Photoshop Certification and others.
I did a little more digging and found that Adobe has a path to become an Adobe Certified Expert (ACE). I discovered that you must pass an Adobe Product Proficiency Exam for the product for which you want to be certified. Then, I found the exam bulletin (PDF) and I think I'm going to go for it. The only bad part is they recommend Adobe Photoshop 7.0 Classroom in a Book which only got 3 stars on Amazon.com. Oh well, it was only reviewed by one person and they seemed to be upset about the lack of colors in the book. Since I'll be reading it to learn and not to gawk at pretty pictures, I'll probably buy it. It can't hurt to buy the Photoshop 7 Bible along with it - never hurts to have a dual reference.
So you might ask, why the hell is Raible so into Photoshop lately? I thought he coded Java all the time? Truth is, I'm getting geared up for my next project: snapping pictures of my daughter and sharing them with my family. After Photoshop Certification, I'll probably upgrade my Java Programmer certification to 1.4, upgrade my Weblogic certification to 7.0 and possibly tackle OS X and Red Hat certifications. I really love learning new things, especially in a structured environment (i.e. a classroom). With certifications, I've found the structured set of objectives has helped me to focus, and therefore, I learn faster. Kinda like a good set of requirements for a project. Of course, if our little girl is born next week (due Nov. 7th), I will focus on becoming certified as a good Dad, which only comes from experience ;)
This post written originally with Dreamweaver MX, copied and pasted into Roller, and edited over 8 times to correct spelling mistakes. Sheez!