Corel Graphics Suite X4 Makes Design Easy (But ....)
When I talk about Corel Draw, I always think about a trip to New York City in the 1980s. I was thinking about asking my manager to buy a Mac because the Mac handled graphics better than PCs did. At the Folio:Show (in the 6th Ave Hilton) I saw Corel Draw. The only drawing mode was "wire frame" but the F9 key showed a full-resolution example of the output. I was sold. Before I left New York, I ordered a copy of Corel Draw. In the following decade, I regularly upgraded Corel Draw. I attended Corel World and became an instructor there. We rejoiced in some updates (usually odd numbered); we persevered through buggy updates (mostly even numbered); and we survived Corel World in 2001, in Boston. On the third day of Corel World 2001, we watched the destruction of the World Trade Center and the attack on the Pentagon.
It's been quite a run. Corel Draw is probably the application I've spent the most time with over the past two decades, although not so much these days. Still, I'm always excited by a new version. Corel has stopped trying to fill each new release with new features; emphasis is now on reliability and performance.
Installing X4
Wow! It's a balloon! The balloon had been Corel's mark from the beginning but sometime in the 1990s, the company decided that the logo should be updated the result, clearly created by someone who didn't understand design, looked for all the world like a urinal. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) I can't find an example. But with X4, the balloon is back!
The installation process is different this time around. I didn't realize initially that I was supposed to look at each of the tabs the first time through. Installing works well on Windows XP systems ...
... but not so well on Vista. The installation crashed with a nasty error message. Some applications need elevated privileges to work right, and this is often the case with installation procedures.
Oh well. The other possible, although less likely, cause of the problem was my antivirus program. I started by disabling AVG Antivirus for the duration of the installation process.
Because I suspect that the autorun process that calls the actual installer won't be able to pass on its elevated privileges, I skipped that and selected the setup.exe application to Run as administrator.
With Vista, there is a difference between running a program from an account with administrator privileges and running a program as the administrator. This is more like running a process as root on a Unix or Linux machine.
The trouble is, this would flummox some users immediately. Because I understood what I saw and knew how to fix the problem, I lost only a few minutes to the journey down a dead-end lane. Maybe it would be wise for the autorun program to detect that it's running on Vista and explain the problem.
Except for that, the installation was uneventful. Then I was ready for "the test".
My First Test for Each New Version of Draw
This area below has a background color of #48919E (or RGB 72-145-158 ). I have created a 300-pixel wide GIF graphic with the same color background. I used an optimized palette and antialiasing is on to provide smooth letters. In the past, Corel has incorrectly antialiased the edges of images. This is a practice that creates a "frame" around the graphic and makes it unusable without manual editing. Let's see if version X4 gets it right.
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Note: The white lines inside the graphic are there to clearly show where the edges of the graphic are. There should be no lines along any edge of the graphic.
Unfortunately, the answer is no. See the lines on the left and at the bottom? I really don't understand how Corel's engineering team can consider this to be correct, but the flaw has persisted through many versions. Maybe there is progress, though. The lines at the top and right are finally gone. Let's see how Adobe's equivalent application handles this issue. It appears that Adobe's design engineers haven't figured it out, either. At least not for an application such as Illustrator, which is Adobe's equivalent to Draw.
So does Adobe Photoshop do any better? Let's see.
Photoshop gets it 100% right. I know from experience that Fireworks would get it right, too. What about Corel Photo-Paint?
Yes! The fact that this works holds out the promise of being able to create a graphic in Corel Draw, save it as a CMX file, open it in Photo-Paint, and export it as a GIF or PNG. I can't stop until I try that, of course.
The size is wrong (211 pixels wide instead of 300) and the text is missing, but there's no frame. I'm getting excited now! This time I've converted the text to curves and, when I opened the CMX file, I specified the exact width I wanted (300 pixels) and then exported the file as a GIF with transparency:
Aw, crap! Even though Corel Draw is one of the easiest applications to use for Web graphic creation, the export function from Corel still—after all these versions—isn't ready. This seems so easy: Edges of rectangular objects shouldn't be antialiased with the rest of the image. I would think that detecting the edge of a rectangle with a known size should be the kind of programming task that even I might be able to handle. C'mon Corel. Draw guru Rick Altman and I (and many others) have been complaining about this "feature" for years. Is it really that hard to get this right? |
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It's annoying that, after all these years, this feature doesn't work. There are relatively easy workarounds, but they all add steps to the process, they all take time, and they're all easy to forget if you're in a hurry.
I also ran into problems when trying to save files on a Vista machine. When I tried to replicate the problem on an XP machine, I wasn't able to, so my assumption is that the problem involves deficiencies in both Vista and Draw X4. The errors seemed to be reduced, but not eliminated, when I moved to Vista SP1. In a parallel test on both platforms, I recorded 12 errors in 30 attempts to save a file on the Vista machine but 0 errors in more than 100 attempts on an XP machine. I haven't see the write error with any other program, which rules out Vista as the sole cause of the problem, and I have seen the write error with X4 on all disk drives attached to the Vista system (which rules out a disk problem). Corel's software engineers have been unable to replicate the problem and when I performed a software repair on the system, the number of incidents dropped sharply. Bottom line here: This is essentially a non-issue. If the save fails, save again.
Niche Marketing
Corel has always occupied a niche market. Although Corel has tried producing Mac-based products (that work well, by the way), those products have never been accepted by graphic designers. So Corel is a product for:
- Graphic Designers (a niche market).
- Who Don't Use Macs (a niche within a niche).
- And Who Don't Use Adobe Products (a niche within a niche within a niche).
I've always found Draw's tools easier to understand and use than those offered by Adobe Illustrator and Draw allows users to create multi-page publications. This leads some to believe (incorrectly) that Draw is the equivalent of Illustrator and InDesign. In some sub-basement at 1600 Carling Avenue in Ottawa lies a code for Ventura Publisher, an application that Corel acquired from Xerox after Xerox ran it into the ground. In many ways, Ventura Publisher is still the most powerful publishing application on the planet, but this is know to only a few chosen souls. Compared to Ventura, Draw's page-makeup capabilities are limited.
But they're still significant. Draw comes with templates that place small publications within the reach of non-designers. These are publications that look good when compared to the work of professionals. They are exactly what people in small and medium sized companies need when the boss says "we need a brochure" but can't (or won't) allocate the funds needed to hire a designer. Using Draw's templates a non-designer can create a brochure that, if not "inspired" is at least not ugly.
If you've ever wondered about the name of a particular typeface (by the way, Draw ships with a lot of high-quality typefaces), you'll want to know about Corel's WhatTheFont website. From inside Draw, you can paste a bitmap that illustrates a typeface and the site will help you identify it. (You're actually identifying a typeface, not a font, because "font" means a particular typeface and style in a given size, but nobody seems to use that term properly any more.)
Text wrap (flowing text around an image) is improved in this version, too, and Corel has licensed Adobe's PDF technology to allow you to export a PDF document even if you don't own Adobe Acrobat.
Bottom line: Corel Draw (and the Graphics Suite) continue to be the value leader for Windows users. (4 cats)
Vector image editing, bitmap image editing, typeface management, and even a screen capture program. What's not to like in this suite?
For more information, visit the Corel website.
Vista Service Pack 1
The first service pack for Vista became available late in April and I finally downloaded it in early May. If you have Vista on a computer, you'll want SP1. If you buy a new computer, it will probably come with Vista (although you should be able to find XP systems at least through the end of the year.) If you have an older computer that's been happily running XP, my recommendation is that you NOT upgrade it to Vista unless you are absolutely certain that the hardware you have will be compatible not just with the low-end Vista Home (without Aero) but also with versions that include Aero. After installing SP1, you will not be amazed by the performance increase, but you will be pleasantly surprised.
Initially, Vista SP1 is available in just 5 languages: English, French, German, Japanese, and Spanish. In addition, the service pack will not install on computers that use peripheral device drivers Microsoft believes to be incompatible. Supposedly this involves Creative's Audigy series of sound cards, but SP1 installed on my system which has an Audigy 2 ZS. Following the installation, the sound card settings were for a 2-speaker system instead of a 5.1 speaker system, but I was able to change that. Additionally SP1 should refuse to install on some systems with certain audio and display drivers from Realtek and Intel. Microsoft has the full list of still-not-supported devices.
If you have Vista already installed, you can download the service pack for free or you can buy a boxed version of the update from some online retailers.
SP1 will remove from Vista one of the largest blunders Microsoft has ever foisted on its customers, the "Kill Switch" that deactivates important Vista components if believes the version running on the machine isn't properly licensed. Unfortunately, the kill switch activated on properly licensed Vista systems and locked legitimate users out of Vista. Needless to say, those users were not particularly pleased.
Overall, the service pack contains more than 300 fixes. If you want to see the entire list, you'll find it here.
SP1 improves Vista's speed and stability, allowing systems to wake faster from hibernation, boot faster, and shut down faster. In addition, users will now be permitted to run the BitLocker encryption tool on multiple hard drives.
The Installation
If you still have modem-based dial-up Internet service, you need to do one of two things: Bite the bullet and arrange for faster service or request a CD from Microsoft. You don't want to attempt a download that's advertised to take nearly 18 hours because invariably the connection drops after about 17 hours and 39 minutes, meaning that you have to start over from the beginning
Fortunately, I have a faster connection. I started the download, went to the post office to mail a letter, and the download was complete when I returned.
The download process itself offers two options (run from the Internet or download). In my opinion, only a fool would try to run a 435 MB installation file over the Internet, even with a fast connection. I saved the file to my downloads directory on drive N.
Once the download was complete, I ran the SP1 installer. I performed the download from Internet Explorer 7 because Microsoft doesn't like Firefox.
Microsoft said that I should be aware of some things before proceeding, so I followed the link (which opened in Firefox 3 beta 5, my default browser).
There was nothing that I found to be particularly troubling about the update, so I proceeded with the task.
After I accepted the license, the installation process began with warnings that the process could take an hour and that the computer would restart several times. The process took about 50 minutes and at least 5 restarts were required.
Following the final restart, the updater displayed a success message.
Now all I need to do is determine whether the service pack has resolved problems that I've encountered with Vista. Only time will tell.
Complete: 2 May 2008 at 18:02:04.
And the Verdict Is ...
SP1 clearly improves Vista's performance, but it's still a mixed bag. XP is faster. Vista is more secure. Vista is far more attractive, smoother, and (dare I say?) elegant.
I've heard from people who have purchased new machines with Vista and Office 2007. Most of them like the way things work. Complaints have largely come from power users and possibly from those who don't much care for Microsoft anyway but who are forced to use Windows because Microsoft owns the desktop space in corporate America.
With SP1 installed, Vista isn't as needy. It doesn't bother me with as many "Continue?" messages as in the past. The overall responsiveness seems better, too. This is a perceptual thing and it's always subject to the placebo effect. And some of the things that the Windows Explorer used to annoy me by doing no longer seem to be a problem. The trouble is that I can't tell you exactly what changed. I just know that the level of annoyance dropped a notch or two and I don't have to fix the way Vista chooses to display things as much as I used to.
But I've also noticed that there are occasional disconnect/reconnect signals for USB devices. I don't know which devices because the drop-and-restore events are so fast that I can't determine the cause. This might not be a Vista problem or an SP1 problem. It might be a hardware malfunction, but it's something I didn't encounter until SP1. It might be related to changes in the way SP1 handles write-behind cache for USB devices. To allow those devices to be disconnected quickly, write-behind caching is disabled, but I don't see how that would cause a USB device to disconnect and reconnect. It might be related to the mouse I use because I had to replace the mouse not long after installing SP1 and the new mouse might have a connection problem. For now, all I can say is that this is something to keep an eye on.
Bottom line: If you have a Vista computer, you will want to install SP1. If you don't have Vista on your computer, you'll probably want to wait for Windows 7 unless you buy a new machine that comes with Vista.
Was $95; Now Far Less than One Cent!
No, this isn't one of those If it Sounds Too Good to be True stories. It's real. Near the end of May, I received an e-mail from a company that I regularly buy from. They were offering Seagate Barracuda SATA hard drives (the OEM version, which means the drives would be without cables and such)—750GB drives for $120. Yes, that's 16 cents per gigabyte. If you've been around computers for long enough, you may remember thinking what a great deal you got on a $500 1GB hard drive. And I've mentioned a time or two my first external shoebox-size hard drive that carried a price north of $1500 for 16MB. So the cost of storage has dropped from $94 per MB to $0.00016 per MB. That's close to a 100% reduction in price.
The offer illustrated above isn't particularly remarkable. It's one of several that I receive every month offering hard drives at prices that, even though I know better than to be astonished by them, still astonish me. The current crop of drives are far faster, far smaller, and far more reliable than the drive I bought back in the 1980s.
To look at those numbers a different way, 750GB of hard drive space would have filled a large room in the 1980s and would have cost nearly $4.5 million.
But look at some of the other offers: You could boost your notebook computer's hard drive to 200GB for about $140 and you could pick up a 500GB external hard drive (handy for backup) for just $100.
At a time when digital photos and digital video are eating up storage at unprecedented rates, now is exactly the right time for hard drives to be so inexpensive that it's hard to understand how anyone makes a profit from making them or selling them. "We lose money on every deal, but we make it up in volume"?
Nerdly News
This Isn't News, But ...
I was talking with some geeky folks recently. Being the oldest of the group, I remembered 80-column punch cards, 40MB disk drives that sat on the floor, and computers that took up more space than a FEMA trailer. That's because the computer (in this case a Honeywell 200) had no disk drives, 5 (or more) tape drives, and true core memory (with 64KB in a cabinet about 6" wide, 12" deep, and 18" tall.) Today you'll find 2GB of memory in something about the size of your thumbnail. WOW! What a trip.
This week Woot offered a no-name 2GB MicroSD card for less than $10. I didn't buy one and neither did a lot of people because the manufacturer was an unknown, but the thought of buying 2GB of memory for less than $10 is not too far shy of amazing.
For example, I recall seeing the first 16MB thumb drive at PC Expo in New York City and $50 seemed like a bargain for so much memory in such a small package. After all, that would have been the equivalent of about 15 floppy disks. Now 4GB thumb drives are widely available (walk into your local MicroCenter or Fry's and you'll find them as impulse items at the cash register) for $10 to $20.
A friend in California sent me the image at the right. It's a 1.6MB "high density" floppy disk that's been used as the cover for a notebook. Inside the spindle hole is a 2GB SanDisk device. To put this into perspective, the SanDisk card is able to store more than 1200 times the amount of data that the floppy disk could hold.
Wow? Well ... yeah.
Hacketa. Hacketa. Hack.
More than 14 million Comcast subscribers lost access to their ISP's Web portal for several hours this week, so they were unable to request support, check their e-mail, or use newsgroups. About 11 pm Eastern time on Wednesday Comcast's site was replaced by a note that claimed hackers had RoXed Comcast. I'm sure they're quite proud of themselves.
Comcast says that the problem was resolved within a few hours. Private information (e-mail messages, for example) were apparently not compromised and users were able to obtain their e-mail through programs that connected through a POP3 server.
How did this happen? Hackers apparently convinced the geniuses at Network Solutions to make changes that redirected traffic from Comcast servers to other servers. (Another win for Network Solutions! -BB) Comcast says that it's working with law enforcement authorities to figure out what happened.
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