My reading picks

OK, I have to confess that I can’t just read one thing at one time. OK, so I can but not when it comes to technical manuals or sorts.

So if anyone is interested, here is what I am reading right now:

• Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain (Betty Edwards)

• Adobe Photoshop CS2: The No Nonsense Guide! (David Rivers)

• Codin’ for the Web (Charles Wyke-Smith)

• Deliver First Class Web Sites (Shirley Kaiser)

Now I won’t bore you with the finer points of the books and what they are, but you can see that they cover some range…

OK, so I am going to bore you.

I picked Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain to help increase my own confidence in the creativity department. It is the refresher course of sorts for my creative brain. It sometimes seems like it is turning to mush. If you’re into that kind of thing, it isn’t a bad read. Right now we’re still in the psychology of it all. I’ve learn some in that department about my own son (Kyle) and how his brain just works differently. He’s my left handed child.

I picked up the Adobe Photoshop CS2: The No Nonsense Guide! as a refresher course in the finer things on Photoshop. Does one ever truly know everything there is to know about Photoshop? I learn something new OFTEN. This isn’t the most detailed Photoshop book, but it isn’t the worst either. It does a nice general overview of the program and some of its neat things. I was most interested in the parts about blending modes, painting (making it look real), and some of the filtering.

I picked Codin’ for the Web for the general overview of coding for the web. How is that for redundant? In all fairness, its subtitle is: A Designer’s Guide to Developing Dynamic Web Sites and I thought it was going to be something different than it is. Now, don’t get me wrong I am a succor for anything web design so I am devouring even this book. I am hoping to learn an entirely new skill set. Since I am only about 20 pages in, I haven’t learned much yet, but the potential is there. So far it isn’t disappointing and it hasn’t bored me to death yet. I am hoping that it will help me take my web design skills to the next level and bridge the gap that I feel is ever so present. We’ll call it a confidence booster.

I picked Deliver First Class Websites because (again) of the subtitle. Remember that I am a succor for anything web design, so the subtitle: 101 Essential Checklists is guaranteed to catch my attention. *laugh* I have to say that so far I am disappointed in this read as someone who has been doing this for some time. I am still in the first section about “pre-planning” and “planning.” I could probably skip over some of this, skim it at the very least, but I don’t want to miss anything! *blush* I told you I am a succor for web design books. With that being said, I have had something brought to my mind that I should probably work on more with the next projects – creating a “style guide.” I have done it off and on in the past, but nothing consistent and nothing formal. What is the purpose of the style guide? To set up the “standard guidelines” for the site so when you have to refer back to something some 6, 12, 18, or even 48 months later you know what the heck you were thinking/doing when you did it. I know I forget a lot and find myself really frustrated sometimes simply because I can’t remember what the color codes are and the color dropper didn’t yield the same result due to whatever reason and because I can’t remember what the original file was for something. Anyway, we live and learn…hopefully we learn lots along the way.

So there you have it, my reading picks.