Back in issue 46 of Advanced Photoshop we took a look at a great new web service called ohfolio.com. The service has now officially launched and you can see a couple of great artists’ sites by going to http://ohfolio.com/Manuela/ or http://ohfolio.com/samuelgarton/. The service gives you a professional-looking website without any fuss and it’s low cost too. If you want a great site like the examples shown, then take a visit to ohfolio.com.

Roxio has announced the launch of a new web service aimed at families who want to turn photos and videos into multimedia slideshows and shared. Full information is in the press release below, or visit www.roxio.com.

Press release:  

Roxio Launches Online Storytelling Platform
Everything Families Need to Easily Capture and Share Life’s Greatest Moments

1 September 2008 - Roxio®, a division of Sonic Solutions® (NASDAQ: SNIC), the leader in digital media software, has launched Roxio Online with PhotoShow®, a new Web service that enables families to quickly and simply turn their personal photos and video clips into engaging multimedia slideshows that can be shared privately with selected contacts.

Families and others can begin to create unique personal stories that can be shared and enjoyed on PCs, DVDs, TVs, handhelds, and popular social media sites, all through a free subscription available at: http://www.roxio.com/go/online.

Whether it is photos or footage shot during a recent holiday, wedding or other important family event, Roxio Online makes it easy and fun to turn these personal memories into an expressive multimedia slideshow complete with rich special effects and transitions, creative animations and captions, and a professional soundtrack.

“There is nothing more gratifying than being able to share the joys of our lives with the ones closest to us,” said Matt DiMaria, general manager of the Roxio division of Sonic Solutions. “With busy schedules and physical distances, photos and videos play an integral part in how we communicate in today’s digital world. Roxio Online brings families together by not only making it easier than ever to create unique stories to instantly share with relatives across the globe but also by providing a complete storytelling platform that appeals to any memory keeper.”

Consumers can test-drive the service and create PhotoShow presentations for free, and then subscribe to the premium service, which unlocks a host of additional creation and sharing capabilities. Premium subscribers are able to select from over 150 one-click themes that suit any occasion, enhance their story with over 500 animated graphics, add a commentary with more than 40 different title and caption treatments, and then pick the perfect accompanying soundtrack from more than 400 licensed professional music tracks.

To see a visual demonstration of Roxio Online in action visit: http://www.roxioonline.com/watch/iT5Bp3Ag, or to read about the experience of Dave Habiger, Sonic CEO and president, with PhotoShow go to: http://blog.roxio.com/mymoments/2008/08/making_digital_connections.html.

Bringing authors and viewers together, Roxio Online users can create a free web page with channels dedicated to specific events or occasions and share shows with family and friends by embedding final productions in popular sites like MySpace and Facebook or personal blogs such as Blogger. Users can also add a PhotoShow channel to their MSN, Yahoo, or Google pages or to their iTunes Podcast library.

Pricing and Availability
Roxio Online with PhotoShow® is available free of charge. The Roxio Online premium service is priced at £24.99 a year and is available now at http://www.roxio.com/go/online. Users of Roxio’s new Creator 2009 are able to benefit from a special introductory discount during the first month of registration and can purchase the premium service for £19.99 a year.

An option of purchasing a DVD containing your own personalized PhotoShow presentations is also available and is priced at £19.99 each.

Want to find out how good your Photoshop skills are? Then check out the Highlander site, register for free and you can take its 30-minute Photoshop CS3 test. The questions are multiple choice based, and will give your knowledge a thorough testing. For more information, see the press release below or visit the website.

Free Skills Tests
Highlander, the specialist provider of creative and technical training, has released a range of Free online skills tests which people can use either to prepare for professional certification exams or to just generally measure their skills.  These tests are made up of 36 multiple choice questions randomly chosen from a larger pool of hundreds of questions that have been written by Highlander’s team of Adobe Certified Instructors. Candidates get 30 minutes to complete the test, and at the end they will see the results of their test, any recommendations made for additional development, and also have the opportunity to review the questions and see which answers they got wrong.

Tests currently available include Photoshop CS3, InDesign CS3, Illustrator CS3, DreamWeaver CS3, ActionScript 3, Flash CS3, PHP/MySQL and ColdFusion/SQL. Candidates can take each test up to 3 times, but have to leave at least 24 hours between each attempt, and this is a great resource for developing skills, preparing for exams or even measuring the ability of candidates.

To take the free skills tests just visit http://www.highlander.co.uk/free-skills-tests and select the relevant test.  Once you have selected the relevant test you will need to sign up for a free account if this is your first time in the Highlander learning management system, but with only 8 fields to complete this doesn’t even take a minute.  You can then login and take the test.  Good luck!