We have started our summer tech training workshops, classes that the IT staff and our media arts instructor teach on topics that our employees select. These require a lot of time and preparation from our staff, but our employees highly value the opportunity to learn. Our offerings this year include workshops on desktop publishing, Excel, iPhoto, Picasa, Mac OSX and Windows XP Pro. I am pleased that operating systems were a popular choice this year, given how overall proficiency with basic features is pretty low. I blame the software companies for annually rolling out new eye candy that help them market the products while underemphasizing fundamentals that help people work better. I wish that more people wanted to work on web technologies in the classroom, but we will have more opportunities to work on that once the school year begins.



One challenge is the wide range of skill levels present in each class. Each teacher handles this challenge in her own way. I make the workshop highly project based and let the curriculum emerge from student interests and questions. This does leave me scampering around the room a lot answering questions and solving problems, but it keeps everyone working all the time at their level. This disappoints some students who come to the class expecting a lot of direct instruction, but most participants leave happy. I will teach the MacOS and iPhoto workshops. Do send any killer activity ideas that you have organized or encountered.



tags: training, professionaldevelopment

I am so pleased with the "new" Quick Selection tool in Adobe Photoshop CS3. At least it's new to me. Since the rise of Web 2.0, I have been content to adopt only every other version of Photoshop, having found the annual changes minor. I don't mind if Adobe, Apple, and Microsoft release new versions annually in order to generate revenue for themselves -- I just choose not to participate.

The Magic Want tool was pretty brilliant when it came out, but Quick Selection takes the tool a step further. In classic fashion, Adobe improved on the most notable weak spot of the tool -- it's performance when the subject and background are very similar.

I wanted to move my boys upward in this photo, so that you would no longer see the bottom edge of the painting. I wanted to cut them out and move them up the canvas.



In the past, some portions of this image would have required manual cutting. Note the low contrast between the edge of the shirt and the wall in the background.



I was amazed at the performance of Magic Select. It seemed to interpolate from the rest of the selection, and I no longer had to adjust the sensitivity of the wand in order to get the right area. In the rare times that it selected too much area, I just deselected and tried again, and it got the selection right the second time around. Feathering is also extremely effective, as the result shows no seams.



And the final result



Look how great the shirt area looks!



The head blends in perfectly against the green background, but note that Quick Selection actually retained some green edge around the head. If I were moving this shot to a solid color background, then it would have required more work. Then again, I would not have shot it again this painting!



The painting is from the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst, MA, USA.


tags: photoshop

Use Fluid to create a standalone application from a web page. Their site declares, "Your web browser is for browsing." We alt-tab to quickly switch between desktop applications, but we option-alt-arrow (or some other combination) to switch between browser tabs. As applications increasingly move to the web, I often find myself instinctively reaching for alt-tab when my application is actually running within a browser tab. Also, it is easy to quit the browser completely, closing a web application I actually need.

For example, when I develop a web application, I typically run Cyberduck and Smultron from the desktop and phpMyAdmin and the web application I am developing in Camino, my preferred web browser. Now, I can run phpMyAdmin in its own, separate desktop application, allowing me to alt-tab to it whenever I please. Yes, I know that I could run a desktop mySQL manager, but I prefer phpMyAdmin.



You could also use Fluid to keep a Facebook, Twitter, or Yahoo! Sports window open separately from your browser.

Fluid's about page explains that other, similar projects exist, one even open-source and cross-platform.

Fluid seems awfully similar to Mozilla Prism. What gives?

Fluid was very much inspired by the excellent Mozilla Prism project, Adobe Air, and other, earlier Site Specific Browsers like Bubbles. Many people think Prism was the first product in this category, but actually, Prism itself was preceded by other SSB products. Fluid's goal is to be the best, most native-feeling SSB for Mac OS X Leopard. Prism is cross-platform, which is a huge benefit for lots of users. However, many Mac users prefer a more tightly-integrated, Mac-like SSB application. That is Fluid's niche. Fluid is a thoroughly native, Cocoa Mac OS X application. No compromises or least-common-denominator tradeoffs.

source

One day, we may exclusively use web applications. In the meantime, Fluid seems helpful.

tags: fluid, ssb, sitespecificbrowser, webdevelopment