Great Scott!

My Loopt Journal

2009-08-12T20:53:00.001-05:00

Sign up for Loopt at www.loopt.com

My Loopt Journal

2009-08-12T20:52:00.005-05:00

Sign up for Loopt at www.loopt.com

My Loopt Journal

2009-08-12T20:52:00.003-05:00

Sign up for Loopt at www.loopt.com

My Loopt Journal

2009-08-12T20:52:00.001-05:00

Sign up for Loopt at www.loopt.com

Music Section Added to www.grahamshelton.com

2009-03-17T11:19:00.003-05:00

I've added a music section to my web site (grahamshelton.com). It's actually a LastFM player on a page on the site. Check it out. I've been trying out several different music servers for the site and haven't had a great deal of success with them. Most of the problems I've had have been from the severs not being able to handle my 90GB music collection or didn't make it easy to get the 30,000+ tracks into the database. I haven't given up, but this will do for the time being. More changes for the web site to come. Stay tuned.

Chameleon Chamber Group @ Hal Samples Gallery

2009-02-28T15:16:00.015-06:00

From Hal Samples Gallery

Tom Haynes and I attended a showing at Hal Samples Gallery last night. The Chameleon Chamber Group played; they have a really cool sound. For lack of a better term the quartet has "modernized" classical music pieces. I really enjoyed the sound and upstairs at Hal's gallery is a great intimate space to see a band. Here is a video sample I shot from my regular digital camera. It was pretty dark and the camera had trouble keeping up. I had trouble holding the camera steady for so long.

We didn't stay for the next band. I didn't get the name of that band. If you ever get a chance to catch The Chameleon Chamber Group, don't miss it; you're in for a treat.

We're getting the band back together!

2009-02-23T23:18:00.000-06:00

Mark today, February 23rd, 2009. We got the band back together. After many attempts, my very good friend and long-time creative collaborator Tom Haynes and I met for several hours today. We made plans to launch several creative endeavours together and for each other. I'm excited and really looking forward to what we have planned. It really seems like the timing is right and things are falling in place. We've also committed to meeting each day this week and to agree on a long term schedule by next week. We've also agreed to document as much of our process as possible. We're off to scout a gallery where Tom will be displaying his photography work.

cowboys make 1st down.

2008-10-06T17:20:00.001-05:00

cowboys winning 17-0 12:04 left in 2nd q

2008-10-06T17:17:00.001-05:00

go cowboys!

Dynamic Data Workflow in InDesign CS2 and CS3

2008-09-21T15:25:00.002-05:00

Importing Excel Spreadsheet Data into an InDesign Table Note: This example uses the following files: Test.xls & Test.indd. Also, the Excel file has line breaks (ALT-enter) that have been enter into cells with more than one paragraph in them.

In order for the table to not have to be re-formatted after every update to the Excel file, styles for each element (i.e. table's header cell, table's body cell, etc.) have to be created in the correct sequence. This ensures that as each level of style is created it inherits the style from the level of style before it. The levels style have to be defined in the following order: character style=> paragraph style (which includes character styles )=> cell style (which includes paragraph style)=> table style (which includes cell styles).

	Step 1 Create New Document Start by creating a new document (File>New>Document) or opening an existing one. Note: Bring up your Preferences (press Command-K [PC: Ctrl-K]), click on the Type category on the left, enable Create Links When Placing Text and Spreadsheet Files, and click OK. This will ensure that if you place a table from Word or Excel, when someone updates the Word or Excel document, your InDesign document updates too.
	Step 2 Build and Format Table An easy way to build a style is to format a table first. This table will only be used to set the styles. It will be deleted once the styles have been built. Build a table with the same number of rows and columns as the Excel file to be imported; in this example there are four columns, one header row and five body rows. Enter the table dimensions and number of header rows. Select OK.
	With your text tool inside one of the table's cell start to format the table by selecting Table=>Table Options=>Table Setup. In the Table Setup tab change the Table Border Weight to 0pt.
	Select the Column Strokes tab and click Custom Column from the Alternating Pattern drop-down menu. Change the First Alternating Columns number of columns to 1 and change the color of the Column Stroke. Change the Next Alternating Columns number of columns to 0.
	Select the Fills tab and click Every Other Row from the Alternating Pattern drop-down menu. Change the color in the First Alternating Rows and select 1 for the Skip First Rows option. Select OK.
	Format the table header background by highlighting the entire table header and selecting Table=>Cell Options=>Strokes and Fills. In the Cell Stroke section change Weight to 0pt. In the Cell Fill change the background color. Select OK.
	Format some placeholder text for the table header, table cell header, and the table cell body.
	Step 3 Build Character Styles Build three character styles and save them: one for the Table Header, one for the Cell Header and finally one for the Cell Body. With the text tool, select the header text and select New Character Style from the Character Style Panel's fly-out menu. Under the General settings enter "Table Header" for the Style Name. Select OK. Repeat the process for both the Cell Header text and the Cell Body Text.
	Step 4 Build Paragraph Styles Paragraph Styles not only format the paragraph attributes but they also use character styles to format the text. With the text tool, select the header text and select New Paragraph Style from the Paragraph Style Panel's fly-out menu. Build two paragraph styles and save them: one for the header row (Table Header) and one for the cell header (Table Cell Header). Select OK.
	Step 5 Build Nested Paragraph Style With the text tool select the Cell Body text and create a new Paragraph Style. Name this Style "Table Cell Body" and select the "Drop Caps and Nested Styles" section.
	Select the "New Nested Style" button. In the drop-down menu under the Nested Styles section, scroll down and select "Table Cell Header" for the style. Change the frequency drop-down menu to "up to". Change number to "1". Change end of style drop-down menu to "Forced Line Break".
	Select the "New Nested Style" button a second time. In the drop-down menu under the Nested Styles section, scroll down and select "Table Cell Body" for the style. Change the frequency drop-down menu to "through". Change number to "2". Change end of style drop-down menu to "Forced Line Break".
	Select the "New Nested Style" button a third time and final time. In the drop-down menu under the Nested Styles section, scroll down and select "Table Cell Header" for the style. Change the frequency drop-down menu to "through". Change number to "1". Change end of style drop-down menu to "Forced Line Break". Select OK.
	Step 6 Build Cell Styles Cell styles not only format the cell attributes but they also use paragraph styles to format the text (which uses character styles to format the text). Select the table cell that has the Table Header text with the text tool and then select New Cell Style from the Cell Style panel's fly-out menu. Build two cell styles and save them: one for header cells (Table Header) and one for our cell header (Table Cell Header). In the New Cell Style dialog box for the Cell Style Table Header, enter Table Header for the Style Name and under the Paragraph Styles section's drop-down menu select Table Header.
	Select the Text section of the Cell Style Options dialog box. Make adjustments to the Cell Inserts section to set the padding between cells. Select Align Center from the Vertical Justification drop-down menu.
	Select the Strokes and Fills tab. In the Cell Stroke section, change the Cell Stroke Weight to 0pt. In the Cell Fill section, change the Cell Fill color to the Table Header background color. Select OK.
	Repeat the step above for the Cell Body Cell Style. Select the table cell that has the Table Cell Body text with the text tool and then select New Cell Style from the Cell Style panel's fly-out menu. In the New Cell Style dialog box for the Cell Style Cell Body, enter Cell Body for the Style Name and under the Paragraph Styles section's drop-down menu select Table Cell Body.
	Step 7 Build the Table Style Table styles not only format the table attributes but they also use cell styles to format the text (which uses paragraph styles to format the text). Select some table cell text with the text tool and then select New Table Style from the Table Style panel's fly-out menu. In the New Table Style dialog box for the Table Style Basic Brown, enter Basic Brown for the Style Name and under the Cell Styles section's Header Rows' drop-down menu select Table Header.
	Under the Cell Styles section's Body Rows' drop-down menu select Cell Body.
	Select the Column Strokes and the Strokes and Fills sections and verify that the formatting was picked up from the formatting done to the initial table.
Step 8 Delete Table Now that all of the Styles have been built, the table can be deleted.
	Step 9 Bring Excel Spreadsheet Into InDesign Create a text box in Indesign to receive the Excel spreadsheet. Make sure that Show Import Options is checked. Navigate to the the Test.xls file and select open.
	In the Import Options dialog box that appears, select the appropriate worksshet from the Options Sheet drop-down menu. The Cell Range bt default selects all cells with data. Under the Formatting section, select Unformatted Table from the Table drop-down menu. Select Basic Brown from the Table Style Menu. Select OK.
	This is the resulting table. Notice that the Table Header has picked up the Cell Body style, but the cell with the multiple line breaks have been formated correctly.
	Step 10 Final Format of Table The reason the Table Header has picked up the Cell Body's style is in the Table Style Options. Under the General section's Cell Styles there are two options on the right for the Left Column and Right Column Cell Styles. Unfortuantely there is only one work around. But once it's done, updates to the Excel file will not cause the formatting to revert. That's because by fixing the Table Header formatting with a cell style, updates will not break the link to that cell style.
	With the Text Tool select the Table Header row and from the Cell Style panel select the Table Header style.
	With the text tool, edit the column widths of the table to fit the layout.
	Once adjusted, right-click on the table and select Fitting=> Fit Frame to Content.

Updating Excel Spreadsheet Data in an InDesign Table Note: This example uses the following files: Test.xls
& Test.indd. Also, the Excel file has line breaks (ALT-enter) that
have been enter into cells with more than one paragraph in them.

You can update the data in the InDesign table any of four ways:

edit the Test.xls file and save changes (This is the method that will be demonstrated below).
save a new spreasheet with the name Test.xls over the old file.
select the
Test.xls link in the Links panel and select the relink button to relink
to another file altogether.
edit the table directly in the InDesign table.*

*The main cavet of
this method is that if the Test.xls is ever updated, or relinked, the
edits made directly in the InDesign table will be lost. This also
defeats the purpose of building all the styles.

	Step 11 Updating Excel File Make some updates to the Test.xls file, Save and close the Excel Spreadsheet.
	Back in InDesign, the links panel shows that the Excel file has been edited and needs updating. Select the Update Link button at the botton of the panel; second from the right.
	The following warning may come up, but since all of the table formatting was done with Table and Cell Styles it doesn't matter; select yes.
	The data in the table has been updated just like the Excel file.

Google Apps!

2008-09-05T16:52:00.004-05:00

I have seen the future and it is Google Apps. Here is the description from the Apps website, "Google Apps gives all your employees professional email address, tools for word processing, spreadsheets and presentations, a shared calendaring system and access to a flexible intranet system. Standalone security and compliance services are also available." I deployed it for my personal website at the first of the year. I initially did it for the email hosting alone. The free Standard version includes 24gb mail storage for up to 200 users. Users can use pop3 or imap servers and access their mail via a browser or an email client. Recently I started looking into how a small to mid size company might utilize the many other "Apps" that Google offers.

The email service alone makes this a compelling option for anyone with a website and from what I'm learning is a small part of what could be a business' IT backbone. My experience set-up Google Apps on mine and my client's website have been virtually painless. Most of the problems I encountered were because of mistakes I made. I will continue to post the progress of the exploration.

Video From My Wing

2008-09-05T00:06:00.003-05:00

Posted via MMS

2008-09-04T18:05:00.002-05:00

testing out blogger's mobile blogging. took the picture with my phone, typed this copy on the keyboard. uploaded via mms. still need to check if I get charged for mms messages. I don't think so. when I send mms it is definitely accessing the edge network to send.

Picture From My Phone

2008-09-04T14:05:00.004-05:00

Labor Day Bike Ride

2008-09-03T13:02:00.000-05:00

Here's a ride I did with my friend Danny. I met him at Mockingbird Station and I rode for about 2 hours. Pretty light intensity workout.

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://www.mapmyrun.com/ride/united-states/tx/dallas/962994440743"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;09/03/2008 Route&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br/&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://www.mapmyrun.com/find-ride/united-states/tx/dallas"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Find more Bike Rides in Dallas, Texas&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

My First Blog

2008-09-02T13:04:00.000-05:00

This is my first true blog. I have written a couple for my new website ourdinners.com; mainly just to create content. The site is a community site for a group of my friends that regularly get together to have dinner parties. I created the site to help us organize and document our dinner parties. I had to teach myself the back-end system, Dolphin. I took me several days to get it tweaked out. It still needs some work, but it has some pretty slick features. I will be doing some research to see if I can't get this blog to replicate on that site. I think it can be done. I'm also learning Joomla and have already set-up a couple of web sites; including my personal/portfolio site: grahamshelton.com. Joomla is a very powerful and extremely customizable. The learning cruve on both was kinda steep. It took some time to get my head around the way Joomla works, but that is what makes it so powerful. I'll try to keep this blog up to date; but it's definately an experiment. Thanks for taking the time to check it out.

2008-08-21T13:33:00.000-05:00

China Silk Wines/Strategic Partners Dallas, TX November 1998 – Present

Art Director

Freelance Design Dallas, TX November 1996 – Present

Contract Work

N-Gen Studios Dallas, TX October 2005 – April 2008

Studio Artist

Case Dunlap Enterprises, Inc. (Tic Toc USA) Dallas, TX August 1997 – October 1998

Account Executive / Technology Strategies Consultant

Sales Marketing, Inc. St Paul, MN (Southwest Office, Dallas, TX) November 1991 – November 1996

Account Manager

Case Dunlap Enterprises, Inc. Dallas, TX January 1991 – October 1991

Production Manager (May ‘91 – Oct. ‘91) - Import Manager (Jan. ‘91 - May ‘91)

CBS Television Stations - Dallas, TX (National Sales Office) August 1990 – January 1991

Sales Assistant

Case Dunlap Enterprises, Inc. Dallas, TX May 1985 – August 1990

Account Executive

Contract Jobs

Anderson’s Furniture Carrollton, TX January 2004 – June 2004

Advertising Director (Contract)

The IFC Group, Inc. Addison, TX February 2003 – January 2004

Interactive Project Manager (Contract)

MDBuyline, Inc. Dallas, TX July 2002 – February 2003

Associate Analyst (Contract)

Projects

Company:	Client:	Project:
Anderson’s Furniture	Advertising Director
4-store furniture company. Responsible for all creative & creation of in-store signage, magazine ads, newspaper ads & billboard artwork; utilizing Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop & InDesign. Developed new name & designed new logo. Maintained company’s SQL based website http://www.andersonsfurniture.com. Also responsible for store and warehouse computer networks and all supporting systems.
The IFC Group	Coca-Cola / NASCAR	History Of The Coca-Cola 600
Planned, researched designed and managed production of History of the Coca-Cola 600 NASCAR Race Interactive CD-ROM. Managed 4 freelance artists & Flash programmers. Responsible for clearances of all media from 1960-1998 races. Managed production of audio & video clips. Managed 3 different CD production companies in order to make production deadlines. Responsible for creating overall project design, interface design, all marketing materials & supporting website. Set-up & configured shopping cart for online ordering. Designed, developed & managed an email marketing campaign. Worked with distributors, wholesalers & online retailers to market CD’s. http://www.theifcgroup.com/emailoffer/
Sales Marketing, Inc.	Dr Pepper / Sonic Drive-Ins	Route 66 Summer Tour Sweepstakes
Developed programs for Dr Pepper’s fountain sales customers funded by co-op dollars. Developed three initial concepts for Sonic’s Summer Promotion; which was traditionally a Coca-Cola sponsored promotion. Presented art boards & proposals. ‘Route 66 Summer Tour’ concept was selected. Headed team that developed game rules, budget, creative, collateral, prize selection, point of sale, print ads, & crew incentive. Responsible for presenting final creative & procuring sign-off on a $1.5 million budget. Promotion was peel-n-win / peel & collect that included 10,000,000 game pieces & 5,000,000 collection ‘maps’. Prizes included grand prize of a Jeep Grand Cherokee & a Jeep Wrangler for the crew incentive. Managed entire promotion, including art direction, legal, print production, prize negotiations & procurement, fulfillment & drop shipment of collateral kits to individual drive-ins, 1099’s for winners & return on investment analysis. Resulted in Sonic’s most successful promotion & an increase of 19% in fountain sales for Dr Pepper.
Sales Marketing, Inc.	Circle K	Promotional Guidebook
Developed promotional guidebook for district area managers. Promotions geared to specific goals were identified in semi-annual meetings with Circle K’s marketing department. Produced & stocked ahead of time; promotions were designed to address store issues including grand openings/re-openings, store remodels, island/pump remodels, de-branding & crew incentives. ‘Guidebook’ included sections that explained promotional basics, ordering information & each promotion’s objective, strategy, tactics & details. District area managers selected promotions based on specific needs of individual stores. Managers filled out & faxed orders. Warehoused promotional ‘kits’ were letter-shopped & overprinted for individual stores. Most promotions involved direct mail drops within a 5-mile radius of individual stores. Involved with development of individual promotions. Responsible for semi-annual meetings, budget for production of promotional collateral based on projections from those meetings, production of the ‘Guidebook’, production of the collateral, order processing, direct mail list & kit fulfillment.

Great Scott!

My Loopt Journal

My Loopt Journal

My Loopt Journal

My Loopt Journal

Music Section Added to www.grahamshelton.com

Chameleon Chamber Group @ Hal Samples Gallery

We're getting the band back together!

cowboys make 1st down.

cowboys winning 17-0 12:04 left in 2nd q

Dynamic Data Workflow in InDesign CS2 and CS3

Step 1

Create New Document

Step 2

Build and Format Table

Build Character Styles

Repeat the process for both the Cell Header text and the Cell Body Text.

Step 4

Build Paragraph Styles

Step 5

Build Nested Paragraph Style

Step 6

Build Cell Styles

Step 7

Build the Table Style

Step 8

Delete Table

Step 9

Bring Excel Spreadsheet Into InDesign

Step 10

Final Format of Table

Step 11

Updating Excel File

Google Apps!

Video From My Wing

Posted via MMS

Picture From My Phone

Labor Day Bike Ride

My First Blog