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• You can get an used one on eBay for $30-$50.
• I get over 8 hours of constant use before I have to recharge its internal batteries. It has 8 MB which is enough for 10 typical novels.
• It has a backlight.
• I find that there's more programs available for the Palm OS than the PocketPC OS. (I have a battery-sucking HP Jornada as well.)

• The resolution is only 160x160 but I find that this is fine for reading.
• It is only 2-bit black-and-white.

• For software, I use Plucker for HTML pages, TiBR for simple text, and Acrobat for PDF.

I have a 4150 as well and I love it. But more on topic I'd like to suggest the ipaq 1910. They go for about $150-160 on Ebay.

Same size as the 4150, similar features, but no Wifi. If most of your work with a PDA is gonna be reading books I don't know why you would spend $400 on the big brother.

Yes, Acrobat is avail for the Pocket PC. I've never used it.

However, I do use MS Reader daily to read books and I think it kicks much a$$. Beats the hell out of my old Palm M100 and Palmreader or Plucker. Perhaps a newer color Palm model would work as well, don't know.

Why not submit your resume in PDF format? It'll be smaller, uneditable, ...

Not true. PDF files are editable with Acrobat (a full version such as Standard or Professional, not the Reader). They're not as easily editable as Word files, to be sure, but they're still easy to edit. You can digitally sign them, but few people do.

Uh, its far superior [PDF] as a scripting language to anything else. Please provide an alternative that rocks as much.

For example; cooltext.com has been running now for over five years. What it does isn't exactly in-depth; but think about it - a web-site that automates one of the commonest noddy-tasks that novice users want - for free.

Photoshop is fully scriptable, via JavaScript, Applescript and/or VB. Granted, it's one of the unheralded features of the product (Photoshop "Actions", introduced in PS 5, IIRC, gets all the limelight from the "average" PS user), but it's very powerful. There is a very large online user community that shares actions and scripts on sites like the Adobe Studio Exchange, etc.

Of course, the Photoshop scripting interface doesn't have the geek glamour that Script-Fu might have, but the only reason for that is that there is little-to-no demand for a Scheme based scripting interface for Photoshop. Although, ironically enough, a kick-ass Python based scripting plugin called "Useful Things" exists for Adobe After Effects, and it has truly revolutionized the usefulness of the product.

I do a lot of graphics work. I've also used a large number of the true graphics programs (3d, 2d, vector, etc... not MSPaint) out there at one point or another. In addition to this, I also do freelance development from time to time. It is the user interface alone that makes or breaks the program, in my opinion. Without a good interface, it doesn't matter what the rest of the code does.

Here are my remarks on a few of the ones I've used at one time or another:

Photoshop - Easy to use interface. Provides an easy introduction for those unfamiliar with the program and provides the power necessary for advanced users.

GraphicsConverter - Another easy to use interface. Though it lacks the power photoshop has, it makes up for it in the large number of image formats it can read and write.

Paint Shop Pro - I am not overly fond of this interface. For one, I think there are far too many icons used. Drowning out interface buttons and such with icons is very irritating for a novice user as they generally have to hover the mouse and wait for the tooltip to figure out what something is. Further, it has the "too much help" syndrome that seems a standard on windows. I much prefer that the help system be delegated to something else and not be built into the program.

Poser - This is definitely a unique interface, but it still provides simplicity for novice users and control for advanced users. The largest downside is that by not using default system-provided user interface widgets, some of the details you would expect are not there whereas they would be there if the system versions were used.

Bryce - Bryce is extremely easy to use. It was my first 3d program and is still one of my favorites due to its simplicity. I have yet to find another 3d program with an object placement system that I like more than bryce's.

Blender - Not a big fan. Though it is quite powerful, the learning curve is very steep. On Macs, the interface text is quite small in some places and hard to read. The interface is also a bit clunky. Sections are not as clearly divided as I would like.

Carrara - I have not used this one for some time (and as such, newer versions may be different than what I remember), but I found it quite user-friendly when I did. All tools were placed in a context-sensible place and it had the camera system that I liked from bryce.

The Gimp - I don't like it. The user interface is extremely clunky by my standards. Consolidating a number of the windows into one and reorganizing the tools would go a long way towards helping it. There is also the fact that I am used to my nice Aqua interface and it has the drab sharp bevels and general lack of detail that is natural to most x86 OS's under default configurations.

Illustrator - I do not use this program frequently, but being from adobe, it has a very similar interface to photoshop that makes it very easy to use.

Fireworks - I'm apathetic about this one. It provides no real functionality that I cannot get in a program whose interface I like better and has more stuff I can use.

Freehand - Pretty much the same as Fireworks. I've only mostly toyed with this one as I found Illustrator more appealing.

One other feature I like about photoshop is that it is extremely easy to do image versioning. When doing web designs, I will

I do a lot of graphics work. I've also used a large number of the true graphics programs (3d, 2d, vector, etc... not MSPaint) out there at one point or another. In addition to this, I also do freelance development from time to time. It is the user interface alone that makes or breaks the program, in my opinion. Without a good interface, it doesn't matter what the rest of the code does.

Here are my remarks on a few of the ones I've used at one time or another:

Photoshop - Easy to use interface. Provides an easy introduction for those unfamiliar with the program and provides the power necessary for advanced users.

GraphicsConverter - Another easy to use interface. Though it lacks the power photoshop has, it makes up for it in the large number of image formats it can read and write.

Paint Shop Pro - I am not overly fond of this interface. For one, I think there are far too many icons used. Drowning out interface buttons and such with icons is very irritating for a novice user as they generally have to hover the mouse and wait for the tooltip to figure out what something is. Further, it has the "too much help" syndrome that seems a standard on windows. I much prefer that the help system be delegated to something else and not be built into the program.

Poser - This is definitely a unique interface, but it still provides simplicity for novice users and control for advanced users. The largest downside is that by not using default system-provided user interface widgets, some of the details you would expect are not there whereas they would be there if the system versions were used.

Bryce - Bryce is extremely easy to use. It was my first 3d program and is still one of my favorites due to its simplicity. I have yet to find another 3d program with an object placement system that I like more than bryce's.

Blender - Not a big fan. Though it is quite powerful, the learning curve is very steep. On Macs, the interface text is quite small in some places and hard to read. The interface is also a bit clunky. Sections are not as clearly divided as I would like.

Carrara - I have not used this one for some time (and as such, newer versions may be different than what I remember), but I found it quite user-friendly when I did. All tools were placed in a context-sensible place and it had the camera system that I liked from bryce.

The Gimp - I don't like it. The user interface is extremely clunky by my standards. Consolidating a number of the windows into one and reorganizing the tools would go a long way towards helping it. There is also the fact that I am used to my nice Aqua interface and it has the drab sharp bevels and general lack of detail that is natural to most x86 OS's under default configurations.

Illustrator - I do not use this program frequently, but being from adobe, it has a very similar interface to photoshop that makes it very easy to use.

Fireworks - I'm apathetic about this one. It provides no real functionality that I cannot get in a program whose interface I like better and has more stuff I can use.

Freehand - Pretty much the same as Fireworks. I've only mostly toyed with this one as I found Illustrator more appealing.

One other feature I like about photoshop is that it is extremely easy to do image versioning. When doing web designs, I will

What do you mean PS?

I'll first mention that while Acrobat is simply a reader

Acrobat most certainly is NOT "simply a reader" - Acrobat Reader is only one piece of the entire Adobe Acrobat family. Acrobat is used to create PDFs, and convert other document formats to PDF. It is most likely the industry standard for PDF creation.

Sure, commercial users who are able to purchase $3,000 worth of hardware without bumping up the mortgage probably 'can't understand why anyone would want to go to so much effort for so little reward'. They probably do honestly think that at $99 Photoshop Elements is 'cheap, painless and produces high quality results'.

So who cares about the unwashed personal use throng?

The cost of obtaining a great quality Digital Camera has made all the difference over the last couple of years. It's one of those cases (like digital music) of people getting a chance to take a part of their real life and combine it with their interest in computers or email or the internet or even just a penchant for electronic wizardry, at a price and personal cost that really is cheap and effortless. My point here is that personal users do matter - more each day in fact.

Whilst I know I am not a GIMP zealot I have used the WIN32 off shoot (The GIMP windows version incidentally, doesn't have to be compiled in an end user sense it comes as an installer executable). As an end user however I am relatively motivated by the general ideas and beliefs of the open source commnuity and in that domain the GIMP is the anti-candle.

Then there is the issue of breaching the User License. For all you folks who don't taint your pure selves with the concerns of warez and all that - Adobe (for as long as I can remember) has always produced software that seems to be notoriously easy to crack. So I guess, sadly, that gives users such as myself another option, that no-one ever seems to acknowledge.

Hmm.. I guess no image editor war is ever going to start here (for the time being), right? Let's be honest - it's like comparing a foot massage with a ho down in the holiest of holies. Everyone knows that.

The article mentions the problem with the help system. (I vaguely remember discovering a fix at some point.. can anyone help?) In any case look no further than here for what I consider to be a remarkable effort, all things considered. It really sums up to me why I (but more importantly GIMP developers) go to all the effort for 'so little reward'. The author of the article says in respect of the MacGIMP that he thought he'd have a look. I guess then he thought he'd wipe his MacNIKEs on the hard and thankless labour of others. Have some respect fulla...

Here is what gets installed after Windows XP Home SP1a and all the patches:

1. ZoneAlarm Personal Firewall
2. Norton SystemWorks 2004
3. Lavasoft Ad-Aware
4. Spybot Search & Destroy
5. BigFix
6. Adobe Acrobat Reader
7. Mozilla Internet Suite
8. JGSoft EditPad Lite
9. WinZip
10. Yahoo! Messenger

Here's my top 10 list.

1. Sleipnir - Greatest tab browser, made by a Japanese guy, there's an English translation, if you haven't tried it and been using other IE based tab browser, you should give it a try. It's IE engine only. (For those who'll have trouble navigating Japanese web page, here's the download link to English version)

2. PuTTY - Just like others

3. Exact Audio Copy - Very good audio ripper for CCCD.

4. Adobe Reader - Though getting like a bloated software with Printme ad, I encounter PDF just about everyday...

5. GIMP - I thank GIMP team for such a great freeware tool.

6. VideoLAN (VLC) - Great media player + rich network functions, can play DVD (with libdvdcss, check your own law) without any commercial licensed softwares.

7. EmEditor - This is the best text editor I've found to date (tried, textpad, editplus, ultraedit what have you...but I'm not a emacs/vim guy). For what's better, it's free for academic use! It's got regular expression search/find, keyboard mapping, document tabs and all the feature you'd expect on a good text editor. I used to use EditPlus(registered) before this, but I switched.

8. ffdshow - Codecs for DivX, Xvid. No more need for official ad-full DivX codec installation.

From here, I don't have them installed, but these are worth mentioning.

9. burnatonce - A great tool for writing CD/DVD media. It's actually a Windows frontend for cdrecord and ProDVD, small and efficient.

10. DVD Shrink - To extract DVD data and back it up, no writing function, but good for storing it on HDD.

I could go on...but I've reached ten =)

I agree about 7-Zip, except that it doesn't do multivolume archives - it'll extract RAR multivolume, but cannot create them.

As long as I'm posting, here goes my top 10

Windows (after all the patches, of course)

1. Firefox (or whatever it's name is during the week of the install) (also MyIE is sort of neat)
2. Latest version of Outlook (usually as part of Office - gotta have email, but GOTTA take the plunge and transition to a better email client...)
3. Putty
4. WinAmp
5. PowerDVD
6. Yahoo Messenger (it's sad, but I still like it better than GAIM et al...)
7. WinSCP
8. Windows Privacy Tools
9. Adobe Acrobat Reader
10. BNR2
11. EverQuest!

Linux

Nothing! RedHat (Fedora) comes with all I need. Though the programs I update right away (and use most often) are:

1. NMAP
2. Mozilla
3. Apache
4. SSH
5. SSL
6. PHP
7. TinyProxy (Essential for bypassing my employer's content filter)

Ok, so TinyProxy isn't part of the base install. Whatever.

That's about it. I don't really use Linux as a primary machine, and I rarely use the graphical interface on it. On the Windows box I will also usually install a better editor, though it changes about every install. WinVIM is my current choice. And of course, the latest codecs for QuickTime Alternative and XViD.

Amen to the comments on EditPlus! Great damn program for the money.

I have more than 10 in my "start from scratch" install, so here goes:

• Acrobat 5
• AdAware 6
• EditPlus (the best damn win32 text editor.)
• Macromedia Fireworks
• Microsoft Remote Desktop (damn good Terminal for Win32)
• Microsoft Office (counting it as one program)
• Nero
• Offline Explorer Pro
• Putty (god bless Simon Tatham!)
• Screen Calipers
• Trillian
• TweakUI
• VirusScan Enterprise
• WinAmp
• WinZip

I'm going to have to check out FileZilla... I've used CuteFTP, LeechFTP, and some others... I've never found one I'm completely happy with. PDF Creator and SpyBot SS look like good programs to have too... thx for the links!

Cygwin usually goes on a machine after a while, but it's an "install as needed" item. I've decided to use RealAlternative instead of installing RealPlayer for the rare occasions I need to view a RAM stream.

I SysAdmin a significantly sized heterogeneous network and to my dismay, I often have to set up new Windows machines and/or reinstall Windows machines.

As an aside, in sysadmin-land, the general rule is to reinstall a machine after someone leaves and/or every two-three years max. Any longer than that and the machine's OS & registry gets too clogged up with crap (among other things) that the machine goes so slow and a complete & clean reinstall is the only way to really regain that lost productivity.

Anyhow, the first 10 or so programs I install on these (primarily w2k) machines are as follows:

• Windows 2000 Service Pack 4 (if you don't install this from a cd before you put the machine on the network, you will get a virus).
• Windows Critical & OS Updates
• Netscape
• Adobe Acrobat Reader
• Sophos AV (served over the network via EMLibrary)
• Office 2002/XP including all service packs
• PuTTY
• WinSCP
• Winzip or PowerArchiver
• Shockwave (since I don't allow user admin rights on most clients)
• Google Toolbar (just a convenience)
• Real Player
• ABC Image Browser

1] PuTTY

2] WinSCP

3] McAffee VirusScan Enterprise

4] Moz Firefox

5] WinAMP

6] WinZIP

7] SciTE

8] MS Office

(I'm familiar with OO.o and StarOffice, but from what I've seen, MSOffice is the hands-down winner for me and is primarily what keeps me on Windows).

9] Adobe Acrobat 6.0 PRO

10] DBDesigner 4

And that about rounds out the list. After that, I reboot and hot-patch the box with locally stored patches, reboot, THEN connect for new patches.

• Putty - A free (GPL) SSH terminal emulator
• Winzip - Yeah, you know what this is
• VLC - Free media player
• OpenOffice.org - I should stop doing these descriptions, its not as if youve heard of these things before!
• GIMP for windows - Yup, the infernal/eternal image editor
• Sharpdevelop - Free (GPL) .net IDE, requires the .net framework and SDK
• Bloodshed Dev-C++ - Excellent free (GPL) C and C++ IDE, using the Windows GCC port
• Thunderbird - Mail client
• Firefox - Web browser
• Adobe Acrobat Reader - PDF Reader
• PDFcreator - GPL PDF print driver for windows
• MessengerPro (Clickatell) - Non free SMS sender for windows, company does good bulk buy sms rates, i buy 500 at a time for less than $5
• Lavasoft Adaware and Spybot SS - For the essentials in life
• Topstyle - Free version of the excellent CSS editor for webdevelopment, if anyone knows a good free alternative, im open to suggestions :)
• SmartFTP - Great free for personal use FTP client, not found a better one yet! (I have, Filezilla it is excellent AND fully GPL, none of this non free shit, bub. :-) )
• MySQL-Front - Old version of the MySQL windows front end, much much better than the new one you pay for. Source isnt open and the old developer discontinued development, possibly one of the best advertisements for why OSS is good :(
• Editplus - Possibly the best editor ive found, not free im afraid, costs around $25

VLC -, like you mentioned, Free media player is a great media player, it blew me away. Better then Window's media player, and I know that my porno viewing habits are not going straight to Bill Gates.

One you didn't mention is Filezilla which is a good GPL ftp program instead of SmartFTP if you want to try another one out. (I must confess I use LeechFTP since I haven't gotten use to Filezilla just yet, although if you are into hosting files Filezilla is even better).

and for Linux - postfix, squirrelmail, screen, apache, mysql, squid, php, courier-imap, rsync, cvs - in no particular order

posted this list at my blog too - First Ten Programs

1. Fink - get the GNU POSIX environment on!
2. OSXVNC - get somewhere else
3. OO.o
4. Mozilla / Firefox / etc. - and the plugins:
   • Flash
   • Acrobat Reader
   • StumbleUpon toolbar - it's like having your own personalized fark (not that I read fark, but this is probably why)
5. MPlayer - it handles just about all the codecs
6. WS Manager - Multiple desktop manager. I'm too cheap to pay to upgrade from OS 10.2 to 10.3 for Exposé, even with my wife's educational discount.

1. Cygwin - get the POSIX environment on!
2. PuTTY - the only terminal I've found that handles colors and stuff right.
3. TightVNC - get to some other computer
4. OO.o
5. vim - I'm not even a VI guy, but it's fast and has nice hooks into explorer and I'm too lazy to deal with registering TextPad or whatever. JEdit's also nice, but way too slow for casual use... I usually go straight to emacs for that kind of editing.
6. Mozilla / Firefox / etc. - and the plugins:
   • Flash
   • Acrobat Reader
   • StumbleUpon toolbar - it's like having your own personalized fark (not that I read fark, but this is probably why)
7. Winamp - get the groove on
8. MPlayer - it handles just about all the codecs
9. MultiDesk - usable multiple desktops for Windows... like getting that 10% productivity improvement for having dual monitors without having to pay 100% more in displays. If only it had a visual pager...
10. Windows PowerToys - because every little option matters

More on Linux and MacOS X later, I guess...

OpenOffice
Crimson Editor (programmer's editor; free, not open source)
Audacity (WAV editor)
CDex (ripper)
Firefox
Thunderbird
Navicat (MySQL admin tool)
MySQL Snap (MySQL backup tool)
Top Style (CSS Editor)
Photoshop (Gimp ain't ready for primetime yet. Sorry.)

That's 10. Next up: WinAmp, WS-FTP, AdAware, and 17 million IE/Win patches.

APserver
Winamp
Mirc
FlashFXP
Powertoys
DivX
Ethereal
Photoshop
Nero
ATI MMC

I think you missed Windows security fixes, Adobe Acrobat and WinSCP.

You might as well say to use TIFF as use PNG - both will store high color images with perfect quality, but they'll be huge compared to JPEG.

Um, you might want to read the TIFF spec.

TIFF supports JPEG compression. It also does LZW. A few others, as well.

Yeah, TIFF is hit by two different compression patents. I wouldn't be surprised if there's some patents on the fax compression.

c.

I'm not sure exactly what Dreamweaver library files are (you might want to explain that in your article next time, hint hint), but I'm assuming they are used to make templates and dynamic content. In that case, do not use proprietary tools; use either SSI or a scripting language (go PHP!).

Here are the tools I use for web design:

Source editing: Crimson Editor, a freely available text editor that supports syntax coloring and just about anything you'd ever want in a text editor. Somewhat well-designed GUI and very small (fits on a floppy).

PHP editing: Crimson Editor (listed above), and Zend for larger projects

Page design: Photoshop/Imageready and (for more content-oriented pages) Illustrator

HTML Editing: Adobe Golive CS. I know I'm sounding like an Adobe fanboy here, but GoLive really kicks ass. It has a steep learning curve, in that it's slightly harder to pick up than Dreamweaver, but after spending a few hours with it, you'll love it. Free trial available, I believe.

Of course, this is all proprietary software, and that's how things are in the design world. With development, you have a little freedom, but with design, you're locked into the Big Four (Adobe/Macromedia/Corel/Quark) and the last two are on its last legs.

I'm not sure exactly what Dreamweaver library files are (you might want to explain that in your article next time, hint hint), but I'm assuming they are used to make templates and dynamic content. In that case, do not use proprietary tools; use either SSI or a scripting language (go PHP!).

Here are the tools I use for web design:

Source editing: Crimson Editor, a freely available text editor that supports syntax coloring and just about anything you'd ever want in a text editor. Somewhat well-designed GUI and very small (fits on a floppy).

PHP editing: Crimson Editor (listed above), and Zend for larger projects

Page design: Photoshop/Imageready and (for more content-oriented pages) Illustrator

HTML Editing: Adobe Golive CS. I know I'm sounding like an Adobe fanboy here, but GoLive really kicks ass. It has a steep learning curve, in that it's slightly harder to pick up than Dreamweaver, but after spending a few hours with it, you'll love it. Free trial available, I believe.

Of course, this is all proprietary software, and that's how things are in the design world. With development, you have a little freedom, but with design, you're locked into the Big Four (Adobe/Macromedia/Corel/Quark) and the last two are on its last legs.

I'm not sure exactly what Dreamweaver library files are (you might want to explain that in your article next time, hint hint), but I'm assuming they are used to make templates and dynamic content. In that case, do not use proprietary tools; use either SSI or a scripting language (go PHP!).

Here are the tools I use for web design:

Source editing: Crimson Editor, a freely available text editor that supports syntax coloring and just about anything you'd ever want in a text editor. Somewhat well-designed GUI and very small (fits on a floppy).

PHP editing: Crimson Editor (listed above), and Zend for larger projects

Page design: Photoshop/Imageready and (for more content-oriented pages) Illustrator

HTML Editing: Adobe Golive CS. I know I'm sounding like an Adobe fanboy here, but GoLive really kicks ass. It has a steep learning curve, in that it's slightly harder to pick up than Dreamweaver, but after spending a few hours with it, you'll love it. Free trial available, I believe.

Of course, this is all proprietary software, and that's how things are in the design world. With development, you have a little freedom, but with design, you're locked into the Big Four (Adobe/Macromedia/Corel/Quark) and the last two are on its last legs.

Or you could include the form data in the URL

You can find the decision by the United States Court of Appeal for the Ninth Circuit at:
Kremen, et al. v. Online Classifieds Inc., et al. (pdf warning)

To get the html version, paste this url:

http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/ca9/newopinions.nsf/ 99 9D1D5B0D734B6088256D6D0078CB88/$file/0115899.pdf?o penelement

into the Adobe PDF Conversion Page.

Download detector here

Instructions to detect Higgs Boson Particle:

To detect the particle, first open up your recording. Click the "Effects" tab, go to "Off-Line Effects". Then click on "Noise Reduction > Click/Pop Eliminator". Click OK. Then Click on "Noise Reduction > Hiss Reduction". Click on "High Hiss Reduction". Click OK. Finally, click on "Edit > Convert Sample Type" then change "Sample Rate" to 8000 Hz. Click OK. Click Save. If you successfully detect the Higgs Boson particle, then you should hear a weird pulsating static in your audio file. Otherwise you've just ruined your audio file.

It is as ubiquitous as PDF. Why are you not raving about PDF ??

The problem isn't that .doc is ubiquitous, its that its obfuscated. The PDF format isn't a secret, the documentation for it is massive. There's no secrets there.

I almost replied to you non-AC, but that wouldn't have been fair to the other person I modded here.

Then, I almost modded you a troll, but that wouldn't have been fair to you.

PDF specification

I didn't post above, but I currently use both XP and 2000 daily. Make your own decisions but I also use OS X daily and it's far and away the most pleasant working environment I've encountered to date. That doesn't mean it's perfect, by any stretch of the imagination, but that's not the point now, is it.

As for "OS 9," um, who's talking about OS 9?

If you want Unix, install Linux... FreeBSD... SuSE... Debian... Lycoris... Lindows... There are choices in the Windows world.

Well, by the time I've finished clicking through the (Continue) buttons in an OS X install I've managed to install both the entire GUI environment and the entire Unix OS. I can also install other Unix systems on Mac hardware, but frankly I've got everything I need right here.

I don't need to install anything else except Logic Pro 6, Ableton Live, MetaSynth, ArtMatic Pro, MetaTrack, Voyager, VTrack, Absynth, OmniGraffle, OmniOutliner, OmniDiskSweeper, Studiometry, FileMakerPro, Adobe Creative Suite, LaunchBar, MySQL, Perl 5.8.3, Fink, Plone, Keynote, BBEdit, FastTrack Schedule Pro, Sonasphere, Toast 6, ZBrush, and a few more but I'll get to those tomorrow.

I run all these (plus my email, internet, contacts management, calendaring, etc) in the same operating environment; not an emulation shell, not after dual-booting, but in the very same operating system and simultaneously.

To top it all off OS X comes with a full set of developer tools, documentation and optimization utilities, plus Cocoa+Obj-C is a match made in heaven.

There's no need to pay Apple for a decent Unix experience.

Well, I believe there is. I enjoy the ability to support quality whether it's a film, a restaurant, a music venue, a book, clothing, my neighborhood, an artist, etc. every single day.

The hardware is just a hunk of material until you've discovered/designed an interface with which to use it. Solely on a base consumer level, I'm very happy to pay Apple for what is, in daily practice, a superior computer operating system. From the level of both a technology consultant and a media creator, the solution is very simple.

OS X is a very impressive "Holy Grail" for all my current activities. Strap me in because I'm ready to get to work.

As an enlightened, modern parent, I try to be as involved as possible in the lives of my six children. I encourage them to join team sports. I attend their teen parties with them to ensure no drinking or alcohol is on the premises. I keep a fatherly eye on the CDs they listen to and the shows they watch, the company they keep and the books they read. You could say I'm a model parent. My children have never failed to make me proud, and I can say without the slightest embellishment that I have the finest family in the USA.

Two years ago, my wife Carol and I decided that our children's education would not be complete without some grounding in modern computers. To this end, we bought our children a brand new Compaq to learn with. The kids had a lot of fun using the handful of application programs we'd bought, such as Adobe's Photoshop and Microsoft's Word, and my wife and I were pleased that our gift was received so well. Our son Peter was most entranced by the device, and became quite a pro at surfing the net. When Peter began to spend whole days on the machine, I became concerned, but Carol advised me to calm down, and that it was only a passing phase. I was content to bow to her experience as a mother, until our youngest daughter, Cindy, charged into the living room one night to blurt out: "Peter is a computer hacker!"

As you can imagine, I was amazed. A computer hacker in my own house! I began to monitor my son's habits, to make certain that Cindy wasn't just telling stories, as she is prone to doing at times.

After a few days of investigation, and some research into computer hacking, I confronted Peter with the evidence. I'm afraid to say, this was the only time I have ever been truly disappointed in one of my children. We raised them to be honest and to have integrity, and Peter betrayed the principles we tried to encourage in him, when he refused point blank to admit to his activities. His denials continued for hours, and in the end, I was left with no choice but to ban him from using the computer until he is old enough to be responsible for his actions.

After going through this ordeal with my own family, I was left pondering how I could best help others in similar situations. I'd gained a lot of knowledge over those few days regarding hackers. It's only right that I provide that information to other parents, in the hope t

Why would I need to spend money on creating PDFs? I just use Ghostscript.
(I've got the free Adobe Postscript printer driver - so that I can get a good PS file out of OpenOffice.)

Aah, no.

Maya is a high end 3d design and rendering tool used primarily in TV/ feature film and video-game production. The main relation it has to Photoshop is that you can paint textures for objects using photoshop.

As for the article, this seems mildly redundant at best and useless a worst. Graphic Design is my living (not exactly by choice . . ), and despite the spin in the article, my left hand is often as useful or more so than my moue hand. I taught myself photoshop 3 and have been getting more efficient at using it since then.

To get the most out of its tools, access to the shift and alt(option) keys is nessecary (subtracting from a selection for example). Holding down the spacebar completely eliminates the need to use the scroll windows at all. Learning keyboard shortcuts eliminates the need for most menu operations in a session, not to mention being that "cmd(ctrl) L" is much more effecient than menu selecting "Image>Adjustments>Levels."

I'm sure this device is useful for CAD, but the description doesn't sound like it is easier than pressing the space bar in photoshop or the option key to navigate Maya.

I can't use the pdf reader for palm with my linux box... the acrobat for palm package only synchs via ms windows or mac...

SVG native authoring
- Sodipodi (linux)
- Inkscape (linux)
- Sketsa (cross platform/java)
- Evolgraphix XStudio (Windows ???)
- Jasc WebDraw (Windows)

other non native, but export to svg
- Adobe Illustrator
- Adobe GoLive
- Corel suites
- Scribus (linux)
- etc

viewer
-Adobe SVG Viewer
-Corel SVG Viewer
-Apache Batik (Java)
-Mobiform

SVG library
-librsvg (linux)
-Apache Batik (Java)
-SharpVector (dotNet)

other info on SVG
-http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/

someone care to add?

SVG native authoring
- Sodipodi (linux)
- Inkscape (linux)
- Sketsa (cross platform/java)
- Evolgraphix XStudio (Windows ???)
- Jasc WebDraw (Windows)

other non native, but export to svg
- Adobe Illustrator
- Adobe GoLive
- Corel suites
- Scribus (linux)
- etc

viewer
-Adobe SVG Viewer
-Corel SVG Viewer
-Apache Batik (Java)
-Mobiform

SVG library
-librsvg (linux)
-Apache Batik (Java)
-SharpVector (dotNet)

other info on SVG
-http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/

someone care to add?

SVG native authoring
- Sodipodi (linux)
- Inkscape (linux)
- Sketsa (cross platform/java)
- Evolgraphix XStudio (Windows ???)
- Jasc WebDraw (Windows)

other non native, but export to svg
- Adobe Illustrator
- Adobe GoLive
- Corel suites
- Scribus (linux)
- etc

viewer
-Adobe SVG Viewer
-Corel SVG Viewer
-Apache Batik (Java)
-Mobiform

SVG library
-librsvg (linux)
-Apache Batik (Java)
-SharpVector (dotNet)

other info on SVG
-http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/

someone care to add?

Adobe updated their linux SVG plugin last Dec. and it now works with the latest mozilla.

<a href="http://www.k10k.net/">Lame site #1</a>, with subframes and a scrollbox.
<a href="http://www.designiskinky.com/index_main.html ">Lame site #2</a>, with a scrollbox with a <i>horizontal</i> scrollbar, so you have to scroll back and forth to read <i>each line</i>.
<a href="http://www.adobe.com/">Lame site #3</a>, with a really bland front page.

Lame site #1, with subframes and a scrollbox.
Lame site #2, with a scrollbox with a horizontal scrollbar, so you have to scroll back and forth to read each line.
Lame site #3, with a really bland front page.

I actually used to do technical support for Framemaker (and I had a lot of fun doing it too) if you don't believe me reply to this and I can send plenty of references that prove this fact.

I haven't worked there in a while - but a lot of the other teams supported products that probably had fewer calls with products that had far more problems. Well over 75% of all the calls I took were tech writers using windows - the rest of them Unix (usually Solaris) and Mac - even then I didn't have to take very many calls on the product.

Even then it suprises me they stopped supporting it - since I never recalled any real support issues other then the fact it was an OS8/OS9 app (it ran just fine in X) its not like it was hard to support or anything and it really didn't have any major issues. The Unix version was pretty monolithic compared to many Unix apps. A great example of this is adding fonts to Framemaker which also shows how Frame handles fonts (this doc applies to Frame 7 and 7.1 too except they can use opentype fonts as well)

It never ran on OS X. So that answers that question.

Sort of. Problem is, they had a Linux version three years ago. FrameMaker on Linux.

So the mystery deepens. What the fuck happened to Frame on Linux, and if Adobe could port from Solaris to Linux three years ago, surely they can port from Solaris to OS X (and Solaris to Linux) today.

I can see the market for Frame on Linux being pretty small in 2000 -- anyone with $800 to spend on software probably wasn't using Linux as a desktop. I can't see that argument holding water today. And that goes double for OS X.

The first one was, of course, Adobe Premiere Pro, which was probably a response to Apple's very strong Final Cut Pro experience.

I don't think that similar app on the Mac side that does this, but do many people really use FrameMaker more than other tools?

From the Adobe Framemaker FAQ on the article "A. It is our policy to not comment on the size of our user base. However, sales of FrameMaker licenses have been greater on the Windows and Solaris platforms for a number of years." They spelled it out and no tinfoil hat conspiracy.

You may never see Framemaker on an open source platform. The primary use for Framemaker is technical documentation for publication. Some of the deadtreeware available for open source project certainly was composed in Framemaker. However, the majority of open source projects are not at the stage (and may never be) where someone makes the effort to publish documentation.

And then remember a large number of Framemaker users work as software technical writers for closed source software companies. So do not hold your breath for the free software version.

Framemaker is one of the few pieces of software, open or closed source, that paid more than lip service to XML. A structured Framemaker document is a pure XML document with a real DTD. So not only is it well formed, but also (*gasp of disbelief*) Valid!

On April 21, 2004 Adobe will discontinue FrameMaker software for the Apple Macintosh operating system.

Abobe's official FAQ can be found here in pdf format.

With scripting, it is like flash in xml and not (as one poster suggested) a replacement for PDF, other wise why would adobe be the main plugin producer and exponent of cool demos?

AC

Look at the Adobe banner: it links to http://www.worldebooklibrary.com/Adobe/ (corrected url)
which is a *fake* Adobe website.

World eBook Library owns both sites.

whois:
www.worldebooklibrary.com = [ 207.175.209.173 ]
Organization:
World eBook Library
John Guagliardo
PO Box 22687
Honolulu HI 96823
US
[...]

And their ISP: Maui Global Communications Corp., Hawaii

Even better: the advertised eBook Reader is a discontinued Adobe product, the functionality is integrated in Adobe Reader now:
http://www.adobe.com/products/ebookreader/main.htm l