camrogers | (no subject)

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finland

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Contract extended to six months. Basically this means i can work til I have enough money, then go. If a Helsinki job comes up, I'll head over sooner. If not, I'll work til I get enough. And it's the best paycheque I've ever earned. I mean seriously.

I'm gonna attempt to train myself in Framemaker, and XML, and CSS. I dont plan on making a living not-writing, but as far as keeping body and soul together consulting and web design aren't too freakin' shabby. And it means I can design and maintain my own goddamned website, finally, which feeds into the self-promotion thing.

Also need to properly get onto Twitter.

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Glad I could help, and it's excellent to see the universe throwing things your way and you running with it. :)

A lot of people are using Adobe InDesign CS4 in preference to Frame these days. Paging

drwally!
XML and CSS may appear impenetrable at first, but I think that's because they require a certain mindset. Plug-away at it because when it "clicks" they have their own internal consistency (most of the time). Besides, with something like Frame or InDesign, you don't need to directly write/edit code most of the time.

CAE has short courses in the Adobe CS4 suite and I think you can choose to concentrate on some of the software without going for the whole lot. From memory (admittedly fuzzy), it's 3-5 days/nights a week for 2 weeks. I came that close to being sent on it last year by work and, IIRC, it looked like the sort of thing that could be self-funded. Seeing as you're already a student there, you might get a discount.

InDesign, thanks. I leapt on Framemaker as a Helsinki position asked for it.

RE CAE: Thanks! Given I now work nights it's probably out, but I'll look into it.

Uh, InDesign is print only. You'll be looking at Dreamweaver for web. TBH, I don't bother though - I just edit the CSS and see how it comes out.

Also, generally, you need not bother with XML, or PHP or anything like that. A Content Management System like Wordpress, Joomla or Drupal will handle all that for you - you just concentrate on the CSS in the theme.

Thanks for the advice. I wonder why the ad spefically asked for those skills? Weird.

The data verification job?

That is weird. If it were a web content writing job, the explanation for mentioning XML is; recruiters know jack shit about the jobs for which they're recruiting. Honestly. You could throw off a stream of pseudo technical consciousness like in the first episode of The IT Crowd, and still get accepted, as long as you mentioned all their requested buzzwords so they could tick them off.

Then of course, you get through to the hiring manager, who should have a better idea of what's going on. Should. ;-)

FYI, if you're not familiar with the IT Crowd (never sure what's made it down to the antipodes, either broadcast or in the interwebz);

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIM03-9ikok&feature=related

Pretty sure it's been broadcast here, but somehow I've never seen an episode. Thanks!

No, this was for a tech writer position in Helsinki.

Also, very tired when last posted. May not have made sense. :)

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