The light bulb at Microsoft finally turned on…

lightbulb

A little bulb hanging somewhere over a manager’s desk at Microsoft has finally shed enough light that somebody with half a brain could read the memo that Apple, and many other service companies, have understood for years.

The race to the bottom yields nothing worth having.

Users of Microsoft’s “Unlimited Storage” OneDrive service found out that they’re hosed, and going to have to find somewhere else to store their terabytes of pirated movies.

Folks, there’s just no such thing as a free lunch. There are plenty of free services out there, but even companies the size of Google kill products and services with little warning. Others may start out free, or offer something too good to be true, but come to their senses shortly after you decide it’s critical to your workflow.

If you find a service valuable, pay for it.

From the ‘no-duh’ department: Print is more valuable than digital

print value

As a primarily print designer, the news of Temple University’s Fox School of Business study that showed that print (advertising) is more valuable than digital was music to my ears. That being said, I have to wonder why it took what I’m sure was a time-consuming and expensive study to illustrate the obvious. Here are my thoughts on their findings:
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How to switch from a CMYK to RGB workflow

RGB Color Workflow

The days of having to convert color images to CMYK are gone, yet most designers still cling to the idea that you MUST convert your images to CMYK to avoid all manner of disaster when printing a project.

The reality is that you really don’t have to deal with the CMYK color space any more, and haven’t for years.

David Blatner has a fantastic RGB Workflow walk-through about the subject over at CreativePro. It covers everything from the initial Photoshop file work, to importing into InDesign for layout, all the way to the end when you export the final PDF to send to the printer.

Download, play and organize any type of video for 30% less

Elmedia Player appSimple, targeted solutions is the name of the game for me when it comes to 3rd party software. I no long want apps that try to do a whole bunch of loosely-related things just to justify the cost.

For as long as I can remember, people have been complaining about iTunes and web browsers as it relates to their ability to download and manage videos. And for several years I’ve been telling you about Elmedia Player Pro because I found it to be a great solution.

Eltima Software recently updated their powerful media player/manager Mac app, Elmedia Player, to version 6, bringing with it some speed improvements via hardware acceleration, and support for Apple’s latest OS X version, El Capitan.

If you’re wondering why you might need Elmedia Player, and what makes the Pro version worth $20, read on for a brief summary.
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Manipulate 3D images right inside Photoshop with free plugin


The short video above should tell you all you need to know about what PixelSquid does. Manipulating images as 3D objects right inside Photoshop without the hassle of knowing how to use 3D tools is a concept I’m surprised more companies haven’t tried to tackle.

PixelSquid offers quite a decent-sized collection of 3D images, including a few nice collections like the Apple Collection—which features over 50 Apple objets from yesterday and today. I also liked the Money collection.

The plugin is free, though you do have to sign-up for the service.