Your Newsletter from MacTraining
and Technical Support Services, Inc.
Supporting the Macintosh since 1985
Located in SE Wisconsin • Free parking • Custom classes! • Contact us at 414.258.1646
What's in this newsletter?
Monday, June 8, 2009
Hello!
It can warm up any time now, here in MilwaukeeLand! I hear newly planted seeds, veggies and flowers crying for electric blankets! Even during the daytime! Maybe this is a sign that we'll have a longer summer. Perhaps one that stretches into November like we had a couple of years ago? That would be nice! Well, back to business...
The June MacTraining Schedule has been posted for a couple of weeks, and there are already a couple of changes. Save $70 on the newly scheduled Quark to InDesign Workshop. Quark to InDesign is a fast paced single day class. June 15 or 18 from 9 - 5 are available. Book additional June classes soon, to lock in the dates on the schedule.
InDesign CS 2 Essentials is on June 25-26. If you still have the CS 2 suite, and need to be more productive with InDesign, give us a call at 414.258.1646 to register for this class.
July and August are getting booked, even without a printed schedule! Call us to set up the classes you need on the dates best for you. Remember, we teach evenings, weekends, and '2nd shift', at no extra charge.
Save up to $500 on classes June 12 and 15
June's training specials are FileMaker and Excel, at $145 each. Save $250 on each hands-on class. Registrations must be received by Wednesday, June 10 at 5pm. Use our handy downloadable pdf
Registration Form or call 414.258.1646.
- Friday, June 12: Microsoft Excel Intermediate Topics - prerequisites include knowing your operating system including cut, copy, paste, and Excel Basics including entering data in cells, using simple functions (sum, average, if...) and spreadsheet formatting.
- Monday, June 15: FileMaker Pro Relational Topics - prerequisites include knowing your operating system including cut, copy, paste, and FileMaker basics including creating fields, doing finds (queries), sorts, and simple reports.
Quark to InDesign Upgrade Classes - Save $70 or more...
Monday, June 15, or Thursday, June 18 are the next hands-on Quark to InDesign upgrade classes. One day - 7 hours and they'll run from 9am to 5pm. The June 18 class has only 2 seats available, and is $325. You'll save $70 on one registration. Sending 2 or more to Quark to InDesign makes the fee $295 per person. The price includes materials that the participants will keep, and refreshments. Lunch is one hour, and on your own. There are a ton of restaurants near our training center.
Most of our clients are upgrading to Adobe InDesign from QuarkXPress. This is a great choice, since most designers and marketing staff members also use Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. The keyboard shortcuts and just the general feel of those 3 programs together, make designers more efficient.
Quark to InDesign as well as our other courses can be scheduled for afternoon-evening hours, and on weekends. Give MacTraining a call at 414.258.1646 to register. Leave a voice mail if necessary with your name, company and phone number and I'll return your call ASAP.
What is Adobe Acrobat, and why should you learn about it?
For a new Acrobat user, Adobe Acrobat lets you convert documents, pictures, web pages, and a couple other types of files into a worldwide standard known as PDF. PDF is an acronym for Portable Document Format. It is a file format that does not depend on the computer operating system (Linux, Windows, Macintosh OS), and that means that you can share these files with others who only need a free program from Adobe called Adobe Reader to open the files. Macintosh users can read pdfs using Preview which comes with Mac OS X.
There's a big difference between Reader and the full versions of Acrobat. Use Reader to only read and interact with pdfs. That means fill out a pdf form, click on a link in a pdf to surf away to another pdf or website, or even to send an email to someone to whom the link is... well, linked. Users with only Reader cannot create or modify pdfs. Adobe Acrobat has all the tools to not only create (along with distiller in some cases) PDFs, but to edit them, apply security (someone can read but not print it), combine pdfs, develop forms, and more.
The full version of Adobe Acrobat is a must for any web designer, or print designer. The improved Portfolio feature is especially beneficial to designers.
In the past, there was only one type / version of Adobe Acrobat. Then someone had a brainstorm and a couple of version came out in Acrobat Standard (uh, less than optimal for most users) and Acrobat Professional. Now, with version 9, Windows users still have Standard, and of course, Professional, and Macintosh users have one, very usable version: Adobe Acrobat Professional. It's amazing what goes around comes around. What were they thinking??
MacTraining's Acrobat 9 upgrade class is 4 hours, and is $75 per person. Give us a call at 414.258.1646 to schedule your Acrobat 9 upgrade class, and your CS4 upgrade hands on workshops for Illustrator, InDesign, and Photoshop. There's good stuff in CS4. If you have it, it would be good to utilize it well. Contact us to set up your Upgrade class!
We're taking requests!
MacTraining Enterprises and its staff have been teaching software for over 25 years. And we've taught all the current 'popular' programs since their version 1.0! It continues to be an enjoyable are rewarding experience.
Over time, you notice that we added classes to our roster, deleted some, and still do others even though they may not appear on the regular schedule.
Let us know what you want us to teach. If there's enough interest in a particular program, we'll add it to the schedule and see how it goes! Thanks.
Thank you for reading. Please give us a call with any questions, or comments.
Loretta from MacTraining
***Just Announced (Monday, June 8th 4:30pm cdst)***
Apple just announced the new iPhone 3G S. By now, we all knew it was on the way! Take a look at the 2 models, pricing, apps, and all that good stuff. It'll be available on June 19, but of course, you can order NOW for shipping at that time!!
Archive topics
- Prevent laptop burnout
- May classes
- Seminars
- CS4 upgrade classes
- Afternoon --> evening classes
- Need to save CS4 Illustrations in an earlier version?
- Yes, you can do multiple undos in Photoshop!!
I ran across a couple of interesting tidbits in which you may be interested:
How to save Illustrator CS4 files with multiple artboards
able to be opened in older versions of Illustrator
I picked this up from the Design Geek newsletter.
Your Illustrator CS4 file is done, and you've used multiple artboards (a superb feature of AI CS4!). Go to
File --> Save As in Illustrator CS4, and choose EPS or PDF. You'll see that extra controls become available. Scrutinize these controls! (Don't just click the Save button! We're not done yet!)
EPS
If you choose EPS, the checkbox for Use Artboards and the Page fields become available to you. If you uncheck Use Artboards, then Illustrator creates one huge EPS containing all the artboards in their current locations.
What if you want just one EPS per artboard? Turn on the Use Artboards checkbox, and specify which artboards (Pages) get exported. Illustrator will create one EPS file for each artboard, appending "01" and "02" to the filenames.
PDF
When you Save As a PDF, the Use Artboards checkbox is greyed out (but it is checked), because it can't create one huge PDF that includes all the artboards. You need to enter something in the Pages fields, which are enabled. If you choose All Pages, for example, it would create a multi-page PDF out of your multi-artboard Illustrator file.
So, so far, we've got the artboards issue dealt with. But WAIT! There's MORE.
Now, we have to save our file in and earlier (older) AI format.
READ THIS: What confuses many Illustrator users is that if you save in Illustrator format - in other words, you create a regular old AI file, this choice dims the Use Artboard and the Pages controls in the Save/Save As dialog box.
IT'S ONLY WHEN you get to the next dialog box, Illustrator Options, and choose an earlier Illustrator version from the dropdown menu at the top, that these controls reappear. See??? Don't be hasty! A new checkbox labeled 'Save Each Artboard to a Separate File' lets you do just that. There's a Page Range field too, so you can specify which artboards to save.
If you leave the Save Each Artboard checkbox unchecked, Illustrator will include all the artwork in every artboard when it saves in the older version of AI.
What's nifty, is that it will convert each artboard's borders into guides, and neatly stores them in a bottom "Guides for Artboard" layer in the Layers panel. Click on the triangle by the "Guides for Artboard" layer and you'll see multiple sublayers, one for each artboard's guides.
Pretty cool!
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You may never use your Photoshop History Palette again (thank goodness!)
Command-z in Photoshop will only undo the last thing you did. You'll have to use the History Palette to go back further. Or do you???
To Undo/Redo without the History Palette, do Command-Option-Z to do multiple undos, and Command-Shift-Z to do multiple Redos after doing multiple undos.
Seminars, Hands-on, Videos...
Hands-on training really is the only way to learn how to do something. Just like you want your surgeon to have practiced doing your upcoming procedure before s/he got to you ('yes, Mr. Smith, Dr. McHatchet watched a video on your kind of by-pass just last week. He's all set."). Unlike Dr. McHatchet, you want to do various software techniques in a class with an instructor in order to feel competent doing stuff back in the office.
What's wrong with video learning? Nothing, if used for the right reason. Videos are great for a review; videos are a good medium to see if a certain program fits what you want to do (hmmm, I guess Photoshop wouldn't work for writing my dissertation.... ). Yes, they're less of an investment than is a hands-on software class. And yet, everyone agrees that there is no substitute for hands-on instructor led classes. The investment in our hands-on workshops is worth every dollar. The information sticks, and you go back to work ready to use the program effectively.
Our class participants become highly successful users of the programs they learn from MacTraining, and, they keep coming back for more hands-on training. And they're our best sales force, too. We're thankful for each client.
Now that I've carried on about hands-on classes, you should know that we're doing seminars, too. Full day and half day seminars on specific programs. Seminars are not hands-on, and they are instructor-led. Our seminars are limited to 6 attendees, and will run with a minimum of 3 people.
There will be a pre seminar-evaluation, and at least one post seminar topic evaluation. You don't have to put your name on the test!! We just want to make sure you learn the subject matter well, even though it's a seminar! The eval will help us know which topics need better explanation. As seminars go, ours make sure that the topics are well explained; we answer your questions as they come up, and still cover a lot of material.
Just like MacTraining's hands-on classes, you'll have breaks, refreshments, and lunch is on your own.
Please build your own seminar with a 3 person minimum: set your own time (12 - 8?) and tell us what you want to learn. Call 414.258.1646, or email me.
Watch for more seminars coming up. They're a great way to learn more about your programs, and save a little at the same time.
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Don't burnout your laptop!!!
You know those cool colored plastic shells that you can get for your laptop? They clip on, they 'protect the laptop material', they come in great colors, and can have either a matte finish or a really shiny surface. They're made of translucent hard plastic. The manufacturers claim that there are 79 vent holes or something like that, to allow for air circulation so your laptop will stay cool or whatever.
Don't believe them! Do Not Use These Plastic Shells on your laptops!!! They don't conduct heat. The metal laptop case transmits the heat from the stuff inside - like the processor(s). Laptops generate a ton of heat, and when the case becomes warm, the heat dissipates. The metal case is a big heat-sink. The plastic coops up the heat so that the laptop cannot cool properly.
We've had a number of laptops, MacBook Pros, and calls from Windows laptop users, come through our service department. The Apple Stores and other Apple service providers are getting them in, too.
This is a known, documented, problem. The laptop overheats, and poof! There goes your processor, logic board, and/or who knows what else.
And while I'm on the subject of repair, if you have a laptop, or anything with a flat panel display, get an extended warranty on it. Repairs on these units are very expensive. Get the extended maintenance agreement.
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...CS3, CS4, and Upgrade classes
We're still teaching version CS3 of the Adobe Suite of programs for print and web. Even versions cs and cs2! They work fine for most designers!
We're also teaching version CS4 of Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop, Flash, and Dreamweaver.
CS4 upgrade classes; we provide those as well. Give us a call to discuss the format you think will work best for your group. Upgrade classes are hands-on, ideally, one day for each program. 414.258.1646.
Please give us 5 business days lead time for classes on older versions of print design software, web design programs, Office, and FileMaker. Thanks!
Afternoon through evening classes - 12 noon - 8pm
We've received a lot of requests for afternoon and evening courses. They're the best of both worlds. Class participants can work a half day, attend class, and get home in time to tuck the kids in, watch the news, whatever....
Each month, one class will be on the actual schedule for the noon to 8 slot.In May, CSS is scheduled from noon - 8. If you're doing websites, this class is for you!
Any class can be shifted to run from noon to 8 instead of 8 to 4. Give us a call at 414.258.1646 or email me, with your class and time desires, and if all the pixels are in alignment, we'll work it out!
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