Adobe Photoshop CS6 Digital Classroom/ Jennifer Smith, AGI Creative Team 26

006.686 SMI

Clear instructions; illustrated. Good systematic approach in learning Adobe Photoshop CS6. Presented as specific lessons and tasks (vs just describing each features).

Secrets of Corel Painter Experts: Tips, Techniques, and Insights for Users of All Abilities/ Daryl Wise

006.686 WIS

Features individual Corel Painter users. Each digital artist shows a work, explains how its done. Most have a sequenced walk-through.

Plenty of inspiring works; insights into the digital art creation process using varying preferred techniques and styles.

A few artists I really liked (interestingly they happen to be asians):

• Song Yang http://www.zhajiang.com
• Benjamin

  http://blog.sina.com.cn/benjamin

• Youchan http://togoru.net
• Pete Revonkorpi http://peterrevonkorpi.daportfolio.com

The Hidden Power of Blend Modes in Adobe Photoshop/ Scott Valentine

006.686 MOO

Many ‘Single-technique’ examples of Photoshop CS6 blend modes (in Layers).

Second part has a more technical explanation of the workings and mathematical calculations.

UI Design with Adobe Illustrator: Discover the ease and power of using Illustrator to design Web sites and apps/ Rick Moore

006.686 MOO

Well-organised book.
Clear instructions and illustrations.
Concise chunks on using specific Adobe Illustrator features.
Step-by-step guide in using the required features to complete a (mock) site.

Web Designer/ issue 197

2012 issue, though by issue numbering only I can’t tell whih month it was (deliberately left out, even in the fine print?)

Targeted at any one who looks beneath the hood of the web site: web developers, from UI to UX; front end developer; backend integrators; DIY learn-as-they-go end users to SOHO freelancers. Fairly broad on terms and not that deep technically that ‘hobbyists’ can’t follow. Has enough depth that a practitioner can’t try out suggested codes. CD-ROM includes tutorials.

This issue overs:

• WordPress blog security
• Responsive design and the new iPad (3)
• Dynamic content animation
• Building an HTML 5 game with EaselJS
• Making Electric type effects
• Supercharge your CSS with Sass
• Assemble a web server with Node.js
• Round up of the best Tumbleblogs
• Hosting listings
• 24 sites with memorable, impactful logos
• Evolution of Four-square
• Profiles web designers and developers. “web talent showcase”

http://www.intacto10years.com

Single-page navigation & style http://www.baeckereizibuhr.de
52characters.com
http://www.celestedupreez.com
Silverspacepillows.com

Macworld/ May 2011

Reviews the iPad2, GarageBand and iMovie for iPad, iOS 4.3, the new Macbook Pros.

The agile enterprise

2005.
0387250778

P15. Years to reach 50 million users:
Internet (4), television (13), radio (38), telephone (74).

P15. Overview of music-sharing sites and court action: mp3.com, napster (others that subsequently followed: Kazaa, Limewire, iMesh, Shareaza, BitTorrent). On Apple capturing the legal music download/ sales market.

P25. three categories of value propositions:
* Price-value (Dell, Walmart: extend their low cost to adjacent markets)
* Performance-value (Intel, Nokia, Medtronic: growth based on emerging/ converging tech)
* Relational-value (Fidelity Investments, IBM Global Services: provide/ extend integrated solutions)

P25 – 31. agile enterprise is about continual introspection and reinvention, while maintaining focus on growth and cost control (which are also management challenges today). Also the need for “breakthrough culture” (mindsets, attitudes), adaptive/ innovative teams and adaptive infrastructure (inclusion, governance, tech transfer, process innovation).

P51. Enterprise agility can be measured by time taken for managerial actions for: sensing a need to change directions (sense), to decide on a course of action (decide), make change and return to the beginning of the cycle (respond), time taken to validate the outcome (sense).

P35. Three types of innovation: Product, Collaboration (enhance pdt/ service offered through partnering other enterprises), process (Dell & Amazon offering different and better ways to sell a similar product against their competitors).

P41. Talks about “next generation process automation”.

P61. Definition of a Service Vs. Process: A service has defined deliverables; measured and reported quality; a defined price; value is judged by the customer (last one is the key).

P103. Diagram showing GNP growth against various eras: though chart is confusing. Not sure which country: agricultural (up to 1700?), Industrial (up to 1970), information (up to 1995 or starting?), network (to 2005)

Digital animation

Seems to be designed for students taking up digital animation or for those interested in an overview of the history, tools, processes and techniques. Like part of a 101 course (author teaches at the Loughborough University’s Animation Academy).

Chapters: Foundations of digital animation (pre-1960s); Pioneers from 1960 to 1980; Development of digital animation from 1980 to 1990; Maturity (years 1990 to 2000); integration (2000 to 2007); Predictions (beyond 2007).

Book is designed like a website layout (spacing, even a visual Flash “timer/ breadcrumb” to indicate the remaining chapter.

Also poses questions to readers (useful discussion text?)

P39. Introduction of Pong in 1972, acknowledged as Year Zero for the computer video games industry. Then Taito (Japanese game manufacturer) launched Space Invaders in 1978, with a key feature being a computer simulated opponent that could return fire.

P72. John Lasseter’s Luxo Jr. Considered groundbreaking among the community of computer graphics developers. But he did so without breakthrough technology, software or hardware. His “secret” was to “apply traditional animation principles to the digital form”. P73 lists the principles.

P80. The internet and animation.

P82. Alex Seropian and Jason Jones founded Bungie Software Products Corporation in 1991, when they were students at the University of Chicago. They developed the First-person Shooter game “Marathon series”, considered as the benchmark for FPS games.

Macworld/ April 2011

P26. Reviews the iPhone 4.

P30. Reviews apps from Apple Appstore.

P32. “100 things every Mac user should know”. What was useful to me: searching with Spotlight:
use quotation marks
“-” operator to exclude
“name: “mob dick”" to search by filename
“kind” string, e.g. “kind:PDF “mob dick”". Other keywords to use with KIND (pural and singular also works): application, audio, bookmark, contact, email, folder, font, ical event, ical to-do items, image, movie, music, PDF, preference/ system, presentation.

P48. On protecting online privacy. Covers the risks and remedies wrt web browsing (simple checks like looking at the full URL and not just the starting; mentions MacScan, free, macscan.securemac.com; Abode Flash online settings; see macworld.com/6931), Social Networking and email.

P70. Reviews the Macbook Air. Recommends it as a traveller photographer’s dream, if one can afford the price.

P82. using GarageBand for multitrack recording.

Mac Life/ May 2010

Features Mac hardware and software reviews, questions/ answers.

P22 build a better Mac. Tips and referrals to websites on buying/ upgrading Mac memory, storage, displays. Lists the following as their favourite Mac-centric dealers: macsales.com, crucial.com, macmall.com, ifixit.com, powerbookmedic.com

P44 on developers estimates and guesses on the iPad (this was The relatively early days of the iPad)

Tip P82. Tell Software Update to ignore a particular update:
Highlight the update in the list; hit backspace. Or, go to Update > Ignore Update

P84. How to create a guest wi-fi network (using Airport Extreme 2009 or dual-band brand).