|
Softpanorama
(slightly skeptical)
Open Source Software Educational Society |
May the
source be with you,
but remember the KISS principle ;-)
|
Alternatives to Adobe Products
and How to Fight Adobe Acrobat Bloatware
Adobe products are usually overpriced and sometimes less reliable
than alternatives. Here is need to distinguish between PDF specification (which
is pretty good) and Adobe implementation of this specification: Acrobat Reader is
indeed a horrible bloatware.
Adobe PDF viewer (Acrobat) since version 5 is bloatware and it is
unclear what it is doing on your PC besides displaying files. In its infinite wisdom
Adobe make it to behave like a daemon: after you views the first PDG file it
remains memory even if you do not have any opened PDF files. In addition it bestows users
with another rogue process called AcroTray. Latest
versions (both 7 and 8) are complex and buggy (especially on Windows 2000) and they consume too much resources on 256M/512M
PCs to be useful. Often they crash when you try to shutdown PC.
People often criticize Microsoft but they often forget about Adobe.
And in certain areas Microsoft can be a viable alternative to the Adobe products:
-
MS Word Documents
are editable and, as such, better then PDF files. Microsoft Word document
viewer is capable and rather small in comparison with Acrobat. It use do not
like DOC format RTF is well documented and in version 7 you they actually
use XML. For most individuals and business capabilities are more then
adequate and you do not need Acrobat license to create such files as Office
is a standard desktop application in most corporations.
|
Hate the Adobe Acrobat bloatware? Need to open
a PDF? Want a cost free, ad free, and spyware free solution?
Get FoxIt PDF
Reader !
|
-
FrontPage is
a really one of the best HTML editors and it is underestimated by many (this
site was created using FrontPage). FrontPage does not actually requires using
extensions if you do not like them (I don't). And it is amazingly powerful
program if you learn it. You can now buy FrontPage 2003 for the price of shareware and if you need an
HTML editor you will make an excellent purchase. This is a program that
definitely worth the price you can get it on eBay. This is a really
powerful and flexible HTML editor with almost no competition (Dreamweaver is
definitely weaker and less use friendly; also like most adobe products it is
ridiculously expensive).
FrontPage substantially helps in organizing
small to medium sites as you can graphically organize your
site's structure, using a tree-structure view. Also, if you have a Web page which is linked from many other pages
and you rename that file, FrontPage will automatically update links in the
other files, you don't need to change links by yourself anymore.
Advantage of Dreamweaver is that it allows you to design your pages
with layers and then it will automatically transform those layers into
tables. Also extendibility of Dreamweaver is a plus. The way
extensions are implemented in Dreamweaver is more flexible that Frontpage
macro approach as FrontPage does not have a macrorecoder yet. Support of
external Cascading Style Sheets is better in Dreamweaver.
-
Adobe flagship product Photoshop is capable but also very expensive and IMHO
does not always live after promises. For WEB designers I think Macromedia Fireworks
and/or Corel products often represent a much better deal. Microsoft also came up
with photo editor (Microsoft Digital Image) which is Ok for non-professional
and have a better user interface that any other product I saw. On Unix
GIMP might be an interesting choice
as it comes with powerful Perl-based scripting but of course it is not match for
Photoshop. Still not everybody needs full capabilities of Photoshop. The monster
app Photoshop from Adobe is also a hard one to replace, and even though the good
people over at The Gimp are trying really hard, they
still have a long way to go. But I guess that if you’re not a graphic designer or
photographer you could easily replace Photoshop with The Gimp. Standard
version of Microsoft Digital image priced very attractively. And as a challenger
Microsoft tries really hard to beat the leader...
Also from the point of view of healthy ecosystem there should be
alternatives to a dominant product and it's in our best interest to support most
innovative of them.
Again I would like to stress that I cannot talk about professional graphic artists,
but for WEB developers both GIMP and Paintshop Pro has some advantages in simple
cases over Adobe Photoshop. BTW one of the most common Paintshop questions is "Can I use Adobe Photoshop filters with Paintshop?" can be answered
YES!
You don't need to buy the full product to get the filters. Most filters
are not copyrighted by Adobe and are available in the demo version you can download
from the web or copied from the demo CD.
Now let's discuss the problem with Acrobat bloatware in more detail
because this is the most annoying product that a typical enterprise user
encounters daily. Here is selection of rather typical opinions about Adobe Acrobat:
"For months, users of Adobe Creative Suite 3 have been wondering why some
of the applications
regularly connect to what looks like a
private IP address
but is actually a public domain address belonging to the web analytics
company Omniture. Now
allegations of
user spying are
getting
louder, prompting Adobe Photoshop product manager John Nack to
respond,
though many remain
unsatisfied with his explanation."
Posted in
Tech,
Cool,
Downloadable by Dan at 1:01 pm
I hate bloat and spyware. Absolutely HATE IT! Adobe Reader (formerly Adobe
Acrobat) is the #1 target in my workflow that is a necessary evil. When you
begin to install the program it wants to clog your web browser with every toolbar
known to man. It constantly pings back to Adobe to check for updates every time
you launch it, and what is the deal with the Adobe download manager.
Enough is enough! I found a light PDF reader that does the trick. The Foxit
PDF Reader is an alternative viewer/reader for PDF documents. Foxit PDF Reader
is less than 1MB to download and doesn’t need lengthy installation (just download,
unzip, and run). It works with all types of PDF documents you might have, with
high display quality. Supports different languages including most Asian languages.
You can zoom in/zoom out or rotate page display, copy text information to other
application, search text in PDF document, and print PDF documents.Take that
Adobe, Your reader application will never touch my computer again. I HIGHLY
recommend this to all PC users.
i'm not a fan of bloatware...i don't think anyone is. when you install
something, you expect it to be exactly what you want. aol recently got
nailed for having their latest software install a bunch of other software without
the user's knowledge.two chronic violators i think for bloatware: acrobat
reader and quicktime. acrobat reader: to me that means a reader.
so why is it 20MB? compare to
foxit reader which is 3.7MB
(which is about 2MB more than the previous version even) and does the same thing
(reads PDFs, search, etc.). yeah, yeah, acrobat reader can do a few other
things, but enough to warrant 6x the size and how many people really use (or
even know about those features). quicktime? don't even get me started.
a "plugin" that installs a startup task, system tray icon, etc.
Excellent obsevations
You're right Josh - all the bells and whistles
didn't amount to much for the people I was working with and the value really
wasn't there.
As has been pointed out here and elsewhere, there are any number of alternatives
ranging from free to much less expensive. I actually do a lot of PDF editing
and combining - I liked using Acrobat Pro - I just didn't like the gyrations
I had ot go through to get it to work and was utterly unstatisfied with Adobe's
response to my problems.
I contrast that experience to the kind of support I get from other developers
- large (like Microsoft) and small (like you) and I spend my money where my
patronage is appreciated. I think Adobe has lost
its way - in the good old days of desktop publishing when they had significant
competition, they were a different company.
Reader post by: Heebee Jeebies
Posted on: September 18, 2006, 3:00 PM PDT
What does conferencing have to do with electronic documents like PDF. Just
more bloat in a program that is already shower than snot in a snow storm. I
will stick with Macromedia FlashPaper it creates PDF quickly and effectively.
That is why I figure Adobe will either kill it off to swell it up with bloatware
like a pregnant yak!
Robert
Adobe Acrobat is running, even though I have no.PDF files open. Hey Adobe: There
are clever little %mechanisims like “file associations” that allows Windows
to open programs when they are needed. So why is Acrobat loitering
here? It should close itself. An even more important question is this:
Why is Acrobat eating up thirty-five megabytes of memory when it is
not even in use? What is it doing with all of that memory? By contrast
you can see that Paint Shop Pro - which is open and in use - is using less than
a third of the memory that Acrobat is. I don’t know
if this is arrogance or incompetence on the part of Adobe, but this is just
shameful.
The awful thing is that programs can do this as a way of making themselves
seem more efficient. How the game works is this:
I have some no-talent hack programmers working for me making rotten software.
It is sluggish and slow to start. I can get around this by having the program
load when the system starts. Then my long loading time is just added to
your boot-up time, thus masking my crime. When you open the program,
it is already in memory and thus starts a little bit faster.
So, I prop up my crappy software at the expense of making your entire system
a little slower and less responsive. What if everyone did this?
February 14, 2005
I’ve been having to work with PDF documents for a project I’m working on
where the docs are available only in PDF. I’ve been using an old version of
the PDF reader and writer software – Version 5.0. I installed 6.0 at some point
decided it didn’t have anything worth having and it was a pig, and forgot about
it.
So, today I decided maybe I should install the
new reader to see if it works a bit better for reading documents online – it
doesn’t except it seems the fonts are a bit cleaner and easier on the eyes.
Other than that I much prefer’s Word’s reading layout or even print view…
But here’s the kicker. I had Acrobat 5.0 FULL
installed, and when I installed the 7.0 reader it removed the old installation.
So there goes Distiller and the PDF output generation that was installed on
the machine. How about that for arrogance. Oh you want the full package too
– just upgrade. Nyet…
I guess I’m going back to 5.0, but seriously how
retarded is that for behavior?
I’m really surprised that Microsoft or somebody
hasn’t come up with its own format for document display. Adobe has been unchallenged
in this field forever but the reader is just not a good tool for reading text.
The sizing of pages never seems to fit into any thing that actually is readable
it’s always awkard. Trying to grab text out of a document is a pain in the ass
too. I have some editor who love to send me PDF documents for final edits and
making changes or even picking out the text out of these multicolumn documents
is a royal pain in the ass.
Then there’s the other end of it which is PDF
generation, which is also a mess. Forget Adobe for this unless it’s for consumers.
Their server side licensing for PDF creation is out of this world – what are
these guys smoking? There are other solutions in this space too, but it’s also
very pricey. Document output generation isn’t rocket science these days -
shouldn’t PDF output be practically a default option from just about any tool
developer or otherwise? It is an open format after all…
I’m not quite sure whether the various browser
bugs with the Acrobat reader have been fixed. In the past it was near impossible
to dynamically create PDF documents and display them in a browser unless you
ran the output to a PDF file on disk first. The reader would choke on dynamic
URLs – I suspect this is something Adobe purposely didn’t fix (at the time)
to discourage people from using Distiller on the server <g>…
I can’t dupe this now because all the PDF generation
has been changed to generate output files – it’d be interesting to try for the
10 more minutes that I will have 7.0 installed…
Apr 17, 2001
ailmi (IS/IT--Manageme)
The removal of paper capture in Acrobat 5 is annoying and cheap beyond belief
- especially since they neglected to bring this detail to my attention after
specifically asking what the differences were between Acrobat 4 and 5.
I consider this to be intentional and blatant misrepresentation on their part.
Do they have any competition yet? I will never again buy from them
- when I'm ready to upgrade to a new .pdf processor I'd like to have a choice.
As you can see there are problems with Acrobat and it might well worth to try
to find an alternative or avoid PDF format whenever possible. After all
this is yet another proprietary format from a very questionable company.
Nikolai Bezroukov
Notes:
- Those pages are written by people for whom English is not a
native language. Some amount of grammar and spelling errors
should be expected.
- This is a Spartan WHYFF (We Help You For Free) site. It
cannot replace the best teachers and
the
best books.
- The site contain some obsolete pages as it develops like a
living tree... Some links on older pages
are broken. Please
try to use Google, Open directory, etc. to find a replacement link
(see
HOWTO search the WEB for details).
We would appreciate if you can
mail us a correct link.
|
|
|
Hate the Adobe Acrobat bloatware? Need to open
a PDF? Want a cost free, ad free, and spyware free solution?
Get FoxIt PDF
Reader !
|
About: html2ps is a PHP equivalent of the popular Perl
script by the same name that accurately converts HTML with images,
complex tables (including rowspan/colspan), layers/divs, and CSS
styles to Postscript and PDF. Unlike most other HTML2PS/HTML2PDF
converters, it offers good CSS 2.1 support and is very tolerant to
non-valid HTML. It can convert even CSS-intense sites like aol.com
and msn.com.
Changes: A large number of layout engine fixes and
improvements were made.
About: pisa converts HTML to PDF using the ReportLab
Toolkit, the HTML5lib, and pyPdf. It supports HTML 5 and CSS 2.1
(and some of CSS 3). The main benefit of this tool that a user with
Web skills like HTML and CSS is able to generate PDF templates very
quickly without learning new technologies.
Changes: New features: barcode and a table of contents.
Many bugfixes. Better CSS support.
pdf2djvu 0.4.2
About: pdf2djvu creates DjVu files from PDF files. It's
able to extract: graphics, text layer, hyperlinks, document outline
(bookmarks), and metadata.
It's sad that Adobe owns Flash :-(
Silverlight is Microsoft's answer to Flash, more or less. It's supposed
to make Web applications more GUI-like and introduce fancy things like 3D
graphics and advanced user interfaces to Web applications.
... ... ...
Not really... they serve similar goals, but its really MS's way of
getting the (MUCH more powerful)
.NET development environment in the hands of rich client content
web developers.
The uptake is slow, but IMO its really a better technology than Flash. It
gives far better language tools to the programmers and provides much better
separation of design, interface and code where doing larger projects with
bigger teams will be easier.
Silverlight 1.0 was very flash-like -- the framework wasn't fully fleshed
out as far as what you could present to the user, but the newer releases
provide full GUI toolkits.
Lets put it this way -- you wouldn't (no matter what Adobe thinks) build an
enterprise application with Flash. Some smaller teams may play around with
it, but it wouldn't happen successfully in the broad market. I personally
don't believe the same can be said about Silverlight.
Freeware.
Easy PDF to TEXT converter is a must have
tool for document authors creating a lot of editable text based on existing
PDF documents and citing other writings presented as PDF documents. It has
the exact layout and formatting that enables you convert PDF to TEXT
preserving original layout, it also can autorecognize the rotated pages and
save results optimized for convenient reading and editing. You can convert
PDF documents containing text in different languages, such as: English,
French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Czech, Russian, Slovenian,
Swedish, Danish, Greek. Also, PDF to TEXT converter allows you specify your
PDF documents password prior to converting password-protected PDF files to
text.
1. The layout of pdf document is preserved.
2. Don't need any third party products(such as Adobe Acrobat or
Adobe Acrobat reader)
3. Support LZW encoded pdf documents.
4. Supports English, French, German, Italian and other
languages.
5. You can Drag&Drop pdf document to finish conversion.
6. Can convert the whole folder( recursive or not)
7. Can convert pdf files from different location of your hard
drives at one time.
8. Can save your converting pdf file list for future use.
9. Can output page ranges of the document.
10. Can set the page break string to separate pages.
11. Can set output page number with page break string.
12. Can browse the pdf file's information(Title/Auther/Create
date...) through graphic user interface.
13. Have the option to output pdf file's information to the
output text file.
14. Can set the output folder for individual pdf file or all the
pdf files in the converting list.
15. Support Unicode, muliti-bytes languages.
16. Support Type0, Type1, Type3, TrueType, CIDFont fonts.
"For months, users of Adobe Creative Suite 3 have been wondering why some
of the applications
regularly connect to what looks like a
private IP address
but is actually a public domain address belonging to the web analytics
company Omniture. Now
allegations of
user spying are
getting
louder, prompting Adobe Photoshop product manager John Nack to
respond,
though many remain
unsatisfied with his explanation."
Lies, Lies and
Adobe Spies
Yes, I am a tin foil hat guy. The sky is
falling, the NSA is listening and Adobe is
watching how many times you open your programs.
Okay, the first two can’t be PROVEN but I can
show you that Adobe is spying on users
application habits.
When you launch a CS3 application the
application pings out to what looks like an IP
address - and internal IP address:
192.168.112.2O7.
That makes sense, right? Adobe wants to be
sure you aren’t running multiple copies of their
programs…. Wait something is wrong here.
The first clue something is fishy is that I
don’t use a 192.168.xxx.xxx numbering scheme in
my network. Secondly, if you look at the address
Little Snitch is displaying, the last
“numbers” of the IP address (2O7)
look funny. Also, IP address don’t end in any
.com/net/org suffix.
Turns out that
192.168.112.2O7.net is owned by
Omniture,
a huge behavioral analytics firm. Hmmmmmm,
anybody curious why Adobe is doing this? Anybody
care to sniff packets? I sense an invasion of
privacy here!
Update Adobe Replies To Privacy Spy Concerns CenterNetworks - Web 2.0 News,
Opinions and Insights from New York
November 29, 2007 |
Linux.com For many average users, GNU/Linux support for PDF files may seem reasonably advanced. They can create PDF files in programs like OpenOffice.org, read them with programs like Kpdf, and edit them in programs like pdftk or PDFedit. But that's not the whole story, says José Marchesi, founder of the recently created
GNU PDF project. "Unfortunately, there are a lot of missing features in the existing free implementations," he says. That's the main reason why the Free Software Foundation (FSF) has declared GNU PDF a
high priority project, and is actively seeking donations to speed its progress.
Marchesi is a long-time support of the GNU Project, the umbrella organization for free software projects connected to the FSF. In 1999, he founded GNU Spain, and he later assisted in the creation of GNU Italy and GNU Mexico. He has also contributed to GNU Ghostscript, GNU gv, and GNU Ferret, the first two of which provide support for both PDF and the closely related PostScript format. In addition, Marchesi performs what he calls "random works" in the GNU Project, such as writing internal code and editing Web pages as needed.
Marchesi says he first became aware of the need for better free PDF support a few years ago in his role as maintainer of gv. In December 2005, Marchesi tried to update the Ghostscript PDF interpreter that gv uses, only to find it was technically impractical. The solution, he decided, was to attack the problem at a more basic level, and, after he discussed the problem with members of the FSF and GNU Project, GNU PDF was born.
The reasons for a new PDF project
According to Marchesi, full support for PDF is urgent for a number of reasons, both technical and political.
On the technical level, once Marchesi started investigating, he discovered a great deal of PDF functionality that is either missing or incomplete: "interactive features (forms, annotations), the management of embedded contents (sounds and movies), execution of JavaScript to perform forms validation, 3-D artwork, accessibility, Web capturing, [and] management of document collections."
Many users are unaware of these lacks, either because they never use such features or because, Marchesi says, "The PDF standard is quite careful when providing backward compatibility: When a PDF consumer application (such as a viewer) finds an unknown construct (such as 3-D artwork), it can (and should) ignore it. But in fact you may be missing information."
The GNU Project would like to see a full implementation of the upcoming ISO 32000 standard for PDF. Despite the increasing frequency with which PDF is used for corporate and academic purposes, all software that provides the highest levels of support for the ISO standard is proprietary, which means that, without a concerted effort, free software users could be left behind.
Marchesi also says, "We want a GPLv3 implementation of PDF. Almost all of the existing alternatives are licensed under GPLv2 only." Besides the obvious credibility involved in having the new version of the license used, no doubt an important consideration is the conviction that a GPLv3 program will provide greater protection of users' freedoms.
The approach
Marchesi considered adding the missing functionality to existing free PDF libraries, the project quickly discovered that this idea was impractical, given GNU PDF's engineering goals.
"Our objective is to provide the same level of PDF support as Adobe [Acrobat]," Marchesi says, referring to the leading proprietary PDF program. "So we need a general and complete library that provides enough functionality to build an Acrobat-like program on top of it. This requires capabilities to both read and manipulate PDF files in an integrated library. None of the existing free implementations provides that [integration]. Some of them are designed to provide rasterization of PDF pages, such as Ghostscript, Xpdf, and Poppler, while others are designed to provide facilities for PDF manipulation, such as PoDoFo." Each is suitable for its particular purposes, but not for the integrated support envisioned by GNU PDF.
GNU PDF's first goal is to write a library in the C programming language "intended to be used by both PDF consumer and PDF product applications," Marchesi says. "The library will be similar to the Adobe PDF Library, providing access to several layers of abstraction. In this way, the library will be useful for many kinds of applications, not just viewers."
The next step will be to write an application that has already been labelled GNU Juggler, "an Acrobat-like application on top of the library." GNU Juggler, Marchesi says, "will be a specialized PDF viewer and editor." To help with the application's creation, a member of GNU PDF project is already performing a functional analysis of the latest edition of Acrobat Professional, Adobe's flagship PDF product, in order to reverse-engineer it.
One thing GNU PDF will not have to do is write a graphics library. Project members have already concluded that they can use libcairo. The members of the Cairo project are aware of GNU PDF, and some have already started discussing having the GNU PDF library being integrated with their work.
Realizing the project goals
The FSF has set up a Web page for donations to GNU PDF -- a first for any of its ongoing high-priority projects, although the FSF did briefly help collect pledges for the Free Ryzom campaign last year. However, Marchesi emphasizes that "we will go ahead with the project in any case." Donations would allow the project to hire full-time developers, instead of the volunteers more usual in a new free software project.
"To write the GNU PDF library and GNU Juggler is a really big task, and we want to do it really fast," Marchesi says. "It is crucial for us to have a free, complete, and high-quality implementation of the PDF standard as soon as possible."
Bruce Byfield is a computer journalist who writes regularly for Linux.com and IT Manager's Journal.
January 30, 2007 (
WSJ.com
) Nuance Communications, Inc. (Nasdaq: NUAN), a leading provider
of speech and imaging solutions, today announced that its "Better PDF for Business(TM)"
solutions - PDF Create!, PDF Converter, PDF Converter Professional and PDF Edit
Japanese Edition - have been deployed to more than one million desktops, and
are by far the best-selling PDF alternatives to Adobe(R) Acrobat(R) desktop
software worldwide.
The one million seat milestone is especially significant given
that Nuance first introduced its PDF product family just over three years ago.
PDF Converter, developed in collaboration with Microsoft, was the first-ever
solution to convert PDF files into fully-formatted Microsoft Office Word documents,
complete with text, columns, tables and graphics. The recently released PDF
Converter Professional 4, now the flagship of Nuance's PDF product family, has
also benefited from Nuance's ongoing collaboration with Microsoft, especially
in the product's support for Windows Vista, the 2007 Microsoft Office system
and the XML Paper Standard (XPS), a new same-as-paper electronic format recently
put forward by Microsoft.
"Nuance's expertise in PDF conversion lays the groundwork for
adding value to the 2007 Microsoft Office system," said Jacob Jaffe, director
of Microsoft Office at Microsoft Corp. "As our customers expand their use of
the 2007 Office system, we are pleased to see Nuance developing tools to increase
productivity and allowing users of Microsoft Office to bring PDF documents into
Word, Excel and XPS formats."
Organizations both large and small have discovered the power
and benefits within Nuance's PDF applications, including Airbus, ALDA Pharmaceuticals
Corp., Bayer Industry Services, Best, Best & Krieger, LLP, Credit Suisse Information
Technology, Dassault, The Euro Tunnel, French Ministry of Economy and Finance,
EOF Technologies, French Social Security, The Gillette Company, Lockheed Martin
Space Systems, Mitsubishi Hitec Paper, The National Institute of Health, Pfizer,
Inc., Porsche, Siemens, Telefunken, Trend Micro, Volkswagen, and Wells Fargo.
AcroTray is a process to kill :-)
Process name: AcroTray
Product: AcroTray - Adobe Acrobat Distiller helper application.
Company: Adobe Systems Inc.
File: acrotray.exe
"acrotray.exe" is an Adobe Acrobat Distiller helper application.
Get more detailed information about acrotray.exe and all other running background
processes with
Security Task Manager.
Note: Any malware can be named anything
- so you should check where the files of the running processes are located on
your disk. If a "non-Microsoft" .exe file is located in the C:\Windows or C:\Windows\System32
folder, then there is a high risk for a virus, spyware, trojan or worm infection!
Check it out!
Here's a comment by Kelly, taken
from a
post on a Digg article:
“Apple: We're offering you several technologies that will make Premiere
much better. Please Use them.
Adobe: Microsoft doesn't offer these. We work to give parity to our software
releases so your efforts don't help us.
Apple: Well then would you at least give performance parity with the Windows
version?
Adobe: No real reason to. Windows is the future. Live with what you got.
Apple: Nearly half of your market is Macintosh users. If you don't do this you'll
be sorry.
Adobe: How could we be sorry? We're the kings of video. Which current software
company can change this?
Apple: We warned you... [introducing Final Cut Pro]
Adobe: Holy crap... we just lost our Mac customers!
Apple: Again... we warned you... many times.
Adobe: Holy crap, we're now starting to lose Windows customers to Final Cut
Pro on Macintosh!!!
Apple: You only have yourselves to blame.
Adobe: OK... we're sorry. Here's the new Premiere you requested.”
[Feb 6, 2007] Opinion of the opposite side: Adobe lovers (via email):
Sometimes Russians easily get really emotional and wrong ;-). Now i really need a good
"I hate acrobat post" to compensate for emotional damage caused by reading
such a letter unless the text below is from a fake Russian Actually I never suspected
that there are real Russians (outside of those employed by Adobe
but in such cases disclaimer is a must) who are eager to defend one of the absolutely worst offenders in terms
of being bloatware and just generally God damned annoying
software...
Your_name: Alex
Country: Russia
Sorry, but feedback button from that page leads to 404. Second sorry for
the rude and emotional language. Nikolay Bezrukov is a noob that has a little
knowledge about web design, syntax, gramma and designer's software. Why the
hell that moron gives crap about Photoshop and Acrobat!? I will not bother to
comment his nonsense about Photoshop replacements. That will be a waste of time.
Besides somebody tell Nikolay to learn English. He uses "then" instead of "than"
here and there.
Free
PDF creator,
PDF writer and PDF converter for Windows NT4/2000/XP/Server 2003.
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"Print" from your
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The
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All
PDF documents created by PDF4Free will be tagged, i.e. PDF Creator - PDF4Free
v2.0 will be tagged onto all the created PDF documents.
The sole purpose of the tag is to spread the free PDF creator software to more
and more people.
A low cost PDF alternative
I stopped using Acrobat too (FWIW, activation was a nightmare of my computer
as well)! I create lots of PDF forms and switched to Nitro PDF PRO. It basically
has the same functionality as acrobat plus a few extras (like the neat automatic
build bookmarks feature). It loads PDFs significantly faster than Acrobat -
I was sold on this alone... Acrobat chewed up my memory usage.
September 18, 2006 (BetaNews)
Adobe on Monday introduced version 8 of its ubiquitous Acrobat PDF
software as part of a minor update to its Creative Suite. The new release brings
with it Web conferencing functionality incorporated from Macromedia Breeze.
In recent years, Adobe has endeavored to turn Acrobat from simple
PDF creation software into a complete platform for digital publishing - even
adding support for 3D imaging. Now, the company is looking to hook businesses
with collaboration features.
In examples given by the company, Adobe says engineers can share product designs
up and down the supply chain, while lawyers could circulate contracts for digital
signatures and architects let clients review and markup blueprints. Built-in
security will let users control what content can be shared and edited.
Large groups can collaborate on the creation of a single document
by accessing it over a standard network share and using Adobe Reader. Acrobat
8 will also provide export functionality so content can be reused in other applications,
Adobe said.
As part of the update, Adobe also rolled out its Acrobat Connect product
that offers hosted meetings rooms. Connect was formerly known as Macromedia
Breeze and utilizes Flash in a Web browser. The service will compete with the
likes of GoTo Meeting and WebEx, with a subscription price of $39 per month
or $395 per year. A version for businesses to deploy locally will additionally
be offered, Adobe said.
Adobe Acrobat 8 will ship this November in Professional and Standard
variants priced at $449 and $299 USD, respectively. Upgrades from previous Acrobat
versions will cost $149 and $99 USD. Version 8 will also ship as part of Adobe
Creative Suite 2.3, which now includes Dreamweaver 8.
The Pdf995 Suite offers the following
features, all at no cost: • Automatic insertion of embedded links
• Hierarchical Bookmarks
• Support for Digital Signatures
• Support for Triple DES encryption
• Append Delete and Reorder PDF Pages
• Batch Print from Microsoft Office
• Asian and Cyrillic fonts
• Integration with Microsoft Word toolbar
• PDF Stationery
• Combining multiple PDF's into a single PDF
• Burst/Split PDFs
• Sticky Note Annotations
• Three auto-name options to bypass Save As dialog
• Imposition of Draft/Confidential stamps
• Support for large format architectural printing
• Convert PDF to JPEG, TIFF, BMP, PCX formats
• Convert PDF to text
• Convert PDF to HTML and Word DOC conversion
• Automatic Table of Contents generang
• Support for Citrix/Terminal Server
• Support for Windows 2003 Server
• Easy PS to PDF processing
• Specify PDF document properties
• Control PDF opening mode
• Support for shared network printing
• Dynamic Page and 'Bates' stamping
• RGB and CMYK colorspaces
• Page Rotation
• Free: Creates PDFs without annoying watermarks
• Free: Fully functional, not a trial and does not expire
• Over 10 million satisfied customers
• Millions of
Enterprise users
worldwide
PDF format is becoming more and more popular among users. However,
the problem of documents indexing of PDF files by search engines arises at this
point. Many simple search engines do not index PDF documents, but rather just
ignore them. We have a simple and convenient solution. Convert your PDF files
to HTML using the PDF to HTML converter and easily integrate resulting HTML
files in your existing web site structure. Converting PDF documents to HTML
makes their contents more accessible and available for a larger target audience.
Developer Sid Steward describes pdftk as the PDF equivalent of an "electronic
staple remover, hole punch, binder, secret decoder ring, and X-ray glasses."
That's a lot of functionality for a 4MB application, but the software delivers.
Pdftk can join and split PDFs; pull single pages from a file; encrypt and decrypt
PDF files; add, update, and export a PDF's metadata; export bookmarks to a text
file; add or remove attachments to a PDF; fix a damaged PDF; and fill out PDF
forms. In short, there's very little pdftk can't do when it comes to working
with PDFs.You can
download pdftk 1.12 as source or as a Debian or RPM package, FreeBSD port,
or Gentoo Ebuild. Binaries are available for Windows and Mac OS X too. If you
decide to compile pdftk, as I did, check the
build notes before you begin, in order to find out about any dependencies
for your Linux distro or your platform. The compilation process only took a
few minutes on my computer, and there were no hitches.
Pdftk is a command-line tool, and the syntax can be complicated, especially
for complex actions such as removing specific pages from a PDF file. You can
expect to do a lot of typing, but that shouldn't put you off using the tool.
Although The GIMP is most
popular in Linux circles because it is available under the same GNU open source
license, it quickly gained acceptance in other operating environments through
ports of the XWindows system.
Anyone who follows open source news has undoubtedly heard the proclamations
from this community, suggesting that The Gimp -- among other open source graphics
applications, -- has opened doors to operating systems such as Linux and BSD,
as a means of expansion into the advertising and design sector.
Despite being a great admirer of Linux and similar Unix operating systems,
I took these proclamations from the open-source community with a grain of salt,
as my experience with Adobe's products has given me a bias toward the company's
incredible implementations of the graphics applications I use on a daily basis.
GIMP to the Max
After the recent release of
XDarwin,
an XWindows port for Mac OS X, and
Mac Gimp, I finally had a means of comparative analysis between The GIMP
and Adobe's PhotoShop on my OS X machine. Only a few months earlier, my wife
had requested that her iBook, with its dual-boot OS 9 and Linux PPC configuration,
be limited to only OS 9 as a means of conserving space.
Before
installation of the open-source graphics software, I admit my skepticism
levels were extremely high, but after only an hour of experimentation with the
software, I came away extremely impressed.
The GIMP not only employs a nearly identical feature set to PhotoShop's,
navigation is a cinch because both programs' floating palettes are similar in
nature. I was surprised to learn that I could open native Photoshop files within
The GIMP and retain a file's layers as well as most of its layer filters. Alpha
Channels, layer masks, clipping paths, a slew of filters and almost all the
features I've known in PhotoShop were all available and at my disposal.
On the Other Hand
Along with the good, a handful of things did leave me disappointed. While
I do expect these issues to be addressed in the near future -- as is the case
with all open-source software -- the thing I immediately noticed was a lack
of CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, black) support. Until this issue is addressed,
it will be the primary barrier to entry for acceptance in most mainstream graphics
departments.
The second most notable necessity is a common clipboard between a user's
primary interface (in my case OS X) and that of XWindows/XDarwin. It would have
been wonderful if I could copy and paste files between OS X and XWindows applications.
The only way I found to transfer files between the two is by saving the document
to a file and re-opening it in the alternative graphics application. A common
clipboard would be a great time saver.
Friendly Scripting
And last, although far less concerning than the other two, there is a need
for a more user-friendly scripting system. Most graphics professionals haven't
yet learned Perl or Python and have come to greatly appreciate PhotoShop's action
script record feature.
The GIMP's Script-Fu and Perl-Fu are indeed powerful -- even more so than
PhotoShop's implementation -- but as they are essentially a full scripting language,
the power is all but entirely removed from most graphics professionals, who
might be better suited to take advantage of easy-to-use scripting capabilities.
Almost There
While The GIMP may not yet be ready for the high demands of most advertising
agencies, service bureaus or graphics production houses, due to its few high-end
limitations, it's an ideal piece of software for the home user on a budget or
a demanding art department with necessities involving Web or other monitor-only
environments. And because open-source software is updated so frequently, we
may see the issues I've addressed resolved in the coming months.
PhotoImpact 6 is the first image editor
to address Web page creation. Edit images and create professional Web graphics.
Then lay out, optimize and output as complete Web pages
FYI -- There is a large debate about Adobe on other sections of this site.
This is to alert all readers.
I'll put up an Adobe BBS for people to get together and talk about Adobe's
choice to favor Windows over Mac users. We need to organize and take a stand.
We need to find alternatives to Adobe products and as a group seek other software
makers willing to invest in Mac users. I have been loyal to Adobe since 1990.
No more. The train has left the station. I'll post the URL when ready. I run
a Mac portal site that gets decent traffic so we can do this.
If Mac users get organized we can rally behind Macromedia, Corel and others
and ask them to provide Adobe alternatives. We must take action now before it
is too late.
Adobe WILL abandon the Mac community. They already have. Go to their home
page ... as a Mac user you will find that you won't be able to use all of their
products. The Mac community BUILT Adobe and this is the thanks we get. Adobe
is ready to lauch all products for XP and only ONE for native use in OS X.
We MUST have an alternative to Photoshop. Corel and others are perhaps able
to offer this. I don't know, but we must start shaking things up now. We need
to let other software companies know in mass if they develop alternatives we
will buy them.
I am sick and tired of being treated as a second-class citizen because I'm
a Mac user. Companies like Ambrosia Software treat Mac users with the respect
we deserve. Adobe has NO excuses in their lack of action with respect to OS
X.
As someone posted elsewhere on this site, let all the Windows users use Adobe
products and the real graphics talent move on to other products. Then, all the
lame art done by desktop publishing Windows hacks will be associated with Adobe
products. The real talent and top-notch work will be done on other apps. People
getting a file done with an Adobe product will say, "that looks like **** ...
its done on an Adobe product by a Windows hack ... what do you expect?"
Its time to take control. There are millions of us Mac users. We have power
and we need to start using it. I will start with my company where I run the
publishing dept. All future products will be non-Adobe. I will stick with Quark,
upgrade to Freehand, switch to Dreamweaver, and start working on helping other
developers come up with a Photoshop alternative.
Adobe has become Microsoft. Photoshop is like Windows ... its the standard
... time to find an alternative.
Adobe Systems on Thursday
announced that it has filed a federal lawsuit against
Macromedia alleging
that the latter has infringed a patent held by Adobe on tabbed palettes. Adobe
filed the suit in the U.S. District Court of Delaware. Macromedia has denied
the allegation, claiming that Adobe should not have been awarded the patent
because it represents prior art.
Both companies use tabbed palettes--which make
it easier for users to customize their interfaces--extensively in their products.
Macromedia recently announced Flash 5, which inaugurates a user interface, including
tabbed palettes, that will be common across all of the company's Web-publishing
applications (see "Macromedia
debuts Flash 5").
"We are taking this action now, after notifying
Macromedia on several occasions that its products are infringing our patent,"
said Adobe president Bruce Chizen in a prepared statement. "The remedy sought
is straightforward--we ask them to stop infringing our patents. Adobe will not
be the R&D department for its competitors. Our patent and other aspects of our
user interface are key to the user experience and functionality of our products;
they are essential to differentiate our products and brand from others."
Adobe said it has established a Web site at
http://www.adobefacts.com
to provide information about the patent. However, the site was inaccessible
as of Thursday afternoon.
On Thursday afternoon, Macromedia issued the
following statement to MacWEEK: "We are categorically denying the claims made
in the Adobe lawsuit. We believe the claims made are without merit. Macromedia
believes that the patent is invalid as it was obtained by not disclosing relevant
prior art. Macromedia advised Adobe of this belief when first contacted by Adobe
in 1996, and readvised them when last contacted in May 1999."
The lawsuit appears to escalate the long-standing
rivalry between the two graphics software giants, which have several products
that compete head-to-head against each other.
Re:Freehand? (Score:2)
by NMerriam
(NMerriam@artboy.org) on Thursday September
28, @04:49PM EDT (#118)
(User
#15122 Info) http://www.ArtBoy.org
|
Have I done any design work?
I remember Illustrator 88, and used to tile pages with hot wax to send
to the printer (digital file? what's that?).
Although Adobe's UI has always been better than FH, FH has always had
a few more powerful features than AI. Until recently you couldn't even
use a TIFF in AI.
Despite having used AI professionally for about 15 years, I still can't
figure out why the selection tool and the direct selection tool are
two separate tools. FH manages to do exactly the same job with just
one, single, selection tool. And they introduced drag-and-drop color
editing, as well as the live blending their current patent case is talking
about. And they've always had a better autotrace tool (though since
Adobe stopped trying to push Streamline so much they seem to have improved
AI's).
So yes, I've done some design work with just about every version of
FH and AI since they have been commercially available. Whle the Adobe
UI is better, FH has won on features for about a decade now (as well
as most magazine review shootouts)...
I'm an investigator. I followed a trail there.
Q.Tell me what the trail was.
A.I read about it on Slashdot |
On August 10, 2000, Adobe filed a
lawsuit with Macromedia alleging a patent infringement involving the use of
tabbed and dockable palettes in the latest release of Macromedia's authoring
program, Flash 5.0. According to Adobe, the new Flash U.I. (User Interface)
employs interface configurations that were invented by Adobe and implemented
in their flagship product, PhotoShop 5.5. They have stated their case quite
dramatically on their
Web site and
have requested that Macromedia "stop the proliferation of the patent infringement
throughout (their) product line."
Now, if one is to consult the
oracles of the newsgroups, Adobe has committed a sinful blunder by biting
the hand that feeds them, i.e. the developers. According to developers, if you
are going to make things more difficult for us by creating an environment where
there are no standards, where each software application comes with its own proprietary
tool set, where innovation is isolated and operates within a legal vacuum, then
we are going to get really pissed off.
We are going to boycott you.
However, Adobe's protection of their interface is certainly not an attempt
to make a developer's job more difficult. And I don't think it is simply a matter
of Adobe creating FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt) within the marketplace. It
is a competitive maneuver for sure, but it is based on the fact that software
publishers may no longer be in the business of selling software, so much as
selling the interface.
OK, late yesterday I e-mailed support@glassbook.com about this "read aloud"
foolishness. I've been defending them, and I wanted see the company take on
this issue. I explained that I've seen a lot of web columns decrying the "read
aloud" thing. I asked "is this a software setting and are they doing anything
to defuse this rumor?"
The response was:
"The read aloud feature is just a function of the software and it seems that
the problem is that many E-Zines are speculating in order to self-promote. All
that line means (and it is not unique to the Alice
book) is that the E-Book won't support the "read aloud" feature. Some of these
articles have been amended and some have not bothered to do so."
Unfortunately, the interesting question - what are they doing to fix the PR
problem - was not addressed and is really outside the scope of support.
This took me about two man-minutes to write the e-mail and a few hours to get
the response. Is it beyond the columnists who are writing about this flap to
be responsible grownup journalists and
make some effort to check their facts? One possible explanation that "not being
allowed to read ALICE aloud to your kids" seems so crazy is that it isn't factually
correct. That this thing is being passed
along as fact shows to me the fundamental sloppiness of the passers.
To believe this flap requires that you believe this "read aloud" thing is a
binding license on the user. To see it in the first place, you call up the "Info"
on a particular title. Under that is a "Permisssions" button, which lists your
states on whether you are allowed to Copy, Print, Lend, Give, and Read Aloud.
To interpret this as a license on the user and not the state of the UI requires
some weird thinking. If it is a license on the user, why is it buried deep inside
obscure nested dialogs where most folks would normally never even see it? Is
that typically where you put the EULA or important terms of use? Who for one
second believes that any software company or book company even cares whether
or not you read it aloud or whether your lips move when you read?
Yes, Adobe has screwed up big time, both in allowing this to be ambiguous
and for not taking the lead on PR and thus letting it ferment into a big stinky
mess. That does not excuse anyone for spreading an urban legend that makes as
much sense as the "Microsoft e-mail tracking" thing of a few years back.
d
FOLKS, THE BIGGEST MISTAKE I ever made in my
entire creative life was to sign a contract with Adobe Systems Inc. I'd have
been better off to have climbed into bed with a bloodsucking tarantula. There's
no time to go into the details now, but, for the curious, here's a
link to the text, of Adobe's March 1, 2000 letter, and here's a link to
a
high-res gif of the letter. Thanks to my friends at Adobe PR, for the copy
of Adobe GoLive 4.0 with which this page was constructed; and thanks to Donna
Kolnes for finally managing to get this letter to me on June 16th. (Donna, you
could have walked it over here faster.) The long and the short of it is, if
you're thinking of signing a contract with Adobe, think twice, and then, perhaps,
think twice again. This corporation's attitude to creative artists goes
much further than lack of respect—scratch the surface and you might
be tempted to call them hostile. I wonder—is it too soon to start thinking about
a boycott?
-
List of PDF
software - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
-
FoxIt PDF
Reader now version 2.0 !
-
Vinterstille Free alternatives to Macromedia and Adobe Design - Tutorials -
Fonts - Resources - Objects - Elements
-
Nuance Emerges as the Leading PDF Alternative to Adobe Acrobat, Surpassing One Million
Seat Milestone
-
pdf 995: create PDF documents easily for free
pdf995 is the fast, affordable
way to create professional-quality documents in the popular
PDF file format. (Win 95, 98, 2000 and Me, NT 4.0 and
XP).
- **** PDF
web sites
-
Google Web Directory - Computers Software Word Processors PDF
- www.pdfzone.com
- Gimp Links
- http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/
-
Graphics File Formats FAQ (Part 3 of 4)- Where to Get File ...
-
Convert from PDF to BMP,DCX,PS,TIFF,TXT
-
POSTSCRIPT & GHOSTSCRIPT Resources
-
ghostscript - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation (FSF)
- SourceForge
Project Info - AFPL Ghostscript
-
Reference for Ghostscript operators
-
An open letter to the Ghostscript development community
- Ghostgum Software
xpdf
View PDF files on X-Windows. By Derek
B. Noonburg. GNU license software, faster and more reliable than Acrobat Reader
Email to derekn@foolabs.com |
Harlequin Ships JAWS PDF Creator v2.0, The Affordable And Easy-To-Use Alternative
To Adobe Acrobat PDF File Generation. - Press Release - 28-02-2001 163000
- Enhanced version of PDF file creation software is the only alternative to
AdobeAcrobat for creating PDF files from native files
- Printer driver creates PDF files on Windows or Macintosh platforms
- Single-user MSRP of $120 undercuts Acrobat's by more than 40 percent
LizardTech Convert PDF to DjVu
PStill - PostScript-EPS
to PDF Converter
| To get Ghostscript (PS Interpreter/PDF creator and viewer) follow this
link:
|
Adobe Illustrator is widely accepted as the industry standard, but CorelDraw
offers more flexibility. Drawing tools are easy to use and provide great control
over the shape and placement of objects. A new hierarchical Object Manager conveniently
organizes layers, objects, and master layers, while the Page Sorter offers drag-and-drop
management of multiple-page documents. I've got to disagree that Photoshop is easy
to use on a day-to-day basis. Let me give two examples of common operations.
1. Clone out dust spots. You need to select rubber-stamp distance with ALT-click
first. Micrografx PicturePublisher already has a default distance set, making dust
clone-out much quicker.
2. Blur blue sky grain. This is best done by magic wand selection, then Expand
1-2 pixels, then Contract 2-3 pixels, then blur, then Contract 1, then blur, then
repeated iteration. Oy this is painful, with Expand and Contract hidden several
menu levels down.
Some folks on Usenet, for example Michael Greer, have tried both Photoshop and
PhotoPaint, and decided to use Corel. If a person is not a Macintosh lover, the
Corel interface may seem more familiar. Personally I have not tried PhotoPaint,
but for digital photography (not offset printing) I prefer PicturePublisher to Photoshop.
Of course Photoshop is the obvious choice for publishing.
| A plethora alternative
graphic packages is available for the Mac and PC, but CorelDraw offers the
best combination of performance and value for nonprofessionals. This single
package contains a full-featured drawing program, the image-editing app
Corel Photo-Paint, and an enormous collection of clip art and fonts. Many
other relatively expensive and specialized graphics apps, such as Corel's
Painter, Macromedia FreeHand, and Adobe's Photoshop and Illustrator, are
either drawing apps or photo-editing apps, but not both.
Although Mac price of CorelDraw ($695) is expensive, in reality, almost
anyone can qualify to buy it at the competitive upgrade price. Corel offers
a CorelDraw upgrade for $149 to anyone who wishes to switch from other selected
graphics apps, including AppleWorks (which ships on new iMacs and iBooks).
For that price, you get a package that has evolved from a clunky Windows
transplant to a truly Mac-like application. With its support for PostScript
printers and its high-end color output, CorelDraw will now please graphics
professionals, as well as home and SOHO users.
|
Graphics Design
Jam-packed with the most graphics tools and features
in a single product, CorelDraw 10 Graphics Suite doesn't sacrifice quality
for quantity. This product includes a proficient image editor (Corel Photo-Paint
10), an excellent illustration program (CorelDraw 10), animation software (Corel
R.A.V.E.), a variety of useful utilities, and a vast library of clip art.
The three main programs -- sporting similar tools
and options -- are full-featured and well integrated with one another. And among
the products in this round up, they are also the easiest applications to use.
All controls, colors, and options are at your fingertips. Floating palettes
may be docked as tabs, and tool options are displayed in the property bar at
the top of the screen.
... ... ...
Creating the exact look you want is quick and
simple, thanks to drag-and-drop tools for applying properties such as transparency,
drop shadows, and blends. All of these properties can also be created in numerical
dialogs.
CorelDraw's text tools are top-notch, providing
desktop-publishing controls for laying out and formatting text. Text and paths
remain editable on-screen, and the Print Merge wizard helps you place fields
for merging your document with a database.
... ... ...
The suite includes a variety of Web tools, though
it isn't on the same level as Macromedia Fireworks 4. There are tools for creating
rollover buttons and image maps. When optimizing images for the Web, there are
side-by-side previews for comparison. But the tools are limited. For example,
you cannot copy and paste JavaScript or HTML code through the Windows Clipboard.
We were impressed with the new color management
interface, which is logical and accurate. When we printed the document, the
colors perfectly matched those on our monitor. The print dialog is very advanced
and includes tabs for Prepress, Postscript, Separations, and Preflight. Save
for Service Bureau gathers all related files and can apply profiles provided
by a service bureau.
... ... ...
Unlike Photoshop, which is unabashedly bitmap-oriented,
Fireworks seamlessly integrates vector and raster graphics. By default, the
program opens in vector mode, but selecting certain tools automatically flips
you into bitmap mode (you can also switch explicitly by selecting the bitmap
itself). The basic workflow consists of creating objects using the geometric
shapes, text, or path tools, applying effects such as bevels or glows, organizing
the objects with the Layers panel, adding the glitz -- rollovers, animations,
and hotspots -- and then exporting the objects for use in a Web-site-creation
program such as Dreamweaver.
Effects in Fireworks are live, which means that
they may be toggled on and off, reordered and edited on the fly via the Effects
panel. Such effects range from basic color adjustment (brightness, contrast,
levels, hue, saturation) to fancy bevels, embossing, glows and motion trails.
Fireworks can also use Photoshop plug-ins and save custom effects as styles.
The latter is a nice touch -- too bad it's so difficult to edit saved styles.
Fireworks 4 introduces drag and drop to create
rollovers, but we frankly found the implementation a bit strange. Those not
up to speed on slices will unfortunately discover that Fireworks relies on slices
for many activities, including rollover and pop-up menu creation. In Fireworks,
you assign interactivity to slices, rather than objects. For example, to create
a rollover by drag-and-drop, you drag the slice's behavior handle to another
image in a separate frame. We think using the Behaviors panel to create rollovers
is simpler, but each to his or her own.
We were duly impressed with the neat Pop-up Menu
feature for quickly creating lists of links that appear when a mouse moves over
the area. Somewhat Wizard-like in implementation, the two dialog boxes let you
enter text and URLs and then set the color of the text and background cells.
Once you've finished, the cells can be repositioned by dragging on the slice's
central handle. Like rollovers, you have to insert a slice before you can create
the menu object.
We liked the live-animation feature, which makes
it dead simple to generate prancing logos and bouncing buttons via a single
menu command. Fireworks automatically creates the number of requested animation
frames and adjusts the movement, rotation, direction, opacity and scaling as
you specify in the Animate dialog box. Each frame holds a "snapshot" of the
object at a point along the animation path, and you can change any attribute
of the object by selecting the appropriate frame and making adjustments. The
direction of the path itself may also be modified, but nonlinear movement or
other complex animation sequences are not supported.
Another area where Fireworks excels is global
find and replace. With this panel, you can locate and change colors (including
non-Web 216 colors), text and URLs anywhere in your document. This handy feature
is not the only labor-saving device in version 4 -- Macromedia also has added
powerful batch processing. With this feature, files may be converted to another
format with different optimization settings; scaled, renamed and even globally
searched for replacing fonts, colors and URLs. We especially liked the fact
that files can be batched from different folders, a feature that Photoshop lacks.
And, like Photoshop, Fireworks sports a History panel that records all the steps
taken during a session and provides the means to save a list to a file for use
at another time.
Fireworks's output options are not for the faint
of heart. You can specify every conceivable parameter: extensions, HTML and
spacer style, empty cell color and contents, slice naming convention, not to
mention the various optimization settings for GIF, PNG and JPEG file formats.
Like Photoshop, the program offers a selective JPEG compression that compacts
only selected portions of your image, creating a nice compromise between image
quality and file size. In addition, files may be saved in a variety of other
formats -- Macromedia Director, Photoshop, Lotus Domino Designer, Wireless Bitmap
and CSS (cascading style sheets). Fortunately, Fireworks includes an export
Wizard that automatically selects the best format for the document based on
the end use (Web, print and so on) and lets you preview and edit the results.
Version 4 is indisputably elegant, but more importantly,
it's the most powerful Web-graphic-creation program we've ever used. Professional
Web developers should definitely consider Fireworks as a first-line application.
But even casual users will find this program makes it easy to produce top-quality
Internet imagery.
Plugins 101
One of the most common Paintshop questions is "Can I use Adobe Photoshop
filters with Paintshop?". The resounding answer is YES! But
it takes a little bit of fiddling to get there, nothing too complicated though.
Firstly, why should you? Well, because there are a wide range of filters
available which are Adobe Photoshop compatible. These filters offer everything
from simple, "must have" tools, such as button makers, through to complex effects
such as painting, lens flares and much, much more.
Secondly, where do you get these filters from? Adobe Photoshop has a fairly
wide range included in it. Now, the thing is you don't need to buy the
full product to get the filters. Most of them are available in the demo version
you can download from the web or get on CD. We'll list a bunch of useful locations
later.
pdf2ps -- Perl script
written by Detlev Droege
PDF
conversion -- describes the inexpensive way for producing PDF files by first
converting your file into postscript format, and then converting that into
pdf format.
Gernot's interactive Postscript
to PDF converter
Etc
The verdict: Is Adobe a software
thug?
July 27, 2001 12:00 AM ET
by UpsideToday Staff
The defendant
Adobe Systems (ADBE)
The charges
Adopting a brutal, thuggish stance toward computer programmers
Trammeling free speech
Judge's commentary
This trial was, as they say, over before it started. Just as the prosecution
said they would, hackers picketed the defendant's headquarters Monday. Before
that day was over, Adobe had joined the Electronic Frontier Foundation in calling
for the release of Dmitry Sklyarov, the Russian programmer whose hacking sparked
this case. (See
Adobe, EFF call for release of Russian programmer.)
"The prosecution of this individual in this particular case is not conducive
to the best interests of any of the parties involved or the industry," Adobe
General Counsel Colleen Pouliot said in a press release.
Still, Adobe reiterated its support for the additions made to copyright law
in 1998 and said it was glad Sklyarov's company was no longer selling its e-book
circumvention program in the U.S.
Members of our jury overwhelmingly felt that Adobe acted thuggishly and ran
roughshod over free speech, finding the company guilty by a margin wider than
80 percent on both counts. Jurors were passionate in their indictment of the
company, calling its actions antithetical to basic liberal ideals and human
rights, commercially stupid and generally un-American. They threatened to unload
their Adobe stock, stop buying the company's products and urge others to follow
their example.
They also objected vociferously to the idea that Sklyarov's computer cracking
was a crime and that his prosecution was a move to protect vital intellectual
property rights.
"Last I heard, free speech gives the right to sell ingredients for explosives,
to describe techniques on manufacturing drugs or bombs, and folks have the right
to blow up their own safe if they want," wrote Juror Tunesmith. "It's
actually selling the drugs, robbing the bank, selling the stolen goods that
is illegal - and Elcomsoft [Sklyarov's company] doesn't sell pirated ebooks."
Juror Jim Hillhouse agreed.
"If I have a security system on my house or a new lock installed on my front
door, naturally I do not want individuals randomly entering my premises by thwarting
my installed security systems," he wrote, addressing a comparison made in Adobe's
defense between code cracking and burglary. "However, if an individual has information
that brings to light the weaknesses of my new security system or door lock,
I certainly want that person to be free to pursue research and to discuss the
findings of such research in the discovery of those weaknesses." (Read the juror's
full statement.)
Indeed, many jurors said that hacking in the quest for technical excellence,
rather than for the purpose of illegally obtaining a particular piece of information,
like an e-book, should not be a crime in the first place.
"Intent is the key," wrote Juror David N. Cicalo. "Was the intent of the
hacker [to prove] that a given encryption is faulty and breakable or was his
intent to cause harm or destruction? Clearly, Sklyarov wanted to demonstrate
the weakness in Adobe's encryption and not promote the hacking of Adobe software.
The law must always take intent into consideration in it's application thereof."
(Read the juror's
full statement.
Juror Guilty put things more bluntly: "Adobe is not protecting its own copyright,"
the juror wrote. "It is protecting its own inability to protect the copyright
of people who use its products. The emperor wears no clothes." (Read the juror's
full statement.)
Juror Chris Tembreull agreed with the prosecution that Adobe is more likely
to be able to improve its software if it works with responsible hackers rather
than have them arrested. "The [r]ight' to
Re:2o7.net *Not* 207.net (Score:4, Interesting)
It was noted in one of the linked articles that the opt-out action sets a cookie on your machine. If you delete this cookie, you have just opted back in.So let me get this straight. In order to tell Omniture not to do anything on my machine, I have to give Omniture access to my machine. What sort of half-assed policy is this?