I have mixed thoughts about the flap over the sudden $200 price cut for the iPhone. It is yet another case of Apple's arrogant streak right up there with its heel-dragging in responding to iPod battery life problems.
However, I would also say to those early adopters who rushed right out to buy an iPhone the very second it hit the market: serves you right. Understand here that I usually am in the early adopter crowd. But I do so knowing that the product I am buying likely will be cheaper and improved very shortly after I have bought it. Admittedly a $200 price drop only two months after a product's introduction is a bit in-your-face even for consumer electronics or cell phones. But it's not that far off the norm.
In high tech as in all commerce: caveat emptor.
IPhone Owners Crying Foul Over Price Cut - New York Times
Friday, September 07, 2007
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Getting Creative After a Merger
To paraphrase Forrest Gump, software mergers are like a box of chocolates: you never know what you're gonna get. When Adobe Systems swallowed up its graphics and multimedia software competitor Macromedia, there were considerable concerns about what would happen. With the massive rollout of Adobe Creative Suite CS3, the reassuring answer is that the two product lineups actually have resulted in the much claimed, but rarely attained, objective of “synergy.”
Note upfront: CS3 is a product aimed primarily at professionals. It comes in a multiple versions organized around the needs of creative shops and has pricetags north of $1,000 in full versions. There are lower cost alternatives, some of which are from Adobe and some even are in the CS3 arsenal (more on that later).
Macromedia was strong in web-oriented products: its Flash animation/programming tools and the Dreamweaver web-site creation and design application. Adobe has dropped its equivalent applications, while retaining its own industry-leading software – Photoshop and Acrobat, of course, plus Illustrator (graphics design), InDesign (print layout), Premiere (video editing), and others.
After the merger, Adobe quietly upgraded its existing creative suites to include the Macromedia package, but CS3 moves to merge them all into a unified bundle. The suites include special software (VersionCue, Bridge) to expedite sharing design elements throughout a project. The application interfaces are now more consistent – but only to a point. The company very clearly took care to make sure that the professionals, who are the core customer base, didn’t face any steep learning curves.
Consumer sales likely will be limited to hardcore photo, movie, or web enthusiasts, or to small businesses needing specific components of the package. If you are one of them, I recommend you do extensive shopping research on the Internet to work your way thought the dizzying array of versions and upgrade options to ensure you find the best price. As a general rule, if you need three or more (and sometimes as few as two) of a suite’s component applications, you will do better on price with the suite.
This look at CS3 products, therefore, is organized in rough order of consumer and small business interest:
• Acrobat 8 Professional: Released on its own at the end of last year, it is part of about half the CS3 bundles. Acrobat Pro carries an intimidating $400+ pricetag, but is very much a must-have for businesses and free-lancers who need to distribute documents that retain their formatting and design. An impressive new feature in this version is its ability to printed or PDF forms into electronic versions that can be filled out on your computer with the results fed into a database.
• Contribute CS3: This web-content editor gets a modest update. It remains one of the easiest tools for revising pages on an existing site.
• Dreamweaver CS3 is now the definitive tool for building web sites. I don’t find it especially easy to use, but webmasters love it.
• Photoshop CS3: what can you say when the product’s name has entered the vocabulary as a verb? More complicated than most users need, it’s the serious photographers’ darkroom in the digital age.
For those of us, however, don’t quite have pockets deep enough for CS3. But there are a variety of alternative choices. A long list of both free and low-priced Acrobat creation and editing tools, for example, are just a Web search away. I previously recommended RapidWeaver (Macintosh) and Site Studio (Windows) for easy web creation. And Adobe’s own Photoshop Elements continues to be more than adequate to meet the graphic needs of most consumers. For creating print materials, Microsoft Publisher pretty much owns the Windows market while Mac users can chose such options as BeLight Software’s Printfolio bundle, which offers a big range of features (including mass mailing and CD/DVD label tools) for a small price ($85).
Also, consumers should know that most of the third party add-on enhancements for Photoshop also work with Photoshop Elements. These can be pricy, but in many cases they are a better investment than upgrading to Photoshop CS3 might be.
Alien Skin has at least three that consumers can benefit from: Image Doctor lets you easily eliminate the speckles (called “artifacts”) caused by JPEG compression, remove photo imperfections – and above all, retouch out unwanted picture elements (e.g., making power lines disappear from that otherwise scenic landscape shot you took or getting rid of a trash barrel in a lovely vista.) Its new Blow Up package lets you scale up a snapshot to large print or even poster size. The third, Snap Art, isn’t a must. But I am a sucker for tools that let you take photos and turn them into pseudo-paintings, so I think this tool is a lot of fun.
Note upfront: CS3 is a product aimed primarily at professionals. It comes in a multiple versions organized around the needs of creative shops and has pricetags north of $1,000 in full versions. There are lower cost alternatives, some of which are from Adobe and some even are in the CS3 arsenal (more on that later).
Macromedia was strong in web-oriented products: its Flash animation/programming tools and the Dreamweaver web-site creation and design application. Adobe has dropped its equivalent applications, while retaining its own industry-leading software – Photoshop and Acrobat, of course, plus Illustrator (graphics design), InDesign (print layout), Premiere (video editing), and others.
After the merger, Adobe quietly upgraded its existing creative suites to include the Macromedia package, but CS3 moves to merge them all into a unified bundle. The suites include special software (VersionCue, Bridge) to expedite sharing design elements throughout a project. The application interfaces are now more consistent – but only to a point. The company very clearly took care to make sure that the professionals, who are the core customer base, didn’t face any steep learning curves.
Consumer sales likely will be limited to hardcore photo, movie, or web enthusiasts, or to small businesses needing specific components of the package. If you are one of them, I recommend you do extensive shopping research on the Internet to work your way thought the dizzying array of versions and upgrade options to ensure you find the best price. As a general rule, if you need three or more (and sometimes as few as two) of a suite’s component applications, you will do better on price with the suite.
This look at CS3 products, therefore, is organized in rough order of consumer and small business interest:
• Acrobat 8 Professional: Released on its own at the end of last year, it is part of about half the CS3 bundles. Acrobat Pro carries an intimidating $400+ pricetag, but is very much a must-have for businesses and free-lancers who need to distribute documents that retain their formatting and design. An impressive new feature in this version is its ability to printed or PDF forms into electronic versions that can be filled out on your computer with the results fed into a database.
• Contribute CS3: This web-content editor gets a modest update. It remains one of the easiest tools for revising pages on an existing site.
• Dreamweaver CS3 is now the definitive tool for building web sites. I don’t find it especially easy to use, but webmasters love it.
• Photoshop CS3: what can you say when the product’s name has entered the vocabulary as a verb? More complicated than most users need, it’s the serious photographers’ darkroom in the digital age.
For those of us, however, don’t quite have pockets deep enough for CS3. But there are a variety of alternative choices. A long list of both free and low-priced Acrobat creation and editing tools, for example, are just a Web search away. I previously recommended RapidWeaver (Macintosh) and Site Studio (Windows) for easy web creation. And Adobe’s own Photoshop Elements continues to be more than adequate to meet the graphic needs of most consumers. For creating print materials, Microsoft Publisher pretty much owns the Windows market while Mac users can chose such options as BeLight Software’s Printfolio bundle, which offers a big range of features (including mass mailing and CD/DVD label tools) for a small price ($85).
Also, consumers should know that most of the third party add-on enhancements for Photoshop also work with Photoshop Elements. These can be pricy, but in many cases they are a better investment than upgrading to Photoshop CS3 might be.
Alien Skin has at least three that consumers can benefit from: Image Doctor lets you easily eliminate the speckles (called “artifacts”) caused by JPEG compression, remove photo imperfections – and above all, retouch out unwanted picture elements (e.g., making power lines disappear from that otherwise scenic landscape shot you took or getting rid of a trash barrel in a lovely vista.) Its new Blow Up package lets you scale up a snapshot to large print or even poster size. The third, Snap Art, isn’t a must. But I am a sucker for tools that let you take photos and turn them into pseudo-paintings, so I think this tool is a lot of fun.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Where’s the Other Half of Your Music File? - New York Times
Where’s the Other Half of Your Music File? - New York Times
The New York Times had good article explaining bitrates, which is worth reading.
I largely agree with the findings. It has been long established that Apple's AAC format and Microsoft's WMA both give better sound quality than MP3. While MP3 remains the most interchangeable format, it is definitely showing its age. I am not the most "musical" person on earth, but I can hear the difference.
Second, to my ears AAC its highest quality settings (256 or 320 kbps) is nearly indistinguishable from CDs -- in the typical personal listening environment. You can hear a difference. But it's not one that leaps out at you, and it's magnitude will vary depending on how high end your audio equipment is.
Finally, while compressed formats still are needed for efficient use of portable music players, these days the cost of adding addition storage to a computer is cheap enough that lossless formats are a practical choice for home use. I expect multi-disk CD changers to go the way of eight-track tapes, replaced by lossless formats on hard drives.
The New York Times had good article explaining bitrates, which is worth reading.
I largely agree with the findings. It has been long established that Apple's AAC format and Microsoft's WMA both give better sound quality than MP3. While MP3 remains the most interchangeable format, it is definitely showing its age. I am not the most "musical" person on earth, but I can hear the difference.
Second, to my ears AAC its highest quality settings (256 or 320 kbps) is nearly indistinguishable from CDs -- in the typical personal listening environment. You can hear a difference. But it's not one that leaps out at you, and it's magnitude will vary depending on how high end your audio equipment is.
Finally, while compressed formats still are needed for efficient use of portable music players, these days the cost of adding addition storage to a computer is cheap enough that lossless formats are a practical choice for home use. I expect multi-disk CD changers to go the way of eight-track tapes, replaced by lossless formats on hard drives.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Digital Fears Emerge After Data Siege in Estonia - New York Times
Apparently the scare stories aren't overblown after all...
Digital Fears Emerge After Data Siege in Estonia - New York Times
Digital Fears Emerge After Data Siege in Estonia - New York Times
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Minimalist Schlepping
Then again, you can simply lighten your load by carrying less.
WaterField Bags’ (sfbags.com) Vertigo takes the minimalist approach. It will hold just your notebook and a couple of accessories. As the interior picture on the right below shows, the bag has a couple of pockets for a few small items. But mainly it will accommodate your laptop inside one of WaterField’s protective sleeves and one of the company’s pouches for power chargers and like accessories.
(Best way to buy is to get the bag, sleeve, and pouch as a bundle, which WaterField calls a “mambo combo.”)
You can get in your iPod and maybe a couple of pens. But don’t expect to be able to take files and books along. WaterField has other bags for that purpose. You also really don’t want to use this for larger notebooks. It works best with the kind of thin laptop pioneered by Apple and Sony and now made by practically everyone.
Vertigo holds the laptop vertically (doh!), which gives it an even smaller profile. By holding its width to the narrow side of your laptop, it minimizes the number of “oops, sorry about that” moments you have when the usual horizontal bag bumps into a bystander.
With this bag, less is more.
WaterField Bags’ (sfbags.com) Vertigo takes the minimalist approach. It will hold just your notebook and a couple of accessories. As the interior picture on the right below shows, the bag has a couple of pockets for a few small items. But mainly it will accommodate your laptop inside one of WaterField’s protective sleeves and one of the company’s pouches for power chargers and like accessories.
(Best way to buy is to get the bag, sleeve, and pouch as a bundle, which WaterField calls a “mambo combo.”)
You can get in your iPod and maybe a couple of pens. But don’t expect to be able to take files and books along. WaterField has other bags for that purpose. You also really don’t want to use this for larger notebooks. It works best with the kind of thin laptop pioneered by Apple and Sony and now made by practically everyone.
Vertigo holds the laptop vertically (doh!), which gives it an even smaller profile. By holding its width to the narrow side of your laptop, it minimizes the number of “oops, sorry about that” moments you have when the usual horizontal bag bumps into a bystander.
With this bag, less is more.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
X marks the new format
DOCX. XLSX. PPTX. XPS. Microsoft Office 2007 has ended the freeze on file formats it has maintain since Office 97 and introduced these new XML-based ones. The first three are the new file extensions for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint respectively. XPS is a new Microsoft attempt to compete with Adobe Acrobat PDF (the result, according to industry gossip, of a dispute between the two companies over licensing terms for PDF in Microsoft programs.
You and I haven’t been demanding XML-based file formats, but the IT community has. XML is a formatting language that can be used interchangeably for documents and web pages. Plus it also is the format for the RSS news feeds that are spreading like wildfires. Putting information in XML allows for wide distribution options. Plus the new Microsoft file formats are zip-compressed, substantially reducing their size.
The open source world already is on board with XML via the OpenDoc file format used in OpenOffice. But Microsoft, as it always does, wanted its own standard, which it calls Open XML. I have little or no interest in getting into the tedious debate raging between supporters of the two standards.
From a practical, real world perspective the key issue is this: virtually everyone uses some flavor of Microsoft Office or uses the existing Office file formats – and no version of Office except 2007 can read the new format natively. Furthermore, the new formats are turned on by default in Office 2007, which means that sooner or later someone with a new PC will send you one of the X Files.
Microsoft has released a conversion package ( HYPERLINK "http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=941B3470-3AE9-4AEE-8F43-C6BB74CD1466&displaylang=en" http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=941B3470-3AE9-4AEE-8F43-C6BB74CD1466&displaylang=en) that will allow users of older version of Office to hand the new files. You probably ought to install it now. Mac users, though, will have to wait a couple of months because converters for OfficeMac won’t be released until March or April.
As for conversion between Microsoft Office and OpenDoc, Microsoft has started an open source (!) project – HYPERLINK "http://sourceforge.net/projects/odf-converter" http://sourceforge.net/projects/odf-converter – that so far has yielded only a converter for Word 2007. However, this is a dramatic reversal for Redmond, which previously vowed it would never support OpenDoc.
XPS, though, I wouldn’t worry about much yet. Only a PC with both Windows Vista and Office 2007 (and then only if the Office 2007 user installs an add-on) will be fully capable of creating or viewing such documents. The software to work with other versions is not yet released.
You and I haven’t been demanding XML-based file formats, but the IT community has. XML is a formatting language that can be used interchangeably for documents and web pages. Plus it also is the format for the RSS news feeds that are spreading like wildfires. Putting information in XML allows for wide distribution options. Plus the new Microsoft file formats are zip-compressed, substantially reducing their size.
The open source world already is on board with XML via the OpenDoc file format used in OpenOffice. But Microsoft, as it always does, wanted its own standard, which it calls Open XML. I have little or no interest in getting into the tedious debate raging between supporters of the two standards.
From a practical, real world perspective the key issue is this: virtually everyone uses some flavor of Microsoft Office or uses the existing Office file formats – and no version of Office except 2007 can read the new format natively. Furthermore, the new formats are turned on by default in Office 2007, which means that sooner or later someone with a new PC will send you one of the X Files.
Microsoft has released a conversion package ( HYPERLINK "http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=941B3470-3AE9-4AEE-8F43-C6BB74CD1466&displaylang=en" http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=941B3470-3AE9-4AEE-8F43-C6BB74CD1466&displaylang=en) that will allow users of older version of Office to hand the new files. You probably ought to install it now. Mac users, though, will have to wait a couple of months because converters for OfficeMac won’t be released until March or April.
As for conversion between Microsoft Office and OpenDoc, Microsoft has started an open source (!) project – HYPERLINK "http://sourceforge.net/projects/odf-converter" http://sourceforge.net/projects/odf-converter – that so far has yielded only a converter for Word 2007. However, this is a dramatic reversal for Redmond, which previously vowed it would never support OpenDoc.
XPS, though, I wouldn’t worry about much yet. Only a PC with both Windows Vista and Office 2007 (and then only if the Office 2007 user installs an add-on) will be fully capable of creating or viewing such documents. The software to work with other versions is not yet released.
HTML is the winner
An online poll of TNPC Newsletter readers found that by a 4-1 margin you wanted to receive the newsletter in HTML format instead of plain text. Verily, times have changed.
One hates to give away the fact that one is an old fogie, but back in the day when the network of computing enthusiasts who ultimately set this publication in motion were first getting acquainted, we relied on the old CompuServe network. And I do mean the old CompuServe network: not just dialup, not just 2400 baud, but pay-per-minute of use.
From that came the First Commandment of Netiquette: Thou Shalt Not Waste Bandwidth. Among the corollary principles was that knowledgeable users sent email as plain text. To resort to HTML or rich text formatting would make one a Philistine – or even worse, an AOL user.
Of course, once AOL's all-you-can eat pricing model caught on and connection speeds escalated, there was little reason to maintain the plain text standard. You weren't costing anyone either time or money, and you were making your messages more readable. With the widespread adoption of broadband, in fact, plain text became frankly a sign of Babbittry.
Technology is a funny thing, though. Of late there have been increasing security concerns with respect to rogue code hidden behind HTML messages. Plus so many people now are using portable messaging devices such as BlackBerries, Treos, and the like, which do not display HTML messages well. The upshot: plain text is making a comeback.
One hates to give away the fact that one is an old fogie, but back in the day when the network of computing enthusiasts who ultimately set this publication in motion were first getting acquainted, we relied on the old CompuServe network. And I do mean the old CompuServe network: not just dialup, not just 2400 baud, but pay-per-minute of use.
From that came the First Commandment of Netiquette: Thou Shalt Not Waste Bandwidth. Among the corollary principles was that knowledgeable users sent email as plain text. To resort to HTML or rich text formatting would make one a Philistine – or even worse, an AOL user.
Of course, once AOL's all-you-can eat pricing model caught on and connection speeds escalated, there was little reason to maintain the plain text standard. You weren't costing anyone either time or money, and you were making your messages more readable. With the widespread adoption of broadband, in fact, plain text became frankly a sign of Babbittry.
Technology is a funny thing, though. Of late there have been increasing security concerns with respect to rogue code hidden behind HTML messages. Plus so many people now are using portable messaging devices such as BlackBerries, Treos, and the like, which do not display HTML messages well. The upshot: plain text is making a comeback.
Requiem for a floppy
A major computing milestone passed by not too long ago and no one noted it: the effective end of the floppy disk.
As computer devices go, the 1.44 MB, 3.5”, double-sided floppy was a veritable Methuselah. It came into widespread use in around 1990 (when IBM adopted it for its latest PCs; Apple much earlier had adopted a 720 KB, one-sided variety for the Macintosh), and it remained an industry standard for roughly 15 years.
Curiously, the 3.5” floppy kept the “floppy” nomenclature even though it encased its magnetic media in a hard plastic case. The old 5.25” disks used in the original IBM PCs actually were floppy.
In any case, the disks were all-in-all a pretty handy medium. A PC could be booted from one. It could hold a fairly large number of word processing documents and spreadsheets. Long before users set up home networks, file transfer via “sneaker net” – copying from one PC to floppy and then copying from the floppy to another PC – was a well-established practice.
Ultimately, of course, multimedia and escalating file sizes did the floppy in. CD drives and flash memory sticks with the capacity of scores of floppies now are the favored medium for physically transferring files. At some point – I would guess it was some time in the last two or three years – the number of computers sold without floppies exceeded the number sold with them, and that effectively marked the end of the floppy as a standard.
Aside from marking the end of an era, the end of the floppy also marks a particular computing problem: what to do with the data on your old floppies. Remember, once your last PC with a floppy drive is gone, those disks are effectively unreadable. So now is the time to take your floppies and burn them on a CD.
Which in itself is a lesson: One CD will take the place of about 485 floppies.
As computer devices go, the 1.44 MB, 3.5”, double-sided floppy was a veritable Methuselah. It came into widespread use in around 1990 (when IBM adopted it for its latest PCs; Apple much earlier had adopted a 720 KB, one-sided variety for the Macintosh), and it remained an industry standard for roughly 15 years.
Curiously, the 3.5” floppy kept the “floppy” nomenclature even though it encased its magnetic media in a hard plastic case. The old 5.25” disks used in the original IBM PCs actually were floppy.
In any case, the disks were all-in-all a pretty handy medium. A PC could be booted from one. It could hold a fairly large number of word processing documents and spreadsheets. Long before users set up home networks, file transfer via “sneaker net” – copying from one PC to floppy and then copying from the floppy to another PC – was a well-established practice.
Ultimately, of course, multimedia and escalating file sizes did the floppy in. CD drives and flash memory sticks with the capacity of scores of floppies now are the favored medium for physically transferring files. At some point – I would guess it was some time in the last two or three years – the number of computers sold without floppies exceeded the number sold with them, and that effectively marked the end of the floppy as a standard.
Aside from marking the end of an era, the end of the floppy also marks a particular computing problem: what to do with the data on your old floppies. Remember, once your last PC with a floppy drive is gone, those disks are effectively unreadable. So now is the time to take your floppies and burn them on a CD.
Which in itself is a lesson: One CD will take the place of about 485 floppies.
All for nothing
TNPC Newsletter likes to point its readers in the direction of free software, so here is a place well worth visiting: SoftwareFor.org.
Their gimmick is “Software for Staving Students” – a bundle of free apps that comes in both Windows and Mac flavors. It can be obtained as a normal download, but you will get it much faster if you use the Bittorrent peer-to-peer network. (Plus it gives you a rare opportunity to download something from Bittorrent legally.)
You'll find a lot of the standbys often mentioned in TNPC: OpenOffice, FireFox, Thunderbird, and the like. But it also includes graphics, sound, and video software, security tools, system utilities, and even some games.
Included is my favorite multimedia player: VLC. An open-source program, it has proven itself capable of being able to play almost anything. Media streams or files that flummox most players will run in VLC.
Even if you aren't a starving student, the bundle could be well worth your while. Because of activation and other anti-piracy features in commercial software today, moving your apps to a new PC is no longer just a matter of reaching for the installation disks. You need to deactivate the software on the old PC first, leaving it useless. A free applications bundle will let you restore functionality to your old PC.
The striking thing about the Starving Students bundle is that the retail equivalents would set you back a sum well into the four-figure range. It demonstrates that the open source and freeware movements have generated some interesting alternatives to commercial software. To be sure, the free programs aren't as slick as their commercial counterparts. But you can't knock the price.
Their gimmick is “Software for Staving Students” – a bundle of free apps that comes in both Windows and Mac flavors. It can be obtained as a normal download, but you will get it much faster if you use the Bittorrent peer-to-peer network. (Plus it gives you a rare opportunity to download something from Bittorrent legally.)
You'll find a lot of the standbys often mentioned in TNPC: OpenOffice, FireFox, Thunderbird, and the like. But it also includes graphics, sound, and video software, security tools, system utilities, and even some games.
Included is my favorite multimedia player: VLC. An open-source program, it has proven itself capable of being able to play almost anything. Media streams or files that flummox most players will run in VLC.
Even if you aren't a starving student, the bundle could be well worth your while. Because of activation and other anti-piracy features in commercial software today, moving your apps to a new PC is no longer just a matter of reaching for the installation disks. You need to deactivate the software on the old PC first, leaving it useless. A free applications bundle will let you restore functionality to your old PC.
The striking thing about the Starving Students bundle is that the retail equivalents would set you back a sum well into the four-figure range. It demonstrates that the open source and freeware movements have generated some interesting alternatives to commercial software. To be sure, the free programs aren't as slick as their commercial counterparts. But you can't knock the price.
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