PShizzy: The Blog

After the huge success of the Lynda.com seven day trial, which was on again off again, I received an interesting email from another e-learning source, the Virtual Training Company, or VTC for short. I was interested for two reasons.

First, VTC has been around a while. They offered training cd’s over a decade ago, when the concept was still new. So VTC definitely has a solid background in application training. But the second reason is what caught me: The email was from Mark Vernon,  the founder of VTC.

vtc.com is an online learning library similar to lynda.com, but with 80,000 tutorial videos. We started in 1994, delivering online in 1997, so we’ve been around a bit longer than most.
Check out the library using a 7 day free pass, using promo code “twitter”, at vtc.com/promo
cheers

Mark Vernon

The Virtual Training Company

So please, feel free to sign up and give it a whirl. Read on for a short review of the material as well as my overall opinion. [Read more →]

Tags: business, general, photoshop by PShizzy
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UPDATE 2/17/09: The trial is back on. I believe it will alternate on and off, so try it. if you’re in a rush, try the day pass in my other post. Remember, each one requires an email address.

The week long pass that I posted about last week expired. It was a very popular post on this blog, so I contacted Lynda.com to see if there were any other trials available or coming up. It took a few days, but they responded.

As I mentioned in my other post, Lynda.com is a good resource for training, and the monthly or yearly cost is a boon to anyone who has an interest in learning more than one application. For my review of the service, read last weeks blog post

Click more to read on about my response from Lynda.com customer service, and the link to the 24 hour pass. [Read more →]

Tags: business, general, photoshop by PShizzy
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Canon announced that they are offering a free repair for anyone with a 5D that may be suffering from a loose mirror box due to a weakening of the adhesive that holds the mirror in. More on that over at

PDNGearGuide article on 5D Mirror Detachment

The notice is also available on Canon’s website. The repair is free, as is shipping, from user comments on other forums. I will be calling them tomorrow to send in my 5D.

Canon 5D Notice: Main Mirror Detachment

If I send it in and get any paperwork, I’ll scan it and do an update thread.

Tags: equipment, lighting by PShizzy
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Backing up your drives is important. I don’t have any fun stories or anecdotes to recount about dead drives. There’s nothing worst than losing data because of a drive failure. Worse yet is when it’s at the most inopportune time. For example, the night before a big event, or a trip, your laptop decides that stage a coup against Windows XP. Now what?

Let’s install Windows. Where was that disk again? Countless reboots and hours later, you have Windows. But no updates. Reboot more, like it’s going out of style. Ok SP3, here we are. But no Photoshop. No Photo Mechanic. Crap, even my email hasn’t been set up yet. Oh and if you run Vista, you may just be better off going without a computer until Windows 7 shows up.

The last time my computer went out on me, I reasoned that it was old enough to not be worth saving, so I went and got a Mac. That’s how much I hate reformatting. Also, to be honest, I was simply unprepared. So how could having software like Acronis True Image have saved me? More on that, and the link to the article and info after the jump. [Read more →]

Tags: business, general by PShizzy
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