About Cyndi: Computers

Adobe and the Vector Queen

I've taught for over 30 years in all types of computer-related subjects and realize that life will never get boring when you work in the computer field. These days, I specialize in Adobe desktop publishing and graphics. I am an Adobe Certified Expert (ACE) in InDesign and Illustrator, which means that I've passed a rigorous industry test in each program. Since I teach InDesign, Illustrator and Acrobat, I call myself the Vector Queen. I like anchor points, paths, PostScript and PDFs. The Pen tool is my friend. Obsessed, I still spend endless hours pounding the keyboard and learning new technologies. After putting together an InDesign layout in 30 minutes, I'll spend hours tweaking the fonts, graphics and colors.

Students completing the department's curriculum in Photoshop, Illustrator, or InDesign take Adobe coursework that maps to the ACE, Adobe Certified Expert, industry exam. Check out SRJC certificates for these programs at www.santarosa.edu. Another project is coordinating the North Bay Adobe Users Group with colleague Carolyn Massell. We have monthly meetings with guest speakers to demonstrate Adobe software and have tremendous Adobe raffle prizes. NBAUG is a free organization and open to the community. For more information, visit http://northbay.groups.adobe.com.

Honors and Awards

• 2011 honored as one of eight online educators in the State of California to give a presentation at MEET (Modeling Effective Educational Technology) to demonstrate effective uses of online teaching Cyndi Reese: Confessions of a Webcast Junkie for CCC Confer
• 2010 nominated and approved as an Adobe Education Leader for Higher Education, one of a select group of educators in the world
• 2010 featured educator in the CS5 launch video. Check out the Chapter Selection link CS5 in Education to see my 10 seconds of fame.
• 2009 rated the #5 worldwide top Adobe Certified Instructor by Adobe/Metrics That Matter for the second quarter of 2009
• 2008 rated the #2 worldwide top Adobe Certified Instructor by Adobe/Metrics That Matter for the fourth quarter of 2008
• 2008 rated the #3 worldwide top Adobe Certified Instructor by Adobe/Metrics That Matter for the second quarter of 2008
• 2007 rated the #2 worldwide top Adobe Certified Instructor by Adobe/Metrics That Matter for the second half of 2007
• 2003 Tauzer Lecturer, SRJC
• 2001-2003 Computer & Information Sciences Department Chair
• 1995 Excellence in Education Award -- California Legislature Assembly
• 1999 SRJC Disability Resources Awareness Award

Computers and Teaching -- 35 years and retiring

Photo: the front panel of a PDP-8/I computer. To start it every morning I had to use the toggle switches in octal. For any programmers and coders reading this page, working in hexadecimal wasn't an option back then. I attended SRJC in the early 70s and was introduced to my first computer: the PDP-8/I minicomputer shown above which used teletypes, paper tape and punched cards. The reason that I took my first computer class is because I had a crush on the computer operator, Joe. He promised me that he would help me with my homework. What a fool I was -- I never got one bit of help. Six months later, I took over his job and eventually worked in the SRJC math department as a Computer Operations Specialist for many years before teaching, programming in the ancient languages of BASIC, COBOL and Fortran.

Photo: Cyndi and her daughter Jessica in the 1980s. Early teaching days with a new baby -- how did I manage? When my daughter was born, I quit my job and prepared for a career of changing diapers, cleaning the house, and cooking. This lasted for all of 5 months and I was lured away from maternity leave by an offer to teach full-time at SRJC. I met my destiny. I'll always remember my first class of teaching when I was 27. I was younger than most of my students, so I wore a suit to look professional. They initially thought my name was Mrs. Staff, which was how I was listed in the Schedule of Classes. I'm currently teaching fewer classes at SRJC as I'm making the transition into retirement from fulltime teaching. As a matter of fact, Spring 2012 is my last semester of teaching.

You've Come a Long Way, Baby

Yes, I used to work with punched cards and paper tape. I've been there and done that. I've been in the computer industry so long that I've seen everything from CP/M to DOS to Windows, WordStar to Word, VisiCalc to Excel, minicomputers to microcomputers, and programming to applications. My focus these days is to embrace new InDesign workflows that have changed from the old "print only" world to interactive PDFs, Flash, ePub and digital magazines. What do I do with computers besides teach at SRJC? I try to do enough consulting in private industry to keep my skills current and better anticipate what skills are important to teach my students. I've helped Friedman Brothers and Agilent convert to InDesign. I've published my InDesign books Stepping Out With InDesign and Big Steps With InDesign that are custom tailored to my lectures. I'm a Dreamweaver newbie and put up this site with limited web skills -- I figure that if you can do a layout in InDesign, why shouldn't you be able to do a layout for the web?

I collect fonts with a passion. My favorite Adobe OpenType fonts? Myriad, Hypatia Sans, Cronos, Jenson, Warnock, and Bickham Script to name a few. Other purchased OpenType fonts? P22's Cezanne, Gauguin and Declaration (www.p22.com) and Montague from www.veer.com. Check out my Favorite Sites page for links to both commercial font foundaries and free fonts. I strongly advise using only high quality fonts -- you pay for what you get.

Here's a sampler of some of the courses I've taught at SRJC -- some of these are real antiques!

• Computer Literacy and Intro to Microcomputers
• Intro to Programming
• COBOL, Fortran, and BASIC programming languages
• HP-3000 Operating Systems and 4GL
• DOS and Macintosh System Management
• WordPerfect, Lotus 1-2-3, VisiCalc and dBase
• Microsoft Word (Beginning and Advanced )
• Microsoft Excel
• Intro to Graphics
• SuperPaint
• Computer Graphics Concepts
• Painter
• Adobe Illustrator (Beginning and Advanced)
• Adobe PageMaker (Beginning and Advanced)
• Adobe InDesign (Beginning and Advanced)
• Adobe Workflow Projects (InDesign and CS5 Integration)
• Adobe Acrobat
• Font Management

About Cyndi: Personal Stuff

I grew up in Redding, California -- what a great place to be a kid! I remember 4-H, hot summers, practicing the piano under protest, and riding my Schwinn bike with fat tires and no gears to school every day. In my high school years I moved to Sonoma County and graduated from Petaluma Senior High School in 1972. I was an exchange student to Chiang Mai, Thailand when I was a junior in high school and discovered my passion for Thai food. As a child of the 70s, I lived in blue jeans and a tee shirt and still regard this as my favorite outfit.

Photo: Cyndi and grandson Austin. Computers seem to invade even my personal life. When my daughter, Jessica, got married her wedding was well-appointed as I made the invitations, programs and placecards in Adobe InDesign, designed an Illustrator wedding logo that was imprinted on cups, and made a sentimental iMovie of the bride and groom growing up that brought tears to the audience. It was a wonderful celebration shared with family and friends. Jessica graduated from the University of Texas in Austin on a golf scholarship and I still follow Longhorn sports. She completed 3 years on the LPGA professional women's golf tour, and now teaches golf locally at Chardonnay Golf Club and Foxtai plus is the assistant golf coach for the SSU Women's Golf Teaml. I do miss the days of traveling on tour with her. My grandson, Austin, keeps me busy and I certainly love this little guy. His personal website was up and running with photos within an hour of his birth. He is teaching me to slow down and not do so much schoolwork. We enjoy picking flowers, vegetables and fruit in the garden, feeding the ducks in the park, and playing with legos. Austin bangs on the keyboard when he's on my lap at the computer. Here is some of his recent typing: " p,;l m ,u89p.m l/." I think he will be good at HTML coding or perhaps programming. He loves to review his activities with me from the photos and video on my iPhone and already has the two finger swipe movement down. This new generation is scary...

Photo: view of Shelter Cove from my kitchen table. My favorite place to visit on weekends is Shelter Cove, where my husband and I built a second home with an ocean view. The entire house was designed around Ken's boat -- that started the dimensions of the garage and the rest of the house followed. I let Maggie run on the beach, watch spectacular sunsets, and cook. We go out fishing in our boat. When I work on my laptop I'm often in my recliner facing Black Sands Beach. Shelter Cove has given me my life back. I've even started golfing the rustic (where's the grass?) 9-hole course at Shelter Cove that surrounds the local airport with Maggie and Ken. At 57, I'm trying to exercise more, eat better and live a well-rounded life. How can I describe myself? I do the crossword puzzle in the Press Democrat every morning. My favorite TV shows are The Closer, Boardwalk Empire and True Blood. I love chocolate, coffee and red wine. I finally got an iPhone and play Angry Birds with great enthusiasm and minimal skill. My iPad disappeared from my house after my daughter discovered how wonderfully it videotapes the golf swing for her clients -- and all of those cool interactive books for my grandson! My next iPad will be under lock and key. My favorite book is the autobiography of Steve Jobs which seems to follow the timeline of my computer career. Listening to this audio book, I've been known to proclaim my enthusiasm with comments such as "I used to write Assembly code for the 6502 processor for the Apple II which was the same processor used in washing machines" and "I bought an Apple Lisa before the Mac came out because of the WYSIWYG fonts!"

Photo: Maggie wrestles her blue bowling pin. I have a wonderful family. First of all, there is my spoiled Boston Terrier, Maggie. What a journey we've had together! This is the little dog who faithfully sits by my computer as I work in my office and gives me a goofy grin when we go on walks. She begs me to play fetch with her blue plastic bowling pin, but runs away after the first throw. Maggie is epileptic and the drugs she takes to prevent seizures make her hungry. Great -- I have a 20 pound dog who knows how to open doors (I'm not kidding) and will break into the pantry when I'm not in the house. She eats anything and everything. The other day she moved a rollable chair into place so that she could jump up on the kitchen counter and steal a loaf of bread. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

My husband, Ken, is a retired 7th grade science teacher. He is famous for actually setting himself on fire during a science demonstration at Back To School night -- he wasn't hurt but the parents were sure impressed. In our 35 years together we've raised a wonderful daughter, farmed, raised livestock, built a home, taught thousands of students and enjoyed the company of many wonderful friends. This Summer was a fantastic year of salmon fishing for us. Maggie loves to go on our boat, although her favorite things in life are to play with the garden hose and to dig in the sand on the beach and bury driftwood. Perhaps when I retire, I'll join her.