Encore – August 2008

I consider myself to be a reasonably tech savvy person. I like computers and electronics, but this afternoon at about 3:00pm Central Daylight savings time, I met my match. The CS3 Adobe Production Premium Suite masks it’s self as a mild mannered suite of software that can do anything from take out the red eye on your family photos to… hummmmm… lets see… I don’t know… maybe… AUTHOR THE DVD’s FOR YOUR NATIONAL SALES MEETING (which happens to be in 5 weeks and they still have to go to duplication) with the stroke of a few keys.

Note to Self: I do love my job! I do love my job! I do love my job! I do love my job! I do love my job!

All was going smoothly, (well as smoothly as can be expected without any formal training on the software) when I open my project in Adobe Encore and began placing menus, slides, and end actions. I was trucking right along when all of the sudden, while attempting to add a song called Spare Parts by a band called BluesPower, my progress came to a screeching halt.

Note to Reader: I know, catchy car songs for Automotive training is cheesy, but hey what are you gonna do. We call it the “cool aide”.

An hour later, after much internal (and some external) huffing and puffing, I had tried every tutorial and still had gotten nowhere. I called or personally went to see three of my most valued Adobe experts, two of which had never even herd of Encore and the third was just as perplexed as I was. I called my dear husband, who on the rare occasion was off work and he immediately began downloading a free trial version on our home computer so that he could try to help me. I took a walk with squeezable stress balls in each hand to avoid throwing my computer into the trash, (because out the window wasn’t an option). If I were a smoker, well… you get the picture!

Additional Note to Reader: In all seriousness, if you know and can teach this program there is a pretty penny in it for you!

After my internal temper tantrum and my external separation from the said offending computer, I returned with a resolve to make this dang thing work… and I did. I don’t know what I did, or how I did it, but I made my DVD and even better, it has a soundtrack!

So regardless of the fact that I have a TON of stuff to do, I decided that I was going to end the day on a good note. So I headed home, leaving the rest of my battles to fight tomorrow.

Till next time,
Bon Voyage!