What is the difference between Photoshop 7 and Photoshop CS?

Photoshop CS is also known as Photoshop 8, but I personally would have called it Photoshop 7.5. It is not that big of an upgrade, mostly new tools as opposed to updating version 7. Here is a short list of what is new, there are other minor upgrades as well:

• The File Browser has been enhanced
• New Multi-page PDF and slide show tool
• Photomerge tool (useful if you do lots of panoramas from multiple photos, but not really necessary)
• Tracking Edit History (Useful if you need to document editing, scientific or legal uses)
• Crop and Straighten Photos (nice tool if you do lots of scanning)
• Versioning and Version Cue (useful in a multi-user environment)
• New Keyboard shortcut list
• Photo Filter Effects (not really that useful)
• Shadow/Highlight Corrections (really useful if you do lots of professional photo processing or scanning. For a professional this one feature would be worth the upgrade cost in time savings)
• Pixel Aspect Ratio adjustments (useful for video work)
• Match Color (useful when scanning)
• New Filter Gallery (if you use lots of Filters this can be a time saver)
• Lens Blur Effects (fun, but not ground breaking)
• Fibers Filter (useful if you like to create your own textures)
• Layer Comps (very useful. Allowing you to easily create several different versions in one file)
• Scripting (useful for batch automation)
• Text on a Path (I have this one as my online demo, useful if you do page layout in Photoshop. Personally I prefer to use InDesign CS for all my page layout)
• Custom How To links (useful if you manage Photoshop users in a business or school setting)

There are also some upgrades to ImageReady as well, the most important being that ImageReady can now make proper slices and tables. But I do all of that work in Dreamweaver MX 2004.

Load images in place of the Flash in the event a Flash player is not present

Question: I have successfully built a great new home page using both Dreamweaver and Flash - however, I need to have the page load images in place of the Flash in the event a Flash player is not present.

The Flash file will automatically check for the Flash Player and if it is not present it will attempt to download the Flash Player from Macromedia. So in most cases you do not need to worry.

But in case you want to have an alternate image here are the steps:

You need to create a second html page, one that does not contain Flash and has the alternate images instead (one page with Flash, one page without)

Open the Flash page in Dreamweaver.
Go to Code View.
Click anywhere inside the main body section of the web code.
Open up the Tags palette on the right side of Dreamweaver.
The Tag section heading should say Tag body
Click on the Behaviors tab
Click on the + button
In the popup menu select Check Plugin
The Plugin should say Flash, if not use the drop down menu and select Flash
Leave the "If found, go to URL:" line blank.
In the line that says "Otherwise, go to URL:" use the browse button and click on your non-Flash page.
Check "Always go to first URL if detection is not possible"

That should do it.

Personally I prefer to have the visitor download the appropriate Flash player instead of sending them to a non-Flash page, so I don't do these steps on my sites.


You can find a sample from the Flash set here: http://www.howtogurus.com/video/flash-demo.html

A Message from George Peirson about Identity Theft

Some info on credit card security and identity theft.

Using credit cards online is about the safest way to use credit cards, as long as you can trust the company. Most major companies online are very reliable, including the two that I recommended. The reason online payments are so safe is all the security features built in to using a credit card online. Everything is handled using encryption and the actual credit card number is only shown to the credit card company. The online seller actually never sees your full credit card number, they only get a verification from the credit card company.

The least safe way to use a credit card is in a restaurant, where the waiter takes your card away to get it approved. During that time your credit card is in someone else's hands and you can't see what they are doing. Most credit card theft comes from restaurants, stores and other outlets where you hand someone your card and they walk away with it. The second most common way to have credit card numbers stolen is by having your credit card bills stolen out of your mail box. Online credit card use is considered the safest way to use a credit card.

Identity theft is a whole different issue and if you are using eBay you will start getting emails that are termed "phishing" emails. These will look like they come from either eBay or PayPal and ask you to update or confirm your identity or information. EBay, PayPal and all banks will never send you an email asking you to update your information. All of these emails are fakes and are trying to steal your info. Be very careful about these. They usually look just like authentic emails and they have links that take you to fake sites that look just like the real sites, but their sites only have the page that asks for your information, any other link on that fake page will take you back to the real site, making them seem even more real.

The rule of thumb here is to never click on any email you were not expecting from eBay, PayPal or a bank. The only emails from eBay that will have valid links in them will be for auctions that you bid on or know you won and were expecting. To be safe you should always to go eBay or PayPal by typing in the address in your web browser. Simply type in http://www.ebay.com for eBay and https://www.paypal.com for PayPal. If you are unsure about an email from either eBay or PayPal you can forward it to them and they will let you know if it is genuine or not. Forward to one of these addresses: spoof@ebay.com or spoof@paypal.com

Believe it or not, I get about 20 of these fake emails a day and always forward them onto eBay and PayPal so that they can track down the crooks.

What programs do you recommend for new Web Designers?

Here is what I recommend Web Designers should know:

Dreamweaver
HTML
JavaScript
Photoshop

These are the core programs and will handle 95% of your needs.

You may want to add in Flash training, and if you decide to create web sites for other companies you should learn either PHP or ASP (web programming languages)

As in anything else, the more you know the better off you are. I don't have any specific recommendations for books, except the Photoshop Bible by Deke McClelland.

A great source for free information on HTML and JavaScript is http://www.internet.com/

What are Unique Visitors to a web site?

Unique visitors are figured on a daily basis. So if one person went to your site 10 times in one day he would be listed as 1 unique visitor. If he came back the next day he would again be listed as a unique visitor.

How do I get my site to the #1 position in Google?

Search engine placement is more of an art than a science. Do a search for Search Engine Optimization or SEO, look for the several different sites that have newsletters and subscribe to a few. There is no way to guarantee a top placement position on Google, unless you pay for placement using their Adwords system. Getting a high placement takes lots of time, means constantly changing and updating your site, keeping a constant eye on your competition who are trying to do the same exact thing, and to be honest a little bit of luck.

But with that said the main things to do for Google placement are to make sure your keywords are used frequently in the first 200 words of the page. Make sure that there is no bad code that could be blocking the search engines from properly indexing your site (such as using white type on a white background, or repeating your keyword over and over). Make sure your site is written in plain English with the keyword scattered throughout the text. If you read the text out loud and it doesn't sound like how someone would normally talk, it will get you a lower placement. Frequently setting up bulleted lists will help. Aim for only one keyword targeted per page. If you want different keywords for the same page, you should break that up into several pages, each page focusing on only one keyword.

You also should try and get other sites to link to your site, but these links should be from highly ranked sites, not link farms. It can take you years to get the quality links you need this way. You have to "sell" each site that you want a link from on the idea that putting a link to your site from their site is a good idea. Don't ever be tempted to add your link to one of the many link farms out their. There are lots of companies who allow anyone to place a link on their site. Google knows this trick and it will send your page to the bottom of the stack.

Again, this is more of an art than a science and you will need to do lots of continuing research and work on your site to get and keep a high search engine placement.

I have several articles in my articles section on search engine optimization
http://www.howtogurus.com/free-articles.html

Can I set up a web page to allow users to pick their own color scheme?

On allowing a user to pick a color scheme, fairly easy to do, but it does take a full understanding of using Cascading Style Sheets to do it. Basically you would set everything up on the web site using CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) including all the color settings. You would then link to the CSS as an external file (easy to do). Then all you need to do is to first create several different CSS files, one for each color scheme you are offering (the color schemes would need to be set up before hand by you). Then you would need to write some JavaScript that would use a link on the web page to select the different CSS files. Not impossible, but it would also take a good understanding of JavaScript coding to do this part of it.