Using Thor's Hammer to Crush a Tac into Cardboard

All right, not so much of a techie article, more of a choice / philosophy article.  Here goes.

Back in the late 90ies, when this thing called the interwebs was just getting going, there were all sorts of smaller software packages you could buy to do little things.  Ulead GIF animator, 3DFX suite, Bryce 3D, gosh I forget most of them at this point which makes me sad.  I didn't have a lot of money back then (still don't but relatively I'm more able to purchase things).  I loved saving my pennies and buying these little 50 dollar software packages that would allow you to do photo editing and basic 3D stuff.

But the big stuff, like Photoshop, was always out of reach to me.  So I went on this thing called usenet (ancient I know) and there was a adobe.support.whatever group.  I didn't have much money, but I worked at a winery at the time, and I could get wine dirt cheap, so I figured maybe I could reach out to Adobe and make a deal.  And it worked.  Pretty soon I exchanged emails with someone at Adobe and traded a box of various wines for a brand new version of Photoshop 4.

Now I was professional.  I loved that program and played with it a lot.  But over the years I went more of the programming route, and had less and less time to play with Photoshop.  Somewhere around version CC whatever the interface changed quite a bit.  I find sometimes with the new interface doing simple stuff takes me a bit to figure out.  If I still used Photoshop often it would be no big deal, but the truth is I just don't anymore.  And what I do use it for is often really simple, stuff free software could like Paint.Net could do really easily.

So it leaves me with a conundrum.  I've been fiercely loyal to Adobe ever since I traded with that one guy online for a case of wine for Photoshop.  I love Adobe products.  I pay for the full creative cloud (about 55 to 60 bucks a month) which gives me everything.  After Effects, Premier, the works.  And for all you get that price point in my humble opinion is an absolute bargain...if you use the tools a lot.

And there is the rub.  I don't.  I want to.  I keep setting little goals for myself to learn After Effects or Indesign.  If I don't I will give up the subscription.  The goals come and go but yet over 600 bucks a year goes out of my wallet to Adobe.

Two issues.  Expense and learning curve.  GIMP, Paint.Net, Paintshop Pro, etc... are all fairly capable programs for what I would ever use them for.  These low end "consumer grade" or freeware stuff has come a long, long way from where they were ten years ago.  Paintshop Pro is fairly compatible with Photoshop, I think it can even export PSD's and such.  Premier is awesome, but I haven't really used it since like CS1, and when I try to use it now I can figure stuff out, but it takes awhile.

There is a sale going on right now where I can get Corel's Paintshop Pro and whatever the Video Editor is called for like 80 bucks.  I've used Vegas (competing video editor to Premier and another tempting but more expensive option) before and I like it, but that Corel bundle is tempting.  About a month and a half of what I pay for Adobe's stuff.  Hell I could even buy the latest versions every year and still come out way ahead.

 I think I'm going to give up my subscription, and because of my history with Adobe it sucks.  I hesitate a bit because in a sense it is admitting defeat for me.  By giving up on the professional grade Adobe tools I am admitting to myself that I most likely will never become a professional graphic designer.  When I initially got into web development, twenty years ago, the graphic side of things is what I liked.  But I realized quickly that my talent there was limited, and focused more on coding.  That little bit of that young man getting into tech still lives and still really wants to be a "real" graphic designer, but...the reality of things is I just won't get, or make, the time to do it, nor encounter projects both at work and at home that really push me on the graphic design level.  I sadly am coming to grips with this, and thus I'm more willing to give up my Adobe subscription for the "consumer" grade stuff.  It bums me out.

But at the same time, using newer, less clunky software might actually be a key to jump starting my graphic design skills again.  With limited time, using easy to (re)learn stuff to get content out the door quickly when I do have time to play with things just might be the spark I need.  Instead of using a giant hammer to tackle a simple task, which makes the task less fun, maybe using a simple, quick, light tool to do it will get me past those simple task into more complex ones, where I actually do hit a wall and need more advanced tools to get a job done.  And if I can convince my wife to let me keep that 600 dollar yearly budget, but spend it on other things, I can purchase some 3D software I've been eyeing again.

Lastly, Adobe has changed a bit from when I first had a relationship with them.  It seems Adobe, even though their tools are still absolutely the best, is a different company now then when the were in the 90ies.  As a company they have blown a few opportunities as well.  Director could be eating Unity's lunch, but Adobe let the ball fall there.  Not sure Flash was handled like it could have been as well, heck I would have rather have seen Director pushed more than Flash.  And then when Adobe did redo Directory they just outsourced to a team of programmers and did a refresh.  Not sure how much in house talent they keep around in house.  I'm sure some, but they are doing the global outsourcing thing like everyone else.  No longer the slightly bigger Mom and Pop company that I encountered long ago.  Maybe my out for a little disloyalty :)

Well, if I ever am able to get into the swing of things, I can resubscribe I guess.  Just worry I never will as time and tide take me down other paths with software.  But the option is there.

Adobe, I love you.  Your software is still king.  But I must acknowledge that a full on graphic designer I am not, and I can make do with a lot less.  Makes me sad.  It is me not you.

Common Free Software Packages I Use

Not too long ago I had to install all my apps on a new windows laptop.  In doing so I made a list of windows applications that I commonly use that are free or essentially free.  I hope it is useful.

• Winamp - the old stand by for playing MP3 files.  
• irfanview - another old stand by for image viewing and quick manipulation
• e-sword.net - I'm a Christian, this is a great Bible / Bible study free package.  MySword on Android is good as well.
• Virtual Clone Drive - Why burn an ISO to a DVD to use it if you don't have to?
• 7-Zip (or Winzip) - Extends your base OS zip and unzip functionality to support more file types (like RAR files)
• Libre Office - Decent enough, why pay for office if you don't have to?
• Paint.Net - It ain't Photoshop but it will do in a pinch and it is free.
• Visual Studio Community Edition - Essentially a full version of Visual Studio for free.  
• SQLite Manager Extension for Firefox - using SQLite more and more for more and more things.  This extension for Firefox is kinda like SQL Manager for Sqlite.  There might be better ones but this one works great for me.
• Notepad++ - I usually just use notepad but sometimes I like editing by column and Notepad++ supports that, also has great syntax highlighting support.
• CC Cleaner - Keeps your Windows registry clean
• Macrium Reflect - Need to clone a drive hassle free?  This is your beast.
• Blender - For a little 3D fun
• K-Lite Mega Code Pack - To make sure I can play videos from my phone.
• Freemind - Mind mapping software.
• CDBurnerXP - Free CD and DVD burner (not sure about Blue Ray support)
• VLC Media Player - Free DVD and other format watcher

Maybe one day I'll come back and link to all these programs but you people are smart and can copy/paste into a google search like the rest of us.  Maybe there is one or two on the list you haven't heard of or had forgotten about.  Know of any that you think should be included on this list?  Add them to the comments.

Software Tip: HWMonitor from CPUID

In the process of upgrading my laptop's hard drive I had noticed that my machine was running a little hotter than it should be.  In the process of trying to diagnose why I found this little utility for Windows machines called HWMonitor, which comes in a free and pay for version.  It gives you nice real time stats on voltage, temp, and wear and tear on your laptop's battery.

http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html

Software Tip: Clonezilla

I've had really good luck with my latest HP laptop...but I did a few stupid things with it and now the hard drive is occasionally "clicking" and becoming unresponsive, a bad sign.  So I decided to get a new drive.  In the process of researching I found an open source alternative to Norton Ghost called Clonezilla.  Some of you might find it useful.

http://clonezilla.org/

Mind Mapping Software Review

OK, I'm on a "Gotta get a side business going again.  I like to hash out ideas with mind mapping software.  I usually use FreeMind but I decided to take a look at what is out there. I was looking for something free or low cost that was still full featured.  For reference my main research sites where these-

Wikipedia List of concept- and mind-mapping software
Hive Five: Five Best Mind Mapping Applications
http://mindmappingsoftwareblog.com/

Well, the skinny of it is I'm keeping FreeMind but I might play with TheBrain.  Honorable mention is bubble.us for quick and simple mind maps.

• It looks like for the open source world, the FreeMind file type has become a standard, with multiple mind mapping web and desktop applications exporting and importing the FreeMind file type.

As far as software-

• Google now has entered the fray, with their not so advertised "Coggle" software.  I use a lot of Google products, so this looked interesting.  But after getting burned with Google's RSS reader going away I think I'll stay away from Google's fringe products for a bit.  Coggle is not as nearly as full featured as the alternative I will present here either.
• Mindmeister looked promising.  It is web based and looks nice, both pluses, but it didn't seem to have a lot to it yet.
• If you just need to do simple mind maps and would like to make them "in the cloud", the winner would be Bubbl.us hands down.  Very simple web interface and has all the basic stuff you need.  I might use it in a pinch.
• TheBrain looks really cool.  It is a desktop app but there are versions of it for the big three OS's (Linux, Windows, Mac).  You can link any kind of files directly into your mind maps which I found interesting.  I held off because it is a download the pro version download and then after 30 days TheBrain downgrades itself to the free version.  I might test it out later but Idon't want to get sucked into buying stuff when I don't have to, as my budget for my business is very, ah, lean...
• FreeMind reigns supreme right now still.  I don't like that it is a desktop application and I don't like that it has a Java dependency.  It doesn't look quiet as cool as say Mindmeiser or TheBrain.  But it works for my purposes for now I guess.  Maybe I'll revisit this in the future.

There are other tools out there, most of them cost $$$ or didn't look as promising as the above.  Disagree? Know a better tool?  If so let me know in the comments.

Like to Chat? Check out Meebo

I stumbled across www.meebo.com today, and I like it. Web based "omni" chat client, to use my own words. Use MSN, Yahoo, Facebook, and more. Pretty cool.

Tired of All Those Hidden Processes and Sypware?

http://4sysops.com/ blog alerted me to some new software called Process Lasso which can be downloaded here-

http://www.bitsum.com/prolasso.php

Process Lasso is awesome, it is a system tray program with a gui that allows you to set process cpu priorities, cpu affinitities, you can auto terminate processes, and has a host of a bunch of other features.

The program is free for academic and home use. Five out of five stars.

Cool Flash Photoshop Replacement

I stumbled upon Splashup (http://www.splashup.com/ ) this evening (as it was referenced in design vitality's blog http://www.designvitality.com/blog/). Very nice piece of web work. Splashup is a Flash App that has most of the functionality of say Photoshop Elements. Very cool for light editing work and you don't have photoshop installed. Thumbs up. Also Design Vitality's blog is well worth an RSS subscription.

Visual Studio 2008: First Impression

Well, I downloaded the Visual Studio 2008 Express version and played around with it very briefly yesterday. So far I haven't played with too many of the new features yet, but hopefully I'll get a chance to over the weekend. Here are some initial comments of mine.

The Good: The install was a breeze compared to Visual Studio 2005 Pro.

The Bad: I still have to support classic ASP applications, and it looks like the intellisense for classic ASP has pretty much been removed. Bummer.

The OK: I like that the .Net framework 3.5 integrates the AJAX framework out of the box. It looks like most of the interface is pretty much the same as Visual Studio 2005, so I won't be hunting for things all the time, which is nice.

Overall I like how Microsoft is giving away Visual Studio and SQL Server Express versions away for free.

Download copies for yourself -

http://www.microsoft.com/express

Software Review: Googiespell - Thumbs Sideways

I spent a frustrating morning and afternoon trying to get Googiespell to work with the wysiwyg DHTML web editor TinyMCE.

Googiespell is a quick and dirty javascript api that allows you to spell check HTML elements using google's spell checking endpoint/api/webservice with just a few lines of code. The problem I ran into while using it is that Googiespell doesn't play nicely with HTML editors.

TinyMCE is one of the better wysiwyg web based rich text/HTML editors that I have found. It even works with most versions of Safari. It comes with a free spell checker php class and supports Aspell, google's spell check, and one other spelling engine. There is also on open source plugin that supports netspell for aspx pages. The problem is that I'm stuck with classic ASP at the moment so PHP and Netspell don't help me out much. I even tried using netspell concurrently with my asp pages and that didn't work either.

So I learned two things. One, just because a piece of software wows you initially doesn't mean it will suit your needs, my assumption that Googiespell would work with wysiwyg editors might cost me about $250 bucks (my company through down for the licensed version). So research carefully. Two, Googiespell doesn't work well with dhtml text editors, and that sucks!

Amir who wrote Googiespell has been responsive, and I really like Googiespell. But it isn't the end all spell checking solution so it gets a thumbs sideways.

Googiespell is [HERE].

TinyMCE is [HERE].

Freetextbox and Netspell are [HERE].

Thumbs Down: Adobe Premier Elements 2.0

I decided to do a little video editing today, so I dusted off my legit copy of Adobe Premiere Elements 2.0. I used Adobe Premier 1.x professionally and although it had its quirks I liked it and found it a useful tool.

Premier Elements 2.0, unless you are outputting your video as an Mpeg, sucks. What sucks worse is that there is no reason for this other than Adobe intentionally dumbing down the junior varsity version of Premier in the hopes that you will upgrade to the Pro version, which I bet is quiet capable.

As I type this, I'm using Acid 6 to re-encode my video because it does a better job the Premier Elements.

I hope 3 is better, but I'll never know.