msg.Recipients.Add(ellisEmailAddress)

.

.

Set someGuy to olBCC

elli.Type = olBCC

.
.

I assume ol stands for outlook.

Next is the signature.  For some dumb reason, the default outlook signature that automatically appears in every email I send out doesn’t appear in the email my macro generates. I have done a lot of googling and trial and error and still haven’t got anywhere; The examples I’ve been looking at don’t make enough sense to me. I think I need to do a bit of basic studying in my book.

I’m starting in a chapter that talks about using the Word editor. I also want to have my macro read an email template from word rather than having to code it every time I want to make a change. It could turn out that I learn this before I learn the signature thing. I would have thought that would be more difficult than a silly signature.

In Outlook Macros Part 2 I had gotten as far as making a form (with buttons and text boxes and such) and was stumped by the drop down menu. I want a drop down menu with 3 choices. I did a little googling and it looks like I can add the choices in the code. I decided to set that part aside for now.

It took some time to figure out how to launch the form I had made but I finally found it.

UserForm1.Show

UserForm1 is just a place name. My form has a different name. I’m hesitant to show the actual code I’ve written because it’s job related. I think what I’ll do is make another dummy form and show you the code for that. By the way, make sure your module name isn’t the same as the project name or you get a “sub or function undefined” error.

Next I wanted to generate an email when I hit the “generate email” button on my form but I got a weird error message.

“A dialog box is open. Please close it and try again.”

Google didn’t help this time so I went to the forum page for the outlook 2007 book I had been using. Which pointed me in the right direction. I googled once again and found that I needed to write

UserForm1.Show vbModeless

I thought that had solved it. Then I went on to make more changes to the code. I ran it again and got the same error. I found that if I changed the code to say.

UserForm1.Show

Ran it, got the error, then changed the code again to

UserForm1.Show vbModeless

Then the code would work. Annoying.

I posted this to the forum and did some more coding. I wrote the email message I wanted to send out and added spots where I can dynamically change the names, email addresses, and whatnot.

I got more help from the outlook forum after clarifying my question. Remember kids, writing clearly is a skill we could all afford to improve on. I found I needed to change the “show modal” property to false. I clicked on my form, then I saw that option on the left hand side. Problem solved.

What I’ve learned so far, or perhaps I should say relearned, is that persistence pays off. You can make this work by using google, getting help from others, and not giving up when you hit a stumbling block.

Next up for me is to find out how to add more than one email address to the bcc (blind carbon copy) field. Off to google I go….

I forgot to say last time how to get to the visual basic editor. In Outlook 2003 you go to tools->macro->visual-basic-editor. When I do this, Outlook asks me if I want to enable or disable macros. I enable. I’m not sure how to put this as default yet.

Then I hit insert->module and entered this code:

Public Sub helloDorks()
Dim msg As Outlook.MailItem
Set msg = Application.CreateItem(olMailItem)
msg.Subject = “Space Station”
msg.Body = “What’s the progress on warp drive? When will it be online? My gerbils are getting tired and I’m running out of carrots.”
msg.Display
Set msg = Nothing
End Sub

I then saved and hit run, and yay! I got a new mail message.

Now I want a prompt that asks me to choose an email template, and the information to fill out that template (email, phone number, company name, etc.) For that I’m pretty sure I need forms, which are basically popup windows. I hit insert->user-form and I’ve got one. I can resize it, add text boxes, radio buttons, everything I need. Now I just need to know how to make my fancy box actually work

It looks like I can write code for a button just by double clicking it. I’ve whipped up a quick sketch of the form I want and am almost finished making it. Currently I’m trying to figure out how add items to a listbox.

to be continued….

I send out a lot of form emails at work but there only a few templates that I use, and the only things different in each message are the names and account information.  I’d like to have Outlook prompt me for account information and template choice, and then generate the email for me to review and send.

I did a bit of Googling and found Microsoft Outlook 2007 Programming. I went to Safari books, a very neat online library service I use, checked it out and began reading. Then I noticed I had Outlook 2003, not 2007. There is a book for that by the same author, but not at Safari. I’d have to buy it. I’ll stick with what I can get online for now.

I couldn’t find any online tutorials, just stuff for writing executable applications. I don’t need to go that far. I looked at the Microsoft documentation but I always have a hard time parsing that kind of stuff. It’s something I know I need to improve on, but I’d much rather find something easy to understand so I can actually get some programming done instead of pouring over class definitions and function descriptions for hours or days before I actually get to what I want.

I couldn’t find anything else so I decided to see what I could do with the book on Outlook 2007. With the first “hello world” example I got weird error saying macros weren’t allowed in this session or some such silliness. After more googling I discovered I might be able to solve the problem by creating my own developer certificate. I fiddled around with them but didn’t finish and called it a day.

Later I opened outlook and tried to run the macro again. It asked me if I should allow macros and I said yes. The program generated an email for me with “Hello World” as the subject line. Hooray! First success! Here’s the code. With some slight editorial changes.

Public Sub helloDorks()
Dim msg As Outlook.MailItem
Set msg = Application.CreateItem(olMailItem)
msg.Subject = “Space Station”
msg.Body = “What’s the progress on warp drive? When will it be online? My gerbils are getting tired and I’m running out of carrots.”
msg.Display
Set msg = Nothing
End Sub

Actually I think this is very close to what I want. I can change the subject line and body to say what I like. Now I just need to figure out how to prompt for user input and I think I’m in business.

First and foremost, I need to proofread! I want to stop posting things like “The Astonish Adventures…” instead of “The Astonishing Adventures..” There more misspellings and unclear sentences than I want there to be in the Action Steve Episodes. I also want to give myself time to rewrite and make the stories better, and I want to update regularly every midnight so everyone always knows when there will be a new episode.

To achieve these goals I think I want to increase my blog buffer to 6 episodes. Three will be ready to go, and three will be first-drafts. I want to get to a three episode comic buffer as soon as I’ve done that.

I also need to get my comic page in order, profile pic, home page graphics, etc. I want to make blog entries that give credit to all the contributors of Action Steve and what they’ve done, an entry introducing new readers to the blog, maybe something about my reasons for licensing the blog the way I do, and something explaining how people can contribute creatively to Action Steve.

On that note, I want to think of more ways to make it easier for people to contribute. Maybe something wiki-like, or a forum. I think more on this later.

I want to get t-shirts done! I’ve had a few t-shirt ideas in my head but I want to get them done and get an Action Steve Store up and running.

I really want to find a way to get blogger to auto update to twitter and facebook for me.

Lastly I need to figure out ways to get people to see the comic and the blog. I’ll look into joining comic and fiction groups and lists, maybe promote myself a bit on forums that I visit or have been meaning to visit in those “promote your crap here” threads. Anybody else got some ideas for promotion? I need to make a more thorough study of this.

One thing I won’t do is keep what an acquaintance of mine called the streak mentality. If you go on a diet, are good for 2 weeks and then break that diet, don’t feel like you’ve failed. You succeeded for 2 weeks! Get back on, those 2 weeks still have value. Celebrate that success. If you continue with a resolution after you’ve broken it, you’re not starting from square one, you’re building on your accomplishment.

On that note, I am once again trying a diet, of which I’m on day 5. Diet rules are as follows. No Sweets, by that I mean no sugary soda, no cookies, ice cream, etc. I will still eat pancakes with sugar free syrup and I won’t be looking at everything I buy to see if it has added sugar. No crackers, chips, cereal, or milk. These are snack foods that I over-snack on. I’m also going to try to manage portions better and eat healthier, but I’m not going to worry overmuch about portions.

I’m going try to cook and/or prepare my own food as much as possible. Failed on monday, but pizza is what happens when I get marinated frozen salmon instead of fresh un-marinated salmon. Whoops. Truthfully I was only going to help My Love prepare that particular meal on Monday, not cook it myself. But I came home on Tuesday and my love had already made it. It was an African Salmon dish and it was awesome! We had a tasty Ethiopian dish yesterday and I’m going to try and cook a new Vietnamese recipe this weekend. I think a way of making cooking more fun is to experiment with more recipes , not to stick with what I know, which can be a bit boring. I shouldn’t be afraid of failure, I can always go get restaurant food if that happens, and I will become a better cook even when I don’t succeed.

I am going to go to the gym, stretch, do sit-ups and push-ups, and exercise for 30 minutes everyday. I am going to sleep at least 7 hours a night. I’ve been doing this since sunday and I feel better! I will meditate 10 minutes every day; I haven’t been able to make time for this but I think I might have enough time in the morning just before I leave for work. I’ve meditated regularly in the past, it makes me more relaxed and aware.

I will clean the whole house and keep it clean. I’ll clean as I go, wash dishes as soon as I’m done with them, pick up things that are on the floor when I see them, etc. My room, although not totally clean and tidy yet, is cleaner than it’s ever been since I moved here in 2007.

The above takes priority. As Patrick Mclean has said, if you sleep 8 hours or more a day you get a tremendous competitive advantage. I’m just going for 7 a night and I’m already feeling the difference. I’m more aware, more awake during the day and my body can better handle sitting in an office chair for 8 hours. If I don’t get my other resolutions done because I’m taking care of myself, I’m fine with that. In fact, I’ve not done much work this week on my creative projects at all.

I am going to do or read about Math, Arithmetic, puzzles, programming or logic 15 minutes every day.  I want to keep in practice since I’m not taking a math class this semester. (I’m taking art instead.) I’ve been doing this between and sometimes during calls at work.

I’m going to keep a 3 blog buffer for the Action Steve blog and a 3 comic buffer on the upcoming Action Steve comic. I’ve got that right now. I’ve just got to maintain it. I’m going to spend a regular amount of time working on hand drawn animation; Whether that means some few minutes every week or some small time every day I’m not sure yet.

I know I’m already pushing it but I’d also like to add other projects, finishing a web page I keep meaning to do, learning to sew, learning electricity again, making a podcast, etc. But these are low priority, only to be done when I’ve taken care of other stuff.

I hardly need to make these next resolutions because I’ve been doing these for many months, but I want to keep sketching in my sketchbook and playing my Ukulele every day.

I also will connect more with other creators and reach out to potential fans. I want to network with more people but I am wary about being an asshole about it, perhaps overmuch. More on this in a later blog.

I want to go exploring more. I really like being a homebody. Everything I need is inside my house and I enjoy being there with My Love, but I think I’m missing out by not getting out more. I live in the bay area, there are cool shops, restaurants, museums, and all kinds of stuff I should be checking out. I also want to try to expand my social horizons, meet people outside of work and go on social outings.

Finally I’m going to blog about my progress, and  include some information and tutorials about what I’ve learned, and include pictures, photos, and links to my completed projects.

I know this is quite a lot and much of it may be unrealistic. Maybe the whole thing is. But I really want to try this. I’m full of hopeful energy and really feel like I can do it this time. Wish me luck.

Interesting that you should mention the Share Alike license from Creative Commons. A major project of mine in 2010 will depend very strongly on the Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 license.

I’m confused by your wondering why the podcasting world hasn’t embraced Free… isn’t that exactly what many podcasting novelists do?

Podcasters do embrace free. But I don’t see as many embracing merchandise. For example, I don’t see any links to a store on the home pages of Escape Pod or I should Be Writing. Decoder Ring Theater does better. They’ve got two tie in Novels and they have a cafe press store. Fear the boot, a role playing game podcast, also has a cafe press store as well as a yearly gaming con.

Compare this to the merchandising Juggernauts that are Penny Arcade and Homestar Runner, or the sheer number of shirts available for Questionable Content, another webcomic. XKCD, Diesel Sweeties, Player Vs Player, any webcomic you care to name, have stores filled with merchandise, mostly t-shirts, that update and change regularly.

For anyone who starts a webcomic, it’s a given that they’ll have a store and sell t-shirts, and not just one t-shirt, they know that in order to capitalize on their comic they have to have a wide and constantly new variety of stuff. I just don’t get why more podcasters don’t use what seems to me a very obvious way of making money.

About Creative Commons licenses, what about using a CC license that doesn’t include the non-commercial clause? I’m experimenting with this with my fiction blog, The Astonishing Adventures of Action Steve. (Which doesn’t have a store yet. ) Let’s say, for the sake of argument, somebody made their own comic, or game or blog using Action Steve or another of it’s characters (I know I’m assuming a lot here) and made money with it. I’m betting that the money made by other creators isn’t money I’ve lost, it just wouldn’t have been made if I’d kept the non-commercial part of my license, and anything anybody does with my work, commercial or not, will work against my real enemy, obscurity.

Also, I’m not sure there’s any point in trying to preventing people from stealing your work. They’ll do it anyway. And since it’s Attribution Share-Alike, well… if some big studio did someday want to make an Action Steve blockbuster movie, even though they wouldn’t have to pay me a dime, they’d have to share it too, and give me and Action Steve’s other contributors credit. I doubt Warner Bros would ever take that kind of deal, so what have I got to lose?