All of us have that friend – the computer wizard. Even among the so-called power users, some people still shine as outstanding. What’s their secret? One secret to super-speed is to know the shortcuts for the programs you’re using. We all hunt through menus to find what we’re looking for, but that’s for newbs. Once you start getting expert, sorting through menus just takes time that could be better spent tweaking details in your images.
Enter the keyboard shortcut. This is how those speedy users get so fast. One key combo, and they’ve zoomed in, or saved, or switched from one image to another. Try it yourself! Here (thanks to Trevor Morris) is an awesome resource; all of the keyboard shortcuts for CS4 – both Mac and PC versions!
Nina started the day off right by playing a jig/reel every hour on the hour from the hallway. You should have heard this place! The only time things went silent today was when Nina had to sneak off to the dentist.
Nina playing a jig
Not to be outdone, we had two of iD Tech Camps new Client Services representatives get into the spirit as well! Side note, I checked back in with them at 4:45PM today and they still had their hats on. Good stuff, guys! This proves you can work, have fun, and still run the best summer computer camps in the country. Keep it up team!
Here’s the scenario: It’s almost summer, your child or teen wants to go to a summer camp (or you need to figure out what to do with them when school is out), and with all the options available you don’t know where to start. Sound familiar? Choosing a summer camp can be difficult and with today’s economy, choosing the right summer camp has gotten even harder. Read on to learn more about your summer camp options and to see what type of camp would be best for your child.
Day Camps vs. Overnight Camps
There is one simple difference when it comes to summer camps. Depending on your child’s age and comfort-level with being away from home, day camps can provide the opportunity for kids and teens to socialize, learn new skills or play sports during the day, while getting picked up at the end of the day each day to return home.
Overnight camps provide a student the chance to learn independence in a supervised setting. Overnight camps are a great option for students who are comfortable with being away from home for one week or more.
Summer Camps on a University Campus
Some Academic, Sports, Arts and Technology camps team up with universities to provide camps in a collegiate environment. Students meet in university labs, eat in university dining halls, tour the campus and enjoy recreational time in university facilities. Plus, overnight campers stay right in the college dorms on campus.
iD Tech Camps chooses to hold its camps exclusively at prestigious university locations. By doing so, younger students are exposed to a college setting and begin thinking about their future at a young age. Teen students get the chance to explore a college campus that they may aspire to attend before applying or committing. Parents also find this choice enticing as college tours and activities on or near campus give students the chance to explore while learning!
Technology Summer Camps and Science Camps
These camps give students the chance to focus on a specific interest, such as video game design, programming, graphic arts, digital video production and photography, robotics and more. Sometimes tech camps focus on one specific class or element, while others offer a broader range of courses to meet the desires of the student. Oftentimes these summer computer camps have teamed up with industry-leading companies to provide students the chance to work with real-world products used by industry professionals.
Academic Summer Camps
These types of camps give students the chance to focus on one particular academic activity or skill and develop it over the length of the camp session. Many camps provide math, language arts, theater, photography or computer-focused areas of study. Cost can vary widely depending on materials used and length of camp. Some academic camps offer special Teen-Only options for older, more mature campers.
Art Summer Camps
Art camps offer students the chance to explore their artistic interests in a group setting outside of school. Kids sometimes focus on painting, drawing or the visual arts, while other camps provide the opportunity to learn more about computer-based design and graphic arts.
Sports Summer Camps
Great for kids and teens who want an outdoor camp experience! If your child wants to learn a new sport or improve their current skill level in soccer, swimming, football, hockey, basketball, or even bowling, there are sports camps available. Some camps even provide a sports element with an academic element to create a balanced atmosphere. iD Tech Camps offers hybrid courses like Sports & Tech or Surf & Tech. Students spend half the day learning a new sport or learning how to surf, and the other half creating their own video game or personalized website.
Religious-Specific Summer Camps
These camps often combine one or more of the elements above with instruction and time set aside for religious study. These are often run by local churches and sometimes have a community service element involved.
Special Needs Summer Camps
These camps create a summer camp environment for students who, due to physical, mental or emotional challenges, might not have the option to attend typical summer camps or activities. Staff are chosen with this in mind and activities can vary widely. Camper-to-staff ratios are lower to provide individualized attention and create an environment that is comfortable and appropriate for the campers needs.
Making the Final Decision
Whatever type of camp you choose, make sure it is one that puts your child’s safety first and also one that has a track record for providing a quality summer camp experience year after year. Also explore student and parent testimonials from each camp and contact their client services team with any questions.
Whether you decide to attend iD Tech Camps this summer or another camp, make sure you are investing wisely in your child’s future. Good luck, we hope to see you this summer!
This entry I’ll be showcasing a simple MP3 player written in Adobe Flex. Full source code is available here.
Also included in this project is a wonderful Flex visualizer written by Ben Stucki. The player loads an MP3, either local or remote. An event listener then calls a function when loading is complete that will pull ID3 tag information. In this project I’m only pulling the Title, Artist, and Album tags, but you can pull any associated tag you need. We also create a visualizer component and link it to a playing sound channel, which produces the lovely visualizer.
You can also load remote MP3s just as easily (the default MP3 is local). Simply paste the URL for an mp3 into the text box and then hit the play button.
In addition I’ve incorporated a rather hackish Flex ProgressBar as a “seek” bar. The percentage of play progress is calculated and then applied to the progress bar regularly, and a MouseListener is placed on the progress bar that allows the user to click at various points along the bar. The coordinates of the mouse click are then translated into a percentage of the song length. The song is then stopped and play is started from the new location.
The music sample used is from Wired’s Creative Commons CD. Tracks from this album can also be used to test the remote playing functionality.
Ever wanted to use a custom animated cursor in your Flash project? This video tutorial will show you how to do so via Actionscript. Click here for the source code.
If you’re like me, sometimes it’s hard to get a good idea of what your best photos are when you’re looking at them on the screen. Sometimes it’s good to get away from the computer, and look at paper. While I always advocate “staying green” and avoiding paper where possible, sometimes clients (or grandparents) prefer things the old-school way. Professional photographers use “contact sheets” which are sheets of paper with sample images on them, much like you may have seen “thumbnail galleries” online. A contact sheet is a paper version of a thumbnail gallery. Adobe Bridge features a really easy and customizable way to view just the images you select.
Open BR CS4. Select “output” from the top row, and you’ll see a dialog box on the right hand side with multiple sets of options. At the top it asks if you want to output to a pdf file or for the web. According to what output options you choose, you can customize the way you want it to show up.
You can see a couple of samples here; a contact sheet with 40 smaller images, or one with 20 larger ones. You can choose whatever sizes you’d like, or use some of the more common presets.
Today we congratulate Remus Badea! Remus is the winner of a free week of Day Camp for iD Tech Camps! We are excited to have a new family join the iD Family! Remus is the second Camp Fair Raffle winner of the season. We’ll be holding 2 more raffles, one per month and announcing future winners here!
Come see us at a camp fair event near you and enter for your chance to win! To find a camp fair in your area, simply call our client service department at 1-888-709-TECH (8324), option 1.
Here’s another Flash video tutorial. This time we’ll be focusing on a “Whack-a-mole” type Flash game. Click here to download the accompanying source code.
The summer camp industry, like the rest of the country, is facing serious challenges this year. Choosing the right camp can be grueling for parents and kids alike. The good news is there are thousands of camps out there, seemingly a buffet of options that meet every need, fill every niche, and can accommodate most any budget. Video Game Camp? Check. Golf Camp? Check. Technology Camp? Spanish Camp? Day Camp? Sleep Away Camp? Check, check, check and check.
Two of the country’s largest summer camp operators are headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area. US Sports Camps, the official operator of NIKE Sports Camps, is headquartered in San Rafael, California. The camp offers hundreds of programs nationwide. iD Tech Camps, headquartered about an hour south in the Silicon Valley, runs its summer camps at over 60 prestigious universities nationwide including Stanford, UC Berkeley, UCLA and MIT. The company teaches technologies from Adobe®, Apple®, Microsoft® and others. These two camp businesses have been running summer camps for over thirty and ten years, respectively.
The president of US Sports Camps, Steve Pence, and the president of iD Tech Camps, Pete Ingram-Cauchi, meet a couple times a year over lunch at Perry’s in San Francisco. They compare notes and industry trends.
Ingram-Cauchi, obligatory Blackberry in hand, commented, “To our surprise, this year is actually shaping up to be better than we had hoped. We’re seeing growth at almost all locations. Parents want to give their kids a leg up—and camp is a definite way to do that.”
Pence, dressed in his Nike golf polo, had a similar upbeat response. “We’ve been running camps for over 30 years. “We’re seeing a strong trend in registrations. Parents want quality, and that’s why they look for camps with established track records.”
In difficult economic times, both Ingram-Cauchi and Pence are betting that there will be a flight to quality, just like many investors are betting on the big blue chip companies that have longstanding track records.
The summer camp industry is a multi-billion dollar industry, but many small camp operators are bracing for a tough year. Clearly, there is debate out there as to just how discretionary summer camps are in a family’s budget.
“We think parents want to invest in their kids, and they want the best programs out there,” said Ingram-Cauchi. “Summer camps, by nature, are an investment in the future. Kids learn new skills. It’s one of the last things to cut from the budget. “ But Ingram-Cauchi is still trying to get creative and be sensitive to the fact that a lot of families are tightening their belts. One of the things iD Tech Camps has done is to allow parents to pay a $200 deposit, as opposed to asking for all the tuition up front. “This allows parents to spread the cost of camp out over several months. This has been very well received,” said Ingram-Cauchi. Mr. Pence is doing something similar by offering a $250 deposit option.
Across the street from iD Tech Camps is a smaller camp operator called “Let’s Play in Spanish.” The camp, operated by Chris and Susy Dorn, has built a loyal following by offering great service and a unique offering. “We can’t complain about our numbers,” said Dorn. “Parents know we’ve been around awhile—and that means something right now. Nobody wants to waste money.”
The three camp operators are clearly engaged in the camp microcosm. “We’re in the greatest industry in the world, “said Mr. Pence. “We impact the future.”
The optimism on display with these three summer camp operators is palpable. When you talk to them, you get the sense that better days are just around the corner. That’s welcome news against the constant backdrop of negative economic information.
About iD Tech Camps
iD Tech Camps, www.internalDrive.com, headquartered in Campbell, California (in the Silicon Valley), is America’s Largest Technology Camp and teaches technologies from Adobe, Apple, Microsoft and others, to ages 7-18 . It was founded in 1999 with the mission of delivering the finest technology instruction to young students at America’s finest colleges and universities, including Stanford, UCLA, MIT and UT Austin. During the summer of 2008, more than 15,000 campers attended iD Tech Camps at 50 locations nationwide. The company also provides three teen programs: iD Gaming Academy, iD Film Academy and iD Programming Academy.
About US Sports Camps
US Sports Camps (USSC), www.USSportsCamps.com, headquartered in San Rafael, California (just north of San Francisco), is America’s Largest Sports Camp Network and the licensed operator of The NIKE Sports Camps. It was started in 1975 with the same mission that defines it today: to shape a lifelong enjoyment of athletics through high quality sports education and skill enhancement. By partnering with the country’s best coaches to direct our camps and by providing them with valuable administrative and marketing support, USSC has become the largest and most successful sports camp operator in America. During the summer of 2008 more than 52,000 campers attended US Sports Camps at 400 locations nationwide.
Technology camps are springing up all over, and computer-savvy kids are asking their parents to sign them up. But get ready to blow up any stereotypes you might have of pale children sitting in front of computer screens, totally disconnected from the real world. A well-chosen technology camp offers kids a chance to discover what is going on behind the screens and gives them a chance to leap ahead in the real worlds of technology and life.
Take iD Tech Camps, where there’s nothing nerdy about technology for the kids who attend weeklong day and overnight camps with courses in everything from game design and modding (modifying) to web design, robotics, and programming. Touted as the number-one tech camp in the nation, this summer marks iD’s sixth year in Minnesota and second at Macalester College where they offer seven, one-week sessions for boys and girls age 7–17.
The air is electric from the moment parents drop their kids off at iD Tech Camp. Returning campers catch up with old friends and shout hellos to their favorite instructors. New campers look around, excited to learn about technology yet anxious about making friends and unsure of what the week ahead holds for them.
Their worries ease when they meet their instructors like camp director Drew “Ansel” Retherford and Cate “Danger Cat” Hutson. Decidedly cool with their special camp names and brains full of technical knowledge, each instructor is multitalented, well-rounded, and shares a common goal to create a positive, fun learning environment for the week ahead. Right away, Ansel, Danger Cat, and the other instructors help everyone figure out where things are and get to know each other. Anxious feelings are replaced with excitement as campers settle in and start to talk about their mutual interest in technology. Soon campers are making connections and forming friendships that will carry them through the week and, in many cases, last for years to come.
There are several girls at camp, like first-year camper Jessica Hankes, a 13-year-old from Edina, but the majority of the kids are boys. Some are computer gurus, others have never delved into the inner workings of technology before. Many come because they love computer games and want to learn how to create them. Others want to learn programming or video editing, and a few are there because their parents signed them up in hopes of giving them an edge in the technological world. And while learning about technology is key, the instructors recognize that a camp merely focused on technology would be greatly lacking in two key elements of a great camp experience: making friends and having fun.
With an average ratio of six campers to one instructor, each camper gets a lot of attention as they work their way through the self-paced, project-based curriculum during lab time each morning. The instructors, all 18 and older, are well-versed in the material they teach, work with students one-on-one as needed, and make sure the campers get frequent screen breaks throughout the morning. Instructors encourage the kids to work together to solve problems they may encounter in their projects. Working together not only gets the kids talking with each other, Ansel says, “it also gets them to problem-solve, which is a skill that a lot of the kids who like computers don’t have.”
After a morning of classroom fun and technical skill building, campers break for lunch. Afternoon is game time, and most of it is spent outside, playing games like Capture-the-Flag, soccer, and Frisbee. Before the campers head for home, they gather for a “shout out,” when instructors recognize kids who have done something well that day and campers have the opportunity to acknowledge each other as well. Then, day campers leave for home and overnight campers enjoy more recreation, dinner, and still more fun before lights out.
Each day brings new excitement as campers share their progress and get to know each other better. By the end of the week, they’ve not only gained new technological skills, they’ve also gained confidence, learned how to work together, and made new friends.
“I’ve made so many friends here, it’s unbelievable,” says Cameron Erickson, a 15-year-old from Eagan who first attended iD Tech Camp in 2006. “It’s easier to get to know people at camp than at school,” Cameron adds, because, “you all do the same things, and it’s really cool because you have a lot in common with everyone.”
This common bond and the joy of learning something new and fun is what keeps campers like Cameron coming back year after year. It’s what prompts others, like Max Vandervelde, a senior from St. Anthony, to consider coming back as an instructor so he can share his knowledge. And while instructors, campers, and parents are excited that almost all iD Tech alumni go on to college and many pursue technological careers, it’s the confidence gained, connections made, and friendships formed that matter most.
Myrna CG Mibus is a freelance writer in Webster, Minn.
Expertise: Photoshop, Illustrator & Graphic Design, Prairie Dogs, Corn, Driving Tractors, Moonwalking, and Guessing the Quantity of Random Objects in A Jar
Today we congratulate Remus Badea! Remus is the winner of a free week of Day Camp for 
