Archive for April 2009

Apr
30

More Photoshop Pings – Along with a Few Fireworks

by Joseph Lowery

2

Our CSS Designer Starter Kit for Photoshop got recognized by the Grand Poobah (i.e. Product Manager) of Photoshop himself, John Nack, in a recent blog post. And, although he doesn’t mention it, a version of the interactive training is also available for Fireworks.

Hot on the heels of this successful offering, we’re pleased to announce two more: CSS Menus Starter Kit for Photoshop and CSS Menus Starter Kit for Fireworks. What’s really cool about these two is that they’re great for Dreamweaver devotees who want to learn more about Photoshop or Fireworks just as much as they cool of users of those graphic powerhouses who want to understand how CSS menus are built. Check ‘em out.

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Categories: Fireworks, Photoshop, WebAssist Announcements

Apr
23

Show us your sites!

by Joseph Lowery

1

It’s no secret that our users are a talented bunch of folks and we’d like to let the world know. We’re looking to showcase sites made with WebAssist products, so that others can see what’s possible and give a round of applause to those folks who are creating great sites.

If you’re interested in submitting your site for the showcase, email your name, WebAssist product used, and site URL to showcase@webassist.com. We’re all looking forward to seeing what you’ve been cooking!

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Categories: WebAssist Notes

Apr
10

April 2009 Newsletter

by Hieu Bui

2

Hi everyone,

We have just completed the first quarter of 2009 and I’m proud of what we have been able to accomplish in just three short months.  One of the biggest developments has been the launch of the latest version of our website. The new site gives you a much easier way to find the information you are looking for both from a sales and support perspective.  One of the most frequent compliments of the new site is the intuitive menu navigation system.  Through this menu approach, we had the ability to restructure our support resources the way you requested it, product by product.  In addition to the navigational changes, the biggest update has been with our implementation of AJAX based tabs and sliding panels.  This technology enables us to present the large amount of supporting content such as Getting Started Guides, Solutions Recipes, FAQs, General Tech Notes and Related Articles all from one convenient page.

New Integration Points:
In addition to our new website, we have continued to invest in delivering new products across all three of our lines: software, solutions, and training.  By delivering three different products types that work together, you have the ability to choose any combination of tools, pre-built applications and step by step instructions to help you build sites, faster.  We have found that by building solutions with our tools and documenting the steps that cover important web techniques you have a greater choice in how to get your sites to market.

We released two new solutions in Q1: User Registration Solution Pack and PowerStore. PowerStore is a great solution to get an online store up and running quickly and it was built using a variety of our software found in Super Suite.  With the User Registration Solution Pack you can add a fully functioning user registration system with administrative capabilities.   We also launched the first SEO Starter Kit that focuses on working with Keywords – one of the most important concepts in search engine optimization.  Keep an eye out for more interactive training content focused on Search Engine Optimization.

Product Updates:
We have launched dot releases of quite a few of our software products to address issues found through support as well as those introduced by updates to Dreamweaver CS4.  Free updates were released for, but not limited to: eCart, Site Import, SecurityAssist, iRite, SiteScribe, Pro Maps for Google and Digital File Pro.

In January, we released a new extension in partnership with Jeffery Zeldman: Web Standards Advisor.  Web Standards Advisor goes far beyond what you can do in Dreamweaver by allowing you to validate HTML, CSS and Microformats in one smooth operation.  It also takes you a step farther by summarizing the results and suggesting appropriate recommendations to help you achieve web standards compliancy.

Free Content:
We have also been focusing on providing more rich content to help you be  successful on the web.  We have launched a new set of free semi-technical training resources to help share some of the knowledge we have obtained over the years. There are have been quite a few Roadmaps created that you can download for free covering topics from Web hosting to site planning to CSS. We are also continuing to launch more templates on SuCasa and have a robust library that will continue to come out over the next months.

As we head into the second quarter of 2009, we are mindful of the continued stress the global economy has put on everyone and we will continue to focus on making sure the products we produce deliver a return on investment that makes them appealing to you.  There will be both free and commercial products made available that will continue to build out our portfolio of products that will help you build better websites faster. We are also focused on continuing to improve our communication and feedback loop with you so please remember to check out our company blog, community forums, and twitter profile to keep in touch with our growing community of designers and developers. We are constantly looking to improve our company and the value we provide to you so please give us feedback by sending us a suggestion using our contact form or emailing sales@webassist.com.

Best,

–Hieu

—
Hieu Bui
President, WebAssist

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Categories: WebAssist Notes

Apr
09

WebAssist on Twitter

by Justin Nemeth

3

I’m sure alot of you are using twitter on a daily basis to post and read all sorts of interesting things. For those unfamiliar with twitter, think of it as a short and sweet social messaging utility. It allows you to send and receive short messages (< 140 characters) in real time.

WebAssist now has a twitter account! Follow us @WebAssist. We plan on posting messages about product announcements, product updates, blog postings, industry news, and more.

There are tons of desktop and phone apps out there that integrate with twitter. I like using twitterfic for my desktop and tweetie for my iPhone. For even more real time updates, you can add your mobile phone and use text messaging to send/receive updates.

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Categories: WebAssist Announcements

Apr
07

Web 2.0 Expo

by Hieu Bui

0

I was at the Web 2.0 Expo last week in San Francisco. First, there was a noticeably smaller crowd that was attending and there didn’t seem to be as much enthusiasm or excitement as in the past. I attended many of the keynotes and sessions and there were two trends that I saw:

1) Cloud computing

2) Social web applications

If a company wasn’t trying to drive traffic to get advertising revenue, then they were definitely trying to sell you a cloud computing platform that would let you drive traffic to get advertising revenue.  In all seriousness, there were some rather large players there (i.e. Salesforce & Amazon) that are really taking web infrastructure to the next level.  Maybe it’s time we jumped ahead to Web 3.0!

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Categories: WebAssist Notes

Apr
02

(Photoshop) Worlds without end

by Joseph Lowery

1

Michael Lekse, WebAssist’s VP of Sales and Marketing, and I took a few days to explore Photoshop World, held last week in Boston. We’ve had a very good response to our first piece of Photoshop-specific training and we were both looking forward to learn more about this community. Photoshop World is a high-class professional-grade show built on the shoulders of the 80,000 strong National Association of Photoshop Professionals organization by Kelby Media. A football theme pervaded the atmosphere and many a touchdown was scored, from the high-energy, informative keynote to the individual, jam-packed sessions.

Much buzz surrounded the new drawing tablet introduced by Wacom, the Intuos 4. When I was writing the Fireworks Bible series, I used a Wacom tablet—which, by comparison, is like saying when I was a toddler, I peeled out on a tricycle. The Intuos 4 is a sleek, high-productivity engine complete with iPod-like touch ring for zooming in and out or resizing brush size or density. You can program the touch ring or any of the other 6 – 8 express keys (the number varies with the size of the tablet) on an application by application basis; the defaults are well-chosen to get you started quickly. If you’re a tablet user, you’ve gotta check this out.

Conferences, for the most part, are about meeting folks with similar interests and exchanging ideas and knowledge. One of the people Michael and I spent some quality time talking with was Raphael Concepcion, better known as RC. RC is an expert in many of the Creative Suite tools and gave a great session for Photoshop user demystifying Dreamweaver. RC is also one of the hosts of Layers TV, which does a really good job of covering the Creative Suite spectrum and definitely worthwhile to tune in.

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Categories: Photoshop, WebAssist Notes