lynda.com Training

After a little bit of coercing, my employer has just set me up with a premium annual subscription to the lynda.com training library. I will most likely post a few more times down the road to let you all know if I think it's work the money, but I've decided to do a little upfront review.

First and foremost, as a product, the training seems to be well organized. If you've ever purchased or used the Total Training videos, you're aware of how powerful instructor-led video training can be. However, at the lynda.com site, you don't need a DVD player to do your training. You can do it anywhere you have a computer and a decent Internet connection (note: obviously if you have a laptop with a DVD drive, this is a total non-issue). Slower connections can, supposedly, still use the training, but the videos will take a little longer to buffer before they start to play.



The offerings include areas such as HTML, PHP, Microsoft Office products (Excel, Powerpoint) and many others, but the focal point for me and you will likely be the video and image related programs. When you choose a course, it will list off the various chapters and subchapter points so that you can work on something for just a few minutes at a time, but also, it gives you a clear view of your direction by listing the individual areas that are being covered in each course. This is very handy information. Additionally, there are usually a few chapters that are available for free so that you can get a sampling of the video quality and speed at your location and see the layout for the courses.

The premium membership includes the actual project files used in the tutorial so that you can follow right along as you learn. The site also provides CD and DVD versions of many of the courses, and also has a series of books related to their online library offerings. However, only the online training is available with the membership - CD, DVD and book items are extra, and may be worth your while if there is only one or two items that you want training for (project files are included with these items).

Some of the training can be a little redundant if you are past beginner stage on a certain topic, but sometimes (as with all training) it can be valuable to review certain things that you may have forgotten about, or just refresh what you already use. Regardless, if you prefer, just skip the video clips that you do not want and move on. Again, very handy feature.

One thing I've noticed so far is that the video window, while quite large and of good quality, does not "zoom" to areas of interest to provide better detail. Instead, the courses seem to be captured via a utility like Camtasia that is just doing a solid screen grab. Total Training has a different approach, where the instructor will provide a close-up view of certain items at various points in the video. This is the only real shortcoming that I have found so far, and all I can say is at least the video window is clear and large enough to begin with.

One thing the site advertises is that they are not affiliated with any other software development companies. As such, they claim to offer unbiased information, and include workarounds for product shortcomings. They also claim they have no problem exposing bugs in the software.

As I mentioned above, I will post my personal experiences on occasion throughout the year. However, I do recommend you check out the website yourself (lynda.com) to determine if any of their training is right for you.