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   Training Review
   Total Training for Advanced
   Dreamweaver 8
 
   Publisher: Total Training
   Website: http://www.TotalTraining.com
   Contact In the U.S: (888) 368-6825 (Toll Free)
   Contact Outside the U.S.: (760) 944-3900
   Format: Instructional DVD for PC/Mac
   Topic: Web Design with Dreamweaver 8

   MSRP: $149.99

   Expected Release: Available Now
   Review Date: January 15, 2007
   Reviewed By: Jeremy Hanke

Final Score:
9.0

For folks who read my review of Janine Warner’s first training session for Dreamweaver 8, you may recall that I said that it was a great way to learn the basic design concepts of Dreamweaver so that you could make a professional looking site for your film or production company. Well, in this advanced series, Janine unleashes the power of CSS, shows you how to create multimedia effects with behaviors, and, for us filmmakers, shows powerful and professional ways to integrate film clips and trailers in QuickTime, Windows Media, and Flash Video to your site.

This is the set to buy if the past set’s coverage was too basic for your experience level. (Or if you’ve gone through the previous training and are ready to take your design game up a few notches.) I’ve been designing websites for the better part of ten years and I found a lot of stuff in this set that I wasn’t familiar with, especially the amount of design control available in advanced Cascading Style Sheets. Getting a handle on this great info will get you so much farther ahead of the pack on designing a film or production website that will get you noticed!

Understandability
As with Ms. Warner’s last series, this set is extremely easy to understand and follow. Her teaching style is simple to grasp and really keeps you on track. While it’s good to know much of the information found in the first Dreamweaver 8 training set, she goes at an easy enough pace that you should be able to keep up even if you haven’t gone through the last set of training. (In some ways, I could see how it might be somewhat easier if you haven’t gone through the last training, as CSS usage is actually kind of at odds with the more basic HTML styles that were presented in the last set. Since much of CSS circumvents a lot of HTML, it could be easier for some folks to start with a clean slate.)

Depth of Information
Even though it’s shorter than the previous set, Ms. Warner has packed a lot of information into this set. She covers the alternate ways to design web pages, which exposes you to more design perspectives than were covered in the previous set. She looks at learning the aforementioned Cascading Style Sheets and covers much of their use from basic to advanced features. Then she delves into creating effects using Dreamweaver’s layers, using Behaviors to add interactivity, slicing with Photoshop and Fireworks, and finally combining templates, layers, CSS, and behaviors into a cohesive design whole. Of course, as I mentioned before, she also shows you how to integrate multimedia sound and video into your web design. Finally, she wraps it all up with some more advanced tips and tricks, which include general tips for trying to get better search engine rankings and how to modify free Perl scripts to do useful things like letting fans sign up to be on a mailing list.

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