Coming soon ... Adobe Creative Suite 3

Occasionally I've said that Linux stands a good chance of eventually winning the operating system wars because it's good enough for many people and because it's free. I've usually tempered that statement by saying that some people can't switch to Linux because programs they depend on won't run under Linux. Examples include Microsoft Office (Open Office is a worthy competitor, but comes up short in some areas), applications such as Intuit's Quicken (yes, you can run an emulator or WINE, which claims not to be an emulator; but if you're going to run a Windows emulator on Linux, what's the point of running Linux?) and Adobe Creative Suite applications (having caught a glimpse of what's coming from Adobe in a couple of weeks, CS3 alone might maintain the viability of Windows and OS X well into the next decade.)

Yes, I really did write a 89-word sentence with three parenthetical comments (two of which were the length of a long sentence on their own) and, no, I'm not trying to emulate William Faulkner. It just came out of my fingers that way. Maybe I need shorter fingers.

I haven't yet see the actual products—Photoshop, InDesign, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Flash, Illustrator, Acrobat, After Effects, Contribute, InCopy, and SoundBooth—but Adobe's advance materials for reporters show the exciting direction this package is taking.

After writing a review of InDesign CS2 in June 2004, I met with InDesign product manager Wil Eisley and several members of the development team. Three years ago, I wrote that I had finally given up on Ventura Publisher because it was clear that Corel would never release another version or fix the existing bugs:

Note to the Adobe InDesign product manager: You’ve already beaten Quark. Now take a look at the features you could borrow from Ventura Publisher. You probably don’t give much thought to this also-ran application, but it still has useful features you haven’t implemented yet. If you want to blow Quark away, borrow some of the power-user features from Ventura. I can think of no reason why InDesign doesn’t allow the user to create a paragraph tag that runs text across multiple columns. It would also be helpful to allow both text and a graphic to occupy the same frame because it’s easy to keep text with an associated graphic that way. And bullets? Well, d'oh!

It may be that nobody at Adobe can figure out how to do what Corel has done, but I doubt that’s the case. It may be that Ventura is held in such low regard by the InDesign product manager that even its outstanding features are ignored. It’s even possible that nobody at Adobe has ever bothered to look at Ventura to see if it has any features that could be added to InDesign.

Please, Adobe, buy a copy of Ventura Publisher. Take a look at some of the production-oriented features and think about how they could be added to InDesign. Better still, Adobe should consider approaching Corel to see if they’re interested in selling the application to you. You already own PageMaker and FrameMaker; the new Corel doesn’t seem to know how to sell Ventura any more than the old Corel did; maybe Adobe could buy Ventura, pull out the best features and add them to InDesign, and then put Ventura out of its misery.

(You don't know how hard it was for me to write that, but InDesign has a future and Ventura has some features that could help InDesign realize that future.)

What I'm waiting with great anticipation to see is how many of those features (some of which were undoubtedly in development before my visit to Seattle, which is where the Creative Suite development team works) are in CS3. I know that some of them are because I've seen screen shots that show them.

Enough speculation

Anything I write now is purely speculation, so I'll stop and wait until I've actually been able to use the various CS3 applications.

Adobe works hard to make its applications easy to review. They do this by providing voluminous documents that summarize the new features the marketing department feels will be most exciting to those who might be considering an upgrade or who might be thinking about abandoning another company's application in favor of Adobe's products.

In addition, Adobe makes available documents that explain concisely how to use these features so that even a journalist can figure it out. And they provide all of the components needed to perform the tasks described.

In early April, about a month before I expect to see review copies, I downloaded more than 1 gigabyte of files so that I could begin reading about the new features. What you see at the left is the Firefox download manager during the process of downloading 63 files, some of which are zip files that include half a dozen or more files.

If you want to see a larger view of the download list, click the image.

Affordable 3D printing

The term "affordable" is a bit slippery. The first "affordable" CD burners were about $30,000. The first "affordable" digital cameras were about $30,000. The first "affordable" 3D printer is (have you detected a pattern here?) about $40,000. You probably won't buy one for your home, but if your business depends on creating prototypes, this might be an affordable addition to your tools.

Z Corporation modestly announced, "Z Corporation today took another giant step in its mission to make high-definition color 3D printing available to the masses with the release of the ZPrinter 450. The new machine is the first color 3D printer to break the $40,000 price point, the most highly automated, and the most compatible with contemporary office environments."

Did I say "modestly"?

The Z450 transforms electronic 3D data into handheld physical models. And not just 3D, but with the appropriate colors so that the prototype looks and feels accurate. The device uses a powder and, at the end of the printing process, accumulates the left-over powder and recycles it. This alone could be a source of significant savings because in some cases 70% or more of the powder dispensed during printing can be recycled.

The company says that models cost about $3 per cubic inch and the print quality is 300 x 450 dpi. The printer weighs more than 400 pounds, is about 4 feet by 3 feet by 5 feet, and can produce a model up to 8 inches by 10 inches by 8 inches. Producing something that size would cost—at 640 cubic inches—a little under $2000.

If you'd like to see a video of the Z450 in operation or place your order for one of the printers, hop over to the Z Corporation website.

Why two missing programs in a single month?

I've come close to explaining the missing programs a couple of times, but I've always decided at the last moment not to include the explanation. But some of the people who listen to (or read) what I write have been doing so for nearly 20 years. It seems to me that I owe them an explanation, and this is that explanation. As you probably know, I have a "day job". Recently, there were some changes.

Times have changed. It used to be that if you quit or you were laid off or fired, a couple of things would happen: You might get a going-away party and then you'd stop going to the office. End of story.

Last October, the management team of the Small Division (SD) of a Medium Size Company (MSC) for which I work started negotiating with a Really Big Company (RBC). The goal was to have RBC acquire SD for many times annual earnings. I was a member of the SD team that made presentations to RBC, but it appeared that the deal had fallen through. On March 5, I learned that the RBC had decided to acquire SD and that "all employees" were included. Except they weren't.

On March 8, I learned that my name was suddenly no longer on the list of employees to be acquired. (YIKES!!!) The timing was a shock, but the decision wasn't a surprise. I had known from the beginning that the RBC had a huge marketing communications division and that they might not need a marcom guy in Columbus. My last day was to be March 9, with pay for accrued vacation time and two months of severance pay.

On March 9, everyone in the SD of the MSC were called together to learn that they had been acquired by the RBC. Earlier (at lunchtime), I had met with my older daughter (who worked down the hall from me) at lunch to tell her that the RBC was acquiring our SD, but that I wasn't included. During the meeting at which the VP and GM of the SD announced the acquisition, I sent a farewell message to everyone and then left the building. That was, after all, my last day to work for the SD. Except that it wasn't.

The executive vice president and general manager of the Somewhat Larger Division (SLD) of the MSC suggested that I be retained for a week to help with the transition, so I continued to report to the SD for another week. On March 16, we had a going-away party (at least that much went according to plan.) The VP of the SD released everyone at 3pm for the party; I got home around 10. And that was my final day. Except that it wasn't.

During the going-away party, the SD general manager obtained approval from the RBC for me to continue working on the transition for another week. The following week, I worked 3 days at home and 2 in the office.

Two weeks after my job with the SD ended, I was asked to continue with the transition for yet another week and, near the end of the day, I was hired by the SLD of the MSC. The following week, I was an employee of SLD, but I worked as a contract employee for the SD of the RBC, continuing to report to my old office, document my old job, and train those who will take over the various non-marcom duties. (Are you dizzy yet?)

If you're counting, it's now 3 weeks after the job ended and I'm still there. If you're not counting, it's still 3 weeks after the job ended and I'm still there.

But March 30 really was the final day. There were rumors afoot (why are rumors never "ahand"?) that there would be yet another going away party, and indeed there was one. It involved bowling and I still have injuries to show for it. On April 2, I moved back to the building where I spent 22 years.

But maybe not for long.

The SLD of the MSC has outgrown the space they're in and, because the MSC is still the holder of the lease where the SD of the RBC is located, the SD will probably move to a new location (possibly in the same office complex) and the SLD of the MSC might move to the location where I've been working. If that happens, the older daughter and I will still be able to go for walks even though we will be employed by companies that are competitors.

I'm beginning to feel a bit like a ping-pong ball. And as my e-mail program commented to me the other day, "The only real problem in life is what to do next."

The players (a review for the inattentive):
SD	=	Small Division
MSC	=	Medium Size Company
RBC	=	Really Big Company
SLD	=	Somewhat Larger Division

PS: One of the high points of the past couple of years has been my elder daughter, who worked down the hall from me. Two decades ago, she came to the office with me and slept on the floor. It's been a real treat watching her find something that she enjoys doing and does well. Knowing that she's on track with the RBC is a good feeling even though the two of us no longer see each other every day.

Questions and Answers (instead of Nerdly News)

Getting rid of spam

I received two questions this week regarding spam. One asked, "What do you consider the best at controlling repetitive spam? I try blocking the old quarantine way, but unsuccessfully." The other was more concerned about a specific source, "I found and read your write up about Canadian Pharmacy. I receive 10-15 a day from this company. How do I stop their spam?"

In October 2005, I deconstructed a spam from a bunch of crooks that pass themselves off as "My Canadian Pharmacy." You can read that article here. The crooks who run the place, at that time, appeared to have a mailbox in Toronto, but the operation is certainly not a licensed pharmacy.

The best current defense against spam is a challenge-response system. You won't receive any messages from people whose addresses you haven't whitelisted. Instead, when someone you don't know sends you a message, they will receive a message from the challenge-response system asking them to visit a website and type a series of characters that can easily be read by humans, but cannot easily be read by machines.

If you feel that this would be off-putting, most challenge-response systems allow you to turn off the challenge and instead review unauthenticated messages. The system I use (www.SpamArrest.com) has an option that allows me to view unauthenticated messages but to suppress those messages with invalid addresses. So if a spammer creates a hoax address and uses that as the return address, the challenge message bounces and I'll never see it.

I visit SpamArrest several times a day to glance at the unverified messages. This process probably takes less than 5 minutes per day because it takes only a few seconds to spot any messages that I want to receive, approve them, and get on with life.

Once I add an address to the whitelist, all future messages from the sender will come through without being challenged.

Looking for the wrong problem

"I am experiencing problems in copying large (more than 30 MB or so) TIFF files from my hard disk to a new 2 GB thumb drive. I use Windows XP. I am able to copy small files very quickly, but with the above said large files, Windows tries for a minute or two before it sends the message "Cannot copy <file name>: The path is too deep". There are a couple of large files that I have managed to copy successfully, though."

Sometimes Microsoft's diagnostic messages are a bit murky, but this one is crystal clear: The path is too deep. It's not the size of the file, it's the location. Try copying the file to the C root or to your desktop. It's probably in some location such as C:\a\b\c\d\e\f\g\h\i\thefile.txt Windows (using NTFS) can handle absurdly long paths, but most key drives are FAT (or FAT32) instead of NTFS and they choke when the path is too long.

It's also possible that you're trying to copy and entire directory tree that's more than 8 levels deep. Again, Windows XP can handle extremely deep nesting, but FAT and FAT32 are limited.

But that wasn't the case: The problem was a bad USB port. The person with the problem tried moving the file to the desktop, but still received the same (as it turned out, incorrect) error message. The copy process was failing because of a communication fault and Windows threw a too-deep-path error.

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