However, it is not without its faults. On Vista, when typing text in Fireworks things can occasionally go very, very wrong. The solution at least initially is to turn off the “Auto Kern” option in the Properties dialog — but this removes one of the big benefits of using Fireworks in the first place!

There are other options. The problem will go away (sometimes) when the file is closed and Fireworks is restarted — this is hit and miss. More permanently, disabling Vista’s fancy-pants Aero theme (the thing that makes all window borders transparent, gives that snazzy Start + Tab effect, etc.) will ensure you have a glitch-free Fireworks font experience.

The real solution? Sneak into Adobe HQ and write a patch to fix the stupid thing!

By vendor, that constitutes 176 crashes/hangs/‘not-respondings’ of Microsoft software to 21 of Adobe software over the same period. Now, it feels like I’m cheating the numbers here by reporting Windows Problem Reporting itself, because probably 90% of its crashes occur when reporting on Internet Explorer, but hey — these are the numbers Microsoft’s software itself gave me, so who’s complaining?

In case you think this isn’t a fair comparison for reasons of time spent using various programmes, exclude Problem Reporting crashes (though you shouldn’t) and the Microsoft stat comes down to 124. That is, lots.

I can’t think of a day since owning this computer I wouldn’t have used at least one piece of Adobe software, most commonly more. To be fair, Adobe software is more likely to do weird things (like, ya know, refusing to save) causing me to restart the application rather than letting it ‘crash’ per se… but Microsoft’s junk is vastly less likely to give me any sort of warning before flaking out.

These crashes are reported over a three-month period spanning November 26 until January 25.

Vista SP1 continues to be eagerly awaited.

The trace had to be a little eclectic for realism’s sake, so I didn’t just do the redraw with Ctrl + D transform ninja skills, but let the software trace it. Big mistake.

It was one of those things that InDesign got a little upset about the complexity of — which is okay — and had to import as encapsulated postscript instead of as native vector data — which is also okay. Trouble was, it wasn’t just borderline too-complex, it was stupidly over the edge. I stuck it on the A-Master (which keeps me sane and the .indd filesize down) and got to work for about a week on the rest of the content and so forth. As we get closer to press (I was aiming for today… others apparnetly have different ideas) I’ve started doing the Indd->PDF shuffle and discovered the absolute pain of waiting for it to “render” (basically that’s what it’s doing) the EPS onto every page as it creates the PDF file.

I endured this for about two days and then finally snapped this morning, went back to Photoshop with the source image and processed it to make it look similar enough before pasting the raster scan into the A-Master in the traced thing’s place.

As if by magic, the generated PDF size dropped from 55MB to under 4MB.

Raster images are your friend.

p.s. hopefully I’m back here now. Am away next week with GPRS Internet only, then in New Zealand (with Internet, albeit with uncertainty about having a computer in the accommodation). Yes, busy as ever. On Facebook quite a lot, because status updates are more managable than full blog posts!

I haven’t had a great day with Firefox. Well… I spent 3–4 hours in meetings today, so I didn’t even have that much time with Firefox! Still managed to let me down twice, though.

Damn its indisposable development tools *sobs uncontrollably*

I think I’ll switch back to Opera for all non-development Internet-related activity for a while… unless anyone has any other browser recommendations? I’ve seriously thought about IE7, but its rendering is still just a little too patchy for me to be able to live with myself as an Internet user.

Bleh. Let it be observed: even high-profile open source does not always lead to a good product. Its memory management is nothing short of repulsive. It will regularly use more memory than Photoshop and Illustrator combined — admittedly, I use Photoshop mostly for web production and not high resolution print stuff (though that does happen a few times a week, and it won’t often go far beyond the 350MB that Firefox seems to manage fairly regularly)

I’m still using CS2, so there aren’t any magical CS3 memory management advances that make such a claim possible… Firefox just sucks :P

I’d blame Windows being in need of a reinstall (it’s been running since October… more than six months without death :P Plus I started out not being happy with it because it’d been installed from the guy I bought the computer off, I just hacked it to use my CD key instead of the one he’d used to test things… so it’s never been perfect), but really, it’s not that bad for any other application. I normally do a reboot once a week and things are fine… heavy duty graphics editing, occasional video editing, constant mail and occasional wordprocessing… and of all those things it is a web browser that can’t get it right. Perhaps I shouldn’t be so derisive about it seeing as I make a living off developing in this relatively simple world… but I am.

The flip side to all of that, of course, is that I’ve been trying to live (more) like a normal user the past few years. Essentially, recognising that it’s simpler to buy software than write it (WordPress, Flickr), using hackably-open technologies instead of truly open ones (WMA Lossless sans DRM), and a general abandonment of open source principles in favour of vastly improved productivity (Photoshop, Premiere, Office 2007, royalty-free stock).

It’s certainly paid off in terms of professional development and enhanced creative potential… but there’s something lost in not being able to hack visualisations hooked up to a webcam together on a command-line anymore. Admittedly, that sort of thing only comes around half a dozen times a year! But no matter, it’s all good fun. Given more friends who were into that sort of thing and some good music, I’d so live in the party house. I’ve not figured out how to do the same command-line video tricks using Windows just yet, so next time I’ll probably use Windows for visualisations (woo particle emitters!) and a separate Linux-powered laptop (maybe?) for webcam trickery. Then I’ll take webcam stuff straight out into Windows capture and skip my vis mixer altogether for once… I gotta learn to travel lighter anyway!

For whatever reason, I wasn’t paying attention when I bought CS2.

I somehow failed to realise that Production Studio Pro has nearly all the same things (ex. DTP stuff that I don’t really have much of a use for, but it’s nice having anyway) and more (Premiere, AfterEffects) for… not a lot more money at all.

*breathes deeply*

On the plus side, Creative Suite 3 is launching later this month though I don’t know if that means the next version of Premiere just yet. So I’ll wait til that’s an option before purchasing Production Studio, which means I get CS3 versions of the stuff I actually use — Photoshop & Illustrator — and still have CS2 of non-essentials, like InDesign, GoLive, etc. Acrobat is going to be alright for a while coz I’ve already got Acrobat 8 because of relatively-late acquisition of CS2. Dreamweaver… I don’t particularly care about, though I’ve happily used it for various things.

And yeah, I’m still going to uni and doing all that sorta thing, so it’s cheaper. I’m just vaguely annoyed I didn’t drop $200 more for Production Studio when I could’ve if I’d read a bit more, but it’s done now. Hopefully they’ll launch a new version of that along with CS3 so I can pick it up soon after the end of this month.

One day I might even make a decent amount of money out of this :P My reasoning is that living at home & studying = good time for doing loss-running, skill– and network-building, moderately-expensive-but-just-within-means geeky things.

At the minute I’m not losing money on it, but it’s not something I’d be able to afford to do if I were dependent on regular income for rent, or whatever. Speaking of regularity, John C & I ran job interviews yesterday and decided to get one of the applicants onboard for CYIADA! So now that enters the build phase & we’re actually going to be MakingStuff™ that’ll become more directed and stable — not in a financial sense, but just in a number-of-hours-a-week kinda way. At the minute my hours have fluctuated a bit depending on what I’ve been able to think of/motivated to get done, but that’ll obviously stabilise a lot as I move back to cutting code and actually seeing it develop!

Anyway. Can’t wait.

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Jan. 4, 2007 — Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced that the next version of Adobe® Production Studio, the integrated video and audio postproduction tool set that is part of the Creative Suite family, will be available for both the Macintosh and Windows® platforms. Film, video and web professionals currently using Adobe After Effects®, Adobe Photoshop® and Adobe Illustrator® on the Mac will soon be able to harness the power of completely new Macintosh releases of Adobe Premiere® Pro, Adobe Encore® DVD and Adobe Soundbooth™ — all key components of an upcoming milestone revision to Adobe Production Studio. The software will have its first public demonstration during the Macworld 2007 Conference and Exhibition at The Moscone Center in San Francisco, January 9 – 12 (Booth 901). The next release of Adobe Production Studio is expected to ship in mid-2007.

Are they trying to convince me to buy a Mac? Ever since someone showed me what you can do with Objective C and Quartz to any video source on a Mac I’ve been wishing it were practical to buy one and use it for everything I wanted to, but couldn’t bring myself to consider FCP on account of lack of snazzy integration. Ah well. I’m sure something else will crop up before the elusively-dated “mid-2007″ to help me reconsider…

Frag on, you crazy designers.

Software piracy also features… but, of course, there seems to be little that can be done to actually report this (if eBay have a “Report violation” link, it’s adequately hidden from me). Observe this question from earlier today on an iBook with OS 10.4.4 and Photoshop, Illustrator and Indesign, and MS Office for Mac included:

Me: Does this come with original CDs + licenses for OS 10.4, MS Office for Mac and Adobe software?
Seller: No.

(Yeah, that was fulltext of the question + answer!)

And on another listing (I didn’t ask the question on this one!) advertised as including iLife 06, MS Office 2004 and Adobe CS2:

Q: Are you selling the software disks too?
A: No. I’ve installed the software, and all the apps work, but I’m only going to be sending the laptop and its power cable. Thanks.

Sigh.

(p.s. though it may appear this way from this post, I’m not convinced I want a Mac laptop anymore. In fact, I’d probably prefer a PC because they’re lighter + cheaper than their Apple counterparts)

The image links to a larger PNG of the same.

You can also get its Inkscape SVG source file… it probably won’t open in certain other editors — specifically Illustrator (I say this because it’s been tried before, though not with this particular file).

The advantage of this being an SVG is you can blow it up to whatever resolution you want, get a large format digital printer, and stick it on the side of your fully-sick car, if you so desired. Or, you could just view it on your computer screen!

Accessibility issues aside, people don’t seem to understand that typography doesn’t work like print.

I’d like to go and rant to the teacher who set the project — not because they use redundant and deprecated design practices, but simply in response to their role in perpetuating these. Educators have a greater burden of responsibility here, being a catalyst for the practices of tomorrow. Admittedly, education is not the only catalyst (I think most people my age who understand the notion of the semantic web can attest to this!), but that should not diminish its potential role in this.

I argue that, in their role as educators, they have failed — their influence is a wholly negative one in this aspect for several reasons.

Web design in this outmoded form, regardless as to the WYSIWYG application used to enact this, is not effective in developing an individual’s design skills.

Note that I don’t speak of web design generally — I think, done properly, it provides an excellent grounding in design in a more flexible frame of mind (thinking in terms of fluid layouts, for example, as opposed to static print layouts). My criticism is applied only to the primary use of applications such as Frontpage or Dreamweaver as sole design tools, and more so to word processing and DTP software that perform a secondary function in being able to export HTML. Notably, use of graphic design tools is exempt from such a criticism (Photoshop, Illustrator, Fireworks… and to a lesser extent Flash — lesser because it is not designed for the primary production of graphical elements, rather for the implementation of these in an interactive and engaging framework) — these have value in the development of design skills, even if these skills are not directly applicable in an electronic context.

The notion of markup is foreign, even whilst the user recognises the purpose of an application as being to create documents in a markup language.

Clearly, such education ignores the core tenet of the technology on which it is based. Given the general pedanticism prevalent in computing-related courses (I do not comment on the depth of education, only the nature of that which is given), one would imagine that the fundamental elements, particularly in a “simple”, uncompiled language, would be addressed. Apparently not — perhaps it was too relevant for consideration?

WYSIWYG creation rejects the notion of separation of markup (content), presentation and behaviour.

The risks are three-fold.

Firstly, that production of quality content should be hindered by the bundled nature of the medium — that is, people will focus on presentation at the expense of content. The semantic web frees content-creators from this — their purpose is simply that, with layout being dictated at the presentational layer. For a broader example of this, see general criticisms of PowerPoint as being a time-wasting and hollow presentation form.

Secondly, that the content should be bound to presentation, and its longevity would be compromised by this link. This is a well-documented risk in relation to the semantic web, and one of the core reasons commonly given in support of this. Ample evidence supporting this exists, so I won’t elaborate further.

A third risk is the general accessibility of information — also well documented. The creation of quality content is still possible, but if this content is accessible to no-one due to usability barriers, it is redundant.

Promotion of WYSIWYG development methods is counter-productive in all areas — content production, general quality of design, and creation of an accessibility/usability culture — and should cease immediately in all educational spheres presently supporting this practice.

*steps off soap box*

Kim Pounder is a remarkable artist when equipped with pen and paper, as those who know her may be aware. Those who aren’t, I’d advise visit her gallery some time. You’ll note a handful of coloured works in there, amongst the sketches and black and white art: this is attributed by her to a lack of software (for the purposes of colouring and shading).

Kim isn’t Linus Torvalds. She’s moderately computer literate, but not any more so than most. If nothing else, I thought it would be a great usability experiment to suggest she use The GIMP for editing and colouring her artwork digitally, instead of recommending the typically accepted software, Photoshop or Illustrator. Essentially, financial reasons meant that neither application was a viable option for her, and I wasn’t about to advocate piracy.

At this point, I recommended The GIMP to her, and offered download links… which, for whatever reason, weren’t working for her. So I downloaded The GIMP and GTK+ packages for Windows, burnt them to CD (haha, no, I didn’t bother with including the program source code! Kim, you’re most welcome to the source code if you desire it — there, GNU compliance!), and physically gave it to her. A few days later, not only has the application been installed and configured (those of you who have installed The GIMP recently may recall a screen DPI calibration utility which must be negotiated), she’d also managed to use the tool to colour, using an airbrush, the “Woodland Fae” illustration.

Take that, those who condemn the usability of Open-Source applications! I’ll admit it’s not up to the same interface standards as those of Adobe, but then this project doesn’t (to the best of my knowledge) have any full-time sponsored employees working on it, either. Oh, yeah, and it’s free.

The GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed piece of software for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. It works on many operating systems, in many languages.

The GIMP for Windows may be downloaded from http://gimp-win.sourceforge.net/ free of charge. Unix binaries and source code archives are available directly from the official website of The Gimp, http://www.gimp.org/.