Of Meats and Browsers

As a result of quite a few incidents over the course of the past couple of months, this here citizen reporter is of the wild but not necessarily crazy belief that the universe is having fun at his expense. I mean, one thing happening. Well, that's life. Two things, it's a coincidence. Five things and well,.... I'm not crazy you know. You walk a in day in my shoes before you judge me

The most recent event which admittedly, could have happened to anyone begs the question - "Why is it that it's the day when you are so hungry you could eat a horse, you walk into a Chipotle Mexican Grill, and the person behind the counter decides that since he spent the last three hours killing, skinning and consequently grilling the pork/chicken he's about to serve you, he's only going to give you enough to flavor your food, the actual tasting and eating being so overrated?" . It's enough to drive one to cussing I tell you.

In a less related event, Firefox 3.0 beta 1 launched recently, and being the tech savvy person that I am, I decided to try it out. Despite the so far numerous good reviews the browser has been getting out there, I learned first hand why betas are called as such and released for testing only. The list of improvements is quite long and welcome, and as this is just a beta release, this isn't a criticism of the browser. It deserves a mention. I'm just going to have to find a virtual machine to test it on.

Also, I'm publishing this here post using the recently released Flock Browser 1.0 and travesty of all travesties, did I just see the "font" tag in my source code?

toodles..

Blogged with Flock

Adobe Customer Support Stinks

Arrghhhh!! There are expressions in my head that are too vile to spill right now regarding how I feel about Adobe's Customer support department. I have had four interactions with Adobe customer support since Adobe took over Macromedia and all four have been nightmares, some of which I've chronicled on this blog. At the time, I put off the problems I was having to making my purchase during Adobe's swallowing of Macromedia, transition woes and all that jazz.

My most recent interaction started was this morning. Why did I need to contact adobe you ask. Sometime, earlier this year, when CS3 came out, I obtained a copy, a valid copy. Sometime this last week, I uninstalled my old fireworks 8 from my laptop and decided to install the copy of CS3 I had (Which, btw, the install time on a P4 2.6 Ghz machine is mind boggling, but that's a whole other issue) . As I wasn't at home at the time, I didn't have my serial number with me. I tried to run it in trial mode with the intention of activating it when I got home. It didn't work. I got some error message about being unable to activate the trial period, and I must enter my serial number or nothing. Either that or try re-installing it. I did, twice. Nothing. Well, there ends my work for the day. But hey, can't be helped right?

I get home and enter the serial number in my fireworks installation. It decides to go online and activate the software. After about a 5 dog years, it comes back and tells me everything is fine. And then I get this little window that says "License expired". WHAT!!! I just installed spent the last hour installing this stupid software and now I can't even use it? I pick up the phone to call Adobe Customer Service, dreading my next experience, because the last two times were so pleasant. I get put on hold, and then finally connected.

Adobe CS Person: Hello, can I have your customer number please?
Me: Uh, I don't know where it is at the moment, do you absolutely need it?
Adobe CS Person: Okay, sir, may I have your phone number?
Me: I give it to him
Adobe CS Person: Goes away to put a coin in the meter and comes back a minute later. So, how may I help you sir?
Me: I'm having some licensing issues with Fireworks, I had Fireworks 8 installed on before.....
Adobe: music, music, music.....
Me: What now? Did I bore him to death already? I hear a music and a couple of clicks

Interlude: Here's my question. Any self respecting customer service agent, knowing that you were speaking with a customer before, and you got cut off, doesn't it seem logical to call that customer back since you have his/her phone number?

Adobe: click, click, silence, click, after a minute, new person.
(for the purposes of this section of the conversation, we'll call this person moron #1 (heretofor Adobe CS Moron)

Adobe CS Moron: Hello, welcome to Adobe Sales, how may I help you?
Me: Well, I was talking to (Person) at Customer support before, and suddenly, I got cut off and now I'm talking to you.
Adobe CS Moron: Well, sir, maybe I can help you, what seems to be the problem.
Me: I'm having licensing issues with Fireworks, I had Fireworks 8 installed, but now after installing a clean valid copy of Fireworks CS3, I keep getting the error message "License has expired" .
Adobe CS Moron: (Sounds lost) Uh, well, what version of Adobe Studio is this CS2, CS3?
Me: Fireworks. FIREWORKS CS3, not studio. Running on Windows XP (trying to be helpful)
Adobe CS Moron: Did you try uninstalling and re-installing
Me: (thinking I'd save us both some time) Let me give you some background, I tried to run this software as a trial version before because I didn't have my key blah blah.............. so now, I've put in my key, and here's the error it gives me. And yes, I have gone through three install cycles, the third as I'm writing this blog post (each one takes about 2ominutes, no joke)

Adobe CS Moron: Did you obtain the software from Adobe Online, get a disc, etc?
Me: I got it from Adobe, legally. (For the reader: I didn't have to pay for it. I did get it from Adobe the company directly, but because of legalities, I can't get into details. I did explain the details to him though)
Adobe CS Moron: Oh, well, because you didn't pay for it, we are not obligated to support any software that we give away.
Me: Why? Why should that matter? I got the software legally.
Adobe CS Moron: because you didn't pay for it, we are not obligated to support any software that we give away. If you'd like to put in an order for a fireworks CS3 Product, I'd be happy to process it for you.
Me: Are you kidding? So, you're telling me more or less "too bad buddy, sorry, can't help you, you're on your own"?
Adobe CS Moron: Uh, well, no. I wouldn't put it that way. But we don't support software that we give away.
Me: Let's say hypothetically, that I bought the software, which btw, I'm not very inclined to do right now, is this supposed to happen?
(And here's the best part)
Adobe CS Moron: Um, well, no it isn't, but since you didn't buy the software and there's no way to know if it's a valid copy or not, I can't help you. If you'd like to buy a customer support package, or order a new copy of Fireworks, or Adobe Studio, then I can help you.
Me: Huh? (Is he implying that I stole it)
(Fuming at this point, reach out for my trusty zen media player with the available microphone so I can record).
Me: You know, every time I've called Adobe Customer support since Adobe merged with Macromedia, it's always been a pain. What the heck is going on?
Adobe CS Moron: Well, sir, like I said, since I can't determine whether or not you have a legal copy of the software...
Me: Implying what? That I stole it?
Adobe CS Moron: (Realizing what he's saying, back pedals... ) Well, sir, that was absolutely not what I was implying. (Liar)
Me: What the heck is going on over there? Plus, you're not encouraging me to be honest right now. I could very well have said I got this via Adobe download, and you would be none the wiser.
Adobe CS Moron: Well, sir, sometime during the conversation, we'd have asked for your serial number;
Me: Which I have, a valid serial number.
Adobe CS Moron: Well, that serial number would have told us what we needed to know. But for right now, unless....blah blah
Me: So, the long and short of this conversation right now is go figure something else out, Adobe is not going to help you today.
Adobe CS Moron: Yes, sir, that's more or less the case.
Me: Okay, then, well, thank you very very much, you've been absolutely no help.
Adobe CS Moron: Well sir.. you're very..(click. I hang up)

My first mistake was continuing a conversation with a nitwit in sales instead of just reconnecting to speak to customer support.

I love Adobe products, in general, but honestly, if the customer support remains subpar, it completely ruins the experience. I have the last bit of my recording with said nitwit on my zen. I'll have to figure out what to do with it.

Mono's Moonlight

I just wanted to take a second to congratulate the team of the Mono Project, the open-source counterpart to .NET on Linux for nothing short of an astounding feat - porting Microsoft's Silverlight to Linux in 21 days. Condiering that the team had no knowledge of Silverlight before the MIX conference earlier this year, it is quite impressive. YAY!! for open source.

Based on my previous posting on Silverlight, and what I've seen so far, things can only get better. Silverlight, while still in it's infancy is a project with tremendous potential (assuming Microsoft doesn't mess it up) and with maturity will undoubtedly become quite ubiquitous. The icing on the cake, the fact that it is essentially a part of the .NET framework only makes things better for integration into other aspects of development as the Mono team is already doing.

I can't help but say though that my disappointment continues with some members of the Adobe team who, at this point seem to just wait on the sidelines so they can stomp on any news of Silverlight coming their way, sometimes, legitimate, sometimes just plain petty. Everyone is of course entitled to his/her opinion. There wouldn't be debate without it.

Sometimes though, you should just say congratulations on what is nothing short of an incredible feat, and leave it at that.

In search of englightenment

In my continuous bid for self betterment alluded to in a previous post, I have been reading up on Grid Design in the context of the web as well as the use of Type.

Aside from keeping me occupied and distracted from the much over-hyped launch of the iPhone, it has added some well needed tools to my skill set and given me ideas to experiment with going forward.

I had briefly read up on grid design before thanks to the impressively good book - "Transcending CSS : The Fine Art of Web Design", written by Andy Clark, but as I didn't have much time to really look at it in great detail, finding other resources on the web that dealt with it such as designbygrid made me exceedingly happy.

In addition, I have spent some time reading up on hanging indents and punctuation, ligatures, leading, em spaces and kerning, thanks to Mark Boulton, who is thankfully trying to revive the lost art of Type design in this digital age. While his insights and articles were thoroughly enjoyable, he does seem to align himself to the classical way of thinking, which isn't all bad. And of course there's Richard Rutter who brought us the invaluable "Elements of Typographic Style - As Applied to the Web".

All in all, both good reads.

Steve's a Mac, and Bill's a P.C

In what was without doubt an historic event, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, the two icons of the computer industry, rumored rivals and friendly competitors met for a joint interview at the D5 Conference in California. 

The interview covered several topics from their historic beginnings working together in the late 70s to where they both see technology going in the next few years. 

As has been commented on by other bloggers who viewed the interview, there was an obvious sign of respect on both sides, and an acknowledgement of how much both companies complemented each other.

View Highlights

User Experience - Why Customers come back

The mark of a professional, I believe, in any field of expertise is the drive to improve their value, their worth as a whole to that field; The desire for self improvement. In some ways, it is what sets us as humans apart from the lower species. Over the course of the last few years, what has inevitably come to the fore for most designers and developers alike is the importance of customer experience, and in many cases, the emotional connection the customer forms with your product and or brand.

This connection is what fuels popular brands like Starbucks, Apple, JetBlue and others. They seem to have discovered this much earlier on than most companies and the benefits are tremendous.

As a designer and a developer, it is very easy in this field to lose sight of the most important part of the entire process. The Customer. Not the product, not the tools, but the customer. The customer's need, his connection with you and how much he feels you understand that are key in creating brand loyalty. Reviewing the recorded sessions from MIX07 that are on the web reveal a few sessions dedicated to rethinking the entire design experience, changing how we the producers of what customers use approach the process. My favorite of all those by far, and quite frankly, the best presentation I've seen in a while was the one given by Lewis Carbonne on "The Emotion of Customer Experience" available recorded. One of my favorite quotes from his presentation is this

Good, bad, or indifferent, every customer has an experience with your company and the products or services you provide. But few businesses really manage that customer experience... so they lose the chance to transform customers into lifetime customers.

I would classify that as well as several others as a must see for any designer, developer or producer as a way to provide context and direction for where and how they need to evolve in the current competitive market.

My Flash is bigger than your Silverlight

In what can only be referred to as a playground pissing contest, I've been coming across quite a few posts by Adobe developers reacting to the news of Microsoft's release of Silverlight (formerly WPF/e) and the inevitable conclusion by this observer is that Adobe and it's developers are worried and are acting out, like children in a playground who just noticed a new kid with a better ball than them. With good reason I might add.

To start with, in my brief testing and review of Silverlight and it's capabilities, it is nothing short of stunning. And the potential for this technology is tremendous, and cross browser to boot (except for linux that is). Silverlight is without question a competitor to Adobe's Flash offering, which has more or less owned the market for vector animations and rich dynamic applications for quite a while. It's features are quite similar, both have a light install footprint, but more than that, even in it's beta release form, the video performance of Silverlight exceeds that of Flash. And to sweeten the pot, the upcoming version 1.1 opens up development to all .NET developers as it includes a reasonably full subset of the framework.

With all this going on, it is understandable that adobe and it's developers would be a mite perturbed. But instead of taking a step back and examining where they need to innovate and go from here to bolster competition, many of them are taking the juvenile step of attacking the technology and Microsoft, seemingly on every little weakness or deficiency of the technology. Nitpicking at this and that like kids at a playground. And interestingly, so far, this has been mostly one sided. Alessandro Crugnola, a well known flash developer referred to it as "Fear of Silverlight".

I am a big admirer of Adobe, quite frankly, as far as software goes, if there were software groupies, I'd be one. But I have to say, in this most recent outburst of emotion towards Silverlight, they leave a lot to be desired.

Design Treasure 35/5

The good people at Smashing Magazine have released a survey of 35 designers, each answering 5 questions about their design process, workflow and approach and other tips. What it amounts to is a vital resource of ideas and suggestions and consequently a link dump of portfolios from other designers.

For anyone who is even remotely interested in design all the way to established designers, this is an excellent place to gain some perspective on what drives others in the field and maybe pick up a few nuggets of information to add to your design toolbag.

Highlights included

1. Communication, Usability, Typography, Navigation and Details being the top 5 things designers focused on when designing. Others were listed.
2. Normalizing the browser (reseting margins and paddings to 0px or 1px) before applying new styles as one of the top CSS techniques used by designers.
3. Helvetica, Lucida Grande, Arial, Garamond - classic fonts still widely loved.
4. Steve Krug's "Don't Make Me Think" came out on top by far as the book most designers referenced. (Just added to my Amazon wishlist)
Robert Bringhurst's "Elements of Typographic Style" also caught my eye in the list of books mentioned.
5. DigitalWeb Magazine as well as A list Apart came out as designer favorites in the online magazine category for the surveyed group. A good number have also opted out of reading online magazines and focusing on relevant articles as they come out.

View the full survey here..

Humorously Yours

Inevitably in my travels around the interweb, I find new things that tickle me. Based on a link from a podcast I follow quite faithfully, I discovered this online column/video podcast on technology from David Pogue at the New York Times.

I particularly like the perspective he brings with his column, obviously tailoring it for the everyday user, who frankly is the average N.Y. Times reader. It's full of good insights and fun to watch. As a techie, it's sometimes hard to remember that not everyone understands why having an 802.11n router is cool or VOIP for that matter.

Can Wii have this dance?

In the trend of continued popularity and adaptability of the Nintendo Wii, I happened upon the DJWiiJ. The concept on the site shows how Wii fans and users have modified the Wiimote to be used as a control device for D.Js. Pretty nifty stuff. Like I've always said, it's never really about the glitz and glamour. If you make a good lovable product, the fans will do the rest.

It is wiithout doubt, time I got me a wii.

via Jetset

Vista, Can you hear me now? What about now?

I just ran into this hilarious video on YouTube of a guy using the speech recognition software on Vista to write a simple perl script . Thought I'd blog it for posterity, and for laughs.



warning: hilarious out loud laughter is sure to ensue.


via stacyyoung.org

Steve Jobs casts his vote in the DRM debate

In what's bound to be without a doubt, the opinion that's heard around the blogoshpere and the technosphere, Apple's website today posted what appears to be an OpEd piece from Steve Jobs on the ever present debate over DRM (Digital Rights Management).

In said posting, Steve Jobs, who's company, like it or not controls the bulk of online music downloads via the iTunes music store stated that from his point of view, there are only three ways to currently solve the DRM issue. One, is to leave things as is, which quite frankly does nothing to resolve the issue, two - open up the DRM software that Apple uses, (thereby possibly encouraging other companies to do the same ) to promote interoperability or - and here comes the best part - sell their music DRM free. This is something everybody and their mama has been lobbying for, for the past couple of years. Why? In his words, which by the way, echo what everyone else has been saying..

Why would the big four music companies agree to let Apple and others distribute their music without using DRM systems to protect it? The simplest answer is because DRMs haven’t worked, and may never work, to halt music piracy.

As he said, over 90% of the world's music is at the moment sold DRM free. Also evidence has shown that so far, DRM has likely hurt digital music sales much more than it's helped.

All of this comes on the heels of the trouble Apple is dealing with in Europe regarding opening up it's FairPlay DRM system to other companies (gotta love those pesky Europeans) . It's only likely to get worse as more and more countries join the band wagon. Apple is essentially now throwing the ball in the court of the big music companies, saying in part..

Convincing them to license their music to Apple and others DRM-free will create a truly interoperable music marketplace. Apple will embrace this wholeheartedly.

Hopefully this is a beginning of a turn in the right direction.

Design confessional

I got an e-mail update this morning that reminds me of how much cooler a design shop can be if they don't take themselves too seriously. It adds a lot to the work environment. One of my very favorite design firms - group94 updated their site, - sort of. I'll let their project manager explain here

They did what inevitably happens to a lot of design shops. If you do manage to stay afloat and build a client base, you tend to spend most of your time working on client projects than doing your own website which inevitably may leave your website without an update for years. I for one am a poster child for this.

And considering that when I built my website,I was quite new at this whole web design thing and didn't put a content management system in, the idea of having to manually update the website didn't help. An updated version is coming. Soon.

iPhone, USue

It's a beautiful new year, and as is prone to happen, what's old is new again. Technology as usual keeps moving at a dizzying speed and the law firms of Cease, Desist and Howe are rubbing their palms together waiting for who it is they can dig their claws into once again. Gotta love technology. I can only imagine how many General Counsels are thanking their gods for copyright infringement lawsuits. If nothing else, it's keeping them busy, without doubt funding house expansions and jacuzzi bathrooms and for us the observers, it makes for fun reading.


In a "I so didn't see that coming, wink wink" move, Cisco Systems today is suing Apple Computer Inc. over the use of the name iPhone. Yesterday, at MacWorld, the quintessential face and CEO of Apple launched the iPhone, the company's new entry into the phone/handheld/mp3 player space. What makes this interesting is that Linksys, a division of Cisco Systems, the copyright holder to the name "iPhone" a few weeks ago released their own product of the same name. While both products are reasonably different, there is obviously a conflict here. Considering that Apple knew about it and are actually in negotiations (albeit stalled it appears) to use the name, going ahead to use the name anyway is a bold move if I ever saw one. Cisco it appears is not amused.

Me thinks this is going to be a fun year.