lynda.com Video Training

When a company such as lynda.com offers free online video training, a person in my line of work signs up. Granted, all the videos are partial-lessons/marketing tools to get us to spend money, but the information they do provide for free is very helpful. And, hey, if you watch one of the training videos and realize you would be better off with the full lesson then it's worth your time and money. Some topics include: Google Search Tips, Podcasting, Flash 8 Video Integration, Click-to-play Videos and CSS Navigation Styles with Dreamweaver 8. Lynda.com has been producing these videos since February of this year. You can subscribe by clicking here. It's well worth your time.

Gapminder: Visualise Human Development

From their Web site: Gapminder is a non-profit venture for development and provision of free software that visualise human development. This is done in collaboration with universities, UN organisations, public agencies and non-governmental organisations. In collaboration with Google they have produced this software: http://tools.google.com/gapminder/. It's good to see an organization truly pushing the capability of Flash (and Google for that matter). It's some of the most advanced work I've ever seen, presented in a simple, easy-to-use fashion. Go to the following page to download charts and tools from Gapminder: http://www.gapminder.org/index.html.

Berkeley and iTunes: Academia at its Best

I learned about Berkeley's iTunes site today. Check it out here. I listened to a few items, and the Politics and Public Policy event, "Bush Science: Use and Abuse of Science in Policymaking," was very interesting, but not all that surprising. Is this the future of education? In addition to events, Berkeley has also posted full courses on these pages. Anyone can virtually attend any class at any time. And they've kept everything very simple and straightforward. My friend Alan told me about MIT's online course section, which isn't as multimedia oriented, but still pretty cool. Stanford launched an iTunes page a few months ago (check it out here) but it's not nearly as academic as Berkeley's initiative. Are Stanford and Berkeley the only two schools who have officially launched iTunes pages? I found an interesting podcast put out by the UNC School of Journalism and Mass Communication started back in January, but nothing close to what Berkeley or even Stanford has. It'll be interesting to watch this space grow and see who takes the lead. Right now I would argue Berkeley has a clear advantage.

The Night Sky Podcast + Stellarium

I've recently developed a strong interest in astronomy, and found two things worth checking out: The Night Sky podcast and Stellarium software. Stellarium is, "a free open source planetarium for your computer. It shows a realistic sky in 3D, just like what you see with the naked eye, binoculars or a telescope. … Just set your coordinates and go." It's available for Linux, Mac and Windows. The Naked Eye is blogged here, but you can find it on iTunes by doing a search for "Andrew Douch," creator. Douch is a professor at a local school in Shepparton, Victoria, Australia, and initially set up the podcast for his students, describing the night sky in his part of the world. If you put the coordinates for Shepparton, Victoria, Australia, into Stellarium you can see the same night sky Douch desribes in his podcast. Even if you don't find this stuff as interesting as I do, it's pretty amazing how technology literally puts the world at your fingertips. And it's free to everyone.

iTunes Security

For several years now, I've been helping people learn how to operate their iPods + iTunes. Despite never having used a Mac at work, I do own a G4 PowerBook, and I've recently been bringing it to the office. Two days ago a coworker asked to use my Mac to download an album using her iTunes account and then add the tracks to her iPod. I was fine with that. I always do what I can to help people out. So she authorizes my computer and downloads the album. Then she asks if I can burn an audio CD with the tracks for a friend. No problem. Album created. Out of curiosity I took the burned audio CD and placed it in my work computer (Dell Optiplex GX520). My unauthorized work iTunes program of course recognized the CD, but also allowed me to rip the tracks from it as if it was a regular store-bought music CD. Now, I didn't try it on my Mac, but I'm sure it would have worked the same. Isn't this something Mr. Jobs said wasn't possible to do as part of the terms of getting all these artists to sign on for iTunes' initial launch? And more importantly, why hasn't this been brought up in the mainstream media coverage of Apple? With all the eyes on Apple these days it's surprising we haven't heard about this before. Happy ripping and mixing.

Adobe Photoshop Killer Tips Podcast

I've been using Photoshop professionally for about eight years now. I'm at the point in my career where Photoshop projects can be done quickly and easily thanks to the skills I've acquired. Unfortunately there never seems to be that much time to take those skill to the next level. However, back in January, the people at The National Association of Photoshop Professionals started video podcasting a "killer tips" series that, beyond being enjoyable and easy to watch, is a great way to take your skills to a higher level. Each tip video is anywhere from one to two-and-a-half minutes. I'm hooked. Check it out in iTunes here. Disclaimer: It is important to have a good understanding of Photoshop basics in order for these podcasts to be helpful.

InDesign Project Concludes

I just finished work on a Quick Reference Guide for Bacon's MediaSource Premium product. The document can be found here. Note to InDesign users: If you're using screen shots in your project, pasting them directly into InDesign produces the highest quality results. I had to learn Adobe's InDesign software for this one. Up until a few months ago I had never used it before. I think it says a lot about the software when a user can learn it quickly, and produce a professional-grade project within a few short months. If you're a Bacon's customer I hope you find the guide as intuitive as the software that created it.