Mind Swatches (BLOG)

I’ve always been a book person when it comes to learning new software or scripting languages, but for the last month or so I’ve been trying out the online training library from Lynda.com. I started out using it to brush up on the new CS3 versions of Adobe software (and it was great for that), and have since moved on to try to use the site to learn something that I’m not already very familiar with.

At this point I’m hooked - I’m sure I’ll still continue to use books for reference, but for a general overview or to learn what’s new in an app’s latest version, the online video training seems to be the way to go, at least for me. That surprised me a little since I do so horribly in a classroom setting (wandering mind…), but it really does help to see it happening on the screen instead of looking at screen shots or code examples in a book.

Another good video training resource is TotalTraining.com - I’ve used their DVD’s in the past, and have always been very happy with them. Total Training now also offers online video training. I tried both, but ended up subscribing to Lynda.com because of the $25 monthly rate (unless I missed it, you have to pay yearly for Total Training). The apparent downside of the $25 monthly rate is that on Lynda.com, it doesn’t give you access to the example and project file downloads unless you buy the Premium subscription at a $375 annual feel. I don’t mind paying a little more, but I really like paying monthly. I haven’t gone through a video yet that I really wanted the exercise files for, but when I get to that point, I’ll need to come up with plan B.

Anyway, I think I can safely recommend both sites. Now, I just need to decide what to learn next, Flex or Ruby on Rails…

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 6th, 2007 at 12:01 pm by Nate Baldwin and is filed under Nate's Blog, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.