If you could take a glimpse at our list of available software, you’d be pretty impressed by its length. Since DDA’s founding in 1994, we’ve constantly been using the most up-to-date software available for digital media. The list consists of authoring tools for virtual reality, photo manipulation, illustration, video editing, 3D animation, server-side programming, CD-ROM authoring, DVD authoring, audio editing and all sorts of other purposes. One of the things I like most about working at DDA is that I have had the opportunity and still work with a huge number of those pieces of software. All the work we do is a melange of these digital technologies to create a final piece that is unique in its function, design, and usability. It’s these technologies and the mastering of them that really sets DDA apart from the competition.

And somehow, I got to the Doritos website. It wasn’t completely by chance though. I had heard a commercial during my morning commute about fiery hot Doritos whose fierce heat could only be quenched by a specific soft drink. Strangely I couldn’t find an online marketing campaign but the Doritos site was itself pretty entertaining with links to various other mini-sites. The main site offers fun discovery interaction where you aren’t exactly told where to go but rather have to hunt and click around, making a miniature town come to life in the process. Although sites like these are fun to navigate and get lost within, when working on medical eLearning and medical training websites, as we do at DDA, direction and interactivity needs to be clean, intuitive and succinct.

With the nicer weather this past weekend possibly lulling us into a false sense of security, I made the most of the warmer temperatures by cleaning out the garage, raking up some leaves in the driveway and working on my motorcycle. There were a couple issues I tried to tackle namely a wiring issue from the stator to rectifier which was causing excessive heat and a troublesome clutch. Through some troubleshooting and surfing on the web, it seems that I might have a bad stator probably the result of the previous owner using an old battery. The clutch on the other hand, I’m not too sure. I’ll start with flushing the fluid and work through a process of elimination. As this is my first motorbike, I’m certainly learning a lot and of course, the Internet is proving to be an incredible resource of information.

Motor mechanics isn’t the only thing I’ve been learning about lately. Each day at DDA, I’m learning new things about coding with Flash and Flash Media Interactive Server, video editing and 3D animation.  I’m constantly gaining new insight into making eLearning applications, virtual simulations, and interactive websites more optimized, user friendly and engaging with my colleagues and the Internet as valuable resources.