Diary of a Network Geek

I love free!

So, most everyone in my business has heard of Adobe.  Mainly because they’re the top design and graphics software publisher in business right now.  Well, they’ve released a FREE program called Muse that lets you layout and publish webpages without having to write code.  Now, myself, personally, I’m okay writing the HTML code behind simple webpages, but, frankly, it’s a lot faster to do it in a nice graphical user interface that’s filled with point-and-click tools.  Also, since this comes from Adobe, you know that they’re going to have a great interface and make it easy to use for the novice.  Not sure how the output is, but, frankly, for most users, as long as the page looks nice when they’re done, the code behind it doesn’t really matter.

The program itself runs on their Adobe AIR platform, which means it’s pretty lightweight and fast.  You can read about all the features on the Muse website.
Oh, and while this is free right now, it will, eventually, be for sale in 2012, when they’ll be charging by the month for it.  So, you’d better get this while you can!

Hey, free, creative software just in time for the weekend, how can you beat that?
Well, enjoy your Friday, in any case.

Okay, this is a little stale, but…
WOW! According to this press release on Adobe’s website, Adobe plans to acquire Macromedia via a massive stock purchase. The plan is for them to buy all the stock at the Friday 4/15 price.
If you’re not aware of these two companies, you’ve not been paying attention. And, the implications of them becoming a single entity is, well, massive. Adobe will, quite simply, become the largest graphics and design software company ever to exist. This will mean that one company will be responsible for Acrobat, Photoshop, Flash, and Dreamweaver. Think about how many top-shelf graphics and design programs that puts under the control of one company. That’s almost frightening.

as all that after all…

Well, last week I logged an entry about Adobe’s deal with the government to try and stamp out conterfiting and already someone’s beaten their “protection”. According to this article on Wired News, folks have found several ways around the currency scanning protection. Everything from using an older version of Photoshop to importing the picture from the clipboard gets around this little protection. So, as the article says, that begs the question, “why did they bother?” Was it government pressure? A vast conspiracy between the Bilderbugers and the Knights Templar? Who knows… In any case, it’s easily defeatable and generated a bunch of bad press for them.

Go figure.

I see this as a good thing.

I seem to recall hearing about this quite some time ago, but it’s surfaced again and seems to be causing a ruckus. Not sure why, though. According to this article on AustrailianIT, Adobe has added code to Photoshop to prevent people from making duplicates of certain currencies. Their argument is, of course, that legitimate users shouldn’t be troubled by this since they shouldn’t have any issues with “imperfect” image. Frankly, I agree. But, this has apparently riled a bunch of artist types for some reason.
The article doesn’t go into many details for their reasoning, but I can’t imagine what would cause so much turmoil. I mean, what purpose could you have for creating a such a hyper-accurate reproduction of United States currency? If it’s for art, surely the artist can recreate a reasonable replacement to go over the change. And, even given the “art” aspect of it, I have a hard time picturing what might require such accurate copies of legal tender.
Anyway, the story is interesting.