Monday, December 26, 2011

Learn Digital Audio Production - Training Course for Beginners

In Digital Audio Principles by lynda.com, let commercial composer, sound designer, and recording engineer Dave Schroeder take you through the basics of digital audio production. In this digital audio production training course for beginners, you'll learn the principles of digital audio, which you can use whether you are producing music, podcasts, game sounds, or film sound effects. The author will teach you important techniques, and cover the essential hardware and software that you'll need for digital audio production.

For more information about the course, and to view a portion of it for free, visit the course details page. To access this entire 7-hour training course, you can sign up for a lynda.com membership. And as a special promotion, you can get free access for 7 days by signing up for a free 7-day trial pass. This trial pass gives you access to the entire lynda.com training library of over 1000 training courses.

Course Topics

Chapter 1: Sound and Digital Audio
Chapter 2: Digital Audio Workstations
Chapter 3: Microphones
Chapter 4: Cables and Connectors
Chapter 5: Audio Input/Output Devices
Chapter 6: Input Levels and Preamplifiers
Chapter 7: The Mixer
Chapter 8: Monitoring
Chapter 9: Computers and Audio
Chapter 10: Setting Up for Recording
Chapter 11: Digital Audio Software
Chapter 12: Common DAW Components
Chapter 13: Recording and Playback
Chapter 14: Editing
Chapter 15: Plug-ins
Chapter 16: MIDI
Chapter 17: Mixing
Chapter 18: Mastering
Chapter 19: Audio File Compression
Chapter 20: Voice Recording
Chapter 21: Digital Audio Debates

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Friday, December 23, 2011

Learn How to Make a Social Networking Website

Learn how to make a social networking website in this excellent video training course entitled Building Custom Social Networking Websites. Here, you'll get to know the best tools and practices for designing and creating Facebook-like social networking web sites customized for specific targeted audiences or needs.

What you will learn:

  • The best tools and practices for designing and creating social networking websites
  • How to design sites that encourage users to interact and communicate with on another and build friendships, trust, and community
  • How to import content into a site from elsewhere on the Internet
  • How to encourage users to contribute to the site
  • How to earn revenue from your social networking website

You'll also be introduced to the following tools for building these social networking websites: Ning, WordPress, Moodle, and Joomla.

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Course Introduction

What You Will Learn from the Course
Target Audience
Why Build Social Networking Sites

What is a Social Network?

Definition of a Social Network
Options for Creating Your Own Network
Hosted Social Networking Solutions
Self-Hosting Your Own Site
Examples of Custom Social Networks

Elements of a Social Network

Users & Profiles
Groups
Activity Streams
Discussion Forums
Blogs
Photo & Video Uploads
Polls
Chat & Events
RSS Feeds
Apps

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Monday, December 19, 2011

How to mix audio - Audio mixing lessons and tutorials for beginners

How to mix audio - If you're new to audio mixing, and would like to learn more in order to improve your skills, then Audio Mixing Bootcamp by lynda.com is a great training course to help you reach your goals. These audio mixing lessons and tutorials are great for beginners and people who'd like to improve their music mixing skills. In this course, you'll learn things like how to optimize your listening environment; efficient ways to prepare and set up a mix; properly balancing your mix; best ways to apply EQ to the different elements in your mix; adding reverb, delay and modulation; the differences between amateur and pro-sounding mixes, and more! To learn more about the course, watch the free audio mixing video tutorials below or visit the course details page. As a special promotion, visitors of Tutorials 101 can get a free 7-day trial pass to get complete access to this course along with the entire lynda.com training library of over 1000 training courses.

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Adobe Premiere CS5 Tutorials for Beginners - How to Use Premiere CS5 Video Tutorials - Premiere PRO CS5

If you're interested in learning how to use Premiere CS5, then check out the video tutorials below. These Adobe Premiere CS5 tutorials for beginners are from Premiere Pro CS5 Essential Training - an excellent video training course from lynda.com. Here, you'll learn the fundamentals of this world-class video editing program, and along the way, you'll also learn how to use video to tell compelling stories. Topics include: Adding footage to the Timeline, Making overlay and insert edits, Playing a clip backwards, Understanding pixel aspect ratio and frame rate, Applying motion effects, Cutting video to music, Compositing with green screen and blend modes, Correcting color, Creating titles and lower thirds, Exporting sequences, and more! To learn more about the course, watch the free Premiere CS5 video tutorials below, or you can also visit the course details page. To get access to this entire 5-hour self-paced training course, visitors of Tutorials 101 can sign up for a free 7-day trial pass. You will not only get free and complete access to this course for 7 days, but you'll also get complete access to lynda.com's entire training library of over 1000 courses.

Friday, December 16, 2011

Photoshop CS5 Photography Tutorials for Photoshop CS5 Photographers - Watch Photoshop CS5 Tutorials for Photographers

How can we use Photoshop from a photographic perspective in order to create engaging and intriguing images? If you're looking for Photoshop CS5 Photography tutorials that will help answer that question, then you might be interested in Photoshop CS5 for Photographers by lynda.com. The high-quality Photoshop CS5 tutorials for photographers in this excellent training course were designed specifically with Photoshop CS5 Photographers in mind. Topics include: Calibrating a monitor; Setting up color and file handling preferences; Processing images in Camera Raw; Making selections and taking advantage of the Refine Edge feature; Masking and selective sharpening; Improving a photo using Content-Aware Fill and the Puppet Warp tool; Enhancing color, tone, and contrast with Levels; Improving underexposure and overexposure using blending; Burning and dodging techniques; Converting an image to black and white; Retouching essentials; Publishing images to the web, and more! Watch the free videos below to learn more about the course, or you can also visit the course details page. And as a special promotion, visitors of Tutorials 101 can get a free 7-day trial pass, which gives you access to this entire course along with all the other training courses by lynda.com.

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Thursday, December 15, 2011

How to Repair Photos in Photoshop - Photo Restoration Tutorials

Learn how to repair photos in Photoshop from photo restoration expert, Janine Smith, in this self-paced online video training course entitled Photo Restoration with Photoshop from lynda.com. In this training course, the author demonstrates different photo restoration techniques by working on examples ranging from the basic to the more challenging. Watch the sample video tutorials below to learn more about the course. You can also sign-up for a free 7-day trial pass to get complete access to the entire lynda.com online training library of over 1000 video training courses

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

What is Online Marketing? - Online Marketing Training Course - Learn how to Market Online

What is online marketing? Learn the fundamentals of how to market online in this excellent online marketing training course by lynda.com. In Online Marketing Fundamentals, let Lorrie Thomas Ross take you through the process of how to create a successful online marketing campaign. This excellent training course is ideal for web marketers, web designers, business owners, and executives. Topics include: Working with web analytics software, Building a site map, Selecting a domain name and a web host, Planning for mobile, Conducting social media marketing, Developing an email marketing campaign, Reviewing online public relations, Understanding the difference between search engine marketing (SEM) and search engine optimization (SEO), and more! Visitors of Tutorials101 can access the entire course for free by signing up for a free 7-day trial. You can also learn more about the training course by watching the free videos below.

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

The AS3 'this' keyword and how to randomize the size of a MovieClip instance on the stage

In this lesson, we'll learn about the this keyword. But before I explain what the this keyword is, let's first recall that we can put some ActionScript code on keyframes in the main timeline. But we can also put some ActionScript code on the keyframes inside MovieClip symbols as well. If we place ActionScript code on the keyframes inside of MovieClip symbols, then it means that the code is inside the MovieClip symbol's timeline, instead of being on the main timeline.

It's important to take note of this, because the this keyword references whichever object the this keyword is placed in. Is it within the code in the main timeline, or is it within the code nested inside a MovieClip symbol instead? If we placed the this keyword within the code inside one of the keyframes in the main timeline, then the this keyword will refer to the main timeline. If the this keyword was placed inside the timeline of a MovieClip symbol, then the this keyword will refer to the instance of the MovieClip symbol instead (or instances, if there are more than one). So what this is, depends on where this is.

To hopefully make things a little more clear, let's create an example.

Step 1

Create a new Flash ActionScript 3.0 document.

Step 2

Select the first keyframe of the main timeline, then open up the Actions Panel.

Step 3

In the script pane, type:

trace(this);

Let's try to trace this to see what it will output. Basically, when we create this trace statement, it's like we are asking: what is this?

And in this example, the answer to that is: the main timeline. Since we selected the first keyframe of the main timeline when we added the code, this means that our code is on the main timeline. So in this example, this refers to the main timeline.

Step 4

Test the movie.

In the output window, you should see the message: [object MainTimeline]. So the message in the output window confirms that the this keyword in our example refers to the main timeline. It refers to the main timeline since the this keyword was placed in one of the frames of the main timeline. When using the this keyword, this refers to wherever this is.

Step 5

Now let's try placing the this keyword inside a MovieClip symbol instead. But first, go back to the actions panel and erase the trace statement that we placed on the main timeline so as not to make things confusing when we're trying to trace the MovieClip objects we're about to create.

Step 6

Next, let's create the symbol.

Using the oval tool, draw a circle on the stage and convert it into a MovieClip symbol named Circle.

Step 7

Then give the MovieClip instance an instance name.

Make sure that the instance on the stage is selected (do NOT double-click on it because that will bring you inside the MovieClip symbol's timeline). Once it's selected, go to the properties inspector and type circle1_mc in the instance name input field.

Step 8

Now, let's add some ActionScript inside the MovieClip symbol's timeline.

This time, you can double-click on the MovieClip instance on the stage in order to go inside the MovieClip symbol's timeline.

Step 9

Double-check that you are, in fact, inside the MovieClip symbol's timeline by looking at the edit bar. The edit bar should say Scene 1 > Circle.

Step 10

Once you've confirmed that you are inside the MovieClip symbol, add another layer on the timeline, and name it Actions.

Remember: this timeline belongs to the MovieClip symbol. We are not on the main timeline.

Step 11

Then select the first keyframe of the Actions layer, then go to the actions panel and type:

trace(this.name);

Here, we are not simply referencing this, but specifically, we are tracing its name. You can use the this keyword to access properties and methods of objects as well. Basically, in this example, our trace statement is trying to ask: what is the name of this object?

Since the statement that contains the this keyword is inside the MovieClip symbol's timeline, it's going to output circle1_mc in the output window. The this keyword references objects or instances that contain it. So the this keyword is going to refer to the specific instance of the MovieClip symbol on the stage, and not the symbol in the library. This is why it's going to output circle1_mc (which is the instance name), and not Circle (which is the symbol's name).

Step 12

Now let's go back to the main timeline by clicking on the scene 1 link.

Step 13

Once we are back on the main timeline, go to the library and drag another instance of the Circle symbol onto the stage. Give this one circle2_mc for its instance name. Since this is also an instance of the Circle symbol, it's also going to have the same trace statement inside it already. Whatever code you have inside the timeline of a MovieClip symbol will also be inside any of its instances that are on the stage. There is no need for us to add it again. So when we test the movie, Flash is also going to output the name of this second instance in the output window.

Step 14

Go ahead and test the movie.

You should see the names circle1_mc and circle2_mc displayed in the output window.

Why would we want to use the this keyword?
Sometimes, you might want to place some code inside a MovieClip symbol's timeline. That way, every single instance of the MovieClip symbol will have the same code inside it when you place it on the stage. This saves you some time, because you won't have to repeatedly type the same code over and over. You just have to put it inside the MovieClip symbol's timeline once, and then every instance of that MovieClip symbol will have the code already placed inside it. The this keyword lets us explicitly tell Flash that our code is meant for that specific instance that contains the this keyword.

Let's see this in action by adding more code to our example.


Step 15

Go back inside the Circle MovieClip's timeline by double-clicking any of the instances on the stage. Then select the first keyframe of the Actions layer and open up the Actions Panel.


Step 16

Remove the trace statement, and add these lines of code in its place:

this.scaleX = 3;
this.scaleY = 3;

Here, we've added some lines of code that will increase the size of each instance of the MovieClip symbol that we place on the stage. Basically, the code is saying: scale this to 3 times its original size. So when the Flash movie runs, the MovieClip instances on the stage will be 3 times larger.

Step 17

Go back to the main timeline, by clicking on the scene 1 link.

Step 18

From the library, add more instances of the Circle MovieClip symbol until you have ten instances on the stage.

Step 19

Test the movie.

You should see that each circle is now three times larger than its original size. Since we placed the code inside the MovieClip symbol's timeline, instead of the main timeline, then we only had to write those lines once, and each instance will have the same lines of code built-in. This is why every single instance of the Circle MovieClip became bigger.


Step 20

In this next step, we'll modify the code so that each instance of the Circle MovieClip will have a different, randomized size.

Go back to the Circle MovieClip symbol's timeline by double-clicking any of the instances on the stage. Then select the first keyframe of the Actions layer and open up the Actions Panel.

Step 21

In the script pane, replace the current code with this:

var nScale:Number = Math.random() * 3;
this.scaleX = nScale;
this.scaleY = nScale;

The first line of code creates a variable named nScale. And then to this variable, we are assigning the expression Math.random() * 3. What this does is it generates a random number that can be anywhere between 0 and 3. If you want Flash to choose from a higher range of values, then simply replace 3 with a higher value (but don't make it too high since we are going to use it to scale the size of the objects). Then once that random number is generated, the number is assigned to the scaleX and scaleY properties. This is going to happen for each instance of the Circle MovieClip that we have on the stage. So chances are, they'll each generate a different value, thus making them all have different sizes once the Flash movie runs.

Step 22

Test the movie and you should see your circle's all in different sizes. And since the values are generated randomly, you'll see different sizes every time you test the movie.