Type: Aside

Adobe Creative Suite 5: Initial thoughts

I installed Adobe Creative Suite 5 last week, spent a few days testing out all the new tools and features, and have a few initial thoughts to share with you all. To be clear, while I have the CS5 Master Collection, I only reviewed the apps found in the CS5 Design Premium bundle.

First let me say that in case you missed it, I covered my thoughts on the new CS5 application installers last week. They’ve been greatly improved over the last few CS installers. But one thing they didn’t fix about the installation is where things get installed.

Adobe Creative Suite 5

Adobe Creative Suite 5 has me happy so far, but it's not without faults

Adobe everywhere

Like its predecessors, Adobe Creative Suite litters your hard drive with apps, utilities, preferences and documents. I mean they’re everywhere. And once you run the apps, you get even more folders appearing in the oddest places. Items get installed in all three of your Library folders, fonts reside in multiple locations, utilities get installed loose in the Utilities folder, as well as within sub-folders. There just doesn’t appear to be any rhyme or reason to it. I’m not sure why they can’t figure out a way to gather all these apparently necessary files into a single folder in the Applications folder. Heck, even Microsoft figured out how to do that!
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Dear Adobe: Why I won’t upgrade to the latest Creative Suite 5

No CS5With the recent announcement of Creative Suite 5 by Adobe this past week, and the subsequent complaining that always seems to accompany such an announcement, I thought I would type-up a quick complaint letter that interested people can copy & paste into an email and send off to Adobe. Perhaps if those of you who aren’t happy with the direction Adobe is going in send this letter to them, they’ll completely toss 20+ years of successful software into the bin and start over from scratch!

Dear Adobe,

I’ve been a long-time user of Adobe products, and I feel like you’re not listening to all your users with this latest release of Creative Suite 5. I’ve outlined the reasons that I, your most valuable customer, will not be upgrading my single copy of Creative Suite Premium of CS1 I got off Limewire, because it runs just fine.

First of all, I think it’s pretty damn stupid of you to leave all us non-Intel Mac users out in the cold. I purchased a G4 about 10 years ago and don’t see any reason why I should upgrade my hardware just so I can run your new software. You clearly don’t care about your most important customer.

But that’s enough about hardware that you have no control of… let’s move on to your software.
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Intro to Creative Commons photo licensing

A few years ago I wrote a brief article explaining how to use Flickr images for free in your design work via the Create Commons License search feature on Flickr.

Creative CommonsWhile I touched on the basics of Creative Commons licensing, I didn’t really go into any great detail. In this day and age, everyone has a digital camera – and everyone is sharing their photos. Without getting into the whole “you get what you pay for” argument, many designers are finding that not only is hiring a professional photographer not necessary for much of their work, but even using stock photography sites is less of a necessity nowadays. Photos using the Creative Commons license allow for personal and/or commercial use with little restriction. Not only that, but it’s a great way to gain exposure for your photo work.

Digital Photography School has a great intro to Creative Commons Licensing for photographers that covers the basics. For more detailed information, you can read the Creative Commons FAQ. You can also get a quick description of each license here.

Design survival: Finding design inspiration outside the digital world

Mona LisaWith just a few years under your belt as a graphic designer, you’ve no doubt come across a time or two when you experienced a complete and total lack of creativity; a sort of designer’s block, if you will. If it hasn’t happened to you, you either haven’t pushed bounds of creativity yet, or you’ve been darn lucky. Either way, it WILL happen.

The best way to fight it is to seek-out and find creativity in places and things that you wouldn’t normally look for it. The key is getting your butt out from in front of the computer screen and into the real world. For some, it’s easy to do – for others, it’s not as simple. Where to go to look for inspiration? And where to find it once you get there?
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Adobe to announce Creative Suite 5 on April 12th

Adobe Creative Suite 5 launch

Be the first to see all the new features in Creative Suite 5

Adobe is revealing the launch date for Creative Suite 5 to give the creative community time to register for their global online launch event that will take place on Adobe TV on April 12th (8 a.m. PST / 11 a.m. EST) to celebrate the unveiling of CS5. During this event, Adobe will announce the top new features of each CS5 suite, Photoshop, and our new CS Live online services. We invite you to please join us for this momentous event by registering at the Adobe CS5 Launch site.

Alien Skin donates $10,000+ to Haiti relief

You may recall I wrote about Alien Skin Software’s February charity promotion where they were to donate 10% of their profits to Haiti relief. I’m happy to announce that Alien Skin Software donated over $10,000, which includes sale proceeds and a donation made early in February. The donations went to funds specifically for Haiti through the American Red Cross and the Community Coalition for Haiti.

I already loved their software, but stepping up to the plate like this is just fantastic. Many thanks to Alien Skin; I wish more developers would give back to the community like this.

March and April are for Dummies!

For DummiesFrom March 1 through April 30, 2010, For Dummies invites customers to join its annual “Dummies Month” celebration, offering a $5 mail-in rebate with a purchase of any For Dummies book or Audio Set (with the price of $6.99 or more).

Along with the rebate, Dummies.com is hosting a special sweepstakes; from March 1 through April 30, visitors can enter for a chance to win an Apple iPad loaded with For Dummies Apps.

If nothing else, you can visit the Snow Leopard for Dummies section to read some helpful tips for Apple’s latest operating system.

Lower iPhone pricing just doesn’t make sense for me or Apple!

I must admit it… I really want an iPhone. I love my iPod Touch, but it lacks the “anywhere access” to the Internet that would make it truly useful for me (beyond being a great music player). The thing that prevents me from buying an iPhone is the price. So you would think that the latest rumor of Apple preparing to release a lower priced iPhone would interest me.

Unfortunately it doesn’t interest me, and it shouldn’t interest you either.

Rumored lower cost iPhone

Rumor has it Apple is prepping a lower cost iPhone

No, the cost of the iPhone is not the issue. It’s the cost of the plan that prevents me, and probably many of you, from owning an iPhone. With a minimum monthly fee of $70, probably hovering around $80 after taxes and other B.S. fees from AT&T, the iPhone is placed just out of reach of millions of potential buyers.
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