CS4 Videos @ lynda.com

My goodness. CS4 appears to have shipped. Here in the dekeCave--where we keep the dekeCopter and the darkly tinted dekeMobile--we have long heard rumblings that October 15 would be the day. But we also heard that October 23 might be the day. And possibly a push-back to November. With a launch event on the fiery noxious planet Venus.

(Don't you think, if CS4 ever recorded an album, this should be the art?)

Thankfully, Adobe has chosen to scale back its extraterrestrial ambitions and launch CS4 here on Earth. And as usual, I have your back. And when I say, "as usual," I mean, for the first time ever. Of course, I always have your back. But this is the first time I have so much of your back from day one.

(Yes, that explains why you've been reduced to just your front. B/c I have your back. It says "hi," by the way.)

Colleen's post tells you what's up with the new books, all three of them, including the revamped and expanded Adobe Photoshop CS4 One-on-One.

But it's not just books. Right now, right this second, you can sign up at lynda.com and watch any of a total of 88 of my movies on the topic of CS4, most about Photoshop, but roughly half about Illustrator and InDesign. And I'm here to tell you, there's some good stuff going on here. In my New Features series, I take experienced users and get them up to speed. In my various Getting Started series, I take newbies and get them on the fast track.

And my movies are just the tip of the iceberg. In all, lynda.com is offering 28 training courses now, with 8 more courses being added by October 23rd. That's over 100 hours of CS4 training.

And growing. Just last night, I finished recording the first part of my video series, Photoshop CS4 One-on-One. (170 movies @ 18.5 hours raw. We'll see what it edits down to.) This'll be a three-part series, front-loaded on Part 1 and tapering in terms of hours-spent by Part 3.

We're still trying to figure out how to name the three parts. Something that's going to lead the viewer onward, help them endure the pleasure of learning, keep their eyes focused steadfastly on the path. We thought (for the three names) Foundations, Advanced, Deep Dive. Or Green Belt, Brown Belt, Black Belt. I live in Colorado, so I think in term of ski metaphors:

Here at the LDC headquarters in sunny but temperate Ventura, California, nobody's getting the green, blue, black thing. (Not enough ski slopes, I guess.) What makes sense to you, denizens of dekeOnline? I want to lure you into spending every waking second of every day of your life locked into my sinister training vortex. What words can I use to make that happen?

(I should add, Adobe Photoshop CS4 One-on-One, the finished book, and Photoshop CS4 One-on-One, the forthcoming video series, have some overlap but mostly cover very different material. So be sure to collect them all.)