Gadgets and Digital Lifestyle

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Minecraft Basics: Nov 25, 2014; Learn the basics of Minecraft, including crafting basics, the lay of the land, world-generated structures, and critters and creatures, in this excerpt from The Visual Guide to Minecraft: Dig into Minecraft with this (parent-approved) guide full of tips, hints, and projects!.

Minecraft in Education—Why?: Nov 6, 2014; If you ask teachers around the world why they use Minecraft, they might come up with a wide array of answers. Colin Gallagher lists his reasons in this chapter from Minecraft in the Classroom: Ideas, inspiration, and student projects for teachers.

Minecraft Modding Is Easier Than You Think: May 14, 2015; If you've played Minecraft and heard that players can add custom modifications ('mods') to the game, you might be curious about creating your own mods. Walter Higgins, author of A Beginner's Guide to Writing Minecraft Plugins in JavaScript, offers some encouraging words and simple examples to help you get started. Even if you're not a programmer, adding small Minecraft mods is pretty easy when you follow these directions.

Misunderstood Photoshop: Blend If: Jan 19, 2007; Helen Bradley explores Blend If, a smart Photoshop blending tool that can be used to knock out an object from its background or to blend two images. The article also includes a video tutorial so you can easily follow along.

Misunderstood Photoshop: Channels: May 18, 2007; In the eighth part of her series on handy Photoshop tools that are often overlooked or misunderstood, Helen Bradley discusses channels, a feature that not only provides information about your image but can also be used for photo editing. You learn how to use channel data to convert an image to black and white and even how to save a selection in a channel for reuse later on.

Misunderstood Photoshop: Paths: May 25, 2007; In the ninth article in her series on handy Photoshop tools that are often overlooked or misunderstood, Helen Bradley looks at paths, which is a useful Photoshop tool for working with and saving selections. Although working with paths brings you into contact with the sometimes complex Pen tool, the combined power of these two tools makes them important additions to your Photoshop skill set.

Misunderstood Photoshop: The Apply Image Command: May 4, 2007; Photoshop's Apply Image command is a tool for blending two images or layers. You can use it to apply masked borders to images and to create interesting collage effects. It's also one of the quickest ways of creating a mask from an image. Helen Bradley explains the basics of using the Apply Image feature in Photoshop.

Misunderstood Photoshop: The Gradient Map Tool: Apr 6, 2007; Helen Bradley continues her "Misunderstood Photoshop" series with some examples of the interesting effects you can create with Photoshop's Gradient Map tool. This tool easily converts color images to black-and-white, or colorizes grayscale or color images in a flash!

Misunderstood Photoshop: The History Brush: Jan 5, 2007; Photoshop's History Brush is great for fixing those little "oops" moments when you've messed up an image, but it also lets you use previous states of the image to create new effects. Helen Bradley shows why the History Brush should be a valued member of your Photoshop toolkit in this article and video tutorial.

My Life, Your Life, Apple iLife '05: Jul 22, 2005; With iLife '05, Apple bundles a suite of tools for the creative and the imaginative. If you want to flex your creative muscles, join Matthew David to see how iLife can work in your life.

New iOS 8 Keyboard Features: Streamlined Typing, Keyboard Swapping, Smileys for Everything: Jul 7, 2015; The digital keyboard in iOS devices has always been pretty functional for most purposes. But you want more, right? Lisa Spangenberg, co-author of The iPad 2 Project Book, shares the new keyboard features in iOS 8. Need a Klingon keyboard? No problem.

Nikon D7100: The Professional Modes: Jul 19, 2013; If you really want to take that next step in controlling your photography, it is essential that you understand not only how to control aperture and shutter speed, but why you are controlling them. John Batdorff explores the modes of the Nikon D7100, including Programmed Auto Mode, Shutter Priority Mode, Aperture Priority Mode, and Manual Mode.

Online Community Handbook: Member Recruitment: Mar 26, 2009; Learn some ways that you can design your community and website to be user magnets, attracting traffic while you sit back and watch the population grow. Also learn how to run successful recruitment campaigns and how to convert casual website visitors into loyal members.

Organize and Refine Your Photos in iPhoto: Aug 25, 2006; When you start taking lots of digital photos of all the different events in your life, you'll want to keep them organized. Just as with traditional photography, you can create albums of digital photographs. One important difference is that digital albums are a lot more powerful. In this lesson, you'll learn the basics of organizing your collection into albums in iPhoto and making those photos look as good as can be, ultimately leading up to sharing them with friends and family.

Organize Your Images With iPhoto: Dec 29, 2006; There are two types of people when it comes to photos. First are the Martha Stewart types who manage to organize every picture into precious handmade albums constructed of used tissues and old grocery bags. Then there are the rest of us, who dump our pictures in a box, and that's if we remember to develop the film in the first place. In this chapter, Adam Engst focuses on iPhoto's organizational features. Some require a little effort, but even with no work, your digital photo collection will be far better organized than the box in the closet.

OS X Mountain Lion: Game Center for Playing with Friends: Jul 26, 2012; Game Center is an app that manages your collection of Mac games, keeping track of them and giving you an easy way to boast about your prowess to others. But it’s much more than that. Use Game Center to connect with friends, and see what games they’re playing and how well they are doing. In this excerpt from OS X Mountain Lion: Peachpit Learning Series, Lynn Beighley shows you how to use it.

OtterBox for iPod: Armor Plating for Your Music: May 19, 2006; Is the OtterBox for iPod worthy of its "waterproof, dustproof, dirtproof, sandproof, and drop-proof" claims? And is it a viable case for everyday use? Dustin Sullivan puts one to the test.

Peachpit Exclusive: Interview with Legendary Computer and Photography Book Author Scott Kelby: Feb 19, 2008; In this exclusive interview, bestselling Photoshop and technology book author Scott Kelby speaks with Peachpit Publisher Nancy Aldrich-Ruenzel about being the top-selling computer book author for the fourth straight year, making the transition from podcast to television, his latest book projects, his photography equipment, his workflow, and much, much more.