Beginner

Have you ever wondered if a client received your important email already? Don't you wish you had a way to tell?

It can be done, although it's a bit more complicated than just clicking a switch. Visit Spypig and follow the instructions for a one off tracking image that will be used to check the delivery of your email.

Here is a handy little application that improves efficiency if you work a lot with html, css and graphics under Mac OS X.

Color Picker Pro as the name suggests is a beefed up color picker with a magnifying glass and a container for picked colors. Here are the steps on how you are supposed to make use of it:

You can arrange to a grid all your document icons in a Finder window by selecting the menu View / Arrange by.

But, what if you want the snap to grid option to be applied to a few items only. Simply press the Apple (Command) key while dragging the icons in position. The icon will snap to place with a smooth transition. You can even do this to several icons at once.

Use the Eye Dropper tool to sample any color on your screen by clicking and dragging from your document to anywhere on your screen, even outside of Photoshop.

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.” - Albert Einstein

I know this is a Mac focused site, but I couldn't pass up the chance to share this with everyone. It seems Microsoft is offering their top of the line collection -Office Ultimate- for the insanely cheap price of $59.95! Yes, $59.95!!!

The only catches (besides the fact it's only for Windows) are that you need to be a student and have an email address from your school ending in .edu.

Check out the details at:

http://www.theultimatesteal.com/home.asp

*UPDATE* - I hear you guys! I wish Adobe included this feature in every program they make, but unfortunately, they don't; however, they DO include it in After Effects, Lightroom, Premiere Pro and Soundbooth (all CS3 versions). So, if you use any of these programs, make sure you take advantage of this great feature.
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I'm talking about the area around your images in Photoshop.

Sometimes you may want to check your image against different colors, especially black. You can quickly toggle between grey, black and a custom color by simply CTRL-Clicking the grey area. Alternatively you can of course right click if you have a mouse with at least two buttons.

In the link below is an informative detailed explanation of what bleeds are and why we need them in PDF format.

This is basic knowledge that every graphic designer should know before submitting their files for print.

Hope this is informative and let me know if it helped anyone!

Look out next week for "Basics of Colors and Profiles"

Enjoy!

http://www.4over4.com//infofiles/bleeds.pdf

If you're addicted to statistics like me you will love the new version of Dashalytics Max OS X Dashboard widget that is based on the new features of Google Analytics.

It gives an interactive overview of the most vital stats for your sites. The only thing missing is the hourly display of a days traffic, but I'm sure it's coming. Enjoy!