‘Foiled’ again!

My nine most memorable moments in front of a computer

In response to this post by London-based designer Rob Cubbon, my take on his article. It's interesting to note where our paths overlap... truly, we have come a long way!

1987: I discovered the MacPlus, PageMaker 1.0 and a 300dpi LaserWriter. I grappled with on-screen type peering through a tiny greyscale monitor and thought: "No way are you getting me up in one of these things ever again". My employer told me that very soon one of these computers would be sitting on everyone's desk. Ridiculous!

1989: Discovered the Mac II which actually included a hard drive! This meant I didn't need to load system each time I turned the machine on. PageMaker 3, Freehand 2 and my favourite fonts were already loaded and ready to go. I didn't need to manually download them to printer using Font/DA Mover. Fantastic!

1992: Developed my skills. Moved from a small design company into a corporate environment. The IT guy there (Jack the Mac) describes me as a ‘Power User’. Impressive!

1994: Discovered Photoshop. Realised it was very powerful and could do a lot of stuff, but not on a Mac II CI running a 030 processor. Upgraded to a Quadra (040) with 1GB hard drive and 12MB of RAM. Now we’re talking!

1996: Discovered the Internet and wondered what it was there for. Used it to send email. Discovered TAB notation for the guitar. Still can’t read TAB -- I prefer to play my 12-string by ear, as I always have.

1999: Thought I’d better come to grips with this internet thing. Lots of websites are being designed by geeks with computer degrees -- and it shows! The sites are semantically perfect but they all look the same. New business opportunity for freelance designer. Did a course in web design (passing convincingly)!

2005: Adobe brought Macromedia. They stopped supporting Freehand MX, insisting that Mac Freehand users switch to the wonderful world of Illustrator. BOO! (I resisted for years).

2009: Discovered the SilverStripe Content Management System. Now I can set up a templated 'theme' for my client's website and they can add and edit pages as they wish. The CMS is much simpler and easier to integrate than any other CMS I've encountered. And for my clients, updating content and adding pages is as easy as using a word processor. Great!

2012: Heard about the new world of 'Responsive Design'. Still 'responding' to this one but learning more every day!

A Space Oddity Indeed!

This has got to be one of the most poignant renditions of David Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’ ever created. Thank you Commander Chris ‘Major Tom’ Hadfield. Mission completed!

Steve Jobs - Rest in Peace

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.

“Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”

Steve Jobs 1955 - 2011

IE does it again!

A picture is truly worth a thousand words. And this one cracked me up! It neatly sums up everything that web designers love about Internet Explorer. I want one for the office wall...

Let it snow, let it snow...

They say it's a magical, ‘once in a lifetime event’... snow in Wellington. And not just snow on the hills around the city, we’re talking actual snow on Lambton Quay and Courtenay Place, even on the floor of the Hutt Valley... Is this the flipside of 'global warming'?

If it is, I don’t mind a bit. In fact after the cold and the rain that’s come in with this much talked-about four-day ‘Polar Rodent’ (that’s Jim’s description, not mine) the sight of show falling to ground level in the Hutt makes the cold and discomfort all seem worthwhile...

FREE FREEHAND (PLEASE)!!

I've been running my own Graphic Design business for the last 16 years. Like many in my situation I’ve upgraded hardware and software regularly during that time but currently I’m still on a Mac G5 tower running OS X 10.4. The reason? My all-time favourite vector drawing programme, Macromedia Freehand, won’t run reliably on newer systems. As I may have mentioned elsewhere I’ve been using Freehand from Version 2 (when it was Aldus Freehand). IMHO Freehand is a superior, more intuitive product than its rival, Adobe Illustrator. While I have used Illustrator when pushed, Freehand suits my work style better, is faster and saves files smarter/smaller. And the ‘xtras’ that I regularly use are not included in Illustrator.

If, after buying Macromedia, Adobe had included some of these ‘superior’ features in later builds of Illustrator I would have thought they were listening to their users. But they didn't. Instead they have simply told Freehand users to ‘get over it’ and come across to the wonderful world of AI. They simply stopped supporting Freehand (though they do still sell it), allowing it to languish to the point where it wouldn’t run a reliably on later versions of Mac OS. And I believe it won’t run at all on Intel-equipped Macs running Apple's new Lion OS.

I recently discovered the Free FreeHand organisation. Free Freehand came into existence to persuade Adobe to continue development of Freehand, or to sell the code to an organisation that will continue to develop what it calls ‘quite possibly the best vector drawing application ever made’. To this end they have filed an Antitrust case against Adobe.

To read more about Free FreeHand and follow the progress of the Antitrust case, visit www.freefreehand.org