Merlin Mann on Adobe's products • Hacker News Board

Re: Merlin Mann on Adobe's products

#31

Post by ikitat » Tue, Sep 29, 2009, 1:33 AM UTC

old-gregg wrote: post #13

Up until 2 years ago I never paid for software. Having a MSDN subscription on Windows gave me access to all Microsoft stuff I needed, and on Linux things were always free. But Adobe managed to fork $600 out of me for Photoshop CS3. After a few months their RAW converter stopped working demanding CS4 and my new SLR wasn't supported otherwise. So essentially I feel like they fooled me into renting Photoshop for $600 pe…

Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) doesn't support raw files that come from cameras that are released after a new major PS/ACR release. The workaround is to use Adobe's free RAW to digital negative (DNG) converter. You can do this in a batch. Then process DNG files with your old release of ACR.

http://www.adobe.com/products/dng/

Re: Merlin Mann on Adobe's products

#32

Post by neovive » Tue, Sep 29, 2009, 1:48 AM UTC

adamhowell wrote: post #3

When Fireworks CS4 was first released it was easily the buggiest piece of major software I'd ever tried to use. This bug was just insane: http://blogs.adobe.com/sarthak/Text_Issue.png I immediately downgraded back to CS3 and only reupgraded 9 months later, when they finally released an update. Unfortunately, I use Fireworks for all my front-end work and it seems buggier than ever in Snow Leopard. I've experimented wi…

Fireworks has always been my favorite web design tool (since version 1.0), however, I have noticed the changes over the years and up until CS4 it wasn't so bad.

I think Adobe is in a tough situation. They can not continue to grow by relying on a few software packages and have been pouring resources into Flash in an effort to turn more into a platform company vs. a software company. They just seem to be working against their culture as their strength has always been in graphics/design software. Most of their attempts at developer-oriented software have never panned out. Anyone remember GoLive?

Re: Merlin Mann on Adobe's products

#33

Post by philwelch » Tue, Sep 29, 2009, 7:28 AM UTC

cpr wrote: post #24

philwelch wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last time Adobe let their desktop publishing app slow down on development, QuarkXPress ate their lunch and they had to invent InDesign to compete again. Adobe Pagemaker used to be a serious competitor. (Of course, it also used to be Aldus Pagemaker).

That's true, but now they have no competition. And, in some sense, InDesign is pretty much "complete" as far as what people expect in the print publishing world. They're now slowly moving into more long-document features, etc, so it can be a replacement for much of the FrameMaker usage out there. But, in the end, print publishing is slowly dying, so the future there is unclear, anyway.

Isn't Quark still around to compete with them?

Re: Merlin Mann on Adobe's products

#34

Post by mooted » Tue, Sep 29, 2009, 9:59 AM UTC

Perhaps i am the only one, but i never experienced even one single crash using Flash CS4 / Fireworks CS4 (mac). I use Flash CS4 everyday. Sometimes a session last for almost a whole week. No crash yet!!

But Fireworks does have tonns of annoying bugs.

Re: Merlin Mann on Adobe's products

#35

Post by gb » Tue, Sep 29, 2009, 3:21 PM UTC

mooted wrote: post #34

Perhaps i am the only one, but i never experienced even one single crash using Flash CS4 / Fireworks CS4 (mac). I use Flash CS4 everyday. Sometimes a session last for almost a whole week. No crash yet!! But Fireworks does have tonns of annoying bugs.

You're incredibly lucky, I usually have to restart Flash a few times a day and actually I spend more time in coding in Eclipse/FDT than using Flash itself.

It crashes occasionally after publishing or test-movieing, but far worse is as soon as I start doing anything stage/library/timeline related I'm almost guaranteed at least a few crashes before I'm done.

Re: Merlin Mann on Adobe's products

#36

Post by old-gregg » Wed, Sep 30, 2009, 1:57 PM UTC

tedunangst wrote: post #30

old-gregg wrote: post #13

Up until 2 years ago I never paid for software. Having a MSDN subscription on Windows gave me access to all Microsoft stuff I needed, and on Linux things were always free. But Adobe managed to fork $600 out of me for Photoshop CS3. After a few months their RAW converter stopped working demanding CS4 and my new SLR wasn't supported otherwise. So essentially I feel like they fooled me into renting Photoshop for $600 pe…

I'd like to hear more about how their RAW converter stopped working.

I got a new camera, Adobe said "oops, you have to upgrade to the latest RAW converter to get it to work", I ran the software update, the converter said "oops, you have to upgrade your 1-year old Photoshop".

Re: Merlin Mann on Adobe's products

#37

Post by tedunangst » Wed, Sep 30, 2009, 3:01 PM UTC

old-gregg wrote: post #36

tedunangst wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to hear more about how their RAW converter stopped working.

I got a new camera, Adobe said "oops, you have to upgrade to the latest RAW converter to get it to work", I ran the software update, the converter said "oops, you have to upgrade your 1-year old Photoshop".

I guess I wonder why you blame Adobe for not supporting your camera's proprietary format, but are giving a free pass to the camera manufacturer for not providing software or drivers.