Archive for the ‘Resources’ Category
See all content for this category
eLearning Resources Everyone Should Know
Monday, May 23rd, 2011This is NOT a “Top Ten” list because there are a ton of great resources out there. These are simply the bare minimum that I think you should check out.
- Adobe – Adobe’s Rapid eLearning Blog and RJ’s Adobe in ELearning and MLearning are great places to start
- LinkedIn – Would you like a chance to make eLearning for a real group? Work on your skills and help people who need it at the same time! Check out The eLearning Global Giveback. There are a ton of groups on LinkedIn that I could list – If you want to see who I’d recommend look on my public LinkedIn profile
- YouTube’s eLearnChat by Rick Zanotti and Terrence Wing and Adobe’s eLearning Channels are both good channels to subscribe to
- Twitter – Start with following @CatMoore and go from there. Many of the other people in this list are on twitter as well
- Blogs – Be sure to visit Tom Khulmann’s Rapid eLearning Blog and Lieve Weimeis’s Blog “Lilybiri’s Posterous“.
- While you’re saving bookmarks in your browser, be sure to add… CP Guru, Flash Factor, CaptivateDev, The Widget King!, and Captain Captivate!
Enjoy!
Why is Copyblogger Hiring Psychics?
Tuesday, May 17th, 2011Psychic Power and Blogging
Why isn’t the New York Times onto this?
As some of you know, I’m new to the universe of content marketing and social media. When I knew I would be diving into this world, I approached it the way I do any new learning task – Full Monty, only with clothes on (…does that still qualify as a Full Monty? Probably not, but “all-out” is less snarky).
Knowing I had a huge amount of information to filter thru, I went to look for those people and organizations who already knew a ton about the subject and read, and read, and read. Eventually, I read enough to decide if they would be good to listen to or not.
Does that seem backwards? It’s not really.
I do a lot of research when teaching a new topic, even if I’m just going to be teaching it to myself. Often, even if it isn’t “for” a specific class, that information leaks into my teaching. I regularly give students suggestions on websites, videos, and books that they should check out. Those resources are generally ones I’ve been reading or using for a while. I don’t want to say “this seems useful” if I could say “this is good in these ways.. and not so good about this…” instead.
One of the best finds for me is a website called “Copyblogger”. They provide a great service. Easy to follow information on online marketing that makes a lot of sense and isn’t expensive – not that easy a thing to pull off.
But, in life, there are often two sides to any story. Copyblogger may be stunningly useful for people learning online marketing, but subscribing to their email feed is not an unbridled joy. An unexpected side effect to their service is a regular dose of “the willies” due to their unfortunate habit of writing posts that are so prescient as to be downright creepy.
It’s unnerving to be thinking “No one visits my website” only to open your email and see “Why nobody cares about your content (and what to do about it)”. It’s equally odd to start looking at advertising for your website at 9am only to read an email at 9:30 titled “Why Advertising Doesn’t Work for Bloggers”. *shudder*
I think I’ve learned a lot from them, however, my blog has been gathering dust with lots of good intentions and no actual writing. Today was my “write for the blog” day for this week. As I sat down to type, my brain froze. I am very, very skilled… at procrastination. I should teach a mastery course to those less talented, more productive souls looking for help. When I opened my email to begin the time suck that is reading and sorting my mail, I saw “5 ways to Quickly Write High Quality Content” from… guess who.
OK, I give!
Brian Clark is clearly an evil genius and the people at Copyblogger are obviously all masters of blog-fu. I’m totally prepared to name myself after a chirpy bug if it will get me producing actual content rather than the many, many posts I’ve written in my head at 11:30 while trying to fall asleep.
Yes, you – the one reading this post (nice shirt by the way).
Please take 90 seconds out of your day and comment.
Which post do YOU think I should tackle next?
- The second part of the InDesign CS5 eBook introduction
- The five things I every Office 2007 user should know
- Something else, software related please. I do not know how to defeat a horde of Ninjas
Thanks!
Camera Confusion [Guest Post]
Monday, April 18th, 2011Decode the jargon before buying
You want a new camera but don’t know where to start – the Canon camera looks like something you’d find in Batman’s car, the Nikon that has more megapixels than you can count and the miniature Pentax looks so complicated you’re afraid to pick it up.
HOTSHOE! APERTURE! EXPOSURE! ASPECT RATIO! LIGHT METERING! HIGHEST ISO IN THE UNIVERSE! … All these words are thrown at us when we’re looking at buying a digital camera and sometimes it’s hard to know where to begin or what’s really important. Here are two terms to know when you walk into a camera shop – so you can hold your own when the salesman starts his cruel and grueling pitch.
Megapixel
A megapixel count is a way we measure image resolution. One megapixel equals one million pixels, which are the minute dots of colour that form a whole image. The more pixels there are in an image, the higher its resolution will be – and the larger you can print it.
*Many people incorrectly believe that megapixel count is the most important thing to know when buying a camera. While resolution does affect print quality, there are a host of other factors to take into account before buying a camera that works for you. A good way to determine how many megapixels you need is to decide what you’ll be doing with the pictures you take – if they’re just for fun, uploading to internet sites and sharing with friends on social media, then you certainly don’t need the latest 16 megapixel Nikon digital camera and can safely opt for something with a much lower megapixel count.
ISO
This is a term set by the International Standards Organisation. Every digital camera has an internal image sensor that reads the amount of light that floods the camera when the shutter goes off. If the ISO is high, the image sensor will be more sensitive to light and if the ISO setting is low, it will be less sensitive. The ISO setting can be used to get the best out of a situation when there is limited light – a high ISO will allow the image sensor to pick up more light in a club that’s dim, for instance. During the day, when it’s bright, you’d set a low ISO so that the camera is less sensitive to the amount of light entering it.
*Shooting on a high ISO often means that your images won’t be perfectly crisp and clear. The higher the ISO, the more noise you get in your picture – noise refers to the ‘grainy’ look that images shot in low light settings sometimes have. You can combat this by using a flash or a tripod and most cameras these days are able to produce images with reduced noise.
There are many other things that you should look for when choosing a camera, such as zoom capabilities, flash, aperture settings, lenses – but you can learn about these things one step at a time!
Jason Acar is a professional writer who has written on a wide range of subjects from nikon digital cameras to travel. He also has a passion for writing helpful articles for people working in their respective industries.
The Twitterverse
Tuesday, February 15th, 2011OK – Take 20 minutes out of your day and go to http://oneforty.com/pages/twitterverse. I’m putting a small image of the twitterverse poster on here but you really NEED to see the real thing. It’s fully linked to all the programs/products it lists and is a wonderful way to learn more about this aspect of social media.
Names You Can Trust – Eric Meyer
Monday, February 14th, 2011This is the second post in what will be an ongoing series.
CSS (or Cascading Style Sheets) is a wonderful thing to learn if you want to make attractive websites. There are endless books, videos, and blog posts about the topic.
But who should you listen to? There are so many voices out there that finding solid sources of information can be very frustrating. This is why I will be doing small posts about the people that I have been recommending to my students for years.
When I was teaching myself about CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), I was stumped for where to begin. Nowadays there are many fine resources for new users, but at the time I was doing this there were not that many and there was no one clear place to start. I am one of the odd ducks that can learn software and related topics from books. I will do searches and play in the software once I get going, but I usually will grab a decent book at read for a few days first.
Where to begin?
First I show people why they would take the time and spend the energy to learn a new language (it’s really just like picking up Spanish or French, only it’s much harder to pick up someone in a bar). The fastest way to do this is to go to CSS Zen Garden. Once they are shown that the basic HTML content is not allowed to change I let them play with loading different designs. If you have not seen this site go now (really – now).
Next…
I have people go to CSShark. This site has been around for ages and is a nice easy intro to CSS.
and
Last but not least I get to Eric (were you wondering why a post about Eric didn’t mention him for the last half page?). The way I see it, there are many fine people on the CSS Gods hierarchy – but all of them at one point reference Eric Meyer.
He has many good books available and they are all worth getting – to start I show people his 2002 book “Eric Meyer on CSS”. It has good, clear explanations for why you are doing things and enough graphics to keep you on track. My favorite thing is that you don’t have to worry about him turning around and saying “oops, sorry that doesn’t work – I should have tested that”.
I have other books that I really like for CSS but I can always find value in the “meyer on css’ books. Yes books, plural.
So… If you want to pick up a new web skill and are not sure where to turn, take my word for it – you can never go wrong listening to Eric Meyer when it comes to CSS!
Names You Can Trust – Steve Krug
Thursday, December 23rd, 2010For a simple, and very useful, Web Design and Usability overview – “Don’t Make Me Think” is the first book to get.
I often suggest specific books, websites, and forums for my students to follow after class. I’ve decided to start a series of posts about these. There are some people who, when I see their name on something, I will always listen to – so this is my “Names you can trust” series.
Today’s name is: Steve Krug. Steve has written many articles and books that are a wonderful resource for web designers and developers. The first book I suggest for beginning web design students is “Don’t Make Me Think” (Amazon has it here).
You can see a sample from the book at http://www.adobe.com/designcenter/dialogbox/usability/
This book is small and an easy read (a perfect airplane book) but has a solid and clear way of introducing usability in web design. After reading his book even the most skittish newbie will have a solid sense of why usability matters and why it’s something that can be added into every design project. This is a good resource for anyone who is interested in how or why usability can be incorporated into design.
InDesign Users – Have you been to the plug-in directory lately?
Friday, November 19th, 2010If you are using InDesign CS3 or CS4 and have NOT been to this site – go there now.
Really, go… I can wait.
It’s pretty good for all versions but many of the hot plug-ins will add CS5 functionality to earlier versions and might help speed things up for you.
Here’s the link – http://indesign.pluginsworld.com/
CSS Tests
Monday, November 8th, 2010Bless you Bruno!
I only this week stumbled upon your page with stunning numbers of tests/experiments in css.
THIS IS IT
Thank you!
From the Blog
- Photoshop compositing and the never ending road
Sunday, November 6th, 2011 - What is rule one?
Thursday, November 3rd, 2011 - AdobeMAX!
Tuesday, October 18th, 2011