The articles is absolutely correct when it states newspapers are killing themselves, which is why I left 4 years ago. Publishers know that the profit margins of old are long gone, however their response to that is what is causing it's greatest harm - an insatiable appetite to reduce expenses...rather than an expansion into other services to grow revenue.
Newspaper publishers and owners are the most pessimistic people on the planet. Their favorite, and most often decision-making process is the "decision to make no decision" - thus, their unwillingness to change with the times will leave them buried in the past.
Are you a printer or designer?
Opinions of Adobe CS usually fall on whether you are one or the other.
Photoshop is the best photo program bar-none I agree completely - which is why it has been the industry standard for many years.
All in all - Adobe as a pure business (like Microsoft) has done a brilliant job of redesign and marketing - the fact that Quark's upgrades since 5.1 have been little more than a repackaged hack job that CERTAINLY made it more difficult to use - helped InDesign capture the market as much as anything Adobe did.
Like MS Windows - Adobe has no competition because the entire industry has tooled their software to be able to interact with their products...and all modern workflows that I know of incorporate seamlessly Adobe Professional w/Enfocus as a very important part of the whole file manipulation processes.
SO again - to the original OP's post - he would be doing a disservice to train people on anything but Creative Suite.
aye - "almost" duplicates is a bit of a stretch.
What I should have said is they are placing Pitstop capabilities into Acrobat Pro. with plans to eventually have the enfocus features built-in.
If I was Adobe, yes I would do the same thing - however this is upsetting because this is yet another industry that is being "Wal-Martized" i.e. > no choice but to purchase from them because they are the only game in town.
Adobe IS the Microsoft of this industry, which means no competition, high fees, constant expensive upgrades that are filled with bugs.
For printers (me) - Adobe is a bane. Graphic designers think they have to have the latest of everything - which means me upgrading constantly and fighting issues where Adobe is ahead of workflow systems and therefore the workflow systems do not support their "newest" features.
I hate Adobe.
I have been in the print industry for 23 years.
10 years ago there was a variety of programs - Freehand, Multi-ad, CorelDraw, Quark etc. etc.
In the past 3 years we have all seen a disturbing trend as all of these programs have been taken over by Adobe.
Basically if you are not using Adobe products - you are not in the print industry.
All of the major workflow systems are PDF based using Adobe engines and Enfocus's Pitstop (which Adobe Acrobat professional 7.0 almost duplicates, indeed Enfocus will be out of business in less than 5 years as Adobe is placing "Pitstop" capabilities as a part of Adobe Acrobat - so yet another part of the industry is going Adobe).
If you are not using Adobe CS to teach them about graphic design - you will be doing them a grave disservice.
No sh*t...I used dBase before excel...nearly all of the shortkey commands in dBase - to this day work in excel. For instance - dBase...@sum(cells to add) and excel =sum(cells to add)...coincidence? I think not.
Microsoft: do what I say, not as I did...or we'll sue you.
Hmm...the ability to connect to each other and see eachother...sooo how long will it take before a "zune" virus is scripted and your player gets infected simply by being in the same room with someone else having one?
You have to love the hypocrisy of it all.
It reminds me of a story I heard on the radio awhile back, where a drug user called the cops because she paid $100 to a dealer, only the drugs were fake. She could not honestly see the irony of her complaint.
I am sure Microsoft doesn't see the irony in theirs.
Let's check some other facts:
Most people still use Office 2000, many others still use Office 98.
People are finally aware there is NO reason to upgrade, when at least 99% of users can do everything in the "latest" office suite as they did 15 years ago with Word and excel 95. People type letters and memos and simple spreadsheets, anything more - they have a business system to do it.
I hope you are joking about people not wanting to "lease" software - this is becoming the industry standard for a BUNCH of systems. Screw the dongles and client installed apps, web based systems are far, far better. Two of our main business and supply tracking software is web-based - both are "pay as you upgrade" systems, you lay out less cash up front (way less) and pay yearly upgrade fees that are much more manageable.
I say - the more of this stuff the better!
I agree with the guy that is glad they are copying the OSX look rather than windows, but other than that..still looks like it is designed by a guy needing anti-depressants.
Boooooorrriiiiiiiing...
PDF is locked in for years in the Print/Design industry.
It is now the industry standard to send files, many printers (including us) surcharge for files that are not PDF.
All modern RIP's are PDF, practically every print workflow systems are ALL PDF based.
Different doesn't mean better either.
You can hardly say something is an alternative to a widley used product by reading an article.
now that I think about it, you are correct, the virus exploited M$ Outlook's "feature" that automatically opened PDF's if you had reader installed. The code abused the feature rather than a PDF.
.. having been in the design field for 19 years. When PDF's came along it was the best thing since sliced bread. ALL design software worth anything supports PDF's now. They will not support the new MS one, at least not for quite awhile. And with Adobe InDesign climbing the ranks, I don't see any immediate threat.
Also there have been very FEW viruses that infect PDF's, imagine the viruses that will be written for M$'s version.
I couldn't possibly have said it better! Too bad you won't get modded up, since this is do far down the line.
You sound just like what we have been saying and doing for the last couple of years.
I am forwarding your message to a couple of colleages of mine, it'll be nice having them see this from someone else!
Actually we have 2 OS X servers, and they ROCK. We mirrored 2 sets of drives in 7 seconds, set up DHCP in a few seconds, AND there are no licensing fees - now why do people but NT servers again? And rdesktop (remote desktop access to a Win2000 server) works very nicely.
We have 21 servers (yes were pretty small) and we are down to only 6 NT boxes, and we only have them because of the business apps that run on them. Soooo....
Screw M$!!!!!!!!!! And up yours with your Licensing 6 heist!!!! No more CALS!!!!
I'm sorry, but anyone who falls for this is either young and stupid, or just a plain moron.
How many, "I love you's", "look at my pics", etc. does it take before the suckers of the world wake up??
Absolutely. As a sys admin, we have had to spend money, and waste our time tooling with postfix to filter spam out.
Not to mention, them harvesting our e-mail accounts.
VMWare?? Have you ever tried VMWare? While I appreciate the hard work folks put into that project, it is still not a solution at all. For starters, you have to have Windows installed, which sorta defeats the whole thing. I would MUCH rather dual boot than put up with the extreme pain from the slow crawl of VMWare. I have Crossover installed, and I will say thusfar it is a thing of beauty. Not only does it work, but it (I believe) actually launches many of the apps faster than Windoze does!
Just think - mabye they will feed the video of these bots running around to the media. Yeah... a LIVE show... with Geraldo doing the commentary... just think of the ratings when one of em blows someone away!! And we would get to see it!! Kewwll!! What would they name the show?? Uh.. mabye Running CAVEman? (ooh, that sucked, someone come up with a better one)
Truce, we are both on the right side It just erks me when a release, in my opinion, pays homage to Windows by modeling thier GUI after it. We recently replaced 14 users here that had Win95 to RH 7.2. I made the mistake of not realizing that these folks (even though I told them this was not Microsoft Windows) had no idea that apps like "Spinner" and RealPlayer would no longer work. Folks really have no idea what an OS is, these same people were also unaware that Macs cannot run Win apps either. So I purchased CrossOver, and installed RealPlayer, and other Win stuff (now of course, they are completely confused). Despite our disagreement, I bet you agree with this - that as of right now, unless a Linux guru is involved, to show the user the differences, and reasons why Linux is better, the 'switch' is highly likely to result in an immediate switch back. Unfortunately the major distros just don't have the dollars it would take to educate the general public on the benefits of Linux, and to the vast extent M$ hijacks their wallets.
What's wrong...
Confusion WE know what Linux is. The average user has NO idea. By looking exactly alike, I believe it creates confusion between the two. The only thing then that they will see, is "gee-this new computer doesn't do as much as my old one". The reason they will think that is because all of the software they have doesn't work anymore. And since no one will be there to explain things to them, they will NOT assimilate to Linux, and be ready to go back to Windows. Therefore I believe the most inportant thing in "the switch" is a good Linux OS version, NOT some cheesy Windows wannabe like this or Lindows.
Look, this thing pretty much copies the looks of XP period. I agree, that to get folks to switch it needs to have the general flow of windows i.e. - a "start" button, similar task bars, search disk contents, etc. But NOT try to LOOK exactly like it.
Slashdot Mirror
The articles is absolutely correct when it states newspapers are killing themselves, which is why I left 4 years ago. Publishers know that the profit margins of old are long gone, however their response to that is what is causing it's greatest harm - an insatiable appetite to reduce expenses...rather than an expansion into other services to grow revenue. Newspaper publishers and owners are the most pessimistic people on the planet. Their favorite, and most often decision-making process is the "decision to make no decision" - thus, their unwillingness to change with the times will leave them buried in the past.
Are you a printer or designer? Opinions of Adobe CS usually fall on whether you are one or the other. Photoshop is the best photo program bar-none I agree completely - which is why it has been the industry standard for many years. All in all - Adobe as a pure business (like Microsoft) has done a brilliant job of redesign and marketing - the fact that Quark's upgrades since 5.1 have been little more than a repackaged hack job that CERTAINLY made it more difficult to use - helped InDesign capture the market as much as anything Adobe did. Like MS Windows - Adobe has no competition because the entire industry has tooled their software to be able to interact with their products...and all modern workflows that I know of incorporate seamlessly Adobe Professional w/Enfocus as a very important part of the whole file manipulation processes. SO again - to the original OP's post - he would be doing a disservice to train people on anything but Creative Suite.
aye - "almost" duplicates is a bit of a stretch. What I should have said is they are placing Pitstop capabilities into Acrobat Pro. with plans to eventually have the enfocus features built-in. If I was Adobe, yes I would do the same thing - however this is upsetting because this is yet another industry that is being "Wal-Martized" i.e. > no choice but to purchase from them because they are the only game in town. Adobe IS the Microsoft of this industry, which means no competition, high fees, constant expensive upgrades that are filled with bugs. For printers (me) - Adobe is a bane. Graphic designers think they have to have the latest of everything - which means me upgrading constantly and fighting issues where Adobe is ahead of workflow systems and therefore the workflow systems do not support their "newest" features. I hate Adobe.
I have been in the print industry for 23 years. 10 years ago there was a variety of programs - Freehand, Multi-ad, CorelDraw, Quark etc. etc. In the past 3 years we have all seen a disturbing trend as all of these programs have been taken over by Adobe. Basically if you are not using Adobe products - you are not in the print industry. All of the major workflow systems are PDF based using Adobe engines and Enfocus's Pitstop (which Adobe Acrobat professional 7.0 almost duplicates, indeed Enfocus will be out of business in less than 5 years as Adobe is placing "Pitstop" capabilities as a part of Adobe Acrobat - so yet another part of the industry is going Adobe). If you are not using Adobe CS to teach them about graphic design - you will be doing them a grave disservice.
No sh*t...I used dBase before excel...nearly all of the shortkey commands in dBase - to this day work in excel.
For instance - dBase...@sum(cells to add) and excel =sum(cells to add)...coincidence? I think not.
Microsoft: do what I say, not as I did...or we'll sue you.
Hmm...the ability to connect to each other and see eachother...sooo how long will it take before a "zune" virus is scripted and your player gets infected simply by being in the same room with someone else having one?
You have to love the hypocrisy of it all. It reminds me of a story I heard on the radio awhile back, where a drug user called the cops because she paid $100 to a dealer, only the drugs were fake. She could not honestly see the irony of her complaint. I am sure Microsoft doesn't see the irony in theirs.
Let's check some other facts: Most people still use Office 2000, many others still use Office 98. People are finally aware there is NO reason to upgrade, when at least 99% of users can do everything in the "latest" office suite as they did 15 years ago with Word and excel 95. People type letters and memos and simple spreadsheets, anything more - they have a business system to do it. I hope you are joking about people not wanting to "lease" software - this is becoming the industry standard for a BUNCH of systems. Screw the dongles and client installed apps, web based systems are far, far better. Two of our main business and supply tracking software is web-based - both are "pay as you upgrade" systems, you lay out less cash up front (way less) and pay yearly upgrade fees that are much more manageable. I say - the more of this stuff the better!
I agree with the guy that is glad they are copying the OSX look rather than windows, but other than that..still looks like it is designed by a guy needing anti-depressants. Boooooorrriiiiiiiing...
PDF is locked in for years in the Print/Design industry. It is now the industry standard to send files, many printers (including us) surcharge for files that are not PDF. All modern RIP's are PDF, practically every print workflow systems are ALL PDF based. Different doesn't mean better either. You can hardly say something is an alternative to a widley used product by reading an article.
now that I think about it, you are correct, the virus exploited M$ Outlook's "feature" that automatically opened PDF's if you had reader installed. The code abused the feature rather than a PDF.
Also there have been very FEW viruses that infect PDF's, imagine the viruses that will be written for M$'s version.
When you have money to burn as M$ does, might as well use it, even if it fails, at least you get to stare at the flames.
I couldn't possibly have said it better! Too bad you won't get modded up, since this is do far down the line.
You sound just like what we have been saying and doing for the last couple of years.
I am forwarding your message to a couple of colleages of mine, it'll be nice having them see this from someone else!
Actually we have 2 OS X servers, and they ROCK. We mirrored 2 sets of drives in 7 seconds, set up DHCP in a few seconds, AND there are no licensing fees - now why do people but NT servers again? And rdesktop (remote desktop access to a Win2000 server) works very nicely.
We have 21 servers (yes were pretty small) and we are down to only 6 NT boxes, and we only have them because of the business apps that run on them. Soooo....
Screw M$!!!!!!!!!! And up yours with your Licensing 6 heist!!!! No more CALS!!!!
This is precisely why the last 8-9 boxes we have purchased were "white boxes".
I'm sorry, but anyone who falls for this is either young and stupid, or just a plain moron.
How many, "I love you's", "look at my pics", etc. does it take before the suckers of the world wake up??
Absolutely. As a sys admin, we have had to spend money, and waste our time tooling with postfix to filter spam out.
Not to mention, them harvesting our e-mail accounts.
VMWare?? Have you ever tried VMWare? While I appreciate the hard work folks put into that project, it is still not a solution at all.
For starters, you have to have Windows installed, which sorta defeats the whole thing. I would MUCH rather dual boot than put up with the extreme pain from the slow crawl of VMWare.
I have Crossover installed, and I will say thusfar it is a thing of beauty. Not only does it work, but it (I believe) actually launches many of the apps faster than Windoze does!
I certianly remember that, which is the precise reason in my post I used Geraldo, to make it even more ridiculous.
Uhhh.... Helloo??... Dude, I was being sarcastic.. you know - kidding, joking around, as in funny haha
Just think - mabye they will feed the video of these bots running around to the media. Yeah... a LIVE show... with Geraldo doing the commentary... just think of the ratings when one of em blows someone away!! And we would get to see it!!
Kewwll!!
What would they name the show??
Uh.. mabye Running CAVEman? (ooh, that sucked, someone come up with a better one)
Truce, we are both on the right side
It just erks me when a release, in my opinion, pays homage to Windows by modeling thier GUI after it.
We recently replaced 14 users here that had Win95 to RH 7.2. I made the mistake of not realizing that these folks (even though I told them this was not Microsoft Windows) had no idea that apps like "Spinner" and RealPlayer would no longer work.
Folks really have no idea what an OS is, these same people were also unaware that Macs cannot run Win apps either. So I purchased CrossOver, and installed RealPlayer, and other Win stuff (now of course, they are completely confused).
Despite our disagreement, I bet you agree with this - that as of right now, unless a Linux guru is involved, to show the user the differences, and reasons why Linux is better, the 'switch' is highly likely to result in an immediate switch back.
Unfortunately the major distros just don't have the dollars it would take to educate the general public on the benefits of Linux, and to the vast extent M$ hijacks their wallets.
What's wrong... Confusion
WE know what Linux is. The average user has NO idea. By looking exactly alike, I believe it creates confusion between the two. The only thing then that they will see, is "gee-this new computer doesn't do as much as my old one". The reason they will think that is because all of the software they have doesn't work anymore. And since no one will be there to explain things to them, they will NOT assimilate to Linux, and be ready to go back to Windows.
Therefore I believe the most inportant thing in "the switch" is a good Linux OS version, NOT some cheesy Windows wannabe like this or Lindows.
Look, this thing pretty much copies the looks of XP period. I agree, that to get folks to switch it needs to have the general flow of windows i.e. - a "start" button, similar task bars, search disk contents, etc. But NOT try to LOOK exactly like it.