On Tue, 19 Dec 2006 12:08:23 -0800, "Little Juice Coupe" wrote:

No but people won't by the products because they tired of the same old lame comedy. He needs to cover the material and get on with it instead of pretending his at a comedy club doing standup.

Well, it's always impressive to encounter an ego that's inflated enough to speak comfortably on behalf of "people" as a whole. Meanwhile on THIS planet I did a quick scan of my local bookseller's web site. They have 23 (current) McClelland titles on PS and other subjects, which obviously doesn't count ones that he's written in the past and which are out of print. Now there are two possibilities here; one is that a hell of a lot of "people" actually like and enjoy his style (and get a lot out of his content) and therefore keep buying his products. (Despite there being a significant number of other PS authors around as alternatives.) The other is that the publishers keep pouring money into producing books that aren't selling just to piss you off. If I had to put money on one of those options, I know which one it'd be.

As a purchaser of a couple of his books as well as his TT CS2 series, I find his style of humour less effective in writing than it is in the videos where his innate "personableness" really shines through. And yet even with that encumbrance, "people" keep buying the books, it would seem. Funny, that.

As for "getting on with it", you accuse Duncan of being a troll and never having seen the material that he's commenting on; I'm wondering if you've seen any of Deke's. Yes, he makes some lame (indeed, cheerfully and proudly lame) puns from time to time. However with the exception of the intros to each group of lessons in the TT CS2 series, which can be skipped by the humour-impaired, these are mostly in the nature of an aside. The vast, indeed overwhelming amount of the content is straight "this is what can be done, this is how you do it, and this is how to do it more easily" hands-on work.

Scot Kelby is the same way with Photoshop TV. He thinks he is so funny and cute and all he is a drag down for the show and serious people around him.

Can't say that I've seen him. But like Deke, he may just be aiming at an audience which HAS a sense of humour.

As for training TT never had a strangle hold. They weren't even the first ones. They are however the best. I have seen Lynda.com's products and I can't say I am impressed.

And again this comes back to the point that what they've had in the PAST may not be what they have in the FUTURE. In regard to their past products, and with the important qualification that this is based only on the samples I've seen, I probably agree with you. For example Paint Shop Pro X came with a large collection of Lynda QuickTime videos. Now they weren't BAD... but nor were they, IMHO, exceptionally good. The presenter stuck her personality in neutral (which you may appreciate what with learning new skills being a Very Serious Business and all), but I found that it made the videos much more tedious. You could also tell that she was largely just reading a script from the hesitations and flatness of the presentation. Deke, on the other hand, certainly works from a script, but you can tell that he just uses it as a framework to hang his lessons from. Rather than a "talking from the lectern" experience (which was the feeling I got from the PSP X videos, or at least the ones that I watched before jumping to CS2), watching one of Deke's lessons is like sitting down with the neighbourhood guru who's giving you some "one on one" instruction. And there are more subtle things as well; things which probably escape notice unless someone's really looking for them. McClelland seems to put a lot of effort into selecting his examples; he seems to pick ones which allow him to demonstrate various aspects of the features that he's demonstrating. A less skilled presenter will just find the first picture that will allow them to cover the main points. This is something that's part art, part skill and part experience. And again, it's the skill and experience of the presenter / author, not of the production company.

Even if you leave the production quality and
distribution methods aside they just don't cover the subjects very well. They seem to be more concerned with covering a little bit of everything instead of a couple things really well. They also charge too much for their stuff, considering the quality, distribution method, how the stuff is installed and used and how un in-depth it is.

The example CS3 clips on the Lynda site seem to have production quality every bit as good as the TT CS2 series. As for price... we'll have to wait and see. As for distribution method... I don't really want an on-line experience since I work unconnected a lot of the time, but it's clear from Arnor's post that other people have different wants. However the fact remains that you can still get the Lynda material on disk, just as you can get the TT courses, and I'm at a loss to see how there's a difference in that respect. Indeed, by offering the streaming content as an alternative Lynda seems to have one up on TT for people who do want to do it that way. Aside from which, if I had my 'druthers I prefer QuickTime over the format of TT's ones anyway. One big advantage of the PSPX QuickTime .mov's is that I could just launch the one that I wanted from Windows Explorer. Less muss, less fuss.

Put simply, my feeling is still that having McClelland in the fold is going to make a HELL of a lot of difference to the desirability of the Lynda CS3 course versus the desirability of the TT one. At least, for *MANY* people given on his popularity as demonstrated above. Your own personal mileage is entitled to vary, and if you don't like McClelland's stuff, hey, don't buy it. I suspect that he'll still have more than enough who will to keep bread on his table.

"Alan K." wrote in message

On Mon, 18 Dec 2006 10:30:09 -0800, "Little Juice Coupe" wrote:

So so for them. One problem with Deke is that like Jim Carry once you saw his comedy you saw everything he had.

Which unfortunately misses a rather relevant point... he's not a comedian by trade. No-one buys his products purely for the entertainment value. They buy them because the guy knows his sh*t inside and out and has a way of cutting through and presenting a subject in a brilliantly accessible manner. The light-heartedness that he injects into it is merely the cherry on the cake (for those with a sense of humour at least), not the cake itself.

Duncan

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