Absolute beginner: Artistic (Chalk/Charcoal) Brush

First of all I apologize for this silly question; I am an absolute beginner (minus absolute) in Illustrator. I would have googled my problem but I don't even know what to google, to be honest. Here it is:
I drew a heart and would like to stroke it with a charcoal/chalk brush. I use a Wacom Intuos 4 tablet. When I stroke it (by selecting the path and clicking on the different brush samples in the brush library) the line "imitates" gesture drawing and does not stroke my shape with a unified (weight) line. Instead, it leaves a break between the end of my path and the end of the "gesture stroke. (The same thing happens with straight lines too: the stroke does not go up to the end of the line and often it does not start at the beginning of it.) I would also like it to be the same weight all along and not to get thinner in the end. Here is a picture of what I mean:
I know it is something really really basic but I can't figure out how to change this. Any help would be highly appreciated. And again, sorry for this absolute beginner question.

The path contains no data relating to your pressure or pen angle. It is just a uniform path. I’m not sure why Illustrator is not starting or ending at that point. It may be because the rectangular bounding box on the brush would overlap itself there. See what happens if you click on the point with the knife tool.
Here I used a Zapf Dingbats heart and converted to paths. On he left, the unmodified path. On the right, the path after clicking with the knife tool. This makes it an open path. You can still fill it if you want.

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Absolute Beginner needs help

I've had my 30 GB color video iPod for a few hours, and feel totally lost.
I was able to connect it to my iMac, and the computer used iTunes to synch everything.
How do you turn it on or off? How do you stop it from playing music?
How do you set it up, or use the wheel to select stuff?
This is all very basic stuff, and I couldn't find the info in the help files or in this discussion forum.
Am I just plain dense?

To stop the iPod from automatically syncing with iTunes when you connect the iPod to the computer you will need to change some preferences.
Connect the iPod to the computer and then stop the iPod from syncing. While the iPod is still in iTunes i.e is still in the left column (sometimes it ejects the iPod when you stop it from syncing don't ask me why : /)
I will assume that you have the latest iTunes (if not you will eventually need to download it anyway) so all you will have to do is click on the iPod in the left column and click on the "Manually manage music and videos" box. Now you will have to drag songs/videos/playlists to the iPod.
To turn off your iPod simply hold the play button until it sleeps. Then you can put it on hold so it wont turn on accidently.
To select stuff... as in selecting a specific song? then navigate to the prefered song listing (songs or playlists artists etc) using the center button (sorry if this sounds obvious but you did say absolute beginner :P)
To stop a song selection from playing just push previous until you have gone past the first song. there may be easier ways but unless your playing 4000 songs its not very time-consuming
Hope this helps you out a bit look forward to some feedback and quires
This is probably covered in the links provided by b noir but this is just to focus on the specifics of your questions.
MP 2GHz 1GB RAM 2X 160HD X1900XT 24" LCD Mac OS X (10.4.8) PM G4 (Digital Audio) 1 GB Ram, Firewire/USB PCI card, Extra 2x 60GB HD

General questions from an absolute beginner

Dear all,
my employer would like to have me set up an online help for our software product. Since I am in the process of converting the current documentation to FrameMaker I have lightly issued the idea to use RoboHelp since we have the technical communications suite 2... I am saying "lightly" because I am freaking out a bit ever since I have tried getting into it, needless to say I have not been very successful and I was not able to find any "classroom in a book"-like help. I didnt find the Adobe help section for RoboHelp very... helpful, I just felt overwhelmed with all the information i didn't feel I needed at the point I was at. Is there a step by step documentation of some sorts for the absolute beginner who does not even have any xml or html skills worth mentioning (I am not sure to what extend those might be needed)?
Also from an advanced user's point of view, how developed will my html/xml skills have to be in order to really understand and get the best of this program? Depending on this I might or might not be able to book a class but it won't be of any use if i need skills I dont have (yet) in order to even understand the program. In the worst case I might have to do some research on alternatives, although I feel stupid, since the tool is available and im not sure if better alternatives would be easier to use as well...
I am happy for any advice, thank you!

Hi Jeff,
right now the problem is more "Getting Started" and im sure once I am at the point where I need to import the FM content this will be a helpful suggestion! But for now I was more wondering on whether there was a step-by-step thingy to help me get into it to begin with and whether i need a lot of xml/html to use RoboHelp...

Best absolute beginner book

Hi eveyrone,
I need opinions here... I would like to know what the best ABSOLUTE beginner book would be, for Java - in your opinion. I've been messing with Java for the past couple days.. and haven't got very far.
I have used Visual Basic in the past. I do not know C/C++.
Thanks for the opinions!
-Jonzo

There's no absolute best. A lot of it depends on the individual's style, etc.
All of the following should be decent. Check them out and find out which ones work best for you.
Sun's basic Java tutorial
Sun's New To Java Center. Includes an overview of what Java is, instructions for setting up Java, an intro to programming (that includes links to the above tutorial or to parts of it), quizzes, a list of resources, and info on certification and courses.
http://javaalmanac.com. A couple dozen code examples that supplement The Java Developers Almanac.
jGuru. A general Java resource site. Includes FAQs, forums, courses, more.
JavaRanch. To quote the tagline on their homepage: "a friendly place for Java greenhorns." FAQs, forums (moderated, I believe), sample code, all kinds of goodies for newbies. From what I've heard, they live up to the "friendly" claim.
Bruce Eckel's Thinking in Java (Available online.)
Joshua Bloch's Effective Java
Bert Bates and Kathy Sierra's Head First Java.

An absolute beginner

Hello,
I'm an absolute beginner. I work in the Windows 2000 Professional environment. I downloaded J2SDK1.4.0_01 but I cannot run HelloWorldApp. After typing
javac HelloWorldApp.java
in the command line I only get another prompt (after delay of some secs).
I downloaded and installed the program in the default folder j2sdk1.4.0_01. I also added the path
;C:\>j2sdk1.4.0_01\bin; in the Control Panel\System\Advanced\Environment Variables\System Variables\Path.
After typing
javac -verbose HelloWorldApp.java
I get the following message answer:
[parsing started HelloWorldApp.java]
[parsing completed 161ms]
[loading C:\J2SDK~1.0._0\jre\lib\rt.jar(java/lang/Object.class]
[loading C:\J2SDK~1.0._0\jre\lib\rt.jar(java/lang/String.class]
[checking HelloWorldApp]
[loading C:\J2SDK~1.0._0\jre\lib\rt.jar(java/lang/System.class]
[loading C:\J2SDK~1.0._0\jre\lib\rt.jar(java/io/PrintStream.class]
[loading C:\J2SDK~1.0._0\jre\lib\rt.jar(java/io/FilterOutputStream.class]
[loading C:\J2SDK~1.0._0\jre\lib\rt.jar(java/io/OutputStream.class]
[wrote HelloWorldApp.class]
[total 4056ms]
C:\>
I also didn't find any HelloWorldApp.class file.
Any suggestion would be appreciated. I have to run this file in two days!!!

you compile with the -d directive, which indicatesthat the class file should be sent to the directory
you specify after the -d switch.
If your doing neither of these, your .class file
should be in the directory you compiled from.
Remember that when you run your application, you
should be running "java HelloWorldApp" not "java
HelloWorldApp.class", and that it is case sensitive,
so "java helloworldapp" will not work.Thanks very much limeybrit9! Though HelloworldApp.class still does not appear in the original directory. However, I created a new directory and I tried luckily and succeded to use the -d switch after which I specified the new directory. HelloWorldApp.class appeared in the new directory. And I could run it and it worked! Piece of cake, ha? Just kidding...
Thank you again,
Igor

Absolute beginner to java

hi everyone
i am an absolute beginner to java
where do i start pls?
what does it do?
dezzyM

Welcome to the forum!
Buy a book on Java or find one on the web.
You can also go thru The Java Tutorials. It covers most of the core functionality and has examples that include source code.
http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/

Absolute beginner's question: scaling video in embedded player

Hi folks,
I'm an absolute beginner in flash video embedding - my company has purchased FMS 3.5 and I have to -simply- stream videos from a server via following HTML-Code:
<object width="800" height="600" id="videoPlayer" name="videoPlayer" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000">
<param name="movie" value="../swfs/videoPlayer.swf" />
<param name="quality" value="high" />
<param name="bgcolor" value="#000000" />
<param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" />
<param name="flashvars" value="&videoWidth='800'&videoHeight='600'&dsControl=manual&dsSensitivity=100&serverURL=r tmp://<here the url>&DS_Status=true&streamType=vod&autoStart=true" />
<embed src="../swfs/videoPlayer.swf" width="800" height="600" id="videoPlayer" quality="high" bgcolor="#000000" name="videoPlayer" allowfullscreen="true" pluginspage="http://www.adobe.com/go/getflashplayer" flashvars="&videoWidth='800'&videoHeight='600'&dsControl=manual&dsSensitivity=100&serverU RL=rtmp://<here the url>&DS_Status=true&streamType=vod&autoStart=true" type="application/x-shockwave-flash">
</embed>
</object>
My problem is simply the scaling of the videos. The files are .flv-files and do stream very well from the source directory to my browser. But when I change the object-width or object-height the video is just cut instead of scaled.
If I change the videoHeight or videoWidth (in Flashvars) it has no effect. What am I doing wrong?
ps The player naturally scales the clips slightly larger than they really are. So I already guess that there's a setup-file with settings, but I have no idea where to look it up to configure the player.
I would appreciate your help!
Thanks in advance!
kuk

IN CASE someone has this problem too, it seems the standard Adobe stream player integrated in the FMS-Installation (...) cannot resize the video. So the solution seems to be using another player. I'll use the free FlowPlayer which I also used for replaying .flv-Files, and which has a rtmp-plugin for streaming. Good luck folks...
kuk

Absolute beginner trying to create folders in Email

I am a beginner and have also been dabbling with Smart Mailboxes as my objective is to 'order' primarily my work Emails into 'manageable' folders (eg. all mails relating to a particular topic or Event I am managing). Using "rules" to filter is simply not always feasible I have found out.
Drag and Drop also does not seem to work ?? - is that right ??
I have a googlemail account and a work email through godaddy.com --> Am I fundamentally going about this completely wrongly ?? How should I be doing this -- I am NOT technical at all, so plain English thoughts only --- THANKS !!

Thanks and I understand - now for the stupid question:
How do I set up 'plain' mailbox folders (eg. JOB 1, JOB 2, Project 1 etc etc.) within the existing accounts (such as googlemail)? - or is that out of the scope of such an Apple based discussion forum (which I am also new to!)?
Thank you ..

How to back up Final Cut project with external hard drive. Absolute beginner, so simple steps appreciated.

Hello - How do I back up a Final Cut pro project onto an external hard drive? It's a work in progress, not a completed project. I'm a total beginner and a step by step would really helpThanks

BenB wrote:
The auto-backup is the database only, not the media.
To back up the whole Library totally, first make sure to Consolidate it, then simply drag-and-drop it on to the backup drive, that simple.
The KB article referenced by Karsten suggests one additional step: make sure your copy of the library is not at the root level of the drive to which you are copying it. I have not clue why this might be important.
Herewith:
Back up your Project Library and events using the Finder
To create a single backup copy of your Project Library and events, you can copy the Final Cut Projects folder and Final Cut Events folder to an external storage device.
If you are backing up incrementally, create a folder structure that helps you easily navigate through your backup folders. You could label the folders with the date you made the backup copy, for example.
Important: To avoid issues, it’s essential that you place the backup files in a folder (named “2012 Final Cut Pro Backups,” for example) that is not at the root level of your external storage device.
In the Finder, locate and select your Final Cut Projects folder and Final Cut Events folder.Your Movies folder is the default location for all project and event files:/Users/username/Movies/ Important: If you moved a project or event after you created it, it will not be in the default location.
Drag the Final Cut Projects and Final Cut Events folders to the external storage device.
The folders are copied to your external storage device.

Helping an absolute beginner

When I got my very first Mac, a Mac SE/30, I seem to remember there being a tour you could take to learn what the hard drive icon is for, what the desktop and windows are, how you move and resize windows, what double-clicking is, and so on: the absolute basics. Do current macs come with something like it? My father just got a MacBook Pro, but it's hard for me to help him get online, for example, when he has no idea what the desktop is. (I don't live in the same city, so all my help is by phone.) I have a by now fairly old Macbook Pro, but I really don't remember what it came with.

New Macs come with a user guide that provides some basic introductions to using the computer and software, but there's no online tour such as was available with old Macs. If you do some searching you may find some third-party tutorials. You will find numerous online tutorials provided by Apple: Apple - Support - Mac 101. Some elements are video. This site lists 195 free video tutorials for Mac users.

Several questions on Fireworks from absolute beginner

Hello!
At the moment I'm in the very beginning of web-designing process and I've been using Fireworks trial for several days only. Before that I've created only one website in Joomla! and that's all. I've got several questions and I would be glad if masters of Fireworks will post full answers on them.
I've read the official manual, but didn't check any additional materials, because I feel better when learning myself with help in form of answers to concrete questions.
Here is how I see process of making simple website in Fireworks: draw website and then make it to work. I did first part and I've prepared my website. It of course looks ugly, but I want to start from it, as I'm learning. Here it is:
Okay, what is the next thing I should do? Right, I should slice it. And here goes the question: how should I slice my menu? I want it to be simple menu, so when you move mouse over "About me" it lightens in some other color and some content should appear in right part of this structure. How would I implement it using Fireworks? Then in what format should I export my webpage? HTML and CSS? How do I write styles in CSS through Fireworks? And final question is how can I make my website be in center of page (I've tried to add <center></center> inside "index.htm" file, but no luck)? I would also like to know what do I need to do with all images so you can't select them with mouse and move all around in your browser? How do I stick them:
Thanks and sorry for too many questions at one time,
Aleks.

Looking at your mockup, that navbar could probably be created
completely using CSS and HTML, rather than slice up the "button areas"
but if you want to go that route, I'd recommend creating button
symbols. The slicing is done for you and you can create up to four
states for the button.
If you want to export the graphics only, choose File > Export.
Browse to your site folder
Set the Export option to Images only
Make sure you are exporting slices
Deselect the option to export areas without slices
Click Save (Windows) or Export (Mac)
Use DW to create your page, insert your images and add your rollover
behaviors.
HTH
Jim Babbage
NewMedia Services
http://www.newmediaservices.ca
Community MX Partner -
http://www.communitymx.com/author.cfm?cid=1036
Adobe Community Expert
http://www.adobe.com/communities/experts/members/206.html
Author - Lynda.com
http://movielibrary.lynda.com/authors/author/?aid=188
Author: Peachpit Press
http://www.peachpit.com/store/product.aspx?isbn=0321562879

Absolutely Beginner in LabView.(But advanced in CVI) Need help!

Hello World ?
First of all I dont wanna give any statement whether cvi or labview is better. Im sure both have reason to live.
1.)
I was spending about 1h to find out how to do a "Hello World" application in labview(linux)... I couldnt find out. Does someone have a such example ?
2.)
Second question its possible to use cvi code in labview and vice versa ?
Thanks a lot for helping me, on my first steps.David

Hello everyone,
In an attempt to try to catch everyone who might have a LabWindows/CVI and Linux or Real-Time interest, I'm going to repost this information in this thread as well. I know this thread has been going on for a few years now, but I wanted to update whoever is interested in the latest LabWindows/CVI modules that we've released to try to address your multiplatform support needs:
So we now have a Real-Time Module, which allows you to develop LabWindows/CVI apps on a Windows machine and run on a real-time PXI or PC target.
Also, to partly address the main subject of this thread, in August, we release the Run-Time Module for Linux, which similarly allows you to develop on a Windows machine as you always have with CVI, and then run your application on multiple Linux distributions.
That's a brief overview of the latest modules, but if you want more information on what hardware is supported and also a more in-depth discussion on the module, take a look at the following resources:
Real-Time Module: www.ni.com/lwcvi/realtime
Run-Time Module for Linux: Introduction to the Run-Time Module for Linux Whitepaper
Thanks.
Wendy L
LabWindows/CVI Developer Newsletter - ni.com/cvinews

Absolute Beginner

I am working with flash for the first time and my project
requires that the final product be on an interactive CD so users
can view the content my team has created from thier home PC's. The
problem is that I can't find any information about what and how to
burn on the cd.
Any help?
Many thanks.
Chris

Chris,
> the final product [needs to] be on an interactive CD so
users
> can view the content my team has created from thier home
> PC's. The problem is that I can't find any information
about
> what and how to burn on the cd.
Whatever file(s) you have on your hard drive while your
testing, put
that/those file(s) on your CD. The only exception is that
your main SWF
needs to be a Projector (you'll see that in the Publish
Settings). If your
project only requires one file -- normally, one SWF -- just
make that movie
a Projector and the Projector is all you need. If your
project requires
many -- as in, a main SWF loads others at various points --
make the main
SWF a Projector and include the other SWFs on the CD.
David Stiller
Adobe Community Expert
Dev blog,
http://www.quip.net/blog/
"Luck is the residue of good design."

Absolute beginner: shirt design related questions

hi all. i thought i'd be as detailed as possible to give you an idea of what my questions are:
i have some hand-drawn art/design for a t-shirt. so i took some pictures, and my daughter opened them up in photoshop elements 6. she was able to easily trace over my pencil lines, BUT the lines were not smooth at all. say i drew a circle. it is not so much that it is not a perfect circle, especially if free-handed, but that the edges of the line of that circle are not smooth.
turns out elements can't do that, after i called adobe. they suggested illustrator, which i am currently demo'ing. when i had my daughter (she's 17, been playing with elements rather well) try to do it illustrator, it wasn't as intuitive as both of us thought. it's gotten her stumped.
for the most part, that's all i want to do. pull up a picture of a hand-drawn sketch, and draw it in illustrator with some smooth lines. i would very much appreciate some guidance on what to do!
stumped!
THANKS IN ADVANCE.
jack

Jack,
When you start from scratch in this kind of program, you just have to read the instructions. Otherwise, you'll be floundering about forever being confused. Vector drawing programs like Illustrator are not immediately intuitive to someone who is accustomed only to working in raster image programs (i.e.; Photoshop, etc.).
Vector graphics is the "other half" of the computer graphics world. In a program like Illustrator, you're not recoloring pixels; you're creating and manipulating objects, most of which are mathematically-defined shapes called paths. You draw paths, give them strokes and/or fills, move them about, stack them, scale them, arrange them so that together they comprise a piece of artwork.
Go to the help files, start at the beginning, read through it like a book, perform the operations described. You'll then get the conceptual principles down and start using the thing with much less frustration. It will take time. This isn't the kind of graphics program you just dive into blind, have someone tell you a few command sequences, and start doing productive work in. You have to read the instructions.
JET

Outlook problem from an absolute beginner

A friend has sent us a mail which has photos. It is about 8mb. It successfully appeared on our Yahoo account (why does everything on our Outlook duplicate here?) also to our Gmail account but has NEVER arrived via Outlook - which we habitually use. I do know that Yahoo and Gmail are webmail and guess that this may have something to do with it - but we don't normally use these and want Outlook to work properly! We are now getting regular messages when we send/receive which say 'Receiving repeated error 0x800CCC0F: the connection to the server was interrupted. If this persists please contact your ISP'.
1. How do I contact our ISP?
2. Our Broadband is remarkably slow. Is it just not capable of downloading big mails in some kind of predetermned time?
3. Is there some way of altering Outlook so that larger mails can get to me?
I guess I may look pretty dim by asking these questions but I really do not have a starting point!
Solved!
Go to Solution.

Yahoo and Gmail accounts can be accessed as webmail using a browser where you pick up your emails direct from their servers. You can then get them from there using an email client like Outlook which downloads the emails from the yahoo or Gmail servers to your PC. There seems to be a problem at the moment with yahoo servers that causes large email downloads to timeout before they are completely downloaded by email clients like Outlook particularly if you have a slowish broadband connection.
In answer to your questions:
1. Contacting your ISP is probably a waste of time.
2. Probably YES.
3. You could try increasing the Timeout period in the server section of your Account details of your email account in Outlook but this seems not to be successful for some people.
The best advice at the moment is to download the photo attachments using webmail and then move the corresponding email to a new folder on webmail so that Outlook does not attempt to download it. Or if you do not want to keep the email delete it.

Absolute beginner: Artistic (Chalk/Charcoal) Brush

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