PhotoshopElements Deal, Amazon.com May 13, 2010 only

I found this on Mike Johnson's Blog, The Online Photographer

Adobe Photoshop Elements for $34.99

Amazon's Gold Box Deal of the Day today (in the U.S. only) is Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 for Mac or PC for $34.99 after mail-in rebate.

Elements has always been a somewhat strange product to me...it's Photoshop with some key features missing, but it's still loaded with complexity and isn't optimized strictly for photographers. It's cheap today, though. A tip: Elements is a nice, inexpensive way to get the latest version of Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) if your older version of Photoshop doesn't support it.

Mike



Be a Commercial Star!

Howdy
Seems Clark College wants to make a commercial with me demoing Photoshop as part of a larger commercial

I need and Clark College needs some volunteers to participate in the commercial!  

It will be "shot" (filmed) at CTC (Clarl Technology Center) between 1-3 on Saturday, May 22.  Cast call is at 12:45 PM in room 339/

I've been told that you (the  volunteers) to not to wear bright colored or white clothing.  Also avoid logos or insignias on the clothes...

Directions to CTC

From Vancouver: 
Take State Highway 14 east to the 192nd Ave. exit. Turn left (north) on 192nd Ave. to Mill Plain Blvd. Turn left (west) on Mill Plain Blvd. and travel approximately one block to Clark College at Columbia Tech Center. The building is on the right (north) side of the road. 

Or just go east on  Mill Plain ...  the building is on the left, below Walmart and across the street from Lowesl

e-mail me if you want to join in on the fun

Dreamweaver -Day 3 Homework

Homework?

Here'a a review of Adobe's new Dreamweaver CS 5
Well, I know you do want to build a web site with Dreamweaver...
To style your web site you NEED to use CSS.  With CSS you can style any xhtml element, AND any thing you name as a class or an id...
To begin learning CSS you need a good resources.  There are 2 that are on-line...
W3Schools CSS Tutorial
This set of tutorials has a nifty "try it" feature...
it looks like this

You start off with their example, then you can edit the styles on the left and see the results on the right.





Sitepoint.com CSS Reference
Sitepoint also has a section called Learn and Play Where you can see what the sample looks like and you can change the
CSS and immediately see the results... it looks like this













All of these will help you learn the CSS Rules and the many different ways you can "style"!

Styling in Dreamweaver

At the class web site is a short tutorial that shows you how to use the CSS Styles panel to style!
This link takes you to the pages of the tutorial...
If you want to load the pages for the tutorial into Dreamweaver you can get them here
Because the linked file has the extension  .zip your browser will automatically download the zipped file...  unzip the file and you'll get a folder named "cssmenu"
Copy that to your master folder and open "simpmenu-01.html" into Dreamweaver...
Follow the steps... The example shows you how to add some simple styles to a menu list... using the CSS Style Palette

Codeburner

You can put a reference  interface on your desktop called "Code Burner" It links to all the sitepoint online references.
You can find the links here at the sitepoint.com's website
They have been promising a Dreamweaver Extension for a long, long time...

Some Tips

When you are starting to learn CSS styling and layout it is much easier to start with either Dreamweavers Starter pages... or other 3rd party starter templates...
There are a couple of  "Starter Templates" at the Adobe Exchange... Just do a key word search CSS Layout or check out these web pages
Layout Gala
Fixed width Layouts

CSS Articles

CSS Tips and Tricks
Building your First CSS Site

*** Practice, practice, practice ***
good luck and when all else fails 'holler!

Dreamweaver - New Spry Widgets Browser

New Release from Adobe...

From the Widget Browser web page...

With the Widget Browser, you can:

• Preview and download all of the OpenAjax widgets available on the Adobe Exchange

• Add widgets to Adobe Dreamweaver so that you can easily insert them in your web pages

• Export and package widgets for use in any other HTML editing tool

 

To make this work you'll need to Register with Adobe and install Adobe AIR.

This link will take you to Adobe's "Air" web page...

This link takes you to the Widget Browser Page

If you get Dreamweaver CS5 the widgets will be available from inside Dreamweaver  in the "Insert" Menu & Panel.

But you still can use the widgets in any Version of Dreamweaver or OTHER web Editor!

When you start up the widget browser you'll see all of the widges available from the Adobe Exchange.... You have to download and install them... For now most of them are free, but more sofisticated ones in the future will have a price tag on them.

On Monday there were 13 widgets, there are now 18!

The Exchange view looks like this

After you download a widget you can preview and edit a widget right in the

Widget Browser. It'll look like this...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Save the files to a folder and then add them to your web editor of choice!

 

 

 

 

Dreamweaver -Day2 Homework

Homework

On the Class Dreamweaver Home page

Just Read the information available at the following Tabs

XHTML

5 simple rules

CSS

Basic CSS definitions  and information... I'll show you how to apply CSS on Day 3

Links

What makes the internet work..

Sprys --"AJax Coded by Adobe so you don't have to..."

Note:  The spry's have evolved. The new and way easier method of dealing with Sprys will be detailed in the next post... But, this page will give you an idea how it used to be...

Form Mail Script

Check with your "Host" and ask or look for in their control panel a Form Mail Script

They may provide you with a ready made contact form or a "Guest Book" or a CGI or a "pearl" script to handle your form mail.

 

 

Day 2 - Extensions

Dreamweaver Extensions

Extensions are plug-ins that will make your life easier... Especially for beginning users... I recommend that you install them and give them a try.

List-O-Rama  Version 2 from the DMX Zone

 

CSS Form Designer From DMX

also get the

Google Search form from Webassist

Adobe Browser labs has an extension that let's you compare your web pages in 2 different browsers side by side, on both the Mac and PC platform

you can get the browserlab extensions here

http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/browserlab.html

You'll have to "join" or sign up for the above but I think you'll find these free extensions very useful!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day 1 --Part 2 Homework

The most important part of a web page is your content.

Your homework...

1. write out your content on the Dreamweaver Design page... Don't worry about formatting it... We'll work on that in class.

2. Read the link Planning A Website and the tab "Aids"  You should have already set the defaults we worked on in class.

See you in Class

Dreamweaver Class - Week 1 notes

Class updates, and unanswered questions..


Setting up Web Site Publishing (uploading to your remote site)
Web site info you need. (Bring to class)
Username: username@yourdomainname.com (usually your e-mail address)
Password: password

ftp address ftp:
ftp.hostsdomainname.com 
Port number (default is port 21)
sFTP Port number (default is port 22)

If COMCAST is your Provider/host

the ftp address is:
ftp.upload.comcast.net
Port Number (may be different than the default)
If Quest is the Provider/host

the ftp address is:
ftp.users.qwest.net   or (if it has changed... let me know what the ftp address is... )
Port Number (MAy be different than the default)

If you connect via Webdave, or Local/Network or PDS
get the info from your IT person...

Here's an Adobe video about File Management

THE APPLICATIONS BAR
Can be turned on and off if you use a Mac use the menu

• Menu
  
  • Window > Application Bar (It'll appear at the Top of the Page --Let's you switch workplace settings... manage your "sites" and access the extensions manager )

More Homework to follow...