Speedier by Adobe

I have been a fan of Adobe products for many years now. This month the Creative Suite 4 series was released. I had the pleasure of using the beta version of Dreamweaver CS4 this past summer. The new release makes use of the GPU and video memory on those computers like the iMac which have an independent video card. The speed improvement is especially noticeable working with images in Photoshop or Bridge.  With the strong focus on improving the user interface - especially in the old Macromedia products - making things speedier, improving cross-application integration, and adding some great new features make this release worth the money for all designers. 

Adobe is a strong example of a company that is right in tune with the modern era - great user oriented design, tremendous support (check Adobe TV on the web), and truly effective retailing via the web. I was able to buy the upgrade late on a Saturday evening and download the huge 4.8 Gb file. Once downloaded a couple of hours later, the file did a self check for transmission errors before allowing me to proceed with the installation.   

A Touch of Class

Some years ago, I bought my first PDA. It was a Palm M500. I bought it on sale at the end of its market life and used it until very recently when the cover finally wore out and the battery became unreliable. Our cell phone is also old and cannot be used past this November when Bell Mobility upgrades its network. 

I had thoughts of using the iPhone 3G to replace both my PDA and my cell. Unfortunately, Rogers wanted far too much for the little use I make of a cell, so I turned to the iPod Touch. When the newest version arrived this fall, I took the plunge and bought the 16 Gb version. It is such an elegant little gadget. It doesn't take long to learn the gestures and procedures to use its many features. When I am in range of a wifi, the very well thought out Safari browser works as does my email. 

In spite of the small screen, it is easy to read, and most screens can be magnified. The little touch keyboard takes some practice, but then so did Palm's Graffiti. Screen resolution and colours are outstanding. A sturdy replacement for my little M500, the iPod Touch is a classy affirmation of Apple's design and construction quality - and like my iMac, the user interface makes it a delight to use.  I snapped the image at the left with my Sony F828 to give you an idea - the colours aren't quite accurate and the highlights washed out a bit.  

Ready in a Flash

Last spring, a client asked for a few Flash files for his new site. I said, "no problem, I have Flash CS3 on my Mac". However; Flash is no Photoshop. Its variety of "objects" that do "this", but not "that" combined with a strange GUI left me struggling. I managed to make a few Flash "movies" but I didn't promote them to his web site. Instead, this fall I did two things. Bought a training book (Flash CS3 Professional, by Todd Todd Perkins) and registered for a class at Humber. 

My instructor, Paul Minstrell, is a gem. He was trained in traditional hand drawn animation and has used Flash since it first arrived on the market as "FutureSplash Animator". Paul is a dynamo filled with information on Flash and the animation creative process. In our first class, he mentioned "Bitey Castle", a site whose creator shows what can be done with Flash. Click here to go to the "Bitey Castle"home page. Or click here to go to "Frank", a 45 second example of  Adam Phillips's wry humour and drawing skill. Have a peek!     

The Way Back Machine

Did you know the web has an archive too? Visit archive.org to see what is saved in the Internet Archive. A note on their home page explains that "The Internet Archive is building a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form." Included are movies, music, audio, text and web pages.  Enter a URL in the address box for the Way Back Machine and you will get an index of pages by date saved. For example, I can go back to 1998 on our site by entering "web.onramp.ca/phsc", our original URL, or "www.phsc.ca", our current URL. Some images are missing, but the the few links I tried within a page seemed to work.   

A 15 cent Lesson

I swear Bell is working hard at losing customers. In June I received yet another annoying taped telemarketing message. Noticing the phone number was local, I hung up and called back. Instead of a person answering, I heard a recording asking me to leave a message. I did just that, politely asking them to remove my phone number from their list, then forgot about the incident...

...until my July Bell bill arrived. It had a mysterious 15 cent charge for “Universal Messaging” with no hint as to its purpose other than a now forgotten local phone number. Carol asked me what it was for and I was stumped. I went to the Bell web site where I found a page that “explained” my bill in great detail - but not the 15 cent charge. I resorted to a Google search and there buried in a CRTC report from a few years back was the very charge - turns out it is a charge to leave a message on a phone number which has no voicemail. Worse, if the number is international, the charge can exceed $2.00. No hint of this when I dialed the number. No identification that made sense on the bill. Nothing on the Bell web site. Great customer relations!

You've come a long way, little logo

About fifteen years ago, I had a call from Larry Boccioletti. He wanted me to use the tag line “The Big One” on our poster to differentiate our fair from new ones that had sprung up. I was using a page layout program on my Amiga called PageStream - long on promises and woefully short on delivery. One of the few things that did work was a primitive means to force a font to follow a curve or a shape. I used that feature to transform Larry’s tag line into a logo. By 1998 I had to abandon the Amiga, which had spiralled down into bankruptcy, and decided to build a WinTel machine using Windows 95 - an OS disaster compared to the Amiga OS. I was able to convert the logo vector file into a wmf file and move it to Windows. I initially used Microsoft Publisher, but soon tired of its cartoonish icons and gee-whizz antics. Then I accidently came across the very first release of InDesign at Future Shop - bargain priced for users switching programs - and it could read my wmf file. Last summer, when I wearied - really wearied - of Windows, I moved to a Mac.

A few weeks ago, I volunteered to help Bob Lansdale by doing a full page poster insert for the journal. Since I had a few weeks grace, I put on my thinking cap while doing chores around the yard and came up with a fresh design. I had the bright idea of using the logo as a mask in Photoshop on a crowd scene. I was very surprised to find the original wmf file in the stuff I moved over from Windows and even more so when Adobe Illustrator converted it to a format that Photoshop could read. The result worked out just fine for our new fall 2008 fair poster. The little logo has happily jumped platforms and formats once again - a little bit of the 1990s Amiga has survived through stops on various Windows machines to arrive on an iMac running a modern OS.

An apple a day

As a recent convert to the Mac, I have looked around for a newsletter such as the Windows Secrets newsletter I read for Windows related news. TUAW has proven to be the “must read” source for me. During the week it is updated frequently through the day. The key is that it reports on all sorts of Macintosh and Mac related items, offering a precis and a link to the originating source. I became aware of many useful applications and general information since I began reading TUAW (www.tuaw.com). A superb resource.