Filed under: Photo, Adobe, Commercial, Freeware, Open Source

I understand that Photoshop is a great program. I'm willing to concede that there's really no comparable software for the professionaluser. What I just don't get is why the average user thinks 1) they need Photoshop and 2) they need to pirate it.

A few years ago, no one came in and asked me "Can you put Photoshop on my computer?" Most users hadn't even heard of the program. Now the perception from the public seems to be that if you want to edit photos at all, you've got to have Photoshop to do it - and that you might as well just steal it.

But why? Most users don't need even half of the functionality in Photoshop, and there are plenty of great editors that are easy to use, less hard on computer resources, and completely free.

Clear your conscience and try one of these alternatives!

Continue reading Theft is Bad Karma: Stop Pirating Photoshop!

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Filed under: Internet, Video, Windows, Macintosh, Adobe, Freeware

Adobe just added new video content to its AIR-based Media Player, but it all pretty much sucks in one form or another. The Adobe Media Player is a slick media browser that can play and subscribe to videos from the web, and it also provides somewhat high-resolution content from Adobe's media partners such as MTVN and Comedy Central.

Despite the fact that the player is very visually appealing and easy to navigate, it's just not that useful. It's possible to use any regular, free browser such as Firefox to watch online video content, allowing web-travelers to avoid the installation of an extra app. As a result, the main reason for installing the app (unless you really, really like the subscription feature) is to watch the 25,000+ videos provided by Adobe.

And that's exactly what's wrong here. Adobe's video library is still weak, and most good of the good TV shows aren't full episodes but rather short clips. Furthermore, the full videos Adobe is adding aren't current TV hits like Lost or Battlestar Galactica. Instead, Adobe partnered with CBS and Sony to add tons of clips and a few movies/episodes from old stuff like Men in Black, Jerry Maguire, The Love Boat, Beverly Hilly 90210, Family Ties, and even The Price is Right. They might as well call the app something to the tune of Adobe Senior TV On Demand.

Sure, Adobe has the money to keep it up and running, but why bother if the company isn't bringing its best to the table? Why not partner with Hulu and create an official, fully functional Hulu AIR app instead?

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Filed under: Internet, Text, Windows, Macintosh, Web services, Adobe, Freeware, Social Software, Beta, web 2.0

It may seem illogical to tie Meebo to a desktop app, but that's exactly what's going on here. Meebone uses Adobe AIR to bring Meebo's services to your desktop through a dedicated app, but it's still in beta. So if you're down to try it, keep in mind that you'll probably encounter some problems... just like we did.

When attempting to login to AIM, Meebone was confused by a space in one of our user names. Other IM clients and services -- even Meebo itself -- aren't usually bothered by spaces. But that was our only major issue with the AIR-based app. And we're hoping it will be fixed before Meebone graduates from beta.

We tested the app with Google Talk and AIM accounts. Each logged-in successfully, brought up buddy lists, etc, etc. In other words, it introduced a basic Meebo set-up to our desktop, and we liked it. Just barely, but we did like it even though it sort of defeats the purpose of Meebo itself.

[via Adobe Air Marketplace]

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Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Adobe, Freeware

Adobe Reader 9 is out, and while the latest version of Adobe's popular PDF reader offers faster launch speeds and native support for Flash content, it still takes forever to run Adobe Reader on some computer systems. If you've ever come across an unexpected PDF link on the web, you know what we mean.

While there are plenty of alternative PDF readers (some of our favorites include Foxit and Sumatra), if you want an application that can handle pretty much any PDF file in existence, you're still best off running Adobe Reader, even if it has a ton of features you'll never need. Fortunately, there's a stripped down version of Adobe Reader called Adobe Reader Lite.

Adobe Reader Lite is maintained by a third party developer and isn't officially supported by Adobe. But version 9 was released last week, hot on the heels of Adobe Reader 9. AR Lite contains all of the basic functions you'd need from Adobe Reader, but none of the extra junk like autorun, desktop shortcuts, or some of the less frequently used plugins.

[via gHacks]

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Filed under: Developer, News, Adobe

FreshAIRApps is, as its name would suggest, a directory of new Adobe AIR applications. As AIR has grown in popularity, we've started following the site more closely to see what's new in the AIR world. The only comparable site out there at the moment is Adobe's own AIR showcase. Because FreshAIRApps is such a great resource, it surprised us to hear reports that Adobe is upset with the site's owner over his use of the "Adobe(R) AIR[TM]" trademark.

According to a message on the front page of FreshAIRApps, the site will continue as RefreshingApps.com, with the purpose of promoting the work of the developer community, not promoting Adobe. The site's owner says that the move caused him financial loss. No word from Adobe, although the message claims that the company's community evangelists think FreshAIRApps is good promotion for AIR.

[via ReadWriteWeb]

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Filed under: Adobe, Beta

Download Squad originally told you about the Adobe Flash beta in May, and yesterday Adobe announced further updates to "Astro." So what do you have to look forward to?

From a viewer's standpoint, there are several new features of interest. Tops among them: advanced 3d effects - that's right, Flash now supports shaders. Web gamers rejoice, because this no doubt means a whole new era of addictive browser-based gaming.

Sound APIs have been refined as well, which should provide a boost not only for games, but also for streaming media applications. Also along these lines, Flash 10 support dynamic bitrate adjustments. Translation: it'll adapt to crappy network conditions automatically so that your video doesn't get all choppy.

Continue reading Adobe Updates Flash 10 Beta - Now Slightly Less Inefficient!

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Filed under: Developer, Adobe, Google, Yahoo!, Search

UPDATE: E.W. Scripps SEM Manager Paul Petersen weighs in on the SEO impact of Adobe and Google's announcement.

Adobe's Flash technology has long been the bane of efforts to create a Web site or application that can be indexed by Google, Yahoo! or other search engines. What it lacked in search engine optimization (SEO), Flash made up in offering designers an infinite playground for creating rich-media apps, games and video.

But what good is an application that users can't find?

Yesterday, Adobe and the two search engine leaders came out with an answer: A special Flash player that opens up content within applications and translates it for search engines. Flash content owners and search-engine users should notice results immediately.

This news was also mentioned in today's Googleholic.

Continue reading Adobe makes Flash searchable, Flash designers rejoice

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Filed under: Utilities, Web services, Adobe, web 2.0

Adobe has built a suite of online office applications to compliment Buzzword, the company's online word processor. We've covered Buzzword in the past. It's pretty, fast, and not really all that much more useful than similar products from Google or Zoho. Here's a rundown of the other applications you'll find at Acrobat.com:

• ConnectNow: A web conferenceing tool that lets you share your desktop with others, chat, talk over a VoIP connection, or share files and mark up whiteboards.
• Share: Selectively share files with other users. Adobe Share lets you send files to a list of contacts, and lets the recipients view PDF image, and video files online.
• Create PDF: Seriously, do we need to tell you what this does?
• My Files: Store and organize up to 5GB of files online.

You'll notice that Acrobat.com doesn't have a complete office suite. There are no spreadsheet or presentation applications. But that 5GB of free storage space is pretty attractive.

Adobe has also released Acrobat 9, an updated version of its desktop PDF reader. The biggest change in Acrobat 9 is support for embedded Flash, which means you might start finding PDF documents with embedded YouTube videos or other Flash content.

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Filed under: Security, Windows, Macintosh, Web services, Adobe, web 2.0

The Flash security flaw that we recently wrote about has been addressed by Adobe and a new version is being offered.

This security flaw was affecting PC and Mac users and allowed hackers to redirect you to nasty .SWF files which could then potentially execute malicious code on your machine.

You can feel secure (as well as warm and fuzzy) by downloading a Flash update with the fix here.

It's a pretty fast response to a pretty serious issue, so Adobe gets the pass this time.

Special thanks to commenter daniel free for the heads up!

[via cnet]

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Filed under: Security, Windows, Adobe, Microsoft

It has come to our attention that there's an Adobe Flash player vulnerability in the wild that may affect your PC.

Simply by visiting a naughty website, the unsuspecting web visitor will be attacked with a piece of code that redirects you to an evil .SWF file that can then execute nasty code on their PC.

Adobe has blogged about the issue, but hasn't issued any releases, or patches to take care of the problem as of yet. Security firm Symantec says that 20,000 web pages may be affected by this style of attack.

Since there's no real way around getting hit with this one, you can either disable your flash player altogether, or get the No-Script add-on for your Firefox browser.

[via webmonkey]

UPDATE: Adobe has issued a fix, click here to update. Read here for more info.

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