Viewing Archive for: March 2009

Three Steps to Building a BIG PowerPoint Presentation

Need to create a large presentation—say, more than 60 slides? PowerPoints for live presentation can run past 100 slides, and in some instances you may need to connect multiple presentations for longer workshops. Training manuals and sales presentations can also require a lot of slides. It may be tempting to fire up the slide machine and just get started, especially if a deadline is looming. But time spent on planning and preparation is the key to success with a big presentation.  So make the... 

Photoshop Tutorial: The Black & White Adjustment Layer

For those of us fortunate enough to have one of the latest two versions of Photoshop (CS3 or CS4), there is a new, more powerful and fun way to create black and white images and get a lot of control over color brightness. This is my favorite way to convert color images to black & white — I use it pretty much exclusively because it takes all the guesswork out of moving the sliders around and makes it easy to adjust complex colors. Ready? Load up your image and let’s go! [Note: If you own... 

How To Install Plugins on a Wordpress Blog

So, you’ve got your brand new WordPress blog setup, and maybe you’ve even written a few posts. However, now that you have your feet wet, you want to add some new features to give it some flare. You’re going to want to install a few plugins. WordPress Plugins are just like they sound, they are add-ons that you “plug in” to interact with your site. Popular plugins include a share/bookmark button, site analytics and tools for Twitter. Below, I’m going to walk... 

25 Ways to Find Time for Creative Play

Freelancers are creative people. It can be difficult to find time for creative play when you’re faced with looming deadlines and various administrative minutiae. Here are 25 creative ways that you can find time to unleash your inner child and engage in creative play. After all, this isn’t just kid’s stuff, as a creative professional, your livelihood depends on your ability to let loose and be creative. So, go play!  Read More →

7 Habits of Successful Freelancers

Ads abound saying you can make a six-figure annual income by freelancing. Some go so far as to say you don’t have to do much work. Others are more honest and admit it will take work. One thing is true: Freelancers, successful or not, have habits. Whether you believe the ads or not, there are seven common habits of successful freelancers.  Read More →

Dynamic Duo: SnagIt and PowerPoint

Amazing but true—once upon a time screenshots on the PC were made with the PrtScn key, which just takes a picture of whatever is on the monitor at that moment. Then along came several screen capture programs, and after a while, SnagIt became a standard tool for many of us. Now we can slice up the screen into segments or capture specific windows or snapshot menus, all with just a couple of clicks. And the latest versions of SnagIt for PC provide such good editing tools that you can usually finish... 

How to Use Hyperlinks in a PowerPoint Presentation

Hyperlinks are hard workers in the world of PowerPoint. They can be used for the obvious reason (i.e., to link to a web address), and that’s a great tool when using PowerPoint to create documentation, training materials, sales presentations, or other materials meant to be interactive. In a typical speaker presentation, jumping out to a live website is not done that frequently—it’s more likely that web content will be shown as screenshots if included. So the heavy-lifting for hyperlinks here... 

Freelance Jobs to Avoid! 5 Warning Signs for Scams

Freelancing attracts some people who want to get rich quick without doing the required work. Possibly because of this, there are many scams around. How is a freelancer to know which opportunities are legitimate and which are scams? There are warning signs to scams. Here are five of the most common.  Read More →

PowerPoint Distribution: How to Share a PowerPoint Presentation

PowerPoint is a fact of life for most folks trying to communicate ideas in a corporate environment. And it’s a pretty good tool for practical purposes. But there are a few areas where it fails miserably, and distribution is one of them. Sharing a PowerPoint presentation can be a real headache. In a corporate setting, PowerPoints are typically made to support a meeting or a speaker, and the slides are printed for handout. If the presentation is sent to attendees or others, it’s usually emailed... 

Photoshop Tutorial: Black and White Images Using the Channel Mixer

Color just not doing it for you?  Or maybe you’re going for that classic look?  Here’s an easy way to create a dynamic black & white image using Photoshop. Let’s start with a little background information though, shall we?  You might be curious to know what channels are and why we’re mixing them.  The information in your color image is broken down into Red, Green and Blue information (RGB).  Photoshop seperates each of these three into its own layer with brightness... 

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