A few weeks ago I traveled to Miami for an InDesign conference. The trip was expensive but totally worth it in my book.

The conference sessions were about all things InDesign. It even included a sneak peak at what might be coming in the next version of InDesign. I found it really hard to walk away after two days. I wanted to stay the entire week. 

Since the conference, I've been slowly sifting through the material collected:

    First off, I got some handy plug-ins. Recosoft has a PDF2ID plug-in that works wonderfully. Basically, you open the PDF like you would an InDesign file. You then specify what settings you want and the plug-in converts it. I've been using that for a week, almost two now. It has its issues but overall saves me a ton of time. I understand why Adobe doesn't want to support the importation of PDFs.
    Second, I downloaded a keyboard shortcuts plug-in that is from David Blatner of indesignsecrets.com and Real World InDesign. You can get the plug-in from DTP tools. I've taken to looking up something that i use all the time once a day. This week I learned a lot about page navigation. For instance, you can go to a page by using com + J (mac). Truly a great feature when working on long documents!

The most helpful tools I've found besides books and the tons of notes I took are the following Podcasts:

    indesignsecrets.com - David Blatner & Anne-Marie Concepcion
       Two professional graphic designers who also answer questions and share helpful tips and tricks for working professionals. (My favorite part is the obscure feature of the podcast.)
    theindesigner.com - Michael Murphy
        An Adobe Certified expert that answers questions on podcasts as well as sharing practical skills
    designtoolsweekly - Jay Nelson & Jeff Famet
         They read the major design publications and bring you what you need to know about technology, etc.