I’ve been messing around with Google Docs a bit lately and decided to try it for a tutorial I built a while back. The original was built in HTML and took forever. It was a ton of work and after I posted it I found a bunch of errors, which of course was heartbreaking.  I’d put off fixing it for the longest time because it was such a monumental time task.

Last week I was playing around with Google Docs and decided to check out the presentation option.  Rebuilding this tutorial seemed like the perfect guinea pig. It ended up taking me just over an hour and was very simple to figure out (if you’ve ever built a Power Point presentation then you’re all set. If not, don’t worry…  you’ll get the hang of it in no time flat). Google saved me a ton of time, was a piece of cake to use and best of all, I did it all for free. If you haven’t checked out Google Docs yet you can check it out here. If you build something cool and would like to share it please post a link in the comments section. Look forward to seeing what you come up with.

• Click Here to view the tutorial.
• Click Here to download the Super Official Bob Ostrom Studio Adobe Illustrator brushes I used in this tutorial.

Anyhow, I had been muddling along with Safari for a while now and kept meaning to switch back but you know how things go. You get super busy and dealing with the wrong browser is not enough of a speed bump to slow down the work flow. This morning I was up a little early and decided I would take 2 seconds to switch back to Firefox..only when I got there I completely forgot how. What!? Yeah, I know…. that’s what I thought.

Switching browsers is like riding a bike once you know how you never forget …only I did. So that’s why I’m writing this article. If you’re like me and need to put the training wheels back on for a minute here’s a quick 3 step how to switch you default browser tutorial for you.

Step 1: Click on the Safari menu

Step 2: Find the default browser.

Step 3: Pick your new favorite browser. That's it.

Today I finally stopped what I was doing, put my project aside for five minutes and did a little research. Now my colors are in perfect order and I’m twice as fast as I was ten minutes ago. Turns out that rearranging your color palette in CS4 is quite easy. Who knew?

Here’s a quick tutorial on how it works…

Just click on the images below to enlarge or begin a slide show.

[View with PicLens]

The other day as I was jotting down some reminder notes an idea popped into my head. Luckily I was sitting at my computer so I decided to work it up in Adobe Illustrator while everything was still fresh in my mind.

I took a few snap shots as I went to show you how I typically work through the development stage and added my some of my thoughts to the captions. Unfortunately a few of the shots are a little on the small side so the notes below don’t read as well as they could, but I think you’ll get the idea as you go through them… I’ll try to fix those later. Note to self- zoom in, enlarge art, and leave a little white space before taking snapshots.

I’m pretty happy with the look of this one so far but I’ll probably revisit it at a later date and make a few tweaks. Sometimes the ideas go quick (like this one) other times I need to let them rattle around inside my head a little bit before they come out. I’d think I’ll add something a little more cartoon-ish to that space above the type on the right so it looks more like it belongs to the Bob Ostrom Studio family, but that’ll have to wait until I’m finished with my next set of deadlines.

Click on the images below to enlarge…

[View with PicLens]

Here’s a little time saver for you Adobe Illustrator CS users out there. If you’re like me, occasionally you need to convert a bunch of files. Oh sure you could sit there and nurse them through one at a time, but is that really a productive use of your time? No, of course not. Look at you, you’re important, you’re way too busy for that.

So what do you do? You have Adobe do it for you, that’s what. “Really Bob? Adobe will do it for me?!” Yep, its called batch conversion. Here’s how it works…

Let’s say you have a bunch of files you need converted from .AI to .PSD, .TIFF, .JPEG or whatever, Adobe Illustrator CS can do it for you. Just follow the simple steps below and pretty soon you can have Adobe working for you too.

Step 1

Start by creating an Action. Find Action under the Window drop down menu.

Step 2

Once you see the Action menu click new action.

Step 3

Create a name for your Action and hit record. You may also want to select a function key

Step 4

Hey cool…look! There’s our Action. Now select Batch from the drop down menu on the right.

Step 5

Up pops our batch menu. Make sure you select the correct action from the Action drop down menu.

Step 6

Next find the folder you would like to convert and select it. Don’t forget to assign a destination for the converted files.

Step 7

Check once more to make sure everything is assigned properly and click OK. Then sit back and watch the magic.

That concludes this lesson. I hope you’ve found this useful. If you have a great short cut you’d like to share please let me know. I’m always on the lookout for things that will help lighten the work load.