Registration is Open for the January 2011 Session!

December 8th, 2010 lvs

Registration for the January/February 2011 Session is Open! LVS Online offers hundreds of affordable online classes taught by dedicated instructors who love to share their knowledge. Learn something new at LVS Online – Where Learning is Fun!
Over 100 online courses are now open for enrollment!
Returning students receive a 20% discount! Just sign into your LVS account and the discount will automatically be applied to your registration.
Course Fees:

  • $30.00 New Students
  • $24.00 Returning Students
  • Courses are *5 weeks long unless otherwise noted
  • Certificates of Completion are available.
IMPORTANT NOTE: LVS has taken on a new format. The first lesson will post on Thursday and then ALL lessons will be posted the following Thursday. Students will need to complete all assignments in sequential order before the session end date as noted in the classroom.
NEW Courses for Jan/Feb 2011 session:
LVS Online Classes Gift Certificate
Give the gift of LVS Online Classes to someone special AND….if you refer new students to LVS, receive $5 for EACH referral!

Our Windows classes are FREE to everyone and includes instructor support! Windows Classes


LVS students are eligible for Corel educational version software from the Corel Education Store. This includes CorelDRAW, Corel Painter 11, Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo, and Corel PhotoImpact! Registered LVS students enter CRL10LVS when checking out to get an additional 10% discount on all Corel products! Check out the LVS News page for more information and details on special offers!

As an additional benefit to our enrolled LVS students, special offers are made available by famous software developers such as Auto FX, Andromeda, AV Bros, Harry Heim – The PlugIn Site, namesuppressed, Nik Multimedia, and Ulead. Only registered students receive the information and discounts! Be sure to click on the “Class Information” link provided in your registration confirmation for IMPORTANT class information and special offers!

Registered LVS students are also eligible to purchase some of their favorite software and hardware at a student discount through our Academic Reseller programs.

Instructor-led classrooms open January 3, 2011. Head on over to LVS Online Registration to enroll today!

Registration for the Jan/Feb session ends January 5, 2011.

New Course Highlights

*Build Your Web Site II – More XHTML & CSS – Part B*

The Build Your Website II – Part B online class builds on what you learned in the Build Your Website II – Part A online class. In this Part B of the intermediate class, separating presentation from structure will continue to be important and external style sheets will be used. The importance of validating your pages will be stressed. Another very important concept in web design will be introduced: Server Side Includes. Server Side Includes (SSI) were first developed to allow Web developers to “include” HTML documents inside other pages. You can you can use SSI to write your website content once and use it in multiple locations. Using server side includes is very easy and can make it much easier and quicker to update your pages.

We will construct a template that uses server side includes that you can use for multiple web sites. We will also go into more detail on the following subjects: form validation, style sheets, and advanced table design. We will also learn about floating and video embedding. Visit our Web Development Campus to learn more.

*Build Your Web Site II – More XHTML & CSS – Part C*

The Build Your Website II – Part C online class builds on what you learned in the Build Your Website II – Part B online class. In this third part of the intermediate class, separating presentation from structure will continue to be important and external style sheets will be used. The importance of validating your pages will be stressed. Some very important concepts in web design will be introduced: PHP Includes and iFrames. If you want the same content copied over multiple pages of your site, with HTML you’ll need to manually copy and paste that content. But if you have PHP on your server you can write one file and then include it on your Web pages where you need it. We will construct a template that uses PHP Includes that you can use for multiple web sites. You do not need to know any PHP before taking this class. Any PHP that is needed will be supplied in the lessons.

We will also learn about fixed positioning and iFrames. With iFrames you can include pieces of code into a web page without any server scripts. The follow picture shows a web photo album that was created with iFrames. Visit our Web Development Campus to learn more.

*Organize Your Life*

Can you find anything in your home or office in 5 minutes or less? If you can, you are definitely on the organized track and likely are taking this course to fine tune your skills and get some new ideas to make your life more streamlined.

Many others, however, struggle to find papers, bills, glasses, keys and a myriad of other items. Many of us have things in our homes, in our closets, on our desks that have not been used in the past 12 months. Of all our belongings, we use 20% of them 80% of the time! Can we consider during this course to let go of some of the 80% of the stuff that we seldom if ever use? This 80% adds substantially to the disorganization in our lives. This 20/80 formula can be applied to the papers in our homes, the files in our drawers, the gadgets in our kitchens, and the clothes in our closets. If we follow this line of thinking further, then we can extrapolate from that that approximately 50% of the items we are storing in our homes are merely clutter!

So many of us are like the majority of the people in North America over run with stuff and struggling to find enough time in our days to manage our schedules and get our tasks completed! Visit our Arts & Humanities to learn more.

*Photoshop Elements 9: The Journey Begins, Part 1*

This class is all new for Photoshop Elements 9 for Windows and Mac. This is the first of a two part course. You will learn the tools and interface, using the Effects palette and how to set preferences to make Elements work your way (as well as how to reset corrupted preferences). You will learn about selections and using Save for Web and much more!

This class does not cover the Organizer because of the scope of the Organizer and the fact it is as feature-packed as a separate program, it would fill the whole class. Visit our Graphic Programs to learn more.

Check out our complete selection of online classes!

*FREE TUTORIALS*

Posted in Announcements, Registration | 2 Comments »

Let Your Imagination Fly with Art of Collage Online Class

October 14th, 2010 lvs

The Art of Collage is a fun class that enables you to let your imagination fly. Create an image by adding photographs, application of various Painter media, embellishing with textures of different kinds. Learn a few tips and tricks making good application of Painter’s wide variety of applications.

Start from a basic Collage with photographs from your garden, make a great fun poster, a beautiful composite image of your city or favorite place and finally, a portrait style Collage that could be a wonderful keepsake.

Digital Collages can be created and used for many things. Backgrounds, images, create greeting cards or make a great canvas as a wall-hanging. It’s all up to your imagination what you would like to do.

Below are just a few examples you can create, plus your very own creations.

Art of Collage

Come and join me in this interesting concept of Digital Collage in The Art of Collage online class.

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Drupal Basics II Online Class

September 29th, 2010 lvs

Drupal The Drupal Basics II online class will teach you the basics of these very important Drupal modules: the Content Construction Kit, Views, and Panels. The Content Construction Kit allows you to add custom fields to existing content types and create your own content types. Views can be used to generate reports, create summaries, and display collections of images and other content. With Panels you can create customized layouts for your pages and views, even your home page.

In this Drupal Basics II online class we will use these modules and a few others to create a photo site. This should be a really fun way to learn how to use some very important contributed modules that have lots of different uses.

These lessons will take you step by step through the development of your photo site. You should have previous experience with Drupal by taking the first Drupal Basics class where we built a blog or by having similar experience with creating content, links, menus, blocks, taxonomy, setting up users, user roles, permissions, comments, selecting themes, and enabling modules. If you have not done a majority of these things, you may want to consider taking the first Drupal Basics class first, then taking this class during the next session.

You may have already done some online photo sharing on different sites on the web. The first photo sharing sites originated during the mid to late 1990s primarily from services providing online ordering of prints, but many more came into being during the early 2000s with the goal of providing permanent and centralized access to a user’s photos.

Have you thought about different uses for a photo site? Here are just a few ideas:

  • SCRAPBOOKING
  • HOBBIES
  • CLASS REUNIONS
  • ARTS AND CRAFTS PORTFOLIO
  • PHOTOGRAPHY
  • GENEALOGY
  • SCHOOL EVENTS
  • WEDDINGS
  • DISPLAYING DIGITAL ART AND GRAPHICS

Use your imagination and you’ll find dozens of ideas for uses of this type of site.

Lesson 1

  • About Photo Sites
  • Installing Drupal
  • Selecting a Themes

Lesson 2

  • Installing Modules
  • Creating image presets
  • CCK content types

Lesson 3

  • Adding photos to your site
  • Creating a Views photo gallery
  • Menus and Blocks

Lesson 4

  • Panels Intro
  • Photo gallery links page
  • Rotating images

Lesson 5

  • Customizing a Home Page
  • Slideshow creation

Lesson 6

  • Backing up your site
  • Upgrading Drupal
  • Moving your site

The Drupal classes are instructed by Yvonne Zaborac who has a Bachelor’s degree in Information Systems with a major in Computer Science.

 

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Build Your Web Site II – More XHTML & CSS – Part A Online Class

September 28th, 2010 lvs

This online class builds on what you learned in Build Your Website I online class. In this first part of the intermediate class, you will learn a very important concept in web design: separating presentation from structure. This separation is important in the design process. It allows you to change your content without affecting the look of the site. You can add pages to your site without the need to style those pages. A big advantage comes when you want to change a design element on your site. Instead of changing it on every page, you only need to change it in one file and all your pages will be affected by that change. In the Build Your Web Site II – More XHTML & CSS – Part A Online Class, you will increase your CSS skills while working with lists, creating fancy forms, creating a tableless layout with a header and footer, designing delightful menus, and many other things.

Lesson 1

  • Separating Style and Structure
  • Linking External Style sheets
  • Margins, Padding & Borders
  • CSS Validation

Lesson 2

  • Creating & Styling Lists

Lesson 3

  • Menus and Links

Lesson 4

  • Tableless Layouts
  • Headers and Footers

Lesson 5

  • Text Elements & Related Styling
  • Backgrounds and CSS

Lesson 6

  • Forms Styling
  • Processing Forms with PHP Scripts

The Build Your Web Site II – More XHTML & CSS class is rewritten November 2010 by Yvonne. This is an intermediate class with a Part A and Part B series.

Posted in In The Spotlight | 1 Comment »

Registration is Open for the October/November 2010 Session!

September 28th, 2010 lvs

Registration for the October/November 2010 Session is Open! LVS Online offers hundreds of affordable online classes taught by dedicated instructors who love to share their knowledge. Learn something new at LVS Online – Where Learning is Fun!
Over 100 online courses are now open for enrollment!
Returning students receive a 20% discount! Just sign into your LVS account and the discount will automatically be applied to your registration.
Course Fees:

  • $30.00 New Students
  • $24.00 Returning Students
  • Courses are *5 weeks long unless otherwise noted
  • Certificates of Completion are available.
IMPORTANT NOTE: LVS has taken on a new format. The first lesson will post on Thursday instead of Saturday and then ALL lessons will be posted the following Thursday. Students will need to complete all assignments in sequential order before the session end date as noted in the classroom.
NEW Courses for Oct/Nov 2010 session:
LVS Online Classes Gift Certificate
Give the gift of LVS Online Classes to someone special AND….if you refer new students to LVS, receive $5 for EACH referral!

Our Windows classes are FREE to everyone and includes instructor support! Windows Classes


LVS students are eligible for Corel educational version software from the Corel Education Store. This includes CorelDRAW, Corel Painter 11, Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo, and Corel PhotoImpact! Registered LVS students enter CRL10LVS when checking out to get an additional 10% discount on all Corel products! Check out the LVS News page for more information and details on special offers!

As an additional benefit to our enrolled LVS students, special offers are made available by famous software developers such as Auto FX, Andromeda, AV Bros, Harry Heim – The PlugIn Site, namesuppressed, Nik Multimedia, and Ulead. Only registered students receive the information and discounts! Be sure to click on the “Class Information” link provided in your registration confirmation for IMPORTANT class information and special offers!

Registered LVS students are also eligible to purchase some of their favorite software and hardware at a student discount through our Academic Reseller programs.

Instructor-led classrooms open October 18, 2010. Head on over to LVS Online Registration to enroll today!

Registration for the Oct/Nov 2010 session ends October 20, 2010.

New Course Highlights

*Build Your Web Site II – More XHTML & CSS – Part A*

This online class builds on what you learned in Build Your Website I online class. In this first part of the intermediate class, you will learn a very important concept in web design: separating presentation from structure. This separation is important in the design process. It allows you to change your content without affecting the look of the site. You can add pages to your site without the need to style those pages. A big advantage comes when you want to change a design element on your site. Instead of changing it on every page, you only need to change it in one file and all your pages will be affected by that change. In this class, you will increase your CSS skills while working with lists, creating fancy forms, creating a tableless layout with a header and footer, designing delightful menus, and many other things. Visit our Web Development Campus to learn more.

*Drupal Basics II*

This online class will teach you the basics of these very important Drupal modules: the Content Construction Kit, Views, and Panels. The Content Construction Kit allows you to add custom fields to existing content types and create your own content types. Views can be used to generate reports, create summaries, and display collections of images and other content. With Panels you can create customized layouts for your pages and views, even your home page.

In this online course we will use these modules and a few others to create a photo site. This should be a really fun way to learn how to use some very important contributed modules that have lots of different uses.
Visit our Computers & Internet Campus to learn more.

Check out our complete selection of online classes!

*FREE TUTORIALS*

Posted in Announcements, Registration | No Comments »

Web Typography Online Class

August 26th, 2010 lvs

Typography is the practice of arranging type within a design. When you design a page for print, you control the size of the paper and the placement of the elements. On the web the size, resolution, fonts, and even the layout of your page can vary with the browser and the system used to view your site.

Web Typography is going through considerable changes. New techniques along with new web browser capabilities are giving Web Typography new life. This Web Typography online class will take a fresh look at Web Typography and explore all the new possibilities that are available. Some things we will discuss include:

  • Web safe fonts and downloadable fonts
  • New web font services
  • Using emphasis, contrast, and scale
  • Practical methods for achieving quality typography with current technologies
  • Best practices for creating appealing designs using typographic style principals developed specifically for the Web
  • Future of web typography

When you finish this Web Typography online course you will be able to use Web Typography to transform your website into a work of art.

Lesson 1

  • History of Web Typography
  • Typography on the Screen
  • Professional Web type

Lesson 2

  • Anatomy of a Character
  • Character and Text Encoding

Lesson 3

  • CSS Font Families
  • Web Safe Fonts
  • Web Font Linking

Lesson 4

  • Designing with Type Size and Type Space
  • Text Alignment and Balance

Lesson 5

  • Typography as a Design Element
  • Using Emphasis and Contrast

Lesson 6

  • Using Grids
  • The Future of Web Typography

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Web Accessibility Online Class

August 24th, 2010 lvs

The Web is an increasingly important resource. It is essential that the Web be accessible to everyone. The Web must be accessible in order to provide equal access and equal opportunity to people with disabilities. The Web offers the possibility of greater access to information and interaction with others for many people with disabilities. Currently most web sites have accessibility barriers that make it difficult or impossible for many people with disabilities to use the Web. Web accessibility is about making websites accessible so that people with disabilities can navigate and interact with others on the Web. Websites should be designed so that people are not excluded from accessing the content and services provided on the Web.

A key principle of Web Accessibility is constructing web sites that are flexible and can meet different user needs, preferences, and situations. Web accessibility encompasses all disabilities that affect access to the Web including visual, auditory, physical, speech, cognitive, and neurological disabilities. Web accessibility also benefits people without disabilities in certain situations, such as people using a slow Internet connection, people with temporary disabilities such as a broken arm, and people with changing abilities due to aging. Millions of people have disabilities that affect their use of the Web.

Before anyone can make their web site accessible, they must understand accessibility, learn how to implement accessibility, be committed to ensuring accessibility, and understand their legal obligations. The Web Accessibility online class is meant to be an introduction to Web Accessibility including:

  • An overview of accessibility laws and guidelines
  • An overview of different browsing technologies
  • How to code accessible websites
  • How to test your sites for accessibility

How can you make your web site more accessible? This isn’t difficult to accomplish and doesn’t require anything more than your normal tools: XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, Flash, or whatever else that you normally use. All you need to do is, use these tools in the right way, and remember the guidelines that exist to help you keep your websites accessible and the laws that enforce web accessibility around the world. Yes, there are Accessibility laws, and companies have gotten sued for not having an accessible web site. Accessibility is a legal concern that must be considered at all stages of web development.

Who is this class for? This Web Accessibility online course is for anyone that has a web site, designs web sites, or is responsible for the web sites of others. You will learn design principles that you can immediately apply to your web site to make it more accessible.

Lesson 1

  • Understanding Web Accessibility
  • Benefits of Web Accessibility
  • Assistive Technology
  • Accessibility and Validation Testing

Lesson 2

  • Accessible Content

Lesson 3

  • Images, Image Maps, and Buttons

Lesson 4

  • Accessible Navigation

Lesson 5

  • Accessible Forms

Lesson 6

  • Accessible tables
  • Using Lists
  • JavaScript, Flash, and PDFs
  • Creating an accessibility statement

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Photoshop 3D Level 2 Online Class

August 23rd, 2010 lvs

In the introductory class, we started exploring the 3D world from within Photoshop. A little at a time you were introduced into this wonderful arena using the Photoshop interface and all its wonderful tool. Only so much could be accomplished in that 5 week class.

This Photoshop 3D Level 2 online class is a follow-on class to Photoshop 3D Introduction class. It continues where the first class left off as we continue to explore all the wonderful features Photoshop has brought to the world of 3D.

Lesson 1

  • Paint Falloff
  • Merging Textures onto 3D Objects
  • Directly Editing Textures
  • Ambient Lighting
  • Moving and Rotating Lights
Lesson 2

  • More on Materials – UV Overlays
  • Adjusting UV
  • Reparameterizing Textures
Lesson 3

  • Rendering
  • Rendering Presets
  • Render Settings Customization
Lesson 4

  • Rendering Refraction
  • Render for Final Output
  • Using Layer Masks with 3D Objects
  • Adding Layer Styles to 3D Layers

Lesson 5

  • Making a New Mesh from Grayscale Revisited
  • Seamless Objects from Grayscale
  • Smooth Grayscale Gradients
Lesson 6

  • Modeling with Curves
  • Texturing our Model

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Photoshop CS5 Special FX: Tips, Tricks, and Pizazz!

August 22nd, 2010 lvs

Join Sara Froehlich for tricks and special effects using Adobe Photoshop CS 5! In this online class, will talk about layer styles and how to create and save your own styles, and adding Actions to automate the program, as well as how to create your own actions, save them and share them with others. We’ll also learn about the new features in CS5: Puppet Warp, Content Aware Fill, and all about the new brush engine with Mixer Brushes and new bristle tips! This intermediate class is for Photoshop CS 5 only, and many exercises, tips, and tricks will not work with earlier versions of Photoshop or any version of Photoshop Elements.

The Photoshop CS5 Special FX: Tips, Tricks, and Pizazz! is an intermediate class is for both Mac and Windows users. You must have Photoshop CS 5 installed on your Mac or PC, and you must have a good working knowledge of Photoshop and how to use layers and text.

Lesson 1

  • What is covered in this class?
  • Tips and Tricks
  • Layer Styles: Use, Edit, Save, and Share!

Lesson 2

  • Tips and Tricks
  • Automating Photoshop Effects: Actions!
  • Using, Saving, and Sharing Actions

Lesson 3

  • Tips and Tricks
  • A Word about Graphics Tablets
  • Brushes: New Bristle Tips
  • Brushes: New Mixer Brushes
  • Photos into Paintings

Lesson 4

  • Tips and Tricks
  • Working with Layer Masks
  • So You Think You Know the Crop Tool…

Lesson 5

  • Tips and Tricks
  • Smart Objects
  • Smart Filters
  • New Puppet Warp!

Lesson 6

  • Tips and Tricks
  • Working with Vectors in Photoshop
  • The Pen Tool
  • Vector Shapes
  • Vector Masks

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Corel Painter: PhotoPainting & Portraiture III Online Class

August 21st, 2010 lvs

PhotoPainting & Portraiture III is the final of this three-part course. This class introduces human photo painting. You learn fascinating Pop Art, painting children, composite images and a beautiful bridal portrait. Lastly, embellishing a painting can be both challenging and rewarding to see a flat painted print come to life when texture is applied.

PhotoPainting & Portraiture Online Class
Lesson 1

  • Serigraphy
  • Pop Art
  • Distress
  • Woodcut

Lesson 2

  • Painting Children
  • Skin, Hair, Eyes, Lips & Nose

Lesson 3

  • Bridal Portrait
  • How to paint a fine veil, flowers and remove background

Lesson 4

  • Amazing Faces!
  • A Portrait of an Aged Man with Video Help

Lesson 5

  • Composite Image Painting
  • An interesting concept of applying several images to create a painterly painting

Lesson 6

  • Paint Like The Old Masters – with a twist!
  • Embellishing

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