This lesson is designed to help you develop and gather content for a Web site. In this lesson, you will learn about content and how to organize it as well as what questions to ask your client. It is recommended that you attend the classroom lectures to get the full understanding of this lesson.

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www.FontSite.com features timeless information about fonts and design, books, and downloadable fonts.

They also offer an amazing CD full of 500 professional-quality typefaces for just $39.95.

It’s a real steal.

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ATLANTA — April 23, 2007 — SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) and Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq: ADBE) today announced their collaboration on a new product, SAP® Enterprise Learning environment, designed to help companies drive continuous employee education more efficiently and cost effectively than with traditional in-person training. SAP Enterprise Learning creates a unique learning environment through the combination of SAP Learning Solution with Adobe® Acrobat® Connect™ Professional—a scalable, highly customizable, extensible Web conferencing solution. SAP Enterprise Learning environment is scheduled for availability in Q3 2007 with the next SAP enhancement package for SAP ERP. The announcement was made at SAPPHIRE® ’07, being held in Atlanta, Georgia, April 22 – 25.

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In previous issues, we’ve recommended using Parallels for running Windows on an Intel-based Mac, rather than using VMware’s Fusion or Apple’s free Boot Camp. But there are reasons to use each, and Computerworld explores their advantages and uses at http://www.macworld.com/news/2007/02/21/vmwarevsparallels/. One key point: Apple’s Boot Camp provides native access to the Intel architecture for Windows, which means that you can run *any* version of Windows on it, and every feature works, including rights-managed media. “Virtualization” software such as Parallels and Fusion can’t legally run the lower-priced Home version of Windows Vista, and won’t play Vista’s rights-managed media.

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Register now for this momentous event. Be one of the first to learn new features and techniques available only in Adobe® Creative Suite® 3 that will change the way you work and create.
 
We’ve developed an exciting, content-rich two day conference for you in Los Angeles and New York. With almost 40 sessions to choose from, you’ll walk away with a wealth of knowledge you can use immediately. Whether you work in print, online, with video or motion graphics, or on mobile devices, you’ll learn new ways to stretch your boundaries and take your creativity places you never thought possible.
 
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Here’s an unusual resource: a free collection of 1,500 vector illustrations related to earth sciences. Developed and maintained by The Integration and Application Network of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, they span 32 categories including animals, insects, plants, ecosystem landscapes and cross sections, mapping icons, boats and everyday objects.

The collection is available in Illustrator, EPS and SVG formats at www.ian.umces.edu/symbols/

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Let’s face it, starting your own business is no small task. People think owning their own business will make them rich and in control. On the contrary, owning your own business will be the hardest thing you’ve ever done. A business owner must be able to wear all the hats of the business, including taking out the trash and answering the phone. Being self-employed takes dedication and the desire to succeed. If you think you can get investors to give you tons of money and think you’ll just hire people to run your business for you, you’re sadly mistaken.

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Andrew’s Vector Plugins 22 Starburst ($15) is a plug-in for Illustrator that creates unique, high-impact 2D and 3D star designs.

It’s the best combination of price/features we’ve seen. 

Abneil Software www.graphicxtras.com

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Important note for Windows Vista™ users

Corel® Snapfire™ has achieved Works with Windows Vista™ qualification. It is recommended that you install the free Corel Snapfire 1.2 update prior to upgrading your computer to Windows Vista.

Key Updates in Corel Snapfire Plus 1.2

This update optimizes Corel Snapfire Plus for best performance on Windows Vista Overall performance and stability has been improved, particularly during tasks involving Show mode or photo trays
The Photo Downloader has been enhanced to detect CDs and USB devices on the Windows Vista platform You can now specify a screen resolution setting in General Preferences and improve the playback quality of Snapfire Shows and videos
Thumbnails for Corel Snapfire projects now appear in the Organizer view

For more info visit www.corel.com

Several online stores will make large prints of your photos or other artwork. Ben Long tested several and preferred http://www.largeformatposters.com/. They can print as large as 59 x 100 inches on a vast selection of papers at a reasonable price, such as $29 for a 20×30-inch poster. Other services are also available, such as http://www.snapfish.com/ and http://www.shutterfly.com/. Or to get it locally, try a FedEx Kinko’s store: $30 for a 16×24-inch print.

Tips for resolution: photo-size prints need at least 240 ppi, but posters are viewed from farther away and so need only 150Ð180 ppi. That’s 10.3 megapixels for a 16×20-inch print. If you need to upsample an image more than about 150%, you can preserve detail and clarity by doing it in several smaller steps of about 110%.

Macworld 02/07, pg.84

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What’s your time worth? Putting a value on your design skills
by MJ Page

You’ve decided to go for it. You’ve got the talent and determination. You know your skills are marketable. So what do you charge for your services? Even more important – what will a client pay?

For most Creatives it would be easier to figure out the national debt. Not surprisingly a lot of designers have no clue what they’re worth in the current advertising marketplace. That’s why they’re not accountants.

But if you’re going to be profitable, being compensated fairly and adequately can make all the difference to your success. Or lack of it.

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Ryan Faas provides a succinct, helpful overview of the leading repair utilities for Mac OS X, including what they’re best at, when you’d use them, and whether they’re worthwhile.

Read about Data Rescue II, Drive Genius, TechTool Pro, DiskWarrior and AppleJack at www.informit.com/articles/article.asp?p=693649&ns=8441&rl=1.

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Andrew Shalat is the author of Mac Design Out of the Box (Peachpit), CNET’s Do It Yourself Mac Projects (with Joli Ballew, on McGraw-Hill), and the upcoming How To Do Everything with Online Video (McGraw-Hill).  He is a designer, writer, author, illustrator and consultant. He is heard weekly on InsideMac Radio, giving graphic design tips and keeping listeners up to date on new design related technologies and whatever is stuck in his craw for that week. He has been working as a graphic and commercial designer and a writer for over twenty years.  He also teaches graphic design as an adjunct professor at Sessions.edu, an online design school.

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Photoshop Lightroom Essential Training, by Chris Orwig, is a 6.5-hour self-paced video-based tutorial with exercise files.

You can watch the first 35 minutes for free at www.Lynda.com.

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X-Rite i1Displays – Monitor Calibration Featuring Simple-to-use Affordability With Uncompromised Accuracy for On-screen Studio Quality

Setting the stage for true-to-life colors from the start, the award-winning USB X-Rite i1Display colorimeter systems deliver an accurately profiled monitor with unrivaled controls for precise color in studio.

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QuarkXPress 6 and 7 (and 4 & 5 with Quark’s free Guide Manager XTension) include a Guide Manager under the Utilities menu. There, you can click the Lock Guides button to lock your choice of all vertical or horizontal guides, or all guides. You can also choose to lock the guides on the current page or spread, or all pages.

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The revolution is over! PDF is here and it’s changed the way we work. Jobs go to press faster, documents come from more sources, workflows are more focused – the benefits are many.
But not every PDF is perfect! Typos sneak past editors, images need last-minute swapping, pre-press changes have to be made and always at the eleventh hour, just when your workflow can’t afford to be put on hold while you wait for designers to rework the PDF.What’s the solution? Enter Enfocus Neo! Enfocus Neo is a stand-alone PDF editor with a unique difference – it was built from the ground up with the needs of pre-press and print professionals in mind. Every function in Enfocus Neo’s expansive toolkit is targeted for industry professionals working to a tight deadline. Need to change text (words, lines or paragraphs), edit or swap an image, alter page boxes, add or convert separations, or just move and resize elements on the page? No problem. Enfocus Neo handles the lot – and many other common pre-press headaches too – all within a clear, uncluttered interface that means you get the job done in a snap. Save your file and perform a simultaneous preflight using Enfocus award-winning Certified PDF® technology. Within minutes your PDF is back in your workflow, preflighted to stringent industry standards and and sure to match up to your clients’ expectations. That’s Enfocus Neo – the ultimate stand-alone PDF toolkit for print professionals.

For more info visit www.enfocus.com

If you convert many color images to black and white, look into The Plugin Site’s B/W Styler ($50). Uniquely, this plug-in for Photoshop uses the color contrast of photos for conversions, with separate modes for inexperienced, intermediate and advanced users. Photographers can choose among familiar controls such as B/W film type, ISO rating, lens filters, lab development strategy, paper type, color toner, and special lab effects such as selective B/W, split color, vignette blur and mist. An intermediate mode provides 16 controls, and the expert mode gives more than 100. 

The Plugin Site www.thepluginsite.com

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 Latest PDF technology and easy-to-use: With pdfCorrect, correcting PDFs is no longer in the hands of a few experts

For more info visit Callas Software

Akvis Retoucher 2.5 ($87) is a plug-in for Photoshop that dramatically speeds the process of restoring damaged photographs. It can remove scratches, water spots, flakes, stains, tears, and other surface defects, and even rebuild backgrounds. To use it you use QuickMask mode to roughly paint over blemishes, then invoke Akvis Retoucher and enjoy your repaired images. It can also remove small or large objects, and even magically fill in empty area around an image, to increase cropping options. Their website shows amazing examples.

AKVIS http://akvis.com/en/index.php

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