The online training classes I filmed in August are live at xtrain.com. My classes are listed under Web Design, and are all in the Web Design Process section. These classes outline the general business process used for web design.
Use promo code “wendy” to save 15% off anything at xtrain.com!

This weekend we finally finished a design project I envisioned the moment we first stepped foot into this house. In the living room, there is a wall that always seemed to beg for a series of built-ins. After interviewing several contractors, we selected one and set about finalizing the design. Almost 8 weeks later, the entire room has come together even better than I had hoped. The walls are venetian plaster in a warm butter yellow, and the built-ins are painted oak and MDF (color = linen white). The room feels warmer, larger, cozier, and just wonderful. The gas fireplace below the TV really adds to the ambiance, and warms the room on these cold, rainy winter days! Thanks to my friends who helped “paint”, the contractor who built my vision, and my husband for putting up with the whole process!

A little Friday morning funny: http://www.makemylogobiggercream.com/

Star-burst dust, make my logo cream, white space eliminator… they are SO what the clients are asking for!

I recently returned from spending a few days in Dallas, Texas, where I filmed four web design classes for a company called xTrain. These classes will be made available on the xTrain web site and are targeting toward anyone looking to increase their skills or learn new skills from the comfort of home.

My classes were part of a series called “Web Design Process.” This series is meant as a capstone for those who’ve already learned about Photoshop, HTML, Dreamweaver, and the other nuts-and-bolts classes. Instead of focusing on the little parts of web design, this series brings it all together and discusses the entire web design process from the first meeting with the client through testing and launch. The purpose is to give you a glimpse of how a typical web development project is structured, particularly for the freelancer or small-business worker.
Each class is 30-60 minutes in length, which means they are perfect to view at night (after the kids have gone to bed?!) or in between projects. These short segments are meant to give you a quick overview of an otherwise lengthy topic. Online resources provide ways to dive more deeply into a particular content area.

I had a lot of fun in the studio, and learned a lot about TV production. xTrain’s studio is top-notch and the staff definitely delivers professional products. Here’s a picture of me in the studio. For the final videos… you’ll have to stay tuned.

Yippeee!!! If you haven’t already heard about the next version of Photoshop (CS3), then it’s time you made your way over to Adobe! (Note: You need to have a valid CS2 serial number to get the beta.)

Anyone who knows me personally is aware of my love of beta software. What’s not to love — they are practically begging you to BREAK it and tell them how you did it! They warn you not to run beta software on “production” machines, but I always am so anxious to use the software I can’t bear to put it on an old machine I only sometimes use. So, of course I’ve paid the price a couple of times with lost files and even lost productivity because of crashes and such. But who cares! I love the opportunity to play with this “baby” software…

OK, back to the beta at hand. This is the first time Adobe has ever made a beta available to the general public. Why are they doing this? One of the primary reasons is that this is the first version to run natively on Intel Macs (read more). While that is a monumental feat in itself, there are a couple of other HUGE things you need to know about. Here are some of my favorites:

• Smart Filters!!! Ever wished you could go back and remove a filter from a layer, or even just adjust its characteristics? Now you can! Simply convert the layer to accept smart filters, and each filter will appear in the layers palette with the option to be disabled or even just altered. This is a huge step forward in filters.
• New Interface The palettes can be more easily rearranged on your desktop, plus be collapsed or expanded with a single click.
• Black and White Any experienced Photoshop user knows that converting color images to B/W doesn’t just mean choosing “grayscale” as the color mode. In fact, to achieve rich B/W images in previous versions of PS, one had to play with several color adjustments. Now, there is a special tool just for converting an image to B/W.
• Zoomify Ever wanted to create your own zoomable maps? Now that capability is built into Photoshop, using a tool called Zoomify. Waaayy cool!
• Better Vanishing Point CS2 gave us the ability to easily wrap an image around a 3D product using the Vanishing Point tool. However, that tool had some limitations that made it unusable for many people. CS3 gives us a revamped vanishing point with multiple, adjustable angle perspective planes!

Oops! Time has got the best of me (see how excited I get about this stuff?!). I’ll write more later, plus add links to video demonstrations made by other beta testers. In the meantime, download that beta and enjoy!