Creative Tip: Visualize Your Website Using a Word Cloud.

Wordle is a fun website that generates word clouds from any text you provide. Word clouds are a visual way of looking at the words used on a website. The image above is a visualization of the words on the front page of the CreativeTechs website. The size and color of each word reflects how frequently it appears in the overall page.

Wordle - Beautiful Word Clouds

If you design websites for a living, Wordle is more than a toy. For copywriters who write for the web, these word clouds provide visual feedback about word choices you might not be aware of. For web designers, a word cloud is a great reminder that Google doesn't care how your site looks.

The full version of this includes a short 7-minute segment from last week's "Google for Graphic Designers" webinar with a demo of Wordle in action:

Full Tip: Visualize Your Website Using a Word Cloud.

Source: We discovered Wordle through a recent post on Debbie Millman's blog about a fascinating Boston Globe feature comparing the words used by the McCain and Obama presidential campaigns.

Tech Tip: Eliminate shadows in Leopard screen grabs.

Three months ago we published two Photoshop actions we developed to clean up shadows in Leopard screenshots when using the command-shift-4 plus spacebar screen capture technique. We received a number of thank-you emails, so those tips must have touched a nerve for some people out there.

The full version of this week's tip features a different approach. A simple terminal command that disables shadows in the screen capture itself:

Full Tip: Eliminate shadows in Leopard screen grabs.

Source: This terminal tip comes from the archives of Mac OS X Hints. We first discovered this hint because of a post on the TUAW blog.

Training: CreativeTechs Online Webinars.

Last Wednesday, I led an online version of our popular Google for Graphic Designers workshop. We've posted a 7-minute video clip from that workshop about keyword clouds. Next week, our Adobe Expert, Jason Hoppe, takes his turn leading an online webinar based on his popular Interactive PDFs workshop. There are three webinars you can still sign up for this month:

Wed, August 13 - Creating Interactive PDFs.
Wed, August 20 - HTML Email Newsletters.
Wed, August 27 - Prepress with PDFs.

Watch this space. Some big training news coming soon!

Your referrals wanted! Referrals from our clients and readers are what keeps CreativeTechs healthy and in business. As a small thank-you, every week we send a Free Mini-Workshop Pass to new Seattle-area subscribers, plus the friend or colleague who referred them:

We've got some changes coming up for our Seattle-area training options. We're holding off with the thank-you cards for the next couple weeks until we post our September schedule.

CreativeTechs Tips is a weekly newsletter for creative professionals who use Macs. It is written by CreativeTechs's founder, Craig Swanson. Each week we publish a fresh mix of left-brain and right-brain tips based on our real world experiences supporting hundreds of creative teams in the greater Seattle area. For a complete archive of previous tips, visit www.creativetechs.com/tips

For IT Professionals supporting Mac users, visit Make Mac Work. This weekly technical blog focuses on IT issues facing Macs in Enterprise environments. It is written by CreativeTechs' lead enterprise engineer, Jordan Bojar. For an archive of previous topics, visit www.makemacwork.com

Your referrals wanted! CreativeTechs relies on word-of-mouth introductions. If you know a Seattle-area creative team who might benefit from our unique expertise providing computer support for creative professionals, please introduce us. We are never too busy for your referrals. Email help@creativetechs.com, or call us at 206-682-4315.

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