Win a copy of Adobe Photoshop CS in 10 Simple Steps or Less

Thanks to Christopher Schmitt, who co-authored this book with Micah Laaker, and Wiley we've got 5 copies of this book to giveaway in another week long book competition.

Christopher Schmitt is a well-known author and Web designer who has written for a wide variety of publications on and off-line. In this book he and his co-author provide clear instructions on how to carry out over 250 Photoshop tasks. By breaking the tasks down into units of ten steps or less and using oodles of screen shots this book will have you to cropping, merging, shadowing and filtering in no time.

Winners will be announced on August 19th, so fingers on the buzzers and here we go. This book is all about creating neat Web graphics, so just drop us an email here with the URL of the best looking still image Web site (no animations, videos or Flash movies this time please) that you know of. Winning entries to be decided on the aesthetic judgement of the DMXzone content editor – so that's pretty random

If you don't want to try your luck, visit Amazon >>

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Joyce Evans: Educator and Author

Here at DMXzone we are working hard to get articles from some of the best authors around, and are pleased to say that we'll be getting some brand new material from renowned educator and author Joyce Evans in the very near future. 

Joyce has been training, educating and authoring as well as web designing for the last 10 years. She's spoken at conferences such as Macromedia MAX2003 and TODCON, and has authored numerous books including Macromedia Studio MX bible, Dreamweaver MX Complete Course and Web Design Complete Course. We've got details about her latest publication – Macromedia Fireworks MX 2004 Zero to Hero here. 

At Joyce's personal web site you can see how passionate she is about supporting Web developers - check out the tutorials and reviews of Dreamweaver, Fireworks and other Web design related books and products. 

To provide some background for our readers, we've got an interview with Joyce so you can see how she went from HTML Zero to Dreamweaver and Fireworks Heroine!

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Beginning ASP.NET 1.1 E-Commerce

Another aspect of web development you all seem to be interested in is E-Commerce. We hope to be having some tailor made DMXzone articles coming up on this subject later this year, but for the moment we're going to introduce you one of the latest books on the subject.

Using ASP.NET and VB.NET, Beginning ASP.NET 1.1 E-Commerce, a recent Apress book by Cristian Darie and Karli Watson, builds a web site in three phases of increasing complexity. Starting with a simple PayPal based site, the book moves onto the development of a custom shopping basket and eventually details how to develop a bespoke order pipeline and handle credit card payments yourself.

Whilst more a Microsoft oriented book without specific Dreamweaver information (it concentrates mainly on the server side processing), nevertheless this book contains valuable information for anybody thinking of implementing a .NET e-commerce solution.

In the attached sample chapter, we are taught about credit card processing.

Order a copy from Amazon >>

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Win a copy of Beginning ASP.NET 1.1. Databases

In some of the entries to our last competition a number of people asked us about various aspects of ASP.NET. There were even those <gasp> who suggested they used Visual Studio alongside Dreamweaver.

In immediate response, and in conjunction with Apress, we're giving you the chance to read a sample chapter from the forthcoming Beginning ASP.NET 1.1 Databases book by experienced .NET authors Dan Maharry and Damien Foggon.

Of course we've twisted the publisher's arms on your behalf, and have five books to give away to registered DMXzone members. All we want from you is to know either which bits of ASP.NET you've found most useful, or which you've found hardest to get to grips with. Lucky entries will be extracted by a draw from the inbox on the 22nd July!

If you want to pre-order a copy from Amazon >>

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FREE: View from the Trenches – Allan Kent

Here at DMXzone we like our authors to share their knowledge with you – sure, mostly it's in depth technical stuff through the tutorials, but just occasionally it's refreshing to take a step back and get some perspective on the type of circumstances they work under. See how our code gurus earn their daily bread and what they worry about in their local market.

 

Today we've got our tattooed, South African residing, PHP hero Allan Kent sharing his opinions on giving the client value for money, getting ahead of the curve, and winding editors up!

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Win a copy of Web Standards Solutions, The Markup and Style Handbook

In conjunction with those lovely people over at friends of ED we've got five copies of their latest book – Web Standards Solutions, The Markup and Style Handbook –

to give away to registered DMXZone members.

 

The author Dan Cederholm runs the SimpleBits website that not only carries a thought provoking blog, but also lots of stuff on standards-compliant design. Dedicated readers of our newsletter might remember that last week we featured the SimpleBits Web Standards link list.

 

To be in with a chance of winning a copy all you need to do is email us with your suggestion for a DMXZone article series that you'd really like to see. The best five suggestions will earn their contributor a copy of the book …. and might see their questions answered as we turn the ideas over to our skilled panel of authors.

 

To whet your appetite we've even got a sample chapter from the book you can download and read.

 

We'll announce the winners on July 8th, so get those suggestions in quick.

 

If you can't wait until then there's always Amazon >>

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Interview with Virginia Howlett, mother of Verdana.

You may not know the name, but trust me: if you use the web you've had reason to thank Virginia Howlett. Why? Because she was Microsoft's Program Manager in Typography, working with Matthew Carter to design what is still the best web font, Verdana.

In addition, if you've ever used Windows in the last 9 years, you've come across her groundbreaking work on User Interface Design. Windows 95 was the operating system that brought personal computing to the mass market.

In this interview we discuss Verdana, Win '95 and what Bill Gates is really like ...

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Books Reviewed: Foundation Dreamweaver MX2004, Defensive Design for the Web.

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Protecting Your Windows Computer – Free Resources

These days, running a computer that's connected to the internet is more likely to end in tears than doing splits naked over a live lobster, especially if you've got broadband. Worms, Trojans, Viruses, script kiddies – there's loads of dangers that can inconvenience you, or even worse – wreck your computer and damage your livelihood. And it's not just protecting your computer from attacks; there's also the problem of protecting your privacy from spy-ware etc.

 

This free article looks at free programs which help protect against pop-up windows, spyware, tracking cookies, viruses, unauthorised connections to the web and external intrusion attempts.

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The IE Changes Explained (FREE)

This free article is a must-read for all web designers who use any kind of active content (Flash, QuickTime etc) on their sites. Bruce Lawson investigates the changes that you'll need to make as suggested by Microsoft, Macromedia, Real Networks and Apple if you plan to continue delivering seamless Flash or other plug-in content to the 90% of the world who use IE.

Note March 5th 2004: Good news indeed. The proposed changes to Internet Explorer to force the dialog of doom every time rich content is required have been indefinitely shelved by Microsoft.

Update 9 March: The US Patent Office has revoked Eolas' patent, but Eolas is appealing.

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Budget Web Design Tools - GIMP

After reading Carrie Bickner’s book “Web Design on a Shoestring” (reviewed here), I started to wonder, just what kind of tools are out there for the “budget conscious” (ahem) web designer.
 
One of the most expensive items in any web professional’s arsenal, apart from a computer and Dreamweaver – which we’re assuming you’ve got, else why would you be here? – is an image editor. Photoshop by Adobe comes at over $700, because it can do everything and more – but for many of us, that’s overkill, as Photoshop was really meant for print designers. PaintShop Pro by Jasc comes in at around $80 and is good enough for the simple tasks.
 
But there’s an option that’s claimed to be as powerful as Photoshop, designed specifically for web use, that costs nothing at all. It is The GIMP. DMXzone's Bruce Lawson puts on his deerstalker hat and rubber mask to investigate.. Read More

Book review of "Web Design On A Shoestring" (free)

Carrie Bickner's book "Web Design On A Shoestring" is being much talked-about as a good blueprint for techniques, technologies and processes to get maximum-quality web sites on a minimal budget. DMXzone staffer Bruce Lawson reviews the book, and as a bonus, you can read chapter two of the book "The Pound Wise Project Plan".

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