www.reflectingthedesigner.com

I use iStock if I need to get just the right royalty free picture or image to use for design work. They use a credit system so you can purchase a certain amount of credits for downloading images, audio, or video within a year’s time of when you purchased those credits. Some downloads are worth only 1 credit, while others can be over 30. It depends upon the size and what you want to use it for. You can either buy in bulk at a lower rate, or pay-as-you-go, which I prefer to do. So, for example, I can purchase the lowest option of 18 credits, and use those credits up whenever I feel like it this year.

I was just on their site today purchasing some audio clips to use for someone’s blog. The blog  features children stories which you can read or listen to being read, so I’ve got to do some sound editing over the weekend and see what I can come up with. I still have some credits left with iStock, so I’ll probablly head back over there this weekend to find a few more clips to use. I’ll do a post on the blog I’m working on as soon as the edits are finished.

SiteGrinder has been a dream come true for me! Having a print design background, I needed something that would allow me to have complete control over my web design without having to be an expert on code. Now, learning code is extremely important, but with SiteGrinder, I can put out dynamic sites now without having to wait until I am knowledgeable enough in coding (which could take months to years).

With SiteGrinder (which is a plug-in for Photoshop) I can design a website completely in Photshop taking advantage of the Layer Comp tool to name my pages. SiteGrinder will generate the proper code necessary and put out a beautiful site in no time. Because the design is completely done in Photoshop, you can achieve the exact look and feel that you want without having to beat in your brains trying to add and edit the proper code.

SiteGrinder is also a great tool for those who are experts in code and use Dreamweaver. You can build your site through Photoshop using the SiteGrinder plug-in, then bring those pages into Dreamweaver to further edit the code as much as desired. It will save tons of time, however, and give you the exact look that you designed in Photoshop.

If you are worried about CMS, you can go into the style sheet after you have built a site and label items that you would like to be editable in a CMS system such as Cushy CMS in order to provide further editability to clients without messing up your design.

If you are concerned about SEO, Sitegrinder has fields for meta data descriptions and keywords you can add, and there is always the option of adding external SEO media as desired such as google analytics, etc.

You are almost limitless in what you can add directly through SiteGrinder. Some ideas are the following:

• External media including Flash videos
• Slide shows
• Galleries
• Placeholders for external links and data
• Metadata
• Forms

The part that I especially love about SiteGrinder is their terrific customer service. I got nothing but fast, gracious, and helpful assistance every time I emailed or called the support staff (which was quite a lot at first!) They also have tons of online documents and forums to give you all of the tips and tricks necessary to put out your site fast. So, check them out! You won’t be disappointed.

My husband just recently introduced me to a great, free password security add-on for Firefox called LastPass. It also works in IE and some other browsers as well. It’s called LastPass, and I would definitely recommend that you check it out if you are not currently using something to store your passwords, or if you are unhappy with what you are currently using.

The basics are the following: after you’ve downloaded the add-on (only takes a few moments), LastPass will automatically grab all usernames and passwords that you currently have stored on your browser. After it sucks them all in, it will ask if you want to delete the originals off the computer (which you do because what’s the point of getting LastPass otherwise?). LastPass has a little icon up in the right corner of the browser where you can access all of your information. You’ll just want to make sure to go through the sites that it grabbed off your browser an edit anything that you want to (like auto-login status, favorites, security password, etc.) When you go to any page that requires a log in not already in Last Pass, it will save it for you once you have entered your info. for the first time.

The most important thing to remember about LastPass, however is your main password. You have to come up with a huge multi-character password to start that will be your number one password. All other passwords are safely stored and easily displayed when you need them. The only time you would need the big one is if you want to use LastPass on another computer, or if you want to add an extra security measure to any of your existing sites. So, just make sure to keep it in a safe place as LastPass doesn’t store the biggie.

LastPass has a lot of other nice features, as well  including automatic form fill in. You can enter as many categories as you want to (personal, business, or specifics that you need only for specific sites) and LastPass will automatically fill out the forms for you at the site. So check it out! You can’t beat free!

I would love to purchase Flash right now and begin using it for my web design. I will do this as soon as time and money allow. I can currently create flash output in another tool I have called ProShow Producer, but there is no comparison to Flash itself. Just check out some of the great sites I have listed in my links to see what it can do (links are titled “Amazing Site” and “Cool Site Designed in Flash.” You’ll notice that the sites listed are completely interactive and one even includes games (Frito-Lay site), all of which is done in Flash. So, if you haven’t checked out Flash and all of it’s possibilities, you should definitely do so. It’s at least worth a browse through.

I use a few main adobe products, and I’m dying to learn more when I have the time. I currently have the creative suite, and I use Photoshop ALL the time. I think I mentioned the awesome pluggin that you can use with Photoshop called SiteGrinder. It will allow you to create a site simply with Photoshop. I created my site with it and others.

Anyway, Adobe has you covered no matter what type of design you want to do whether web, video, or print media. I highly recommend them!

Find all current special offers on Adobe products.