Ten Ton is on a crusade against bad teaching. Bottom line is, there’s a severe lack of quality training that gives learners exactly what they want. The "learning industry" (including colleges, training institutions, video-based training companies, and so on) is full of out-of-work designers, hacks, and wannabe superstars. After all, if you can’t find work, you can always "teach." I’ve got a big problem with that. Simply knowing how a piece of software works doesn’t mean you can teach it — just as owning a camera doesn’t make you a photographer. I love teaching, and it truly is a combination of skills and character traits; subject knowledge accounts for about half of what makes a great teacher. Problem is, a lot of instructors think they can teach. They should stop. This is not amateur hour at the Roxy. This is your education (that you laid out your hard-earned money for) that we’re talking about!

Most college professors aren’t teaching what’s needed to be competitive in the marketplace, and many training companies are focused on market share and profit, not on teaching you what you need. They’re caught in an endless race of more, more, more. More courses, more products, more endless hours of video lessons. They’ve mistaken "more" to mean "better." There’s no standard of quality, there’s no depth, there’s no fun. No fun? Who says this stuff has to be boring and dull? Obviously, a bunch of "suits" who are focused on things other than your education. Of course Photoshop’s fun. Of course web design is fun — this stuff is exciting and creative! But for most colleges and training companies, it isn’t fun and it isn’t creative. It’s a product. It’s a means to fatten the bottom line. I call bullshit. I love what I do. Getting paid for it is a bonus, not the sole reason for Ten Ton’s existence.

Now all that said, there are some great teachers out there. If you have an awesome teacher or professor, tell them they’re great — and that Ten Ton salutes them. The world needs more great teachers. If you’re in college, demand more from your professors. If you’re enrolled with a training company, demand quality, depth, and an instructor who can teach. Don’t be afraid to call bullshit on them. And if you’re a teacher yourself, make damn sure you’re giving your best. Until training companies, teachers, and professors realize that it’s morally wrong to demand so much money and give so little in return, until they produce content to the high standards that you demand, then Ten Ton will exist.

Bad teaching sucks. That’s the way I see it anyway.

I’m Geoff Blake, and I just brought the thunder!

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Ten Ton is excited to announce our new affiliate program! There have been a lot of changes and additions around here lately, many of them apparent, some of them not, but one of the big additions is our new affiliate program. The program, powered by E-Junkie, offers a generous 15% commission on all of our training products (that works out to over $20 for each regularly priced DVD an affiliate sells!) — so if you run a website, blog, e-newsletter, or if you want to help promote Ten Ton on your social media platforms, then be sure to sign up (it’s fast and easy) and start earning some extra dough today!

To find out more about Ten Ton’s affiliate program, click here!

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“Geoff Blake is the mastermind behind Ten Ton’s two part DVD set, in which he confidently teaches you Photoshop from the ground up.

The entertaining and enthusiastic voice of Geoff Blake presents you with the fundamentals of Photoshop in over seven hours of video tuition. They include more than 60 lessons on everything that Photoshop has to offer on its interface and toolsets. Geoff Blake explains in the DVD’s introduction that he had recorded too much material to  fit on one disc, so decided to give Photoshop learners the choice of buying two discs separately or together.”

In addition to the review, magazine readers are also treated to a fantastic offer from Ten Ton Books as well. Curious? Be sure to check out the latest issue of Photoshop Creative!

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Check out Ten Ton’s Facebook page right here.

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At the end of the episode, I also pose the question: Should full-length, full-price DVDs be released for each new software version? For example, should a full-length Photoshop DVD be released when 90% of the content is the same? Or, should shorter upgrade DVD’s be released instead? I look forward to your comments!

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This is Apple’s definition of revolutionizing. Hang on to your seats kids, it’s gonna be as mind-blowing as…

A root canal…

In a third world country…

With a rusty screwdriver…

I could go on about my disdain for the iPad, but I’ll spare you. For now. Maybe I’ll get into that some other time. But what I will say is this: What kills me about this ongoing battle between Apple and Adobe (and Apple and Google…and Apple and any other perceived threat) is that Apple is no longer the company that thinks different. The innovative little company (the one with the Albert Einstein ads that Jobs brought back from the brink of death) is no longer the underdog David versus the titan Goliaths of the tech world. Apple has now become what it fought so hard against. Innovative my ass. Locking out Flash developers is not innovation. Releasing products that are completely locked down and controlled is not innovation. Removing FireWire from your line of MacBooks is not innovation, it’s a god-damned pain in the ass.

So what’s killing me about all this is Apple isn’t going after Adobe for some lofty moral principle to enrich their customer’s experience. They’re power-playing the market, completely disregarding what their customer wants. I want Flash on my iPhone, I want an open, expandable platform…and you can bet your external hard drive that I want FireWire on my damn laptop. It would be like the Ten Ton community saying, “We wanna see Ten Ton E-Commerce,” and me saying, “Listen, I know what you want better than you do; what you want is Ten Ton Commodore VIC-20 Essentials.”

What makes Apple think they know what I want better than I do?

Here’s what I’ve come to realize in the past few months: I don’t care about Apple. You know, I don’t even care about Adobe. There I said it. Wow…that feels so much better…

Wanna know what I do care about? I care intensely about is getting shit done. I care about completing projects that I’m passionate about — be it a training DVD, a new song, or a cool new piece of art. And I want to get these projects completed in the most efficient, user-friendly way possible. To speak metaphorically, I’m not hung up on what brand of pencils I use…I’m hung up on the drawing itself. I’m not loyal in the least to any dinosaur corporation…I’m loyal to my art.

If my art can be completed in the most efficient manner using an Adobe product, great. An Apple product? Fan-freakin’-tastic. But these dinosaur corporations had better seriously watch their blindspot…cuz shit like WordPress and Linux and Android and GIMP are comin’ up hard and fast on the inside. To them, it’s about openness and community and sharing and helping one another…and real innovation, not the kind that’s a marketing angle. Which is pretty much the opposite of market share, profits, and shafting other development platforms.

That’s the way I see it anyway.

I’m Geoff Blake, and I just brought the thunder!

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Hope you’re diggin’ these sample clips from Ten Ton WordPress Essentials! If ya haven’t seen ‘em yet, here’s two other sample clips, Chapter 7: Adding Media to Posts > Lesson 5: Inserting Images from the Media Library, and Chapter 9: Working with Categories and Tags > Lesson 1: Getting Started with Categories. Gitcha WordPress on!

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The Ten Ton WordPress Essentials DVD looks pretty sweet, huh? Ya know, there’s there’s two other sample clips, if you haven’t seen ‘em yet: Chapter 6: Additional Posting Techniques > Lesson 4: Creating Posts with Dreamweaver, and Chapter 9: Working with Categories and Tags > Lesson 1: Getting Started with Categories. Check ‘em out!

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There’s a whole lot more waitin’ for ya in Ten Ton WordPress Essentials! Did you see the other sample clips? Check ‘em out! Chapter 6: Additional Posting Techniques > Lesson 4: Creating Posts with Dreamweaver, and Chapter 7: Adding Media to Posts > Lesson 5: Inserting Images from the Media Library. Go check ‘em!

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