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» Hot Friday News

I really must call today "Hot Friday" because here, that’s exactly what it is with warm temperatures here. The news and goodies for today are pretty hot for themselves as well so there is no sparing on the hotness

• if you are in the Philadelphia area in the US and you are interested in Photoshop and the Creative Suite  don’t miss out that Matt Kloskowski is coming to the Philadelphia Downtown Marriot on June 3rd with some other cool presenters in a free seminar about the Creative Suite 3. You can view the seminar page for more details and to sign up!
   
• Recent rumours suggest that Apple might be renaming and revamping its .Mac service. If they did it would really be a welcome upgrade since honestly the service isn’t that much to be excited about, at the moment.
   
• If you are looking at starting a photography portfolio website now at the start of the summer and want a unique website with unique design check out the portfolio package from XLD Studios. We have also a special discount code that’ll grant you 15% off the package, just enter the code "BM0806" when you are signing up. The offer is valid through June 30th! (If you are not looking at that level of uniqueness, just wait a couple of days for an exciting package from them )
   
• Some users of Adobe products are reporting file corruption when working on network stored files and blames it on the latest 10.5.3 update to Leopard on the Mac. (PC users are not having the problems). Adobe blames the corruption solely on Apple and the updates they did in 10.4.6.

» Thursday Quick-News

• Over at Photoshop Insider, Scott Kelby posted a very good post with what he wants to see in the next version(s) of Photoshop and Lightroom. It’s some really good ideas that I really like and agree on.
   
• If you are a keen photographer you should have checked out JPG Magazine and if not, then you should go ahead and do that right now. It’s a really cool photography magazine with contests and featured amazing photography.
   
• The Mac program Delicious Library has been updated to its second version featuring a lot of new updates and cool things. It’s only available for Mac OS X 10.5 and if you are interested in it and you are not using Leopard, you can still purchase the older version for use with Panther and Tiger. You can purchase a brand new copy for $40 and an upgrade from the old runs for $20.

 

» Wednesday News Stuff

One would think it would be very hard to exceed the happy news from yesterday with the cool CS4 betas and the news that the iPhone is coming here to Sweden. There are however some pretty cool stuff running today as well!

• Backing up is really important to do and yesterday Scott Kelby posted his backup stratergy on his blog which is really a good one. Last Friday he had another post about backing up and the importance of doing do (sharing a nightmare story) and I call today another backup Wednesday because it is really important!
   
• About a week ago the talented artist James Quantz Jr. redesigned his site to make it much cleaner and simpler (and more stylish) to us viewers. I really think it turned out rather nicely and I think you should all go and look at his new site if not just to sit a while in awe to look at his work!
   
• If you’ve been paying attention to this site a bit recently you’ll have noticed a little change in the sidebar and overall width of the site. I’ve expended the width so I could fit a larger sidebar with two columns instead of extending the old one to be even longer. With it I also added some new sidebar content such as a twitter summary of my twitter page and a brand new poll and countdown. Some minor new cool things
   
• If you are trying to download trials from Adobe’s website you’ll be greeted with a not so nice statement that they are unavailable. Over at InDesignSecrets you can read what you can do and why this is happening.

» Three CS4 beta products available in Adobe Labs!

Adobe has released the beta versions of three CS4 applications in the Adobe Labs today! It’s Dreamweaver, Fireworks and Soundbooth that we get to take a look at right now and like usual, you need to get a beta serial for any of the applications if you want to use it longer than the two day grace period. The beta serial is easily obtained if you have either a product serial or a suite package serial where the product is included! The new products features a little interface change to now suit the Adobe way of things that was in most of the CS3 applications except the newly purchased Macromedia ones.

» Interview with Elizabeth Gast

 Here comes another weeks interview with a really cool person. Today I have the privilege to interview the amazing Photoshop artist, Elizabeth Gast. She’s a really talented artist who’s background lies in digital art and also a member of NAPP, the National Association of Photoshop Professionals, where she herself says that she’s learned more than ever. Read the full interview after the jump!

» Friday “Sunshine” News

I think I’ve just about mentioned it in all my blog posts this week! The weather here is fantastic and well, nothing short of smashing and brilliant (I could go on with extreme words like that for too long) which is causing today to be "Sunshine Friday"!

• Adobe has added a new feature to its web based photo editor Photoshop Express. From today you can now import and manage photos that is on your Flickr account in addition to the ones previously available. Pretty cool I’d say if you are using Photoshop Express and Flickr!
   
• I’m getting a lot of questions on how to work with WordPress and how to set it up for certain purposes and I thought I’d start writing a tutorial series about just that. How to work with WordPress, what settings to use, some plugins etc. I don’t have any estimated completion date but it should be within the coming two weeks I assume!
   
• Over at LightroomKillerTips, Matt Kloskowski has a good Lightroom video today about how to backup to another drive instead of your main one. (Your catalog that is) It’s something that’s indeed really hidden.
   
• If you work with the web or are a web designer like me, you probably have heard your share of SEO debates and articles but if you are a little new to the field (or even if you have been there and heard it) you’ll appreciate this article by Nick La over at the Web Designer Wall talking about SEO for Web Designers.

It’s been a long week indeed and it’s been very busy with a lot of things happening, at least for me! Now it is going to be a fun and relaxing weekend in the warm weather. Fear not, I have an article lined up for you guys tomorrow.

I’m going to be away at my cousins confirmation service tomorrow which means I’ll be in a church taking some nice pictures I hope. I might be able to share you some on Sunday!

» Professional Portrait Retouching Class by Scott Kelby

Today on Kelby Training a brand new class (like most weeks) are launched. This time however it is an amazing class by an amazing man. Scott Kelby is launching his brand new online class called Professional Portrait Retouching Techniques. It’s going to teach you the best ways to retouch your portraits, without making them look unreal or overdone. It’s all the real retouching stuff used by professionals worldwide every day. After the jump you can see a promotional video that Scott did for the class where he himself explains what is covered.

» Tuesday Web Update

 

Things are calming down a fraction today so here without much further adieu here are the Tuesday Web News!

• A little humour first coming from the NAPP Forums. A fellow users has apparently as the first in the history reached a limit of deactivations allowed on the creative suite. Apparently and according to Adobe the limit is at 21 deactivations (a pretty odd limit). So congrats on the limit reach and being the first to test that for the rest of us
   
• Although I myself use the lazy code view in Dreamweaver a lot and I recommend it to people all the time Smashing Magazine has got today a good article with 25 WYSIWYG html creators for your sites on your computer.
   
• I intended to blog about this a while ago but forgotten and didn’t have time to run a test before but I’m going to bring it up nevertheless. It’s a pretty cool photoshop plugin which allows you to export your psd file to a css ready document. Go and visit PSD2CSS.
   
• I know I keep saying this but seeing as I have some time over tomorrow I’m going to be posting up new podcast episodes, new tutorials and work on a bunch of reviews and articles as well! I’m also starting an e-book project that I intend to release sometime in the summer.

I think that is it for today though and now some good hours of sleep are awaiting me before tomorrow comes fully, Preset Day!

 

» Monday News Stuff

It’s another crazily busy Monday around here, as all Mondays are but I’m able to get in this post still with the latest things happening today which is a little bit of everything, from Adobe news, to Apple news and to birthday wishes! Also stay tuned for another interview coming soon this week!

 Adobe discountinues GoLive

Adobe has announced today that they’ll be discontinuing GoLive in favour of Dreamweaver which they say is a better product alltogether. Dreamweaver is really now the industry standard in WYSIWYG editing and features much nicer code than previous. If you are a GoLive user you should read the Dreamweaver page.

iMac recieves updates!

Today we have some welcome iMac updates with processor speeds now up to 3.06 GHz! Also improved is the processor cache as well as the graphic cards available. They are available immidiately from any Apple Store or Apple retailer starting at just $1,199.

iTunes Music Store celebrates its five year anniversary!

iTunes Music Store is today celebrating its five year anniversary in business. Also announced was the fact that they now have 10 million songs in their library, available! Shoppers today in the music store was greeted with a special new section where they showcased music happenings over the years.

Happy (late) Birthday Larry Becker!

The all around amazing guy, Larry Becker, executive director of NAPP, had his birthday yesterday and I just want to wish him again, a very happy (late) birthday. Hope you had the really best one, you definately deserve it!

 

» You suck at Photoshop - Revealed

 Yes you are hearing correctly! The guys behind the now popular and famour "You Suck at Photoshop" series which is mixing humor and learning, is now revealed! In an article by the Time you get to read the story behind as well as who is doing the series. If you’ve like everyone else been wondering, you’ll probably enjoy the read!

If you haven’t heard about the You Suck at Photoshop series you can go and view the episodes here on MyDamnChannel.