Damon Ledet's Blog

RSS Feed Homepage

Articles: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

Acrobat 9
2008-06-26 08:17:00
Adobe this morning announced immediate availability of Acrobat 9 (press relaease) Some of the key new features are - Insert video (FLV or H.264) into PDF. Video can be marked up. - Content management via PDF Portfolio feature - Professionally designed templates - Enhanced review tracker - Electronic Form importer from Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Word, or scanned documents
More About: Adobe

Acrobat 9
2008-06-26 06:17:00
Adobe this morning announced immediate availability of Acrobat 9 (press relaease) Some of the key new features are - Insert video (FLV or H.264) into PDF. Video can be marked up. - Content management via PDF Portfolio feature - Professionally designed templates - Enhanced review tracker - Electronic Form importer from Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Word, or scanned documents

After Effects Lens Flare with Transparent Background
2008-06-09 18:33:00
Question from a student I had in my After Effects training class in Hartford, Connecticut: "Hey Damon, You showed me how to get a lens flare with nothing else (no backgrounds/alpha keyed) on the screen using a luma matte...I think! Do you remember the actions necessary to produce such an effect? I keep ending up with a black lens flare! Help! Thanks again, Bryan" Duplicating the solid with the lens flare and using the top one as a track matte can accomplish this. Here are the steps; you can download an example of this as well. Step one: Create a solid and add the lens Flare filter to it, get the lens flare just how you would like it and duplicate the solid. Step two: on the top solid added the Hue/Saturation filter and take the master saturation down to -100, Also add the Levels filter and slide the white point slider till it just touches the beginning of the levels histogram. Step three: Set the bottom solid to use the top solid as a track matte (Luma Matte) That's ...
More About: Questions , Tutorial , Adobe , Lens , Background

After Effects Lens Flare with Transparent Background
2008-06-09 16:33:00
Question from a student I had in my After Effects training class in Hartford, Connecticut: “Hey Damon, You showed me how to get a lens flare with nothing else (no backgrounds/alpha keyed) on the screen using a luma matte…I think! Do you remember the actions necessary to produce such an effect? I keep ending up with a black lens flare! Help! Thanks again, Bryan” Duplicating the solid with the lens flare and using the top one as a track matte can accomplish this. Here are the steps; you can download an example of this as well. Step one: Create a solid and add the lens Flare filter to it, get the lens flare just how you would like it and duplicate the solid. Step two: on the top solid added the Hue/Saturation filter and take the master saturation down to -100, Also add the Levels filter and slide the white point slider till it just touches the beginning of the levels histogram. Step three: Set the bottom solid to use the top solid as a track matte (Luma Matte) That&r...
More About: Lens , Background , After Effects

Dreamweaver beta and more up on labs
2008-05-28 01:23:00
Adobe has been had at work and now we get to preview some of the fruits of their labor. Today we are getting a peak at what is coming down the pipe. Adobe has released public betas of Dreamweaver , Fireworks and Soundbooth on labs. Download Dreamweaver beta / read what's new Download Fireworks beta / read what's new Download Soundbooth beta / read what's new
More About: Technology , Adobe , Beta , Labs

Dreamweaver beta and more up on labs
2008-05-27 16:23:00
Adobe has been had at work and now we get to preview some of the fruits of their labor. Today we are getting a peak at what is coming down the pipe. Adobe has released public betas of Dreamweaver , Fireworks and Soundbooth on labs. Download Dreamweaver beta / read what’s new Download Fireworks beta / read what’s new Download Soundbooth beta / read what’s new
More About: Beta , Labs

Google Earth Pro Training
2008-05-17 18:56:00
A few months ago we got invited to join Google 's new training program. Thursday afternoon I was able to pass the Google Earth Pro trainer certification. I have learned a ton about Google Earth pro in the last few weeks; it is a very impressive little program. From importing GIS data to create graphs, creating 3D building in Sketchup, or adding photos on Panoramio. If you have not checked it out it is well worth a download, as I learned you can do a lot more than just look at your house from above. We will begin training Google Earth Pro and Google Sketchup very soon. You can download our outline for Google Earth pro or visit us at ledet.com.
More About: Personal , Technology , Adobe

Google Earth Pro Training
2008-05-17 09:56:00
A few months ago we got invited to join Google ’s new training program. Thursday afternoon I was able to pass the Google Earth Pro trainer certification. I have learned a ton about Google Earth pro in the last few weeks; it is a very impressive little program. From importing GIS data to create graphs, creating 3D building in Sketchup, or adding photos on Panoramio. If you have not checked it out it is well worth a download, as I learned you can do a lot more than just look at your house from above. We will begin training Google Earth Pro and Google Sketchup very soon. You can download our outline for Google Earth pro or visit us at ledet.com.
More About: Training

Adobe Flash player 10 Beta
2008-05-15 17:17:00
Adobe this morning released Flash player 10 Beta "Astro" on labs. Macintosh download / Windows download [More]
More About: Technology , Flash Player , Adobe

Adobe Flash player 10 Beta
2008-05-15 08:17:00
Adobe this morning released Flash player 10 Beta “Astro” on labs. Macintosh download / Windows download
More About: Flash Player , Adobe , Player

Segway tour Atlanta
2008-05-15 05:48:00
Had a great time this evening Segway ing around downtown Atlanta . About a week ago in an effort to find something different to do, I was poking around Holiday inn's Ultimate Experiences section. I discovered Atlanta Segway tours. Decided to give it a try, this was my second time on a segway, rode one for less than 15 minutes at a company I was doing training for a few years back. Like Lisa (our tour guide) it is a lot like riding a bike. In less than 5 minutes I was up and going again. The video they make you watch ahead of time is a little unnerving, but in my opinion it is pretty easy and just takes a little common sense to ride. The weather was beautiful, and the price to play ($60 bucks) is well worth it. In truth it really could not have been a bad experience seeing as I had the best company in the world to enjoy this with ;-) I will put up a few pictures I snapped later, I am off to bed - work in the morning.
More About: Personal , Tour

Send your name to the moon
2008-05-04 19:44:00
NASA is allowing anyone to send their name to the moon aboard the next lunar mission. A little geeky I know but kind of cool as well. Check it out at http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/mai n/index.html Sent my name:
More About: Personal , Moon , Send , The Moon

Adobe TV
2008-04-10 22:53:00
Adobe announced Adobe TV (http://tv.adobe.com) No matter what your adobe vice is, you should be able to find something of interest. I poked around a little pretty cool stuff. Surely worth a visit.
More About: Technology , Adobe

Coldfusion 8.0.1
2008-04-05 17:32:00
Adobe released Coldfusion 8.0.1. I am a little late on this one as I was flying back from Chicago on the day it was released and missed it. I just updated my box and it seems to be working great. If you are going to run this update make sure you get the new extensions for Dreamweaver or Eclipse, as they have introduced a lot of new tag attributes, like an alt attribute for cfimage.
More About: Adobe

Adobe Lightroom Beta 2
2008-04-02 11:04:00
Adobe Lightroom 2.0 beta is now available on labs. Read the release notes for details on whats new.
More About: Adobe , Beta

Adobe launches Photoshop Express Public Beta
2008-03-27 15:47:00
Adobe launched Photoshop Express public beta. I have not checked it out much yet, but it looks very interesting.
More About: Adobe , Public , Beta

CSS link color question
2008-03-11 17:59:00
From time to time I get questions from former students or people that just so happen to stumble upon my website. I decided to start logging these questions on my blog in a new category called questions. Earlier today Dan worte: "HI I’m in the process of creating a new web site, my template contains different colors in different areas on the page. Some of my links are located on a blue background and some are on a white background. I set the page properties links to FFFFFF (link color and visited links to FFFFFF); the problem I’m having is that the links on the white background are not showing. Is there any way to change specific link color? Thanks for your help. E.D" Check out http://www.damonledet.com/tutorial/index. cfm/name/CSS_Link s the code is below. Instead of color: blue you can use hexadecimal colors like #FFFFFF When you create the link make sure you add a class="linkset2" in the tag of course you can change the "linkset2" name, if you would like but be sure ...
More About: Color , Question , Questions

Adobe Director 11
2008-02-19 14:06:00
Adobe announced Director 11 today. It should be available soon it currently is still preorder. I have always been a Director fan, and have enjoyed training it in the past. It will be interesting to see the update that has been almost 4 years in the making. [More]
More About: Adobe

Filemaker ODBC/JDBC to Coldfusion
2008-02-18 19:11:00
I have successively got coldfusion talking to a Filemaker 9 database. It turned out to be pretty simple really. I enabled ODBC/JDBC in Filemaker server. Installed the latest SequeLink on the coldfusion server. Setup a System DNS and pointed to it in the coldfusion admin. The only odd thing I ran into is in Filemaker field names can have spaces so when I do an insert into a field I have to put double quotes on the field name.
More About: Tutorial , Adobe , Coldfusion

Mac OS 10.5.2
2008-02-12 01:17:00
Apple released a new update for Leopard 10.5.2. This update is a heavy one weighing in at 384 megs. 10.5.2 download.
More About: Apple

Adobe Acrobat 8.1.2
2008-02-06 01:45:00
Adobe released Acrobat 8.1.2. As of right now it seems this update is only available via the Adobe software update utility. Updateing Acrobat to full Leopard compatibility. I am now prepared to update our classroom iMacs to 10.5. Adobe Acrobat training
More About: Technology , Adobe , Work

Gravatar
2008-02-01 00:43:00
Add your photo next to your blog comments. Not all blogs are using it but it is built into blogcfc. Head over to http://site.gravatar.com/ to create your "globally recognized avatar" and have your photo displayed next to your blog comments.
More About: Technology , Gravatar

More time with Windows Mobile 6 and Blackjack
2008-01-25 01:21:00
Now that I have had the evening to play around with Windows Mobile 6 on my Samsung Blackjack I have a few impressions. First off the "My Location" feature now works with google maps, it took awhile the first time but it started working and has been working all evening. Second I am really excited about it now works with handsfree link in my RDX, I missed this feature as I had it with my razr in my TSX. Lastly the ability to search the company directory under contacts is kind of cool. I will not get a ton of use out of this as we are a small company, but in a large company I can see how this would be very useful. I have not tried them out yet but you do get the mobile office apps as well. All in all it is a pretty good free update.
More About: Technology , Windows Mobile , Time

Windows Mobile 6
2008-01-24 10:26:00
About 7 months after the promised release by numerous at&t sales associates the Blackjack finally got Windows mobile 6. I upgraded my phone last night but really have not played with it much. You can get the download here.
More About: Personal , Technology , Mobile , Windows Mobile

After Effects 8.0.2
2008-01-23 16:50:00
Adobe released an update for After Effects (8.0.2 Win/Mac) as well as Indesign (5.0.2 Win/Mac) Now After Effects enjoys P2 support just like Premiere.
More About: Adobe

Google Trends
2008-01-22 02:54:00
I remember playing around with google trends awhile back. Penny sent me an email this evening trying to figure out what keywords would be better for a site she was working on, and I remembered about google trends. Basically the way it works is you separate the keywords you want to trend using commas. Google returns the trends (search volume) for those keywords and gives you a nice little graph. A couple I was playing around with boy, girl cat, dog big, little I know these are irrelevant just some interesting information.
More About: Technology , Trends , Google Trends

Something in the air
2008-01-15 19:25:00
Well the rumor sites had it right. Apple today released the MacBook Air. In true apple fashion it has to be "The world's something" it is "The World's Thinnest Notebook" Check out the specs. It is not cheap at $1800 but it is cool. Apple also reduced the price of Apple TV and demo new iPhone software among other things.
More About: Technology

you cannot make this up
2008-01-10 14:49:00
Steven sent this to me last night. I am from Louisiana not far from Houma.
More About: Personal , Make

you cannot make this up
2008-01-10 14:49:00
Steven sent this to me last night. I am from Louisiana not far from Houma. This is very funny.
More About: Personal , Make

Presidential Mnemonic
2008-01-01 16:40:00
My mom for some reason decided to clean out her junk drawer today. She found this Mnemonic to remember all the presidents. It is from her high school days so the last presidents are not included. It needs a new sentence for Jimmy Carter, Ronald Regan, 1st George Bush, Bill Clinton, and 2nd George Bush. Any ideas add a comment. Washington and Jefferson made many a joke. Van Buren has told Polk that fine people break laws. Johnson got his gain and called himself clever. McKinley rode the white horse. Coolidge helped Roosevelt to enjoy knitting jerseys neatly forever.
More About: Personal , Presidential