Monthly Archives: July 2011

Web Site Creation Tool for the Non-Technical – Discounted

By | | , ,
Leave a comment

Website Painter for Mac – I haven’t tried this yet, but it looks like a good product for people who want a quick website without having to learn too much technical stuff. I’ve read some pretty good reviews on it, and it’s seriously discounted for the next couple of days! (They make a Windows version too, but it doesn’t look like it’s discounted at this time)

http://www.getdealy.com/mac/website-painter-deal/?utm_source=MadMimi&utm_medium=email&utm_content=65_
+off+Website+Painter+for+Mac&utm_campaign=65_+off+
Website+Painter+for+Mac&utm_term=header_mac_todaysdeal_png

I Love Lions – But Don’t Know if I Want One as a Pet

By | | , , ,
Leave a comment

Lions are beautiful animals – smart, strong, powerful. However, I’m not feeling that great about upgrading to the new Mac OSX 10.7 Lion. From what I read, it seems that some features on which I depend are going to be either completely deprecated, or won’t function at all in the way I want them.

However, I am NOT an early adopter – I don’t install version 1 of ANYTHING, especially an operating system. It’s my hope that by the time I do install it (probably around the .2 update), Apple will have addressed my needs for Address Book, and iCal, and will have maybe found a way to sell Rosetta as an addition to Lion – or at least for Parallels to devise a way for me to use my Snow Leopard installation in emulation, and have resolved some issues I already see as being against my personal interests to upgrade.

However, many of my clients ARE early adopters, and I get the phone calls to help bring them back, when they’re sorry for what they did. That’s great – thanks – I love the work! But, as I’ve mentioned to ALL my clients and students in the past, it’s IMPERATIVE to have a reliable “Cloned Backup” of their original startup disk.

This article addresses how one may go about resurrecting your Snow Leopard installation, if they don’t like Lion. It emphasizes the “Cloned Backup” idea quite strongly.  A good read:
http://gigaom.com/apple/how-to-downgrade-from-lion-to-snow-leopard/ 

About the New Mac-Mini

By | | , , ,
Leave a comment

Okay, I’ve actually been a fan of the Mac Mini, for a great many of my clients. It’s small, you can attach any monitor, it had good processor speed, and could handle a decent amount of RAM – and it was cheap for a Mac.

They’ve announced the new Mini – with NO OPTICAL DRIVE! Sounds like they may be touting it for an Apple TV replacement with more features? Bad idea, Apple…  🙁

Here’s a quick review:
http://dealmac.com/features/Dear-Steve-Jobs-The-Mac-mini-Is-Crap/482596.html 

InDesign Templates – FREE Download

By | | , , ,
Leave a comment

One of the big complaints about InDesign CS5.5 – with all it’s hoo-ha about being so great for developing materials for the broadening range of devices – was that Adobe’d stopped shipping it with all the Templates they used to include!

Pre-created Templates are great for  deconstructing and developing personal, creative designs without starting from scratch.

Today, InDesignSecrets.com has posted links to bunches of the original templates (they’ve used CS4’s versions) for free download. SO nice not to have to hand-make the CD label template again!

http://indesignsecrets.com/adobes-free-indesign-templates-now-available-at-indesignsecrets.php  

Adobe Premiere’s Now a very Viable Alternative to FCPX

By | | , , , , , , ,
Leave a comment

Another CreativeCow.com article – well-written. I’ve been saying for a while that Premiere is no longer the “red-headed stepchild” of editing software, and I’ve been teaching it for a while now. I’m finding quite a few people switching, and this article, by a long-time user of Final Cut Studio for some time, will help explain why.

Yeah – it’s not perfect – but with no access to FCP Studio 3 anymore – and having this come with the Adobe CS5.5 Suite – it sure can work! This also compares Premiere (in part) to Avid.

http://library.creativecow.net/kobler_helmut/FCP-vs-Premiere-Pro/1 

Tutorial by Dave Cross on reducing Gradient Banding

By | | , , , ,
Leave a comment

Gradient banding is the effect in which the transition lines in a gradient are too visible. For Photoshop, this is more often an issue for onscreen images than it is in print (it’s rather the opposite in Illustrator)

on KelbyTV (one of my favorite places) Dave Cross has a very interesting tutorial on some anti-banding techniques.

You can watch the video here:

 http://kelbytv.com/askdave/2011/07/11/reduce-banding-in-gradients/