When I wrote my post on PDF Basics and Essential Tools, one of the tools I mentioned was Nitro PDF Professional. It is a desktop application that is affordable and extremely powerful in the PDF creation and manipulation department. The team at Nitro PDF saw the post and sent me a license to give their product a try. First impression - WAY COOL.

Nitro PDF Professional goes above and beyond the basic PDF creation capabilities of many of the services I listed. Just a few things you can do with Nitro PDF Professional include:

• Create a PDF from any file on your computer
• Create a PDF from the items in your clipboard or from your scanner
• Combine files from different sources and file types into a single PDF
• Extract PDF parts for use in other files
• Edit text and images in your PDF file
• Highlight and add comments to the PDF
• Add headers, footers, and watermarks
• Convert your PDF to MS Word
• Different security options to control how your document is accessed

I really like the program and will now use it for my daily PDF needs (I am always working with PDFs) and you can, too! The Nitro PDF team has offered to giveaway 3 full licenses for Nitro PDF Professional to my readers. Entering to win one is easy. Leave a comment on this post letting me know you’d like to win. You can blog about it to get a second entry. But act quick! This giveaway will close midnight Sunday, April 6, 2008. I will be drawing the winners at random on Monday, April 7.

Can’t wait to get your full license? You can try out Nitro PDF Professional free for 14 days!

UPDATE: Congratulations to lucky numbers 8 (Lori), 12 (Lindsey) and 23 (OrgJunkie) - I will be in touch with your prize info! Thanks to all who entered! Nitro PDF contacted me last night and loved all of your comments - they have decided to give full licenses to ALL of you who left a comment on this post and entered the giveaway. I will be forwarding your contact info to Nitro and you can expect to get your site license via email shortly. Thanks Nitro PDF!!

Last month I decided I wanted a new gadget for my business - a Wacom Bamboo Fun tablet - and I asked my readers if I should get one. All of the recommendations were positive, which meant I just had to have one. I ended up getting one for Christmas and it is SO COOL.

I got the Medium Bamboo Fun Black Tablet that came with a pen, mouse and the graphics software. Within 5 minutes of opening the box I was using it.

Installation was so easy. I removed the tablet from the box and plugged it into a free USB port and I was in business! The mouse immediately worked and I quickly figured out that I could use the pen to navigate my screen like a mouse. When the pen tip is close to the tablet surface but not touching, you can use it like a mouse. Tap on the tablet for a single mouse click and tap twice for a double click. It did come with two CDs - one with the Bamboo software/drivers to give you access to all the advanced features and settings and one with software such as Adobe Photoshop Effects and a few others.

Getting started was pretty simple, too. I opened a photo and was easily able to do red eye touch up, select areas I wanted to work with and such. Writing and drawing on the tablet are both very easy and feel just like writing on paper. You do have to practice to get the exact feel - something that I am sure will take some time for me.

The Bamboo Fun plays well with everyone! I have had no problem using it with Fireworks, Photoshop, Photoshop Elements (came with the Bamboo Fun), using it on the PC and then taking it over to my Mac to work in Illustrator and Photoshop there.

I certainly have a lot to learn about the Bamboo Fun and how to really maximize its use. A lot of that will just take practice and just flat out using it. I may have to spend some time at iSketch.net for practice (thanks for the tip Randa). If you know of any other tools or sites that are good for developing my Bamboo skills - let me know!!!

One of my favorite readers is Lisa Sabin-Wilson, the owner of eWebscapes design company and author of the blog Just a Girl in the World. When I found out that Lisa was authoring a book on WordPress, I could not wait to see it. I followed her journey through writing the book all the way to press time and I can tell you that she poured her heart and soul into making WordPress for Dummies the most complete reference on WordPress.

Lisa sent me a copy of the book to review (and I’m giving one away at Casual Keystrokes right now). All I can say, is that it doesn’t matter whether you are an experienced WordPress pro or a brand new blogger needing all the basics, this book is worth every penny. There are over 350 pages of how-to’s, screen shots, tips, and real life examples for Wordpress.com, WordPress.org, and WordPress MU.  There is even a foreword by Matt Mullenweg, the co-founder of WordPress.

Lisa starts the book off by explaining benefits of WordPress - what it can do for you and she then talks about Blogging Basics - from personal blogging to business blogging.

One whole section of the book is dedicated to using the WordPress.com hosted service and how to make the most of its features.

Another section of the book is about self hosted WordPress.org usage starting at the very beginning from buying a domain name to file transfer and installing WordPress. She explains the administration panel and its capabilities and how to establish a blogging routine.

Chapters 9, 10 and 11 are excellent resources for the intermediate to advanced user who want to customize the look of their site using templates, themes, plugins and such.

Do you want to run multiple blogs with multiple authors with a single installation? WordPress MU could be the solution you are looking for. Lisa dedicates another whole section of the book to explaining MU, how to install it, configure it and how to make it your best friend.

My favorite section of the book is the chapter on using WordPress as a Content Management System. More and more I am moving traditional web sites to WordPress for quicker development times and easier updates from the client side. WordPress for Dummies chapter on WordPress as a CMS is a must see resource if you are considering using WordPress for this purpose.

As a bonus, Lisa has included the best free WordPress themes and plugins that she recommends.

I am very impressed with this book as a whole and fully expect my copy will rapidly become dog-eared as it gets daily use!!

You can get a copy of WordPress for Dummies for yourself at Amazon or your local bookstore, but if you act quickly, you can win a free copy of the book at my other site, Casual Keystrokes by simply leaving me a comment over there. Either way, you need this book.