In the November 2009 issue of the Harvard Business Review, The Forethought column “Teach Workers About the Perils of Debt.” states:

“It’s widely known that many consumers have poor numeracy–they can’t figure out percentages or do other elementary calculations–and have barely a rudimentary grasp of economics. In our research, we looked deeper, studying consumers’ ‘debt literacy,’ the ability to understand how interest rates work and make simple decisions about borrowing. We found it to be strikingly low.”

Curt's aim in creating a course on financial analysis was to teach skills required to analyze debt. Photo courtesy of iStockphoto, image #3154423

“My aim in creating Excel 2007: Financial Analysis was to teach the skills required to analyze debt,” said Curt Frye of his first lynda.com course. “I’m hoping that it helps subscribers better understand some critical skills that not everyone is taught at home or in school.”

Curt is currently working on a new book, as well as new lynda.com courses. For a full list of his training, visit his author page.

The computer industry is usually a secretive place. Companies keep their product plans to themselves, and all product discussions take place under the Cone of Silence from TV’s Get Smart.

That’s one reason why Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 is a breath of fresh air. Adobe has made a prerelease version of its popular photo-management and photo-enhancement software available for free downloading. Curious to see what’s new? Grab the beta preview and try it.

But how do you learn it? By diving into Photoshop Lightroom 3 Beta Preview, a new lynda.com course from Chris Orwig, photographer and instructor at the Brooks Institute. It’s more than two hours of detailed instruction on all the new features in Lightroom 3’s beta version, and it includes comparisons that illustrate what has changed from Lightroom 2.

Chris will also be doing courses on the final version of Lightroom 3 next year. But why wait? Download the free public beta and dive into the next version of Lightroom right now.

Be they pits, pock marks, or pimples, we all suffer blemishes that we wish we didn’t. Or so we would were it not for Photoshop’s Healing Brush. This amazing tool grafts good skin onto bad—and heals the seams in between. This week, Deke shares his techniques for using the Healing Brush to its full potential.

Blatner Tools is a suite of about 12 plug-ins to make your InDesign experience more fluid.  It has been in public beta for about a week now, and will ship in another few weeks. Also in the InDesign-y world of David Blatner, is the exciting news that the popular website he runs with fellow InDesign guru Anne-Marie Concepcion, (InDesignSecrets.com) has just announced it’s free forum and membership. And, because Anne-Marie and David never stop working, they’ve announced their first eBook today, too!

David Blatner at the Kremlin in Moscow, who was there speaking with Russell Viers (not pictured) at an Adobe InDesign, Illustrator, and Photoshop conference last week.

]]> http://blog.lynda.com/2009/11/13/david_blatner/feed/ 0 http://blog.lynda.com/2009/11/12/new-creative-inspirations-trigger/ http://blog.lynda.com/2009/11/12/new-creative-inspirations-trigger/#comments Thu, 12 Nov 2009 21:14:18 +0000 Crystal http://blog.lynda.com/?p=1803

Jason Yim, president and executive creative director at Trigger.

Trigger may be the biggest little interactive shop that probably has never been heard of. This amazing boutique shoots out web sites, online games, Facebook apps, and iPhone apps for major motion pictures like Spider-Man and District 9, and consumer brands like Nike and Red Bull. Combining a talented design team with solid software engineering, Trigger has mastered the integration of creative expression and technology. With offices in Los Angeles and Shanghai, they’ve found the elusive winning formula for East-West collaboration. This installment of Creative Inspirations in the lynda.com Online Training Library® takes viewers inside what may be a prototype for the next generation design firm.

Vivid Savitri, creative director-Shanghai, gives us a tour of the Shanghai workspace.

If you use the Magic Wand tool, stop what you’re doing and switch to Color Range. This outrageously useful command lets you select an image as easily as the wand, but with more flexibility and much better results.

Gray states:

“My goals when refreshing or obtaining new skills are keeping costs low and learning efficiently. As such, I prefer an online training site. There are several online options out there, but the one that I prefer is lynda.com. I recently used it to refresh a data query language that I hadn’t used in several years, but knew an upcoming interviewer would ask me about. It provided me with another layer of confidence to be able to say that I’d updated my knowledge only days ago.”

We are very proud that lynda.com is helping those who are seeking employment gain an edge over their competitors, especially in this challenging job market. Read the full article at The Wall Street Journal site.

Mordy Golding, Jan Kabili, Lesa Snider, Ted LoCascio, Michael Ninness, Derrick Story, Anne-Marie Concepcion, and Michael Murphy were all in fine form teaching an eager audience at the U.S. Naval Heritage Center, located just off the Mall in downtown DC. If you were in attendance, you know this was an excellent opportunity to get to sit and listen to some inspiring instruction, go on an evening Photo Walk with Derrick Story, and eat pizza while Michael Ninness gave an awesome three and a half hour (by demand!) session on InDesign. If you missed this show, be sure to check out other MOGO conferences and seminars.

Left column: Photoshop Live poster, Michael Ninness. Middle column: Mordy Golding, Derrick Story, Jan Kabili, Anne-Marie Concepcion, Michael Murphy, Right column: Washington Monument, White House, Author Dinner featuring Lesa Snider, Jay Nelson, Garrick Chow, Jan Kabili, Derrick Story, Ed and Megan Read, Michael Ninness, and Mordy Golding.

Growing and Sharing Your Family Tree shows how rewarding and informative building a family history can be. Genealogy instructor Jeff Sengstack teaches how to find lost ancestors, connect with living relatives, and collaborate with others to grow a family tree. He explains how to use the Family Tree Maker application along with Ancestry.com and other internet sites to track down census data, immigration records, and other important documents, and then organize family tree data. Jeff also presents tips on how to scan old photos, create video slideshows, and build family web sites.