Lynda Weinman's lynda.com has been a top-notch training resource since its inception. I speak from experience on this, because I taught at Lynda's famed Digital Arts Center in Ojai, California where I helped develop training books, movies, and courses. Good training has traditionally been expensive and difficult to find — which makes a subscription to the online movie library at the lynda.com site one of the best software training deals around. For $25 a month you can listen to all the movies you want 24/7, learning everything from Photoshop to Dreamweaver to Flash and more. Check out some of the free sample movies on the site and see what you think.

Which brings me to news about the latest offering from the lynda.com online training library - Illustrator CS2 Essential Training.

I had the opportunity to listen to this entire set of movies in which trainer Jeff Van West teaches beginning and intermediate users how to use Illustrator’s tools and features in a series of easy to understand lessons. This title is very complete, covering drawing, editing, transparency, type, paths, special effects, and much more. If you need to learn Illustrator or just want to see what’s new in Illustrator CS2, check this out.