Sabra Duffiney

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I have been wanting to start another blog about the musical things that are in my life.  There are 3 things that I love the most and they are my Family, Technology and Music!  The more I have been digging into different styles of music and how it is created, the more I realize that Modern Technology and Music are falling into step with each other.

Some of the greatest songs that are coming out today are technology driven.  Auto-tune is a proprietary audio processor which artists such as T-Pain, Uncle Cracker and Maroon 5 have used in their songs.  Synthesizers are an electronic instrument that is able to produce a variety of sounds by generating and combining signals of different sound frequencies.  Even drums can come in Electronic Form with sound kits and more – Roland V-Drums are a great example.

With all of this technology in today’s music and yesterday’s too, I just can’t figure out any good reason to start a whole new blog.   In turn, I will be integrating more of my musical experiments into this blog and keeping you updated not only on Computer tips and tricks, but also Technology in Music tips and advice!  Keep checking back for a broader spectrum of topics coming soon!

I was messing around with some photos of my daughter today in Photoshop.  I enjoy playing with images, the little ‘accidents’ that happen can sometimes teach you a lot.  I am not a graphics designer, never will I claim to be.  I am still learning how to do more with Photoshop since switching to a Mac from a PC.  There are so many little things that are different.

As I was blending and brushing out the kool-aid from her lip I thought “This is the perfect image to lay out on a background”.  So, I grabbed a snowy mountain scene and laid her face on top of it.  This is the cool part, and I have no idea how I did it.  I will soon figure out how to replicate this action.  She went from being a full on image to a ghost.

Facebook made some huge changes about a year ago that truly turned their site around. Prior to these changes, Facebook was more for people that were trying to connect to old school buddies. Then it became a site for people to connect without so much of a college influence and has gained upwards of 3 million users.

Well, after everyone flocked to the new user interface on Facebook, they changed their tune again. Unlike MySpace, Facebook decided to surprise all of the users with these “Grand new changes”. When MySpace changed their user interface, they gave the users a choice to switch to the new, or to stay with the old. The users of Facebook had no warning, and no clue that everything they were used to was about to change. Usually change takes time to adjust to, whether it is a change in a life situation or it is a website that changed a bunch of stuff.

What do you think? Are they good changes? Are they changes that should be reverted? Should Facebook leave well enough alone and change it back, or should they stick to their guns? Should we trust the developers of Facebook a bit more to be actually moving toward improvements, or do you think that the management doesn’t know what the users really want?

I have been asked many times, “How do you make those cool graphics that look like slide shows?”  Well, if you have Adobe Photoshop, then you have found the answer.  If you don’t have Photoshop, you can purchase it here.

1. Open Photoshop CS3

2. Click on the ‘File’ menu button  from the top menu bar.

3. Select ‘Scripts’ > ‘Load Files Into Stack…’

4. Click the ‘Browse’ button and select your images.

5. When you have selected all of the frames or images that you want to load into this animated gif, click the ‘OK’ button.

6. Once the file is finished loading the layers, select the ‘Window’ menu button from the top menu bar.

7. Click the ‘Animation’ option in the ‘Window’ drop down menu.

8.  Click the icon that looks like  and select ‘Make Frames From Layers’

9. Please take note:  there are 2 different views of this step, you need to be in the frame view.  To be sure that you are in this view, make sure the icon in the lower right corner of the Animation window looks like

10. Set the time on each frame by clicking the down arrow below each frame image in the Animation window.

11.  You can test the speed by clicking play at the bottom of this window.

12.  Once satisfied with the speed settings, go to the ‘File’ drop down menu at the top of CS3 and click on ‘Save For Web and Devices’

13.  Make sure in your save settings, it is saving as a gif file or your animations will not work.

14.  If the file size is too big, check your save settings for unnecessary additions, remove them and continue save.

Here is my finished example:

I have been looking around for deals on Adobe® products so I could upgrade my version of CS3 for CS4, and have come across some pretty awesome deals from Adobe®. I found a page on the Adobe site that has all kinds of deals.

The first one of interest is where you can save 30% on the purchase of a full or upgrade version of Adobe Photoshop® Lightroom® 2 software along with a full or upgrade version of any CS4 edition. I recommend this product to anyone who is trying to use Photoshop with their camera.

You can also save $20 on Photoshop Elements 8 or Premiere Elements 8 with a mail-in rebate or save $30 on Photoshop Elements 8 & Premier Elements 8 with a mail-in rebate. These are 2 pretty good deals, the down side is you have to wait for the check to come in the mail.

One more in store here where you can save $20 instantly. When you purchase the full version of Photoshop Elements 8 for Mac or Photoshop Elements 8 for Windows® along with a full or upgrade version of Acrobat® 9 Pro Extended, Acrobat 9 Pro, or Acrobat 9 Standard, you can save the $20. This seems like a great deal for someone who has not purchased Elements in the past.

So a client wants to preview the changes that I just made to a site, and they browse but don’t see the changes. What happened to all that work?

First things are first – did the file get saved and uploaded to the site properly? Yes, so then what? My next question is always “W Most times, they have no idea what private data is or at the least, have no idea that it is affecting their preview.

What is a Cache?  Here’s what Wikipedia has to say:

In computer science, a cache (“cash”) is a collection of data duplicating original values stored elsewhere or computed earlier, where the original data is expensive to fetch (owing to longer access time) or to compute, compared to the cost of reading the cache.

In other words, a cache is a storage area where data that is accessed a lot is stored for faster loading time and/or quicker access to things.  In a way, it’s your browser’s memory and can hold old/out dated versions of things unless it is properly maintained.   Every browser has this feature and it is enabled by default, but clearing it is not.  This must be done manually.

How do you clear your browsing data?  Depending on your browser type, follow the instructions below.

1. Internet Explorer (IE)

2. Mozilla FireFox

This ‘How To is designed to help you clear your Internet Explorer (IE) cache only.

If this is not your browser click here.

1.  Open Internet Explorer (IE)

2.  Click on the ‘Tools’ drop down menu.  This can be located either at the top of the page (*2a) near the ‘File’ drop down or at the right of your page (*2b) near the ‘Safety’ or ‘Page’ drop down.

2a

2b

3.  Select the ‘Internet Options’ from the Drop Down.

4.  Within the ‘General’ tab, find the section that is titled ‘Browsing History’.

5.  Click the ‘Delete…’ button (*5a).

5a

6.  You want to make sure that the following is checked:  Temporary Internet files, Cookies, History, Form Data and InPrivate Filtering Data.

7.   Click the ‘Delete’ button.

Once these actions are performed, you can close out of your ‘Internet Options’ window and continue browsing.

This ‘How To is designed to help you clear your Mozilla FireFox cache and Private Data only.

If this is not your browser click here.

1. Open Mozilla FireFox

2. Click on the ‘Tools’ drop down menu. This is located either at the top of the page (*2a) near the ‘File’ drop down.

2a

3. Select the ‘Clear Private Data..’ or ‘Clear Recent History..’ (depending on version) from the Drop Down.

4. When the box comes up, you want to make sure that the following is checked: Browsing History, Saved Form and Search History, Cache, Cookies and Offline Website Data. If there is a time range available, select ‘Everything’.

5. Click the ‘Clear Private Data Now’ button.

Once these actions are performed, the window will automatically close and you can continue browsing. Please note that you will need to sign in again to any sites that you were signed into prior to clearing your cache.