LearnKey Blog

Web Browsing Tips – Tab Groups

Personally, I usually use Chrome for the majority of my web browsing. Being LearnKey’s webmaster though, I need to at least have a copy of the major browsers around to test things, and I recently installed an update to Firefox 5. Our graphic designer Kari pointed out a pretty cool and useful feature Firefox recently added to their updates – Tab Groups.

Say you’re working on a few different projects at once, and you don’t want to mix up the different tabs you have open between projects. You could open a new browser window and separate them that way, but Firefox’s Tab Groups feature lets you keep it all in one window, and switch between groups easily. It’s fairly similar to the Spaces feature in Mac OS X.

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Premiere Pro CS5 with Ryan James

It’s time for another piece of the Adobe CS5 training puzzle – Premiere Pro CS5 featuring expert Ryan James. Not only is this course made to teach you how to use Premiere Pro CS5, but it walks you through the video creation method, from pre-production all the way to the final steps, all while preparing you to earn your ACA certification by passing the Visual Communication using Premiere Pro CS5 exam.

Find out more about our Premiere Pro CS5 course, or check out the video below for a preview.

Also, if you purchase this course on our website between now and June 30, you can receive 20% off by entering coupon code NEW20 at checkout. Coupon only applies to single-user web purchases.

Web Browsing Tips – Disable Compatibility View

When you work with websites for a living, you tend to pick up on the different quirks of all the web browsers. You know which ones have trouble with spacing, or which ones work better with certain Flash objects, and so on. For most people who don’t live their lives inside a web browser, it can be confusing – and that’s why we’re here to help!

Internet Explorer 8 and 9: “Compatibility View”

At first glance, you may see Compatibility View and feel the need to turn it on, or else your web experience might be glitchy and broken. That may have possibly been the case when IE8 was first released, but these days it does the exact opposite. To understand what I mean, there’s a few things about Internet Explorer you need to know.

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Tech Hiring Drastically Improves California’s Economy

In the first quarter of 2011 California added 90,600 jobs, which was an increase from 82,600 over all of 2010. Just a few weeks ago California’s deficit was an astounding $26 billion, but the state recently cut $11 billion. If this trend keeps going, it could potentially shave off another $6 billion. The added jobs in the state are making it a reality that one day, California might actually be able to get out of debt – and it might be sooner than everyone thought.

This drastic improvement comes largely from the tech industry. Information technology jobs grew by 5.3% in March, outpacing all other industries. This is affecting the San Francisco Bay area and the Silicon Valley with many local companies doubling and even tripling their workforce. This is good news for the technology industry, and for California.

To read the full article visit The Wall Street Journal.

The Power of CSS3

I just stumbled across one of the coolest sites demonstrating of the power of CSS3 – css3please.com. For those of you who don’t know what CSS is, its simply the language web developers use to put style and color into an average web page. CSS3 has taken style to the next level by allowing designers and developers to not only be able to add a color to an object, but be able to have it display a gradient from any specific color to another. You can also add drop shadows, rounded corners, custom font faces, and even rotation to an object. These features take a lot of pain out of website development by making objects much easier to work with, and quicker to customize and create. Any good developer can tell you of the hassle of trying to make a box with rounded corners without CSS3 – having to first create the image in Photoshop, then cut the image into several smaller pieces, and then get them all to behave and fit tightly together to look like they never were cut up. That can take quite a bit of time. Compare all that with this CSS3 code:

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The New Office, Moving, and Other Happenings

LearnKey's new office - the lobby

Over the past week, everyone in our St. George, UT office has been moving into our new office space. We’re currently occupying the theater area of the Main Street Ballroom and Theater, which has been converted into a modern office space over the past few years. (Check out the photo album on our Facebook page to see the completed office.) It’s quite a big change from our previous space, which was the ballroom area of this same building. No dance floor lighting or chandeliers this time around, but I think we’ll manage.

With most of the current Marketing department at LearnKey being fairly new here (2 years or less in a 24-year-old company), there tends to be a lot of stuff around that was left over from our predecessors. I personally go by the “If you don’t know what it is, don’t touch it” rule, so over time, things started to accumulate.

As you can imagine, cleaning out drawers and taking down cubicles lead to finding some pretty random stuff.


Pictured: boat catalogs, font books, a Star Wars audio book, a classic iPod Video, ear plugs, a rubber spider, and a plush squirrel. Don’t ask, because we don’t know either.

We’re all moved in by now, but it’s still taking us a little while to get settled and used to our new routines. For instance, apparently this new office gets quite warm when nobody turns on the air conditioning. Who knew?

Regardless of our comfort, we have some cool stuff going on. Our (sort of) Quarterly Newsletter is coming soon, and if you’re not already a subscriber, you can sign up here. We have a SQL Server webinar coming up on June 3 featuring expert Wayne Snyder, which is free to attend. Our Client Services department is a currently a finalist for Support Department of the Year in the 2011 American Business Awards (read the full press release here). We were also recently notified that our Server+ video training course has achieved CompTIA Authorized Quality Curriculum status (more on that next week).

We are also always looking for new ideas. Are there any specific topics you would like to see us cover in the blog? Do you have an idea for a course you would like to see LearnKey release? Let us know in the comments!

Federal Funding for Job Training

The Department of labor recently announced the availability of $240 million of funding for the training of U.S. workers in high tech and high skill jobs. The H-1B Technical Skills Training Grants were announced on May 2, 2011 and have two closing dates: June 2, 2011 and November 17, 2011. The grants are aimed at providing training, education, and job placement assistance in different fields including information technology, with the goal to provide workers with the opportunity to update or gain new job skills that will help them get higher paying jobs.

The Department of Labor expects to fund 75-100 grants. Training grants will be awarded for those that provide On-the-Job training to all participants totaling $150 million. Applicants that propose to start training for occupations in the health care industry are expected to receive $45 million. $60 million is expected to be awarded to applicants that serve long-term unemployed individuals.

If you are working toward providing more training for your employees and are interested in finding more information on these grants, read the full announcement to find out how to access a webinar with more information.

Lack of Management Training

A recent survey from CareerBuilder.com showed that 26% of new managers said they were not ready to become leaders. That’s a high percentage of people in positions they don’t feel ready for! Some of the weaknesses pointed out in the survey are:

Dealing with issues between co-workers on my team – 25%
Motivating team members – 22%
Performance reviews – 15%
Finding the resources needed to support the team – 15%
Creating career paths for my team – 12%

The solution to this problem is to properly train employees, open lines of communication, and provide support. If you are handling the promotions at your company, take note of this, make sure that your human resources department is setting up training for new managers, and is providing them with the resources they need to be successful.

If your company is looking for training for new managers, check out LearnKey’s Leadership & Management category to see what we have to offer.

Thank You Teachers!

Today is the day to celebrate and appreciate the educators in our country that work so hard to make sure that each student receives a quality education. Teachers play a key role in our development and growth, impacting us in ways that often times they will never know. The lessons they teach impact us personally and professionally, and we carry them throughout our lives.

We want to say Thank you, for working hard and striving to improve our country, one individual at a time.  We all have teachers that influenced us in ways we will never forget, and stand out in our minds as not only incredible teachers, but incredible people.  For some of us, you are the biggest influence in our lives, and your actions will model positive behaviors that we will emulate.

To the teachers that go above and beyond, and make it clear that they have a passion and dedication to their jobs that far exceeds what is required and expected of them, you are priceless.  Every lawyer, doctor, athlete, astronaut, business person, cop, firefighter, pilot, writer, artist – everyone has an educator or educators that encouraged and challenged them to strive to do better and be better, and in large part because of you and your hard work, they did just that.

So today we tip our hats to you, and congratulate you for the difference you are making in so many lives.

Start Today! – Financial Literacy Month

If you haven’t already, today is the day to take charge of your finances. It is easy to hide from financial problems, and it is much harder to own up to them and take the steps to make changes, but even though it might be easier it is not healthier. Hiding away from problems can negatively impact your performance at work, and can lead to emotional and physical health problems.

There are a variety of resources available that can help you get started on your road to financial success, and you don’t have to wait until another Financial Literacy Month to get them. Be sure to visit learnkey.com/financiallitmonth for your free white papers, and our Financial Literacy Month blog archive, featuring all 20 financial literacy tips.