Fenix 5x, Fitbit, Fitness Training, PhotoShop, Polar

Fenix 5x

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Picure of my new toy

Fenix 5x

Some shadows and reflections but here is that $700.00 fitness tracker. So far I have had nothing but great results with this. I noticed a few negative review regarding the accuracy of the heart rate, my experience has been great. It has been within 1-2 bpm of all my other devices, Fitbit, Polar and Scosch. I also purchased a cadence monitor for the Peloton so I could monitor my cadence on the tracker as well as monitoring my cadence on my street bike when the weather improves.

SharePoint:

Sam needs new business cards and I have been concentrating on that for a few days. I’m experimenting with 3D models in PhotoShop and have some ideas for cards I think Sam will love.

Unity, C#, Python, Blender and Adobe CC

New chapter from Packt this week and it was just a rehash of the first chapter from the first edition of the book I’m reviewing. My handler so to speak, Devanshi let me know the author is rewriting some chapters and code so it may be some time before I get another chapter. Good thing the code is being rewritten, there a lot of items in the coding that have been deprecated since the last updates of Unity.

Playing with 3D object in PhotoShop while I’m creating new business cards for Sam. I found a free 3D model (obj) of his Chevrolet Suburban and will be using it for the business cards. My first attempts have been garbage as I’m learning how to use the 3D aspects of PS but have some interesting ideas rolling around in my head. As I start creating these new cards I’ll pop them in here for some critique.

This last weekend:

Again I did just about nothing this last weekend but eat some Chinese on Saturday. I know most of this is low calorie but it is high in sodium. I actually gained seven freaking pounds which was obviously water because six and a half was gone Tuesday morning. I looked as my reward for the great review I received Thursday morning.

Michael Miles, Peloton

Great Workout week

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This last week was fantastic, here are the numbers:

  • Over 50,000 Steps
  • Over 30 flights of stairs
  • Two personal record rides
  • instead of slowing down during the week Friday was the best day

I found you lose some of your ‘in shapeness’ just being off of your routine for three days and amount off the bike of five days. My resting heart rate jumped to 76 and fitness level went from 34-38 to 33-37. It has now taken me over a week to get things back to normal. Blood pressure thank god did not rise to any extent.

 

SharePoint:

Working of workflows in SharePoint designer 2013 exclusively right now. InfoPath, PowerApps are a pain to get going in our environment. Custom workflows is the way to go now. Time to experiment.

Unity, C#, Python and Blender

No more chapters from Packt

This last weekend:

This last weekend was great. I did just about nothing. Next weekend will be the last for that as I now have to concentrate all of my time on possible passive income sources. Of course they won’t be all that passive at first but I’m hoping after a year I can be generating an income of at least 5000.00 per month. After a few years letting this source increase and then add social security to it I should be ok when I finally retire. At that point I can see the income picking up even more.

Miscellaneous

Shake up at work

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After stating I would probably have to upload the spreadsheet form into a library I found an InfoPath form web part. Now I have to figure out how to use it but I looks like it might work for my use. Please let it be the way I think.

I have also found some PowerApps videos showing how to create InfoPath type of forms using PowerApps. Creating them is one thing but how do you use them?

SharePoint:

Like I said above, I have found the InfoPath Web part and it seems to be the answer.

Unity, C#, Python and Blender

I don’t seem to be getting anymore chapters from Packt Publishing. They still owe me two chapters.

This last weekend:

This last weekend was just OK. I didn’t do anything great and spent most of the time as a lump of tissue on the couch.

I’m going to take a couple days off during this week and make up for the weekend by having fun.

The last week was not the best. Our company announced we will be sending the assembly of our product to another company and stop producing by this time next year. This is actually a win win for me because I want to find another source of income so I don’t need to do the nine to five thing and have enough extra income to in a sense retire. A lot to think about during the coming months.

SharePoint 365, Udemy

InfoPath Success and more from the weekend

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It looks like I will need to upload a spreadsheet form into a library and when this happens a custom workflow will start. I was able to publish an InfoPath form into our SharePoint at work however the admins here do not allow us to use the Browser for filling out the form. Perfect time to seriously get into creating custom workflows in SharePoint Designer 2013. I will try to get the admins to allow forms in the browser but if I fight too much I might lose the software I currently have on my computer.

SharePoint:

I was incorrect last week when I said I was able to publish an InfoPath form to my SharePoint site after waiting overnight. Going back to last week I actually thought I was opening up the form in a browser but in fact it was opening up in InfoPath. When I closed InfoPath down at tried opening up the form in the browser on Friday there was no luck. I headed back to Google and ultimatly found an obscure post with a simple fix. All I had to do was allow ‘Management of content type’ in the library settings ‘Advanced Settings’ section and it worked perfectly. I was also able to set this feature in SharePoint Designer 2013 with a click and save. No waiting over night, save and your are done. Tested this on my Surface Pro 3m that does not have InfoPath installed and it worked like a charm.

I tried this little trick at work but it looks like I still need to go the excel form and custom workflow route. This is not a bad thing as it allows me more opportunity to learn new things broadening my skill base for writing the help books I am looking forward to.

Unity, C#, Python and Blender

Sent in the reviews for Chapters four and six. Started setting up the Character Customization scene and it is looking pretty darn good as of this morning. The scene is simple, the code behind the customization and UI is what will be challenging.

This last weekend:

I said this last weekend would be spectacular and it was. Everything worked out perfect from cooking, controlling my eating and drinking and sleeping. Such a great weekend should run right into a fantastic week. So far so good. See ya all next week.

Next weekend will be even better.

Started back with Lynda.com the last couple of weeks and I had forgotten how good those lessons are. Gini Couter {sp} is a great instructor for SharePoint and SharePoint Designer 2013.

Blender

Very difficult to do your work without work arounds

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I have spent the last week learning more about InfoPath with SharePoint because I have not found any solutions using Power Apps for creating forms. Anything I see so far revolves around mobile solutions with Power Apps and I think Microsoft has seen the error of their ways and will continue to support InfoPath until 2026, almost a decade which will work for me.

SharePoint:

Now about the work around’s; reading and learning InfoPath has been great, I haven’t yet created forms for use however I was able to publish the exercise form on my SharePoint site. To do this I needed to enable InfoPath services on my site at the same time enabling the use of a browser for the forms. I could not, temporarily, open the forms in the browser but waiting overnight allowed the changes I made to take affect.

Work however has made this difficult. I can publish the form to a SharePoint library but the browser enabled forms is not available on our SharePoint. Everyone will need the InfoPath Filler application on their machine in order for the form to work as is. There might be a work around by publishing the form to email and then submitting to SharePoint letting custom workflows with SharePoint Designer to take over the process from there. Who knows when I can get this form flow to start working. I would prefer to ‘NOT’ use an excel spreadsheet as a document then process the flow that way.

Unity, C#, Python and Blender

The assets I need for reviewing the book need to be very basic. Stick people and boxes for buildings etc. This review has been a pain with chapters coming out of order and walls of text for the code with no explanation of the code.

This last weekend:

Last weekend was  just O.K. I did a great job on cooking some light meals in the sodium, calorie and fat content and actually pretty good. I was able to splurge on a burger Sunday but need to cut back on other things. All in all the weight loss is going good and my burger did not have any lasting impacts in that area.

Next weekend WILL be spectacular.

SharePoint 365

This RPG book is not written as well as others

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So far the book review is going well but they have sent me chapters two, three and then four and six thinking this is strange I asked the question, what about chapters one and five. I was told there have been issues with those chapters and will receive them when they are resolved. After reading chapter two it was obvious that chapter one was about the creation of game in general and Role Playing Games (RPG) specifically. I don’t know what kind of issues you can have with that sort of topic, strange. I’m not sure what chapter 5 is about.

Chapter two was fairly straight forward about the creation of the terrain concentrating on a free asset store item you can use to create terrain ‘easier’ and quicker than the built in terrain tools. I did not find that to be the case. In fact I found the terrain tool non intuitive and creating terrain from scratch much faster. They could have spent at least a little time explaining the build in terrain tools and the reader would get much more out of that chapter.

Chapter three was about bring in the player characters using another asset from the asset store, this asset is quite good. What readers of this book will need to understand is the author made no effort to create their own assets and if you would like to follow the book you will need to spend ~300.00 in the asset store plus the price of the book. At least the author could have provide some very basic assets for player characters, non player characters and the medieval environment for a small version of the level for basic playability.

SharePoint:

I think I have found the solution for the Change tracking in SharePoint (again) and it has nothing to do with Power Apps or Flow. I found PowerBI.  This tool from Microsoft creates the charts and list views that I was looking for. Unfortunately you still can’t visualize in real time but that was going to be a limiting factor no matter what.

I have decided to forget trying to find a solution to joining lists and doing workflows without SharePoint Designer 2013. I downloaded the program to all of my computers including work since there will be at least some support for the program for the next five or six years and it won’t be dead software for at least a decade. I’ll be long gone from Triumph by then. Probably retired and writing my own SharePoint books and training in Udemy and Lynda.com. I also loaded InfoPath for creating forms in all the same computers as well. More training ahead for me.

Unity, C#, Python and Blender

Starting to create some of my own assets for the book in blender but had to succumb to purchasing some of the asset store products to get myself up and running with what the book was trying to teach. I really should have my own assets ready to go for thing like this.

This last weekend:

This last weekend was the best yet. I spend most of it in Lynda.com learning SharePoint designer 2013 so I could get up to speed writing workflows using that tool. Not quite as intuitive as flow.microsoft.com and not nearly as powerful with the data sources you have using flow but definitely a powerful program once you learn the ins and outs.

Talk to you next week. I can’t wait for this next weekend coming up. It is going to be spectacular as Jeff Raley would say.

Blender

Book Review Time Again

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I was contacted by Packt Publishing again last week about a technical review of another book. This one titled Creating a RPG game using Unity 2018 Second Edition. As soon as I read that title I was all in. I started the first couple chapters this last weekend and have been surprised at how minimal the book describes some items. I’m glad to see they made a point to tell the reader, if you are not familiar with the Unity interface, stop reading now and get familiar. Diving head on into the deep end with this book could be very frustrating for people new to Unity. Looking forward to this book very much.

SharePoint:

Change tracking in the SharePoint site has been a big challenge for me. I, again, think I have a solution however it will take the use of some code in Access and a little finesse within SharePoint/Flow and maybe PowerApps to get this the way I envision it.

I upgraded my trial version of SharePoint Enterprise E3 to a full subscription with two users equaling 40.00 per month. I thought I would have to commit to a year but found I only need commit to a month at a time. I am very excited to do this and will be documenting everything I learn to do. Because I have been having so much trouble finding books on this subject, this just may be what I will be writing my books on. Can’t sit on my laurels to long though, someone might beat me to it.

Unity, C#, Python and Blender

With the new book review I will be starting up my activities in C#, Unity (of course) and possibly Blender by creating some of my own assets. As I create any assets I will most certainly post the pictures here.

This last weekend:

I loved this last weekend. Most of the evenings were very lazy watching movies. I finally was able to watch ‘Thor: Ragnarok’ and loved it which put me in the mood for some Iron Man. I also watch Beetlejuice (old one but good) and started ‘The Martian’. I haven’t watched movies in a while and I really enjoy it. I do have some free movie tickets the office gave me for ‘Awards’. I think I’ll put those to some good use.

SharePoint 365

Month 3 of 2018 has started

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The ‘Boss’ is gone this week at work and she graciously announced that I will be her stand in. Wonderful….

SharePoint:

Continuing on with the Engineering/ME change tracking has not been an easy task. Microsoft deprecated the Access Web app which would have made updating the lists with new items, setting old items as complete and adding the responsible Engineers name so much easier. So far have have not found a suitable method for doing those tasks. I’m sure there is a method, I don’t think Microsoft would leave its customers out in left field like that but I have not been able to fine the solution just yet but I will keep trying.

Unity, C#, Python and Blender

All put on the back burner while I concentrated on SharePoint but can’t let it stay there. I found if I don’t keep up with new knowledge you can get rusty fast.

This last weekend:

The weekend was great and we even had an earthquake on Sunday at 5:19 pm US central time. It seems that nobody at work felt it.

New site covering miscellaneous activities including my favorite activity: Blender