Earlier today,  Sitepoint announced the giveaway of a well-written book by Corrie Haffly, titled “The Photoshop Anthology.”  All that’s needed is an e-mail address.  After about 10 minutes I was e-mailed a download link which is accessible for up to 30 days.  The book is in PDF format, and available in two resolutions.  Sizes are 64MB for the high-res and 23MB for the low-res, in case bandwidth is an issue (does that even matter these days?)

The download is sponsored by Sitepoint’s affiliate, 99designs.

If you’d like to take advantage of the offer, click on the image below to pay a visit.  It wouldn’t help to browse the site for a few Photoshop tips, either.

Adobe® AIR™ is slowly becoming the next big thing for developers. It is a platform that uses already developed web techniques like Ajax, Flex, and Flash to create desktop applications that work across all operating systems. Many sites like AOL, Finetune, eBay, Nasdaq, Pownce, and Nickelodeon have already taken advantage of this new technology.

I am currently using the Pownce application which allows you to share content and see what others have shared with you without the use of a browser. On top of it being covenant, Adobe® AIR™ allows you to design outside the standard Windows window design. As you can see in my screenshot of the Pownce program to the left.

There are a ton of programs that are being developed for the Adobe® AIR™ platform. Check out the application showcase to see if there are any programs that might interested you. Some popular websites like Twitter, Digg, Google, and Flickr have some great third party designed applications. The main applications I use currently are Pownce, Twitter, and Digg.

I am currently looking for someone to help me develop a ToBeAGeek.com RSS reader. If you have experience working with Adobe® AIR™ and are interested please contact me.

Related Links

-Get the free AIR SDK
-Download Adobe AIR now
-Get Adobe AIR applications

I first heard about this program on the TWiT Podcast. It sounded pretty interesting so I decided to check it out. It is currently in private beta mode; this means you have to get invited to use it. After my invite came I installed the Windows XP version of the program which also installed a Firefox button.

This program allows you to make notes in many different ways and share it across platform and hardware. You can make a note in a Windows Vista machine and view that same note on your iPhone with one click of the synchronize button. It works with Windows XP/Vista, Mac OS X, Windows Mobile, iPhone (currently a web application, but soon to be an on phone application), and Blackberry OS (coming soon.)

I use this program daily, anytime I see a interesting article I would like to remember, or need to finish reading later, I don’t bother adding it to my, already bloated, favorites in Firefox. I just clip it into Evernote and save it. Then when I get home it is on my desktop, and if I am on a public computer I can also get to it through Evernote.com.

I save news articles, contact information, images, and even full web pages. It takes a lot to impress me when it comes to computer software, but this is one of the most useful programs I have ever come across.

Evernote has a few different ways of clipping information. I have attached screenshots of the ones I use the most. Above you can see what it looks like when you highlight a specific section of a web page and then click the clip button. It includes links, images, and general formatting.

The next way of clipping content is to take a screen capture and paste it directly into Evernote instead of having to hassle with an imagining program.

One of the greatest functions of this program is the image indexing. What I mean by image indexing is that when you add an image to Evernote, it will scan the image looking for readable text, and then it will index it into a search friendly manner. Click the image above for the large version of the screenshot and you will see I searched for “To Be A Geek” in the search box and it highlighted where it says To Be A Geek in the image. This function works very well but it is not perfect. Sometimes not all the text in the image is indexed. I know Evernote is really trying to develop this area of the program.

Video Tour of Evernote
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_ncr1Ee9e8]

Evernote Links
Official Site: http://www.Evernote.com
Official Blog: http://blog.evernote.com/
Request a Invitation: http://evernote.com/about/prereg/

Private Beta Invitation Offer
Evernote has graciously hooked us up with a select number of invitations, and I will give them out on a first-come first-serve basis. Please use out Contact Us form to submit a request. Make sure to put “Evernote Invite” in the subject line when sending your request. Please use the comment section below to request a Invite.