The summer is the best time to learn a new software application or technology, and two options with many tutorials are Lynda.com and Adobe TV.

Lynda.com. I had the opportunity to try out Lynda.com recently due to a promotion through Adobe for a 30 day free trial.  Lynda has tutorials in all software applications and technologies (CSS, programming languages).  With any large selection, there is a mix of quality in the tutorials.  I wasn’t disappointed by the quality of the tutorials, but each trainer had a different approach, and it requires finding your preference of training.  The monthly subscription to view all content is $25.  The cost is clearly worth the price if you are determined to learn the content.

Adobe TV devotes its training to Adobe products, but it’s free and very good.  I have been going through the Flex in a Week series.  The training is high quality, though the videos don’t seem to be organized correctly–the next video is often not the one mentioned at the end of the previous video.  Also, it seems the trainers in Adobe videos, when accessing external data, always connect to a ColdFusion server, which always annoys me.  I have no idea how to use ColdFusion and would benefit from a server solution like PHP/MySQL.  I did locate some additional tutorials on using PHP and Flex.

**I initially viewed these tutorials in Adobe Media Player, but though the Media Player has potential.  It’s clunky and not the best UI for viewing a series of videos.  I became so frustrated with the Media Player, I searched for Adobe videos and found Adobe TV.