DTG News and Else
DT&G: Vol. 14, Number 2, February, 2004 ~ The eZine for Design, Typography, & Graphics   (since 1990)  

February Editor's Column

Design, how I love thee

February arrives with winners from our January "question" -- plus: Photoshop CS explosion, a visit with Bert Monroy for some Photoshop tips & Tricks, a field trip to some unusual computer parts, Spam Sites revisited, free stock photos from Turbo Photo, Spam stalkers, a new 4-Megapixel camera, CSS Boxes template, and a lot more! If you live in the north American continent, stay warm, and don't forget to register for March to Win Prizes

February Winners have great comments

This month our readers competed for prizes by answering either of two questions: "What I discovered in 2003", and "What I Love about Design, or Valentine's" -- Meet the winners and read their winning comments in the Creative Networking Winners

Attention Designing Women...

Our traditional March theme is in celebration of "Women's History Month" and we focus on designing women. If you come into that category, you'll want to submit for a cameo in DTG. You won't want to miss this opportunity to show off your stuff! We'll be featuring Cynthia Baron, Technical Director of Northeastern University on the topic of Designing a Digital Portfolio. If you'd like to be included, Contact Us

Bert Monroy: Merging Large Scans

We had the pleasure of visiting with Bert Monroy recently. Let's peek into his studio, get a look at his set-up, and even pick up on some tips for scanning and merging oversized pictures in the Photoshop department

Field Trip: Sculptural Statements

Come along as we visit the works of a unique high school student from Kentucky -- his creativity and vision to put a whole new spin on obsolete computer parts making Sculptural Statements

Feature Web Sites for February

There are quite a few new sites this month for you to critique. Sorry to say, we didn't get any reviews or critiques sent in by readers. (Boo,hoo) You guys got to get out there and give our reader-posted sites a look:
* The Family Life Abroad site asks "are too many graphics" or "too many links...
* the Houston Mechanical Service site needs other viewers to check the text placement...
* The volunteer webmaster for a Girl Scouts site says "The site is organized by color/sections to ease navigation" ... but would also like some suggestions.
* Anthony's comments about portfolio sites is "I feel that many portfolio web sites are too complicated" -- is his design simple?
* Joseph Balint is having problems with his photography and colors.
* The Doctor's support network webmaster says: "I am most concerned with appearance, at the moment it looks a bit home made." Is this a problem?
. . . just go to Web Reviews

Adobe Photoshop CS Explosion

We've had a lot of inquiries about when we'll be covering the new Adobe CS line... well, the flood gates have opened with a slew of new books focusing on Adobe Creative Suite... Photoshop, Illustrator and Acrobat! Pluse several dozen new Photoshop tutorials, all in the Photoshop Department for the CS Listings

Testing: See how CSS boxes work

As part of the on-going quest to learn CSS, a test page is now available that illustrates the use of margin, padding and borders around CSS objects... and you can turn them off and on. Note they do NOT validate with the W3 validation page. If you have tips or suggestions on fixing the broken coding, please let us know. You are invited to experiment, copy, save and learn from these Testing Sheets for CSS Boxes!

10 Years Later: The Anatomy of a Spam Site

It's been ten years since the "Web Design" seminars spread the Ten Deadly Sins across America. Since then, a lot has changed and a lot hasn't. Even usability guru Jacob Nielsen has changed his Deadly Sins three times since his first appearance in 1996. Let's revisit after ten years on the web Anatomy of a Spam Site!

Review: 4 Megapixel camera under $200

This new low-end 4 Megapixel digital camera with 3x optical zoom and 30 Frames per second for movies comes in under $200... Concord believes people want better digital photos for less... Maybe this is what they're looking for. But we've never heard of Concord Cameras

Review: Turbo Photo Library and Freebies

Graphic designers on a tight budget may appreciate the new Turbo Photo Library of CD-ROMs, hundreds of high resolution, royalty-free images at very inexpensive prices. We've posted this review along with links to some stock photography freebies in the Reviews Department

Updates: DTP Jumpstation Additions

The Jumpstation volunteers were really busy this month, had nothing else to do since everything is covered with snow and it's 11-degrees outside. They've posted a whole bunch of somewhat useful Valentine's Clip Art & Fonts - Some of the items are pretty nice some are awful. (Beware when surfing clip art, fonts and stock photo sites, they're heavy duty spam sites with pop-up ads and stalker links. Turn your cookies off. Let us know which of these links you think are best!
Then there's a new downloadable PDF file Photoshop Printing Tips; a newly updated Font Foundry List including Fonts Grab Bag and FAQ pages; and finally a collection of PowerPoint Tutorials from Patrick Crispen.

News: Macworld Expo San Francisco 2004

For those of you who missed Macworld, user group guru Dan East gives a pretty good report on the Apple announcements at Macworld Expo, San Francisco. He mentions: G4, G5, GarageBand, Xserve, the new iPods and Steve Jobs' keynote at Moscone -- plus his "coolness factor" discoveries like SqueezeBox, SlimDevice, Piximation and Toast with Jam. Then he reflects on the Macworld Expo "Party for The People" at UGNN

Shareware: Quickie Web Albums

Sick and tired of seeing all those drag-n-drop iPhoto gallerys on the web? We cringe each time a someone sends an invitation to their gallery. But they don't have to be boring. Quickie Web Albums are easy to create and offer a lot of power for customization including CSS style sheets! Also at UGN Reviews

Shareware: ViewIt is fast and easy

View your images through this unique, intuitive interface including full screen mode, quick image sorting, printing -- with easy digital camera import. (Mac OS X) ... also at UGN Shareware

Ideas: Postcards from the Road

Do you spend a lot of time on the road? Are you sick of taking pictures sending them back in emails? Send a post card instead with Internet Postcards

New: Nik Color Efex Pro

Nik MM offers this suite of digital photo filtering tools for most major photo manipulation applications. Adjust tone, sky effects and, my favorite, a polarizing effect are among the filters offered in this complete package callled Color Efex Pro

Security: Little Snitch for Mac OS X

If you run ethernet, broadband, or any "always connected" network on the Mac OS X, then you need to monitor outgoing network connections. "Once you see how many people are trying to get into your system, you'll gladly pay the shareware fee for Little Snitch!"

Windows users get a little security

ActiveScreenLock is shareware for PC/Windows users that gives a secure and reliable way to protect their computers from unauthorized access. The idea behind the software is simple but ingenious - the program simply adds a password-protected window placed on top of all the others. In order to remove it, a correct password needs to be entered. Key combinations Alt+F4, Ctrl+Alt+Del, Alt+Tab, and WinKey are blocked... and it's available in English, German, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, French and Magyar languages. Here's a free demo version of ActiveScreenLock

Time to go after those spammers!

For those of you with a propensity for fighting spam -- the new Can Spam law is in effect, but we've seen no slow-down in the spam epidemic. So, it's time to start stirring up trouble for those spammers. If your spam has an advertised link, then start complaining loud and hard. Follow these instructions to Find Your Spammer's Domain Registrar!

Reader Tip: Not Martha

Ms O'Brien wrote in with this lead to the "Not Martha" web site...
> Here is just a fun site I came across that gives unique ideas
> for making cool cards and gifts that could be used by designers
> to do self promotional items and corporate packages.
> It puts the fun back into design and gives you a break from a
> stressful business day.
Not Martha

Reader Tip: You already own these photos

Kilde from Baldwin Telecom writes in with this resource for Digital Graphics in general...
      The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has a photo gallery of public domain photos paid for by your tax money. This includes the usual fish, fowl and furry animals, but also includes the famous photos taken during the dust bowl and depression. What a treasure. And you own it. And they're free to use, as long as you list proper credits. From the U.S. government

Complaints: SPAM causes CAFE Bounces

Many of you have written asking why you are not getting the CAFE discussion list, or why your posts and /or replies are bouncing. You should check with your ISP to see if they've initiated any new SPAM filtering software. In the past few weeks we've started getting hundreds of notices from servers all over the world that the mail could not be delivered because of spam blockers. If you want into the CAFE, you need to add its email address to your "white list."

Coming in March: "Luck of the Designer"

Register to win our March Prizes... "Luck of the Designer" ... since March is the St. Patrick's Day month with a lot of superstition about being 'lucky' we're asking for your most memorable moments in the visual arts fields when luck played a hand... either bad luck or good luck! Go ahead and think about it -- then registerfor prizes.

Hope you're warm and enjoying February

All month long, the Publishers' Warehouse will be hosting the loading dock under the "Luck" directory in celebration of Saint Patrick's, and the "Luck of the Irish" in the Design Center. I understand they've uploaded some new stuff and enhanced the desktop publishers' Jumpstation as well. So, for this month you'll want to use: http://www.graphic-design.com/luck/index.html.

Happy February, and ...

Thanks for reading

Fred Showker
Editor / Publisher, DT&G Magazine

Parting words: on the subject of LOVE...

Conscience is the frame of character,
and love is the covering for it.
        Henry Ward Beecher

Participate in your Design Center

Lots of fun and information for all... don't forget, any community is only as good as the participation of its members. We invite your tips, tricks, comments, suggestions and camaraderie.