Print Graphics versus Web Graphics

When I started teaching Adobe Photoshop, I didn't even know the difference between web and print graphics; but when I had a student tell me that's all he needed to learn from my class, I hit Google.  Sadly, 99% of all my learning comes from Google, sad for me? No, sad for my students who never bothered, or are incapable of using a search engine.  The truth behind print graphics?  Resolution.

Now if you use a program like Adobe Illustrator or Inkcape (use Inkcape, it's better) you can make a vector image (if you use Fireworks, kill yourself) and resolution is irrelevant.  If you don't know how to draw a vector image, the key is to use 300 dpi (dots per inch) or better, and most image programs ask you when you start a new image what resolution to make it.  Photoshop, sadly, isn't as easy as GIMP but just changing the resolution does NOT increase the resolution. If you plan to draw an image from scratch, you can START the image in the right resolution, but drawing the image and THEN increase the resolution will not change a thing.

Drawing a logo? New to logos? Get Inkscape and learnt eh best way.

Leaving Adobe Photoshop

When I started photo editing in 1995 (I was 14 years old), I was intrigued by the programs available: Adobe Photoshop, Paintshop Pro, CorelDRAW.  To be honest, I wanted to own Photoshop but it's greedy nature made me go for the best price to feature choice, PaintShop Pro.  For $99 it was a steal compared to Adobe Photoshop at $600, and I made my use of it for years.  It wasn't until I was able to score a copy of Photoshop from Gamespy as a content writer, that I fell in love with it, just never felt it was worth the price.

Pausing, Stuttering, Freezing, Buzzing Frequently on Dell Inspiron Laptops

Lately, I was trying to check my drivers against the Windows 8.1 update to see if anything had come out I had missed as far as drivers go.  I had, but on the Dell website I was shown a program to help with automatically finding these drivers which I was actually very happy existed, the Dell SupportAssist Agent.  Shortly after I had installed this program, along with all the drivers it helped me acquire, I was plagued with an odd issue. Once, near every minute, I had this odd stutter, as I called it. This stutter was mostly noticeable during a movie or video but it was clear that the entire system froze or hung for a few milliseconds, worrying that the system was degrading. My attempts to record this issue were frivolous as I found the entire system was freezing, not just sound or video.

The solution? Simply uninstalling the Dell SupportAssist Agent as I had learned from a nice article located at the dell forum here.  I would have never guessed the culprit would be Dell's own software but it surely was.  But the software they have for browser based driver detection doesn't seem to be an issue, although it told me I needed a bios update that wasn't even made for my motherboard.  Dell, time to find a new vendor or software team, and if you do use a vendor without using in-house programmers, you have a serious issue.