telophase | (no subject)

I managed to, for the first time, get *all* of the week's assignments done in the art course I'm taking! Even with a (small) migraine! Woo! I have not been able to get them redone in accordance with the instructor's comments, however, but I haven't been able to do that with the previous weeks' efforts either. :D Luckily, the course forums stay open (and we get access to an alumni forum) after it ends, and we're encouraged to go back and do or redo assignments, and can reread the lecture notes and rewatch the videos.

And in other news: head still twinging, but I'm at least at work.

Also, I bought the current MacHeist bundle - for $29 I got several programs including Scrivener (less that what Scrivener would normally cost). I just now have to install Steam on the Mac side of my system and download the games before I forget. (If you've got a Mac, the bundle has 4 days left.) At any rate, I used the Scrivener demo for the novel-editing text for the Digital Manga Guild, and I liked the ability to keep the raw translation open in one window while my editing was open in another, so was probably going to get it anyway. But then I found that it can sync with the SimpleNote app so I can download chapters to my iPad for editing, which makes traveling for the holidays and other things much easier and that tipped the decision for me.

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I mainly bought the bundle for Scrivener - I'm very much a fan of Storyist and meh about Scrivener, but it's a tool that other writers use, and I've had two clients enquire about it. And Disktools is useful - I just hope we get to Painter.

Artboard is actually pretty awesome. It's not Illustrator, but I've been using it a fair bit - I have my eye on Ortelius from the same people.

So. Am still not liking Scrivener much. But now I have my own, legitimate copy. Iz good.

I poked about Artboard for a few minutes last night and decided that it was easier to start to use than Illustrator--I've owned Illustrator for years because I buy the Adobe bundles, and still haven't managed to do much with it because it's so big it's intimidating.

I think Toby uses MacGourmet, bought in a previous bundle, but I could be wrong and it's another program he uses.

Eventually, I probably will have to find a copy of illustrator again (still angry with Adobe for killing Freehand, which was a much better product), but yes, I find it unwieldy. I kind of like InDesign even though it's overkill for what I do.
Artboard is an app that makes me want to poke around and do stuff with it. (So is Storyist). Illustrator (like Scrivener) is something I use because I must. I'm not entirely certain why this is the case, but there's a marked difference.

I'll play around the rest of the apps if and when I have the time. Not looking forward to having to use Steam - I hate Steam. I'm glad I already have a Bejewelled licence through Macgamestore.

Oh, and www.gog.com has just added Mac Support. Someone pointed that out on Twitter, and it was not news I wanted to know. Good thing I've just spent all my spare cash on this bundle...