- Happy Holidays...
- ... are you ready? Been shopping yet? Did you read last month's 60-Second Window:
"Online shopping was never like this"? (At 60-Seconds.com)
__ Are you already thinking about your business start
up for 2001? We are, and boy do we have some treats for you. One I can think of right
off hand will be the launch of Sharon Steuer's "Zen of the Pen" Off-Line
Seminar. Yup, you guessed it right -- Sharon (the "Illustrator WOW" author
and wizard) is going to treat you and me to a complete off-line seminar to become
a skilled pro at using the pen tools in vector drawing programs. I can't wait to
take the seminar myself! I'm just hoping I can make it through December first...
.
- December is here and all is 'a'cheer
- Well, everyone except our DT&G PDF fans... to you, we apologize most penitentially.
November has been so full with content matters, getting the new Knowledge Base started
up, launching and conducting the User Group Academy Awards and Grants program and
many more chores that we decided to skip the PDF this month and put everything on
the web. (Remember, it's double duty to first produce the PDF, then come back and
author all the new web content.) We'll be back at the end of December with our January
2001 kick-off issue, so don't worry: DT&G PDF is not going away.
__ December isn't just for Christmas... consider that
it's also "Hug-A-Week for the Hearing Impaired" month. Give a hug each
week to someone who doesn't hear so well. Get this -- December 14 is South Pole Discovery
Day... and thanks to Roald Amundsen who first visited the South Pole on the 11th
in 1911, we know it's down there! On December 19th, 1958, President Dwight D. Eisenhower
transmitted the first ever Christmas greeting into space! (Via the US satellite Atlas!)
Whoa! Speaking of radios, if you think MP3's are cool, how must people have felt
when John Bardeen actually started the whole revolution in communications and electronics
on that fateful December 23, 1947 when he invented the first electric transistor
for Bell laboratories! Bravo, John! And while the Christmas story takes center stage
for December 25, and people of the Christian faith reverantly celebrate the birth
of Christ, do not forget those other important December 25th birthdays: Jimmy 'Margaritaville'
Buffett (1946), Little "tutti-frutti" Richard (1935), our favorite coal-miners'
daughter Sissy Spacek (1949), guy's guy of all times Humphrey Bogart (1899), Mr.
"Minnie the Moocher" Cab Calloway (1907) and my own niece Jennifer Showker
(1985)! Happy birthday to you all.
__ Hey, almost forgot this one -- you'll like this one:
the gang over at the Publishers' Warehouse pointed out to me that December 13th is
National Shareware Day! (This is for real, folks, started in 1998 by Online-Today.com,
and David Lawrence!) Take time to reward the developer of your favorite shareware
program! All the loading dock people have taken off for FallsChurch, Virginia where
Shareware Day first started. Oh, how fitting!
.
- Photoshop Users Celebrate with New Eye Candy
- The fine folks down at Alien Skin software have rolled out their latest blockbuster:
the latest upgrade to EYE CANDY! WOW you'll want to see all the cool things EC4000
can do for your Photoshop experience... go gettem:
http://www.graphic-design.com/Photoshop/EyeCandy.html
.
- &FOTOgraphic:
Impulse buying is risky business
- This month, Mr. Doug 'AceCam' Clifford shares some sober advice on shopping for,
and evaluating which digital camera to buy. If you're thinking about a digital camera
-- and you don't want buyers' remorse -- then this column, is required reading.
http://www.graphic-design.com/photographic/index.html
.
- Technique: Joyce Duz Photoshop Tutorials
- It gives us great pleasure to share three wonderful Photoshop tutorials sent
in this month by our very one favorite reviewer Joyce Evans of Idea Designs.
See all three, and learn a few tricks in the Seminars department of Photoshop Tips
& Tricks... http://www.graphic-design.com/Photoshop/Seminars/index.html
* Photoshop
Spot Color Channels
* Building
Spot Colors with Percentages
* Trapping
in Photoshop
I'll augment the "Trapping" tutorial with my 1993 article "Trapping:
Dangerous Topic" written for my workshop attendees who asked about the background
of trapping.
- Review: Web Site Reviews at WebDesign & Review
- Yes folks we've added a whole pile of new web sites to review at: http://www.graphic-design.com/Web/Reviews/NEW.html
... take a stroll over there and check'em out. Please take a minute or two and give
your fellow Design Center readers a tip or two with your views of their web site!
__ We really take a deep bow to those who sent in reviews
during November. You can read how they reacted to some of the submitted web sites:
http://www.graphic-design.com/Web/Reviews/ReadersReview.html
__ A couple of these reviews inspired me to go and
take a look myself. So, I've even added my own critique (not quite as 'nice' as theirs)
to the mix! Two gallery sites, with two very different problems...
* Urban Photos: great stuff, once you
get to it
*
Chetkin Gallery: lovely
stuff, poorly presented
.
- Publishers' Warehouse continues the HOLIDAY spirit
- Yup... this month we're adding yet more gifts and goodies for you -- and rolling
them out onto the Loading Dock for you to pick up.
__ You'll love our collection of Copperplate Engravers'
Swashes -- perfect for the Presidential Invitation (if we ever figure out who the
president is), or your own Holiday greeting! (Whole collection of these in EPS format.)
We also hope you like our promotional scratch pad layout which features 8 pads up
on an 8.5 x 11 sheet, ready for printing, decorated with our favorite quotations
from famous people in distinctive script and classic Roman italic designs.
__ The official Design Center Holiday Goodies section
had more than 30,000 visitors during November, and we hope you won't forget to stop
in. If you don't know the directions to the Loading Dock by now, you can request
them at the Publishers' Warehouse home page
.
- Holidays at the Designers' Bookshelf
- Yet another collection of holiday theme books are now previewed in the Designers'
Bookshelf... if you're shopping for gifts for your creative friends, this will be
a superb place to shop: http://www.design-bookshelf.com/
.
- More cool stuff in the User Group Network
- Don't forget all the cool stuff over in the User Group Network...
RumorManager: http://www.user-groups.net/RumorManager/
Shareware for Macs: http://www.user-groups.net/shareware/
The Top 1000 Mac Resources: http://www.user-groups.net/resources/
and a lot more.
.
Sit back, relax. (Yea, right!) Go out and do something nice for someone
else during this special month. But don't forget to stop in and give us a shout here
in the Design Center!
From everyone here at the Design & Publishing Center, DT&G
Magazine, and the Graphic Design Network, we send our heart felt wishes to you and
yours for a healthful, and prosperous holiday season -- and all the very best for
your year 2001.
.
Fred
PS: You didn't miss last month, did you?
. . . also remember that the Design Center is (sad to report) now case sensitive.
(He says with a sheepish grin!)
.
- This month’s EDITOR'S CHOICE could be in the mail to you...
- Yup, you could win the Editor's Choice
each month... just by visiting any of our reader web sites: www.graphic-design.com/WEB/Reviews
and write your review of the site! Do
it today!
OR
Write a good LETTER to the editor,
sending a question we can get our teeth into for the "Feature" letter each
month. If your letter gets published you automatically win!
OR
Cool Tips for Cool Shareware, freeware, or public domain software program what has
made a difference in your professional/hobby computing experience! Just use our handy
form for submitting your favorite.
.
PS:
Folks, we can’t help you if you don’t
cooperate...
This month, more than 200 accesses (looking for that new EPS clip art disk) were
denied to the Publishers’Warehouse because the email address keyed into the UserID/Password
request was incorrect, or no longer in use. I find it hard to believe that people
would register for something and then drop the address.
. . . How do you expect us to send you the UserID/Password if you give us a non-working
email address. Yes, it is an automated listbot and it sends the info if your mail
is correct. We are alerted of "bounces" and this month I followed up with
EACH one ... getting the same bounce results.
. . . If you were rejected, then please try again and use a properly formatted and
functioning email address. Remember: no spaces, correct spelling. Dozens of
AOL users didn't put in "@aol.com" -- remember: name@aol.com, no spaces.
(We assume they were AOL since they had no "@" indicator.)
. . . Remember too, that once you arrive at the "Warehouse" you MUST key
in the ID and Password EXACTLY as was sent to you, upper and lower case, etc. We
recommend you use the number row on your keyboard rather than the keypad for numbers.
For some reason there has been problems with some users where the number row worked
when the keypad didn't. Strange, eh?
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