DTG News and Else
DT&G:   NEWS for 2008   ~   The eZine for Design, Typography, & Graphics   (since 1990)  

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&Else :: News & Reviews for 2008

  • Photo Books make Great Gifts Now is the time to start thinking about gifts -- particularly if you want very thoughtful yet fairly inexpensive gifts. Planning is important, and as you shoot -- keep your photo book concepts in mind and shoot for the purpose. Here, MJ Johnston shares some tips on photo books ...
  • Photographic Greeting Cards You probably have a great treasury of photos that could be put to real use... noted photographer John Huegel shares tips and guides you to create some truly great, high-quality cards you will be proud to send.
  • Using Cheap Media? Are you ready to risk your images just to save a few bucks? Is it Ok to Use Cheaper Media in Your Digital Camera? Andrew Malek provides some advice why you should purchase memory media for your digital camera with caution
  • 12 Creative Photography Ideas Photographer John Huegel says "Keep these ideas in mind, to get your creative juices flowing and increase your skills and value as a photographer " ... 12 Creative Photography Ideas
  • Adopt an Author More than 8,000 middle & high school teachers have registered for the program since 1999 -- Principals have called Adopt-An-Author "the best secondary school reading program ever implemented," find out about and get involved -- adopt an author
  • Mastering the Nikon D300 Mastering the Nikon D300 brings you a wealth of information and insights for owners of this powerful new camera -- Darrell Young leads you on an exploration of the features and capabilities of the powerful new Nikon D300 camera
  • Canon EOS Digital Rebel XS/1000D If you're thinking about investing in a new Canon Rebel camera, or you already own one, you'll definitely want to check out the latest books from O'Reilly's popular Companion series. Ben Long gives you a full-on photography class built specifically around the XS.
  • Photoshop CS4 Companion for Photographers The Photoshop CS4 Companion for Photographers, spotlights only the critical tools you'll need most often in one compact reference -- Derrick Story teaches you how to quickly and efficiently organize and edit your photos without compromising the originals.
  • Make a Splash on YouTube Probably the most popular web site since the introduction of Yahoo back in 1994... YouTube! Now an Insider's Guide will help you make a splash on YouTube --- YouTube veterans Alan Lastufka and Michael W. Dean will tell you how to get your video noticed by thousands.
  • InDesign CS4 One-on-One The One-To-One series is the best in the market for learning any of Adobe's Creative Suite. Read the lesson. Watch the video. Do the exercises, and you'll learn Adobe InDesign CS4 from expert and Adobe guru Deke McClelland.
  • Cook some Adobe Air Buzz continues to build over the release of Adobe AIR 1.5. The first book available on Adobe AIR 1.5 is the Adobe AIR 1.5 Cookbook, providing solutions and practical examples from rich internet application developers. If you're getting into this arena, then you'll need a cookbook
  • How to Be a Geek Goddess What a great gift for the women in your life! (Or, for yourself!) Christina Tynan-Wood, the Geek Goddess herself, (of Geek Girlfriends fame) teaches you how how to use computers with smarts and style -- and how to be a Geek Goddess
  • VectorDesigner Adds Multi-Touch Vectordesigner 1.4.6 now supports the new unibody MacBooks multi-touch trackpad for panning and zooming -- pretty awesome techniques for vector drawings, diagrams and illustrations
  • Pixelmator gets better Pixelmator is the revolutionary GPU-powered image editing tool that provides everything needed to create, edit, and enhance still images - Magic Wand, Paint Bucket, and Magic Eraser tools; improved Hue and Saturation, Replace Color, and Colorize tools; Smart Palette Hide; and more. The upgrade is free.
  • 8 Killer Mistakes to Avoid When Starting a Business Here are killer mistakes to avoid when starting a business excerpted from So, You Want to Start a Business? 8 Steps to Take Before Making the Leap by Ed Hess and Charles Goetz
  • 24-inch LED Cinema Display A long-standing lament against using the PowerBook as a desktop -- bigger monitor. Now, Apple is marketing an LED Cinema Display specifically for use with a laptop. This stunning 24-inch LED-backlit widescreen display includes built-in iSight video camera, mic and speakers
  • Resizing Images Online If you email or blog with images, they should be sized correctly. Web developer Alex Don shares advice for using online services that can do a great job of automatically resizing your images! No image processer needed.
  • Four Thirds lenses If you've owned one of those expensive TTL digital cameras with interchangeable lenses, you thought you couldn't use lenses from other manufacturers. Now, Olympus Imaging, Panasonic, and Sigma Corporation have joined forces to launch an online firmware update service that will enable users to easily update the firmware in interchangeable DSLR lenses. The only big player not playing is Nikon.
  • 25th for 128 WOW Computer guru George Engel recently visited an Apple store and blew them away with the original 128 Mac, ImageWriter and a demonstration of the computer that started the personal computing and desktop publishing revolution ...
  • iPod: The Missing Manual Each time a new version of software comes out, thousands of in-the-know users immediately check for the missing manual for that product. They're great tools for learning the product right -- and considered essential!
  • Developing Facebook Platform Applications Facebook changed the internet landscape forever. More than 12,000 Facebook applications have been launched so far, with over 60 million captive users. Now you can develop your own application for Facebook using the explosively popular Rails framework.
  • ActionScript 3.0 Quick Reference Guide ActionScript 3.0 Quick Reference Guide is designed specifically to help Flash designers and developers make the leap from ActionScript 2.0 to the new object-oriented ActionScript 3.0 quickly and painlessly
  • Google Tool Set for Developers Leading internet supplier iWebTemplate has introduced their Google Tool Set, a web-based resource for Mac enterprise and web developers alike -- eleven of the most useful tools in one convenient location.
  • REALbasic Developer REALbasic Developer Magazine is reprinting the last year's issues into a convenient perfect-bound book which will be shipping at the end of November. Get it now for 25% off the normal price
  • Why Bad Spending Happens To Good People Everyone needs good spending habits. In today's over stimulated, over saturated world it's even more important to develop a sharp awareness to where each dollar goes. Noted author Nick Tassler explains some tips to live by
  • The $tart-Up $olution These tough economic times have many Americans looking for work -- and looking for more ways to make ends meet. Authors Ed Hess and Charles Goetz have some advice you might not expect to hear right now: Start your own business!
  • Time for a little Optimism In today's world of bad news, drive-by media, and know-it-all talking heads, it's no wonder people are walking around in a state of depression. How do you feel? Did you know it's not your fault? Would you like a little optimism in your life?
  • InDesign CS4 EasyCatalog Now that Adobe is launching CS4, those of you who publish database based content (Catalogs, directories, shoppers, manuals, etc.) will want this upgrade. EasyCatalog gives you dynamic, two-way, linking of data from a CSV file, XML structure or ODBC database to text or images in InDesign documents! Sweet.
  • Photoshop Lightroom 2 Adventure This is one of the books that top our "BEST" list for anyone with a digital camera! In this beautifully illustrated and inspiring new book -- "Photoshop Lightroom 2 Adventure" -- award-winning photographer and best-selling author Mikkel Aaland gives you a hands-on, guided tour of Lightroom 2.0
  • DrawIt vector-drawing We've written about Drawit before -- this layer-based, vector-drawing software also has a bitmap-editing layer gives you the best of two worlds and packs an impressive assortment of useful, professional grade features.
  • Sketches iPhone and iPod Touch The latest incarnation of Sketches for the iPhone and iPod Touch bring significant improvements over the original -- now you get several new drawing options and tools; plus more clipart shapes continue to amuse and provide fun ...
  • New Apple MacBooks - BRIEF New Apple MacBooks specs and features only. This page is for those who don't want to wade through the Apple propaganda and get just the low-down facts.
  • New MacBook Family new MacBook family that redefines notebook design, and at the same time dramatically lowers the entry price for advanced notebook features including all-metal enclosures and pro-performance notebook graphics by $700 to make them far more affordable.
  • Mac OS X for Unix Geeks If you're a developer or system administrator lured to Mac OS X because of its Unix roots, you'll quickly discover that performing Unix tasks on a Mac is different than what you're accustomed to.
  • A Sane Approach to Database Design Computers aren't hard to use. Bad software is hard to use. Many computer systems today are hard to use because they were built on top of poorly designed databases. -- Mark Johansen now reveals how to build a database that actually works
  • NetSketch for iPhone and iPod Touch This is a collaborative drawing application for the iPhone and iPod Touch! The full-featured vector drawing app and allows you to sketch in real-time with friends on multiple iPhones
  • Spell Catcher gets better I've used this package every day since Casady & Greene released it back in the '90s. The interactive spelling feature not only alerts you with a mistake, it's also a very cool program for looking up words while you're typing. . . it's like having a professional proofreader!
  • Showker to judge in Wiley Design Challenge -- DTG's Showker will be serving on the Judges Panel for the launch of John Wiley & Sons' Wiley Design Challenge, a book cover design contest that will run through October 31, 2008. Artists are invited to submit designs for the third edition of Al Ward's book Photoshop for Right-Brainers. Lots of prizes and fun for all in the Wiley Design Challenge
  • ImageFramer custom image framing This little gem can save hours and hours. Yes, we've known how to do this in Adobe Photoshop for years. But what ImageFramer does, are dozens of Photoshop steps instantly. Apply photo-realistic frames to digital images, drawings or any original artwork plus watermarks, batch processing
  • iPhone Photos to Paintings Here's a very nifty utility for you iPhone users -- Gesture lets you create digital paintings from your photos simply by dragging your finger over the photo. How cool is that
  • iPod Access Photo Findley Designs has launched iPod Access Photo 1.6 for Mac OSX and Windows Vista/XP. This looks like a great solution for viewing and retrieving photos stored on iPod players. Dual platform, supports multiple devices!
  • New Product Blueprinting Dan Adams says the only way to win in tough times is through organic growth. Companies must consistently come up with differentiated new products customers want to buy--and that means finding clarity in the "fuzzy front end" of the process.
  • Practical HDRI How to Capture the Beauty of Infrared Imagery - In image processing, computer graphics, and photography, high dynamic range imaging (HDRI) is a set of techniques that allows a greater dynamic range of exposures (the range of values between light and dark areas) than normal digital imaging techniques.
  • Learn the Canon Digital Rebel Get to know the Digital Rebel XSi/450D and how it works -- this is a super reference for taking stunning pictures, creative tips, technical advice for capturing professional-looking images of people, landscapes, action shots, close-ups, night shots -- the ones that usually cause the most problems.
  • Master the Canon EOS 40D Learn to master this magnificent camera, and learn it the photographer's way; from the basics of exposure and metering to focus modes, live view, bracketing, continuous shooting, and flash photography.
  • Online TV Doubles Online TV viewing has been gaining in popularity. Nearly one-fifth of American households who use the internet watch television broadcasts online, double the viewership from 2006. Here's a peek at some interesting statistics ...
  • Statistics? Who understands them? These days, it seems like everything is based on statistics. But statistics are hard to understand. Take for instance the job market. You hear the talking heads moan and groan about how bad unemployment is. And two political candidate ding-dongs who say over and over they're going to "put America back to work" -- is 2 to 5% unemployment bad? Would you bet on a horse with 2 to 5% odds? I don't think so. Here's a book provides hands-on understanding of how to apply statistics. Each chapter presents you with easy-to-follow descriptions illustrated by graphics, formulas, and plenty of solved examples. Hopefully, once I read it, I'll understand why they say unemployment is so bad, when it's impossible to find anyone who wants to work!
  • iPhone iPod Touch Digital Comics Digital Comics from established comic book professionals and studios are coming soon to the iPhone/iPod Touch. iVerse is announcing their Comic Reader software which will be used to create comics for iPhone/iPod Touch, and opening up for submissions from comic book hopefuls as well as established pros. Comics adapted using the iVerse Media software will be available in the iTunes App Store
  • Tables Spread Sheet Anniversary At last -- an alternative spreadsheet for Mac. Tables enables you to organise and present data very simply. With Tables you can not only organise data but also do calculations and comparisons with it. Add, sum or multiply numbers or process data by using more than 100 functions. Data can not only represent numbers but a date or an amount, too.
  • Art Directors Toolkit If you're a professional publisher, or deal with color printing of any kind, then you know you need to stay up to date with Pantone Color System. The PANTONE GOE System has been gaining popularity and artists have been asking for ways to integrate it into their workflow. Now you can hook right in
  • WriteRoom for iPhone Hog Bay Software's WriteRoom for iPhone is unique in the world -- for people who want a simple place to read and write notes on their phone. It's like having a notes app, but with a lot more features.
  • MyWeather Mobile Although you can grab the weather on your iPhone or iPod Touch, having a stand-alone program along that does it for you is indispensable. Have full, robust weather where ever you go
  • Create Cookbooks with TasteBook and MacGourmet With Advenio you can now create cookbooks using the latest versions of MacGourmet, their popular cooking and recipe organizer, along with TasteBook. Discover, organize and share favorite recipes and turn them into personal hardcover cookbooks. For a limited time you can save 20% on your cookbooks with this code...
  • dekePod 101 Photoshop Tips in 5 Minutes -- Deke's wacky Photoshop tips-fest portends more good times ahead -- this instructive series of video podcasts promises to be uncensored, unregulated, and frankly unlike any other videos on the topics of computer graphics
  • Funtastic Photos Funtastic Photos could possibly be the most fun and most capable photo editor to come along for the Mac. The 1-Click Styles function creates stunning effects that would take hours in Photoshop or Elements. More importantly it has at least two of the most asked-for image editing techniques: tile-photo-montages and multiple image print layouts. If you take photos, then Funtastic Photos could quite possibly be the best new product since digital cameras!
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  • DTP, Drawing, Graphics, Photography and image editing specific

Thanks for reading...

Fred Showker
Editor / Publisher, DT&G Magazine

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