Once you've got a web site up and running it is all too easy to sit back and relax. But how do you know you did a good job? How can you improve the site you have based on real user behaviour? Without getting feedback from your users, how will you find out how it's being used? 
Web traffic analysis allows you to gain some insight into your site users: where they come from, what pages they like, and how often they come back. However, as statistics are prone to being misinterpreted, your insight often has to be taken with a pinch of salt. This book takes you through the process of analysing your traffic, without taking for granted the statistics that you generate. 
Assuming you have a web site, reading this book will help you learn: 
- The techniques for gathering data on your users - Standards and Guidelines you should adhere to when interpreting your data - What other sites are doing to ensure they respect the privacy of their users - Insight into how real sites use web traffic analysis - Major case case studies from BBC News Online, eBay, and ASPToday - Additional material from The Onion, SmartGirl, and The New York Times

Practical Web Traffic Analysis: Standards, Privacy, Techniques, and Results

Computers & Technology

Friends of ED

Web Development & Design

Wrox Press

So you've a copy of After Effects and an idea of what this professional motion graphics and effects tool can do...but what can you really do with After Effects? How far can you push it? What are the best effects that you can create? What are the essential skills and techniques that you need to really make your creations stand out? After Effects Most Wanted answers these questions in a refreshing and practical way. Looking at a wide variety of projects the original artists tell you why, and exactly how they created their masterpieces. 
 The authors, all professionals who use After Effects to make a living, share with you the secrets of their successes and extend beyond that to give you the reasons why they did things the way that they did. 
 More so than that, the accompanying CD has their creations available at your fingertips and the simple, step-by-step instructions in the book show you how they created these pieces. 
 The projects covered are diverse, from a television commercial for McDonald's and Coca-Cola by Peter Reynolds, to a thought provoking work by renowned and controversial artist Simon Tsyko, a work featured by Adobe in their motion gallery. 
 Other authors include: Joost Korngold of Renascent and Chris James Hewitt, whose Relokation Ne is the a featured work on the BD4D (By Designers For Designers) web site, Christian Darkin, a digital video journalist and author, and Mark Towse, who offers two pieces, one for TV, one for the cinema. 
 Without long, redundant discussions of tools and application packages, After Effects Most Wanted is a book that delivers the techniques, skills, and effects that will let you bring your creations to life.. 
 "Thanks to After Effects, a good small post-production house can do everything as well as the top Hollywood studio – if you have the relevant skills! There is no longer a technology barrier, working in DV. This means that we are going for absolute top level quality, and let's face it – if it looks good enough, the sky's the limit!" Mark Towse

After Effects Most Wanted

Christian Darkin

Chris James Hewitt

Joost Korngold

Programming

friends of ED

Creating web designs and site content in Macromedia Flash MX can be a lot of fun, but there are always tasks that you'll want to do again and again. It's always a bit of a hassle to have to keep recreating and tweaking the same old content or functionality in different projects, so why can't you just reuse what you've created? With components, you can do just that! 
Flash MX Components enable the creation of self-contained design building blocks that can be simply dragged and dropped into any Flash movie. They are flexible enough to be easily customized to take care of many different tasks. No fuss, no bother - you can repurpose the standard elements of your design, application, or game, and use them over and over again. 
But wait, it gets better! Components can be used by anyone, not just the person who created them. So in this book, we’ve done all the hard work for you and collected together the Most Wanted components that will make your life easier. 
In this book (and on the CD) you’ll find a perfect combination of creative and functional components from some of today’s leading Flash designers and developers. Just look at the fantastic components you get: 
- Event Calendar - David Doull - Text Editor - Josh Dura - XML News Ticker - Jon Steer - Tool Tip - Brandon Williams - Sketchpad - Steve Young - Video Player - Jen DeHaan - Image Scroller - Brian Monnone - Pattern Generators - Paul Prudence - TabControl - Jeremy Larkin - Sliding Panel - Todd Marks - ColorPicker - Jeremy Larkin - Game Player Selector - Todd Coulson - Particle Emitter - Jared Tarbell - Layout Manager - Michael Montagna - Data Grid - Daryn Nakhuda - Movie Loader - Aral Balkan - Image Modulators - Lifaros - XML-to-ActionScript Converter - Mike Pearce - Virtual 3D Trackball - James Palmer - Text Animations - Todd Yard - Dynamic Text Manager - Peter Elst 
Each of these components is included on the accompanying CD, ready to incorporate within your designs, along with plenty of example files giving practical demonstrations of their use. On top of that, each chapter in this book presents a comprehensive designer-oriented guide that will help you to get the most out of using all of the featured components. 
If you’re a Flash designer, of any ability from novice to professional, this book will increase the power of your Flash designs and enhance your project workflow – instantly!

Macromedia Flash MX Components Most Wanted: Ready Made Drag 'n' Drop Design Solutions (with CD ROM)

Jen DeHaan

Paul Prudence

Aral Balkan

Todd Coulson

If you've dabbled with Flash and want to expand your repertoire, this book will teach you what you need to know about ActionScript in a fast-paced tutorial style. The ActionScript language is becoming an increasingly vital part of every Flash designer's toolkit, but it can seem like a scary prospect for the non-programmer. We'll show you how easy it is to create interesting, interactive movies in Flash MX through visual metaphors and worked examples. 
 The aim is to get you up to speed quickly, giving you the skills you need to add extra functionality and control to your Flash movies. By the time you're finished, you should have a good grasp of the core ActionScript concepts and techniques, and plenty of ideas for your own projects. 
 No previous programming experience is required, just a familiarity with the Flash MX interface, and even the most code-phobic reader should find the learning curve to be smooth and easy.

ActionScript Zero to Hero

Glen Rhodes

This book provides the richest and most solid introduction to the exciting world of Flash applications, which are becoming increasingly popular as ways of presenting visually rich interfaces to useful data and services. The book supplies you with the knowledge, techniques, and skills that you need to help you plan, develop, and build Flash-based applications that you can deploy on the Web. In true Foundation series style, this book uses step by step exercises and a running case study to build the skills that you can then apply to any Flash application you create. The emphasis in this book is on the generic skills and approaches that are essential in this field, rather than on shallow walk-throughs of trivial projects. You'll come away from this book with a deeper understanding of the issues (architectural, technical, process-related, design-oriented) that are key to developing successful Flash applications for the Web.

Foundation Flash MX Applications

Steve Webster

99 Phenomenal Digital Photo Tricks: Crazy Fun with People & Places (US English)

friendsofED

Photoshop 7 is the professional image-editing standard. With tools and output options to allow you to produce the highest quality images for print, the Web, and anywhere else. It's a complex tool, and with such complexity and freedom come questions: how, where, why? 
Photoshop 7 Zero to Hero, cuts to the chase, you'll quickly learn how to do professional-quality photo retouching, prepare your work for print, or simply use its filters and effects to create whatever you desire. Pro-standard output such as magazine covers and optimized Web graphics are taught clearly and quickly.
Whether you've never used an image manipulation program before, or this is just your first encounter with Photoshop, this book will take you further, faster. 
Zero to Hero is more than a catchy slogan and an opportunity for puns and graphical representations of tights, capes, and phone booths. It's a style of learning designed by friends of ED to reach beyond dry technical explanations and dusty old authors who don't know how it is for real users and wouldn't know good design if it slapped them round the face with a wet fish.
With a Zero to Hero book you can choose how you learn. You can choose to learn everything you need to know about Adobe Photoshop 7 by working through the first section of the book from start to finish. Alternatively you can dive straight in to the inspirational 'Hero' chapters and refer back as and when you need. Then later, when you're a hero yourself, the book is easily used as a reference tool. 
And when you're done you'll be ready to wear your underwear on the outside, metaphorically speaking of course.
And if you get stuck, our support heroes are just an e-mail away. With all books from friends of ED - our support is fast, friendly and free. All friends of ED authors help with the support on their books, and will either directly e-mail people with answers, or send their response to an editor to pass on. 
Information and Inspiration. Speed and Support. We'll not only unlock the toolset for you, we'll feed your imagination and that's a promise. So, what are you waiting for?

Photoshop 7: Zero to Hero

Software

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