Here's a video by John Derry showing off the NEW Paint Engine inside Photoshop CS5.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2D0TgsCnwv8
Creating My 1st iBook for the iPad with Adobe InDesign CS5
These are exciting times in the publishing industry! The tools have never been better to get your word out. With the introduction of Adobe Creative Suite 5 and in particular InDesign CS5, my head is spinning thinking about all the possibilities. I can use one industry standard app to publish for Print, for the Web with NEW Interactive features and now more easily than ever to standard eBook Reader formats such as ePUB. There’s also a lot of excitement around the Apple iPad. The beauty here is that I can use my new found publishing power and Apple’s popular device to get my content in front of more eyeballs than ever.
The Project
As you may know I co-authored one of the best selling books for the iPhone, “The iPhone Book”. I’ve been very happy with the success of that book and of course as soon as the iPad was introduced, many eyes turned towards me to question if I was going to write a book for this new device. While the project seemed interesting (and still is), I wanted to try something a little different this time around. I wanted the iPad Book to be an iBook on the actual iPad. All of my books are already being laid out in Adobe InDesign. So there’s nothing new there, except there is something new there in terms of capabilities. The enhanced capabilities around the ePUB format and Interactive Document publishing beyond PDF. So I wanted to do two things: I wanted to get a sample out there of what an iPad book on the iPad and I wanted to experience first hand what it was like to create one from scratch using InDesign CS5. So I enlisted the help of my colleague at Adobe, Colin Fleming (eBOOK guru) and Colin gave me the inside scope and even some sample demo documents that he had put together. This was a great jump start and helped me avoid some stumbling blocks. Yesterday, I started my sample “25 iPad Tips” and today I have a FREE iBook that you can download right here.
The Making of my 1st iBook (ePUB)
The iBooks App on the iPad reads standard ePUB documents and Adobe InDesign CS5 just so happens to export them out directly. Great! There are some limitations that you have to be mindful in your document itself. These are limitations on the standard more so than of InDesign. For example, InDesign is an amazingly powerful page layout application that pretty much allows you do do anything you want on the page. However, ePUB has limitations on how the content has to flow to make it possible to have this single document on a multitude of different devices. I recorded this video to walk you through some of those things to look out for:
Downloading and Installing my FREE “25 iPad Tips” Book
The first step is to download my ePUB file here. Once you download the ZIP file, unzip it and you’ll have a short readme.txt file and the actual “25 iPad Tips.epub” document. Open iTunes 9.1 and higher and simply drag the ePUB into the Library area of iTunes on the left side. It should now appear in the Books Area of iTunes and once you plug in your iPad via the USB cable, you can select it as a book to sync in the Books Tab in iTunes. Enjoy!
Continue reading “Creating My 1st iBook for the iPad with Adobe InDesign CS5”
Ask a Creative Suite Pro Your Questions on Thursday
Now that Adobe has taken the wraps off of Creative Suite 5, there are lots of questions on the minds of our customers. So we thought it would be bennificial and fun to address your questions LIVE via Adobe Connect. Not only will Adobe's Worldwide Creative Suite Evangelists (Greg Rewis – the web guy, Jason Levine – the video/audio guy and myself) be on hand to field your questions, but we'll also show Creative Suite 5 tips and tricks for our Design, Web and Video suites.
Details to Participate
This special Q&A session will take place Thursday, April 22th @ 11 AM PDT (2 PM EDT (GMT-4). and it will take place via Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro. Here’s the URL: http://my.adobe.acrobat.com/askcspro
Sign on as a GUEST with your real name. While there is no pre-registration required, this session will be limited to 100 attendees. So it’s first come, first served. I advise you to log in 15 minutes before the 11 AM start time as we plan to start on time.
Speaking of Tips
Here's a video to tide you over until Thursday 🙂
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUIcQ1nXkWk
Also be sure to check out Adobe's Sr. Creative Director Russell Brown's Latest CS5 Videos here. More videos at Creative Suite Video Podcast and Adobe TV.
Continue reading “Ask a Creative Suite Pro Your Questions on Thursday”
Sprint Reminds Me of AT&T’s Broken Promises
Sprint says come on over and use our 4G data card with your iPad. Now I get that this is just Sprints way of trying to get in on a good thing with their newly introduced 4G Case for iPad. Clever! However, it reminds of one of the biggest broken promises of 2009.
Last year (June 18, 2009) AT&T told us that iPhone tethering (the ability to use your iPhone as a data connection for your laptop or in theory iPad) was "coming soon". By soon most of us assumed that meant by the end of the year. Well 2009 has come and gone and now it's the later part of April 2010 and official iPhone data tethering support is no where to be seen. To make matters worse or to give us more of a rub, Apple announced and is about to ship the iPad WiFi+3G model, which again runs data on AT&T's network!
So AT&T let me get this straight…
You can provide unlimited data to iPhones. You can provide tethering support to every other smart phone you make. You can provide 3G data cards for laptops to anyone that wants them. You can even bring a relatively low cost, contract free data plan to Apple's NEW iPad, but you can't provide tethering support for iPhones yet? I don't get it! No one is asking for FREE tethering support. So chances are you're going to charge for it and because you're going to charge for it, it means that not everyone is going to use it. Is your "improved" network still that fragile? Really?
I have no love or hatred for AT&T. For the most part my service has been fine and I travel all over. I just wonder what's really going on here?
Continue reading “Sprint Reminds Me of AT&T’s Broken Promises”
Tech Profile of Rafael “RC” Concepcion
Rafael “RC “ Concepcion
Photoshop Guy
Company
Kelby Media Group
City/State:
Tampa, FL
Your blog/website?
www.Layersmagazine.com (work) & www.aboutrc.com (personal) & www.twitter.com/aboutrc
Favorite Gadget(s):
All of them focus on Music, Photography, and Tech – Korg M3 88 Workstation, CF Martin DC15E, Alwarez Guitar, Line6 Pod, JamVox, Wacom Intuos4 Medium (WACOM RULES!!!), Apple iPad, Nikon D3S and D700 with 24-70 2.8. The one that’s missing is the Elinchrom Ranger and Deep throat Octa.. That’s the everlust one. iPod Touch for portfolios, music, and just in case stuff.
Continue reading “Tech Profile of Rafael “RC” Concepcion”
45 Minutes of Photoshop CS5 for FREE!
What if you could watch me show you the features of Photoshop CS5 in 45 minutes for FREE? Well you can! Here's my complete walk through of Photoshop CS5 Extended on Adobe TV. Enjoy!
Honestly, if you haven't checked out Adobe TV, you're really missing out on TONS of videos on all of Adobe's products.
If you missed my Top 5 Features of Photoshop CS5, Illustrator CS5, InDesign CS5, Flash Catalyst CS5 and Flash/Dreamweaver CS5, check them out here.
Also don't forget to checkout my NEW YouTube Channel and my Creative Suite Video Podcast (where videos like this can be downloaded and watched offline on your computer, iPhone, iPod, iPad and Apple TV)
iPad Accessories – The First Batch Is Here
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuy9HkhF9CA
When I ordered my iPad, I actually ordered some accessories to go with it. They have been arriving piece by piece, so I thought I'd give you a look at the first batch. In the video above, I check out the iPad Dock ($29), iPad Keyboard Dock ($69), iPad VGA Adapter ($29), and the iPad Case ($39) by Apple. Of the accessories I've seen so far I would say that I like the Keyboard Dock the most. Although the iPad supports a bluetooth keyboard and I probably even have one lying around here, the thing you're still going to want to do is to prop up the iPad while you type. That's why the Keyboard Dock is great. It's a stand with audio out AND a keyboard specifically made for the iPad with buttons along the top that control iPad functions. Of course the one accessory I'm very anxious to check out is the Camera Connection Kit! As soon as it arrives it will be next up for review.
Check out my original iPad review here. Check out my 10 Must Have iPad Apps here.
Officially Launching My YouTube Channel
I've been using YouTube for a long time now as a way to provide video content on this blog. I remember the early days of YouTube being primarily for teenagers and vehicle for people to show off their babies and pets. 🙂 The quality, well, um, kinda sucked! I just didn't really find it remotely good enough to host the kind of content I wanted to share. Well all that has changed now. YouTube is GREAT for sharing videos in 720p HD quality, up to 10 minutes in length. It's easy to use and to embed the clips right on my site. Now don't get me wrong, I know that there are other GREAT video sharing sites out there too like Smugmug (which does all the way up to 1080p with a paid account), Vimeo, BlipTV, etc. However, I find that YouTube seems to be the most universal and has the largest audience. After all, if I go through the trouble to produce a video and make it available for free I wan to have the largest possible viewing audience I can get. Also since YouTube is BUILT-IN to the iPhone and now the iPad, I can reach millions more people with this one service than I can with any of the others. Another nice surprise was that Apple gave the iPad's Safari the ability to view embedded YouTube clips right in the page without having to launch the App or go to another browser window. Sold!
A funny thing happened on the way to this post
If You Missed the Adobe CS5 Launch…
Adobe Creative Suite 5 is Here: First Look!
I'm thrilled to finally be able to talk about Adobe Creative Suite 5! Today is the day that Adobe launches the biggest and most impressive release of Creative Suite to date with over 250 new features across the Entire Suite.
I'll quote one of the freelancers that I showed CS5 to under NDA in Germany, "It's not only Cool, but it's Useful!" That's exactly how I feel about many of the features throughout the entire suite. A lot of times you have a really "cool" technology or feature, and it demos really well, but you may not have an everyday use for it. However, with CS5 there are so many Cool and Useful features that I will use every day that I'm just giddy! The Official CS5 Launch will be broadcast here at 11AM EDT TODAY, but since you're a visitor to my site I will share with you these 5 "Pre-Launch" videos (in YouTube HD!) of My Top 5 Favorite Features in Adobe Creative Suite 5 Design Premium right now so that you get a jump on some of the new exciting features:
My Top 5 Favorite Features in Adobe Photoshop CS5 Extended (Yes, it's 64bit on both Mac and Windows 🙂 )
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfkjHnsAsvg
Continue reading “Adobe Creative Suite 5 is Here: First Look!”