| | In PowerPoint 2010: Audio and Video in Depth, Alicia Katz Pollock shows how to integrate and enhance video and audio to create a more engaging PowerPoint presentation. The course emphasizes the technical details necessary to make a multimedia presentation work: from working with appropriate file formats, to compressing video, to reducing the file size of multimedia presentations for sharing. Exercise files are included with the course. Duration: 04h 38m | | | | Stay up to date with access to the Online Training Library®! We are constantly adding new software training courses and inspirational documentaries to help reach your creative and career goals. 
| | | | In PowerPoint 2007: Audio and Video in Depth, Alicia Katz Pollock shows how to integrate and enhance video and audio to create a more engaging PowerPoint presentation. The course emphasizes the technical details necessary to make a multimedia presentation work: from working with appropriate file formats, to compressing video, to reducing the file size of multimedia presentations for sharing. Exercise files are included with the course. Duration: 03h 32m In this course, author James Williamson offers a high-level overview of Cascading Style Sheets. This course explores the basic concepts, terminology, and tools of the language. Beginning with an exploration of CSS syntax, James explains how CSS modifies text, borders, backgrounds, and color; demonstrates CSS and HTML integration; and contextualizes the current state of CSS. The course also tours some of the most popular CSS editors and frameworks and lists online tools and resources for further study. This course is for people who want a big-picture overview before taking hands-on courses. Duration: 03h 12m Installing Apache, MySQL, and PHP with David Gassner describes how to install and perform the initial configuration of Apache, MySQL, and PHP, known as the AMP stack, on a local development computer. Chapters are devoted to multiple installation approaches: installing the components separately on both Windows and Mac (including coverage of Apache and PHP on Mac OS X 10.7 Lion), installing the pre-packaged Apache and MySQL distributions in WampServer on Windows and MAMP on Mac, and installing the cross-platform XAMPP on both Mac and Windows. Exercise files are included with the course. Duration: 02h 05m  | |  | In the Narrative Portraiture series, photographer and teacher Chris Orwig explores the use of elements such as location and natural light to create images that tell stories about their subjects and produce a strong emotional connection. In this installment, Chris visits Rodney Smith, a photographer whose work is known for its graceful serenity and its wit. Rodney's career spans more than four decades and includes editorial, fashion, and advertising work, as well as several books.
The course begins with a wide-ranging conversation between Chris and Rodney, during which they discuss Rodney's work, his approach to photography and models, his love of film and of black and white, and the importance of creating photographs that both ask questions and tell stories. Next, Chris tours Rodney Smith's studio, including the darkroom, to get more familiar with Rodney before photographing him.
Chris then takes a series of portraits of Rodney. Along the way, he reviews his gear choices and the compositional decisions he makes, and discusses the importance of committing photographs to paper, particularly in today's digital age. Finally, Chris reviews the images and shares some insights from his conversation with Rodney. Duration: 01h 51m Create an Online Portfolio with WordPress shows how to build an advanced portfolio site that showcases various types of content using the free open-source application WordPress. Author Morten Rand-Hendriksen demonstrates creating custom post types, differentiating and classifying content with custom taxonomies, and working with custom post templates. The course also shows how to embed YouTube videos, build index pages, display the latest posts from different custom post types, and hook custom post types into separate themes. Exercise files accompany with the course. Duration: 03h 13m Graphic designer Marian Bantjes has collaborated with numerous design legends, including Debbie Millman from Sterling Brands, Michael Bierut and Paula Scher from Pentagram/NY, Sean Adams from AdamsMorioka, and Stefan Sagmeister-all of whom are featured in this film. This Creative Inspirations was shot on location in Toronto, Vancouver, New York, Los Angeles, and Marian's home and workspace near Vancouver, where Marian shares her views on design and designers. We also visit her distinctive one-woman show at the Ontario College of Art & Design.
In Bonus Features, Marian talks about her creative process at the Ontario College of Art & Design in Toronto. Duration: 01h 07m Foundations of Programming: Fundamentals provides the core knowledge to begin programming in any language. Simon Allardice uses JavaScript to explore the core syntax of a programming language, and shows how to write and execute your first application and understand what's going on under the hood. The course covers creating small programs to explore conditions, loops, variables, and expressions; working with different kinds of data and seeing how they affect memory; writing modular code; and how to debug, all using different approaches to constructing software applications.
Finally, the course compares how code is written in several different languages, the libraries and frameworks that have grown around them, and the reasons to choose each one. Duration: 04h 47m In this course, Paul F. Aubin creates standardized content such as furniture, doors, and many other architectural components using The Family Editor in Revit. The course starts with the basic concepts: family hierarchy, libraries, resources, reference planes, and constraints. The course also takes a deeper look at the smart data beyond the geometry, such as material and visibility parameters, as well as creating nested families and arrays, controlling rotation in work planes, and working with advanced formulas. Exercise files are included with the course. Duration: 06h 44m In Create an Interactive Map with jQuery, Chris Converse shows how to design and create a rich interactive map for a web site, working in a coding environment and using the open-source scripting library jQuery. The course covers creating web-optimized images using the slicing tools in Photoshop, implementing the HTML and CSS to assemble an infographic page layout, and adding interactivity with JavaScript and jQuery's fast and concise code library. Exercise files are included with the course.
Take a look at the finished web site here. Duration: 47m 38s In Up and Running with Photoshop Elements 10, Jan Kabili introduces the photo organizing, editing, and sharing features of Photoshop Elements. The course begins with a look at the Organizer, whose features make it easier to manage and find photos. Jan describes how to work with keywords and albums and how to use Elements 10's visual search features to find visually similar photos and duplicate images.
Next, Jan addresses Elements' Quick Photo Edit and Guided Photo Edit workspaces, which streamline and simplify many common photo-editing tasks. She then introduces the basics of editing in the Full Photo Edit workspace, which provides tools for selecting portions of images, retouching, compositing images, adding text, and more.
The course wraps up with an overview of Elements 10's sharing features, including creating greeting cards, printing and emailing photos, and sharing photos on Facebook. Exercise files are included with the course. Duration: 02h 05m In this course Lisa Larson-Kelley offers a sneak peak at how video streaming delivery protocols work with Flash Media Server 4.5. Delivery protocols covered include: Real Time Media Protocol (RTMP), HTTP Dynamic Streaming (HDS), and the new HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) support for streaming to Apple iOS devices and HTML5. This course starts with the basics, from installing Flash Media Server, to streaming a simple prerecorded video, capturing and streaming live video, using adaptive streaming, writing server-side code, and more. The course also includes a simple project that demonstrates how to create a webcam broadcasting application. Exercise files accompany the course. Duration: 01h 53m In this course, author Dan Ablan walks through the process of understanding the modo workflow while learning to create 3D models and animations. The course teaches fundamental tasks, such as modeling polygons and applying materials with the Shader Tree, while exploring scene building in depth through advanced lighting, camera, and animation techniques. The course also covers modo's schematic tools and shows how to render animations for various playback media. Exercise files accompany the course. Duration: 07h 32m In C# Essential Training, author Joe Marini offers a tour of the foundational programming language at the heart of several Microsoft platforms, including Windows, ASP.NET, Silverlight, SharePoint, and Windows Phone. Joe walks through the basic syntax and structure of the language, introduces object-oriented concepts, and shows how to define custom classes. The course also demonstrates using C# language features, compiling and running code, handling exceptions, reading and writing files, and addressing common compilation issues through debugging. Exercise files accompany the course. Duration: 06h 44m  | | | In the Shooting with Wireless Flash series, award-winning photographer Jim Sugar demonstrates his approach to using off-camera flash in a variety of lighting scenarios, sharing practical tips along the way.
In this installment, Jim shows how to shoot outdoors during twilight, what photographers refer to as the magic hour. He goes on location to create an exterior photo of a busy pizzeria, employing five wireless strobes strategically placed both inside the building and on its exterior.
His approach to lighting the scene involves balancing all of the scene's light sources-the twilight from the sky, the interior light of the pizzeria, the existing lights on the outside of the building, and the output of his strobes-in such a way that the final photo doesn't appear to have any special lighting at all. He demonstrates a variety of inexpensive lighting tools-clamps, gels, and other light modifiers-to accomplish this goal.
Also discussed is the importance of planning and setting up ahead of time to maximize shooting time when the light is waning. The course wraps up with tips on planning for gear, estimating the amount of time available to shoot, shooting in manual mode, and using a camera's histogram to judge exposure. Duration: 45m 15s Game Character Creation in Maya is a thorough overview of techniques for creating characters for video games or real-time rendered applications. Chris Reilly's course covers low-poly modeling, texturing and animation, using 3D model and texture assets created in Maya and Adobe Photoshop. The course also includes an overview of Unity 3, including importing characters and making interactive animations with the Script Editor. Exercise files accompany the course. Duration: 02h 58m In this course, Macworld senior editor Christopher Breen provides a comprehensive overview of Mac OS X Lion, complete with insider tips for getting the most out of the operating system. The course shows how to configure system preferences, personalize the interface, and master gestures, as well as achieve fluency with applications such as Mail, iCal, and Preview. The course also includes tutorials on browsing the web with Safari, automating complex tasks with Automator, sharing over a network, and performing maintenance operations using the disk utility, along with timesaving techniques for using the Mac efficiently. Exercise files accompany the course. Duration: 06h 04m  Follow us on Twitter  Like us on Facebook  Share via ShareThis | |
