O'Reilly

I'm sure a couple of you are aware of this, but the Internet is an amazing thing. (Wait a sec, I think I might be the first one to come up with that. Damn, I'm insightful!) And what makes me say that is this:

Yesterday, Chuck Joiner of MacVoices fame interviewed me over this primitive thing called the Telephone. And already our conversation is up on his site. In the old days, you might hear that interview broadcast over the Radio live, as it was actually happening. But now, thanks to the miracle of the Internet, you can hear that very same interview within 24 hours of us recording it. Damn, that's progress.

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Hey, gang. Just a brief note to let you all know that I and my team have finished work on the project that has recently consumed our every waking moments, the forthcoming book Adobe Illustrator CS5 One-on-One. Believe it or not, all 512 pages of it went to the printer today, with all 6 hours of companion video edited and ready to go. While I slept like a baby, my designer David Futato and lead editor Carol Person were up until the wee hours generating the final PDF documents. (Thanks to them both!) And while no one is going to accuse me of being overly timely---Illustrator CS5 started shipping about the same time as Columbus---I'm convinced that we've managed to create the best book that we could, as well as the best title in the One-on-One series.

The book should be available for purchase in about three weeks. For real. I'm no longer the boy who cried "Illustrator book!" I'll actually have one. Read more » 

By now, most (if not all) of you know that Adobe is updating its entire line of Creative Suite products. The net result will be Creative Suite 5. And there are the usual bazillion features to look forward to.

Adobe has made it clear that I can't tell you what those features will be. (Oh sure, Adobe itself has leaked many of the minor features, including Content-Aware Fill, which will blow you away once you see it for yourself. But I myself make no mention of Content-Aware Fill. Oh, crap, yes I did. Oops!) However, I can tell you this: I'm hard at work on creating a slew of books and videos for CS5. And that is what I'm here to share with you today.

Here's the skinny: I have not only recorded the entirety of my video series "Photoshop CS5 One-on-One: Fundamentals" for lynda.com. I'm also halfway done with my book, Adobe Photoshop CS5 One-on-One for Deke Press in cooperation with O'Reilly Media. And I am well into my video series "Illustrator CS5 One-on-One: Fundamentals," again for lynda.com. In other words, things are well under way.

And to make matters more interesting, virtually all the content is brand-spanking new. New outlines, new projects, new everything. New new new. Read more » 

Greetings from Macworld Expo in grey San Francisco. But on a sunny note, Miss Suzanne, our esteemed and charming Marketing director just mentioned that anybody who comes to the O'Reilly booth, proclaims "I love dekePod," informs her (or any of the other O'Reillians) why they love dekePod, will recieve a free dekePod tshirt. I'll be working the booth tomorrow (Wednesday) so said recipient could even be me, which would in turn make you the recipient of this:

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I know, for the Mac Faithful, the loss of a 2009 Keynote from Steve Jobs (and the swan-song of Apple's participation in Macworld altogether) is devastating. But for the dekeHeads, things are still looking promising. Here's a list of where and when to find Deke during Macworld week. (Thanks, Thomas, for the prompt.) Read more »