Daily Expressions

First off… Fireworks vs Photoshop… For all the times that this argument has came up, and the many times name calling has spun out of control because of it, I have to thank the Adobe team for finally axing the lesser of the two. I really do not think it was necessary to argue about us using Photoshop for web design, especially when we’re talking about highly detailed graphics.

As for Creative Cloud… I’m very happy with it. The multitude of updates were awesome this past year (I don’t know if that’s usual because this is my first year of actually having a license to the suite), and the 20GB of space is great. I’m really looking forward to the expanded integration of TypeKit, and being able to save everything to the cloud is just going to be amazing.

I’m already pretty fluent in Photoshop, Dreamweaver, InDesign, Illustrator, and I had to learn After Effects briefly to finalize my animation last semester. So it really came in handy to have the manager where I could just do a one-click to install. Adobe Story is great too, not as good as Final Draft, but it’s a nice freebie and has great templates.

Photoshop CS6 also comes with a new panel called the Timeline. I learnt how to rotoscope using it this semester. I found it a breeze to use compared to the old way of doing animations in previous versions, and it’s easily going to be one of my most used features in the next coming months. In saying that, I probably use Photoshop more for everything else than I do photography these days.

Let us not forget remember that Photoshop is professional software

A lot of people are angry right now. There’s a thread over at MacRumors that is over 700+ comments long. On pretty much any tech site you go on, there’s a lot of hate towards Adobe going on.

Please, please, PLEASE do not forget that this is professional software. They do not make it so that you can keep one version and live off of it forever. If you can’t afford it, then you shouldn’t be using it. And if a school can’t afford it, neither should they. And if a business can’t afford the subscription, how are they even operating to begin with?

If you’re just using the software to do small touch ups and doing things for yourself, then stop. You shouldn’t be using the most expensive software out there to do little things here and there. Nor should you be complaining about having to pay the subscription to get the new update when you were just going to pirate it anyway.

Photoshop is a privilege, and it’s annoying that most of the people that are complaining about the change are the ones who probably use it only because of the free tutorials by people who are also pirating the software. It’s annoying that just about everyone wants to use it, but doesn’t want to bother paying for it.

For those that do use it professionally. Think about it. You get 20GB of space you can keep your work in (I personally stash all my other program save directories in there too), you get access to a beautiful library of fonts with the TypeKit service included. I throw my photos into Lightroom, it’s great. Do I need it, no, but it’s a nice bonus. The editing features in there are cool too.

And even if you don’t use Dreamweaver, or InDesign, face it, you’re going to need it eventually. It’s important that YOU learn how to do your own advertising, whether it be making a portfolio book, magazine ad, or whatever. It’s also important that YOU learn to design your own simple website.

Trust me when I say that it all pays off.

The only one worth buying was the first one. I almost did buy the last one, but then I thought real long and hard about whether I’d end up enjoying them, considering a few were almost identical. The week before that was even worse, from a Humble Bundle quality point-of-view anyway. Those games were no different to anything you could find on the App Store. They had no uniqueness, and were just bland.

The mobile bundle was great though. I’m really enjoying The Room and Raiden Legacy the most. Of course, Bastion from the first weekly sale is awesome too.

Yesterday’s MacHeist nanoBundle 3 announcement would have overshadowed another weekly bundle. A good $10.00 spent right there. I’m really excited to check out Little Inferno, which is by the team that makes World of Goo – A classic, if you’ve never played it. I’m also looking forward to the last two unknown apps that are going to be unlocked soon.

I’m at least glad they actually paid some attention on how things were turning out. There are a lot of bundles out there that are a waste of time, like StackSocial, and sometimes MacLegion. I don’t want them to become another one of those. It’s pretty much what’s happen with Two Dollar Tuesday already.

I know that sounds very ungrateful, but I think if you ask most of us Macintosh folk, it’s very clear that we all share the same opinion. There are some sales that are great, but then there are some that have apps that are really, really, really outdated and no longer useful, and there are the weird ones that you’d probably install because it seems cool, but you never use it, and it just becomes another process that your computer has to start at login. I personally already have 15 login items myself already!

It should be quality over quantity, and if you can’t get the good developers to commit and say yes, then don’t do it at all. Because I really don’t need a wallpaper finder app, not when the wallpapers aren’t good to begin with anyway.

There’s been a lot of talk about how some countries are not satisfied with the Apple 1-year AppleCare warranty. And you know what? I don’t blame them. I think it’s extremely annoying that most companies limit it to that. I don’t buy a piece of hardware just to use it for a year, I kept my iPhone 2G from 2007 to 2010. I also have an external hard drive I’ve been using since 2008. My iPad Mini was bought to last me until it breaks too.

I don’t understand why my low-end pair of Sennheiser headphones have a 2-year warranty, yet pretty much the last 20-something pairs of other brands don’t? I’ve actually decided that I will only buy Sennheiser branded ones from now on for that reason. I’ve been through three pairs of Apple EarPods now, and these are still going strong nine months later.

I had a similar problem with my Kindle Keyboard. The e-ink exploded around a certain small area, and Amazon wants me to buy a refurbished unit just slightly out of my warranty. Sure, it’s cheap, and there’s better models now, but it’s very sad that we pay a good amount of money for these things, only for them to have a defect a month after your warranty ends. Another time, my iPhone 4 had just a WEEK left of AppleCare left before the headphone jack gave up.

Smartphones should have a two-year warranty. I think if you’re stuck paying for a phone for two years, it is not fair that if a problem occurs right when you have five months left of a contract, that you’re pretty much forced to deal with it by either paying a termination fee, hoping you have an early upgrade, or getting a cheap prepaid replacement. Again, you’re still paying for it technically, so where is that coverage?

Why can’t AT&T fix my phone when all it needs is a simple shell replacement part that is $25 on eBay? Why does Apple limit their warranty to a year when they are on a yearly OS update schedule? I completely understand when it comes to accidental damage that you are better buying a new device, but how about for stuff that just stops working or develops a problem due to just normal use?

So, one of the first Samsung experience Best Buy stores is launching here in Lewisville, Texas. An area where there’s six Apple store locations. Besides myself, I have probably seen three other Android users in the wild. iPhones are pretty much the smartphones of choice of everyone around here, and AT&T has their headquarters in Dallas. It’s the choice of carrier for pretty much everyone here too because it’s the only one that doesn’t get interrupted service.

There are also 20 Walmarts, 5 Targets, more than 100 AT&T retailers, and a good chunk of T-Mobile stores. Nobody’s going to go into Best Buy just to check out their phones when they can do it pretty much everywhere else. Heck, the other day I went to Target to pick up an Android GoPhone since my Samsung Galaxy S2 is falling apart only after a year of use.

Apple’s stores are for connivence. You can buy whatever they sell, you can get GREAT customer support, and they have a few pieces of software and accessories on hand. The experience is nice, and I go in there and grab something every time I’m near one. If they weren’t down to earth stores, I wouldn’t even bother. They’re probably the only store besides Barnes & Noble and Starbucks where I don’t mind that there isn’t a Self-Checkout.

There is no way Samsung will be able to match that. And I hope they don’t succeed, because what could be worse than yet another non-American company doing very well over here without a clue about our culture in general except that we like to spend money.

I love Humble Bundle sales. I have bought the last four of the app ones. Android 5 was the best yet, and I’m currently enjoying Beat Hazard Ultra, Dynamite Jack, NightSky, and Super Hexagon from it. I usually pay a little more than the average to get the extras, although this time I had them all already, so I just gave them away.

However, I’m pretty worried about them moving towards a weekly sale. This week’s game is Bastion which usually retails at $14.99. You can choose to pay about $3 to get the digital soundtrack, some art, sheet music, and ringtones, or you can pay $1 to get the Steam unlock code. Pretty much everyone’s being cheap and not paying more than $3 looking at their average chart.

People seem to forget that while this is a great deal for them, that their main goal is to raise money for charity. And every time I look at the rankings on their sales, it’s usually publishers who give the most money, and maybe one or two normal people. They’re raising a lot of money for charity, but I think these sales will hit developers the hardest.

And not just the ones participating either. I think when you can buy a really, really, really good game (these are the best of the best according to most people in the tech crowd) every week for $1-3 dollars, you aren’t going to spend that same money on games from the Play Store, Mac App Store, and Steam. You’re just going to get used to paying four for games with that $20 you usually use to buy one or two.

I also think that Humble Bundles are going to become less interesting, because by the time the next one comes up, most of us would have gotten those games in these weekly sales. If repeats become a thing, there will be some weeks where sales are very low, which won’t look very good for them.

People always make up some snarky comments about how people taking pictures with their iPad look ridiculous. For me, it’s the other way around. I think people with huge lenses on their cameras look ridiculous, and that’s the main reason why I got rid of my telephoto lens and point-and-shoot Canon I had for awhile. It looked horrible, and it weighted down the camera so much that it couldn’t even stand on its own. It worked great, but it was too much trouble to deal with, so I sold it. My Nikon has a sturdier body, but it still would look and work horrible with one of those lenses.

So, I went out to the lake yesterday, and spent a majority of the time shooting with my iPad Mini. I think the nice thing about using a tablet is that you have this huge screen to frame your shot in, and it’s a lot nicer to work with than an iPhone. It’s like cutting out the scene from a piece of paper. I can see more clearly if the shot came out blurry or not too, and for someone that has a problem with taking really blurry shots, this is a huge feature for me.

The cons? Well, you have a hard time seeing the screen in the sunlight, so you can’t take advantage of most of the nice camera apps because you can’t see what the heck you’re doing. So while I don’t really care for the basic camera app, it gave me the best results in this situation since once you click, it saves. You also have to play with the focus so you don’t get the washed out whites, which you can’t do when the screen isn’t visible.

I really want to build myself a tripod for the sole purpose of using my iPad and not having to worry about shaky pictures. It might be difficult, considering the Mini is so thin, but it might just work!

NOTE:

I originally thought about posting this review at Quirky, but their review section is so critical, including reviews from just people complaining about the price and not actually wanting to buy it. People often try and use their Prime shipping when ordering their products, and Amazon doesn’t fullfill either of them. So I’m posting this review on my personal site. The only thing I ask is that if this review makes you want to spring to buy these two products, PLEASE use my links! I’m looking into buying another product from them pretty soon and I can do with the savings.

The Pen Zen is great. I have a love for cheap pens that write nicely, so I have half a set of InkJoy 100s that are still sitting in their package because I have nothing to put them in. Coffee mugs are okay, but when it comes to not having anything to put your morning coffee in, you wish you had that extra cup available. So I took them out of the packaging finally, along with my other Paper Mate pens and pencils, and some brush I had laying around, and organized them into this beautiful Zen.

I especially like that the pens glide in and out easily, the grips are nice and sturdy, and I can tell they’re going to last for a long time. When I pulled it out of its package, I immediately smelled the bamboo – That wow factor was so apparent before I even set it up. I haven’t tried any paperclips or magnets yet, but I’m trusting that it works beautifully as in the stock photos.

The Cordies Executive is pretty disappointing when you first open it. It almost looks like a tool you would use in the kitchen, haha. The magic comes in when you put it on your desk and start adding things to it. I put my phone, some different colored index cards, and my Kindle Keyboard – Looks awesome now! It’s also very sturdily made and looks like it’ll hold up for a very long time.

Some people were asking about how they would hold up to dust on the Quirky reviews… I clean my desk a lot, and I try to move things around everyday. If you don’t leave things to just sit there (and both of these products are made for everyday use by the way) you won’t have the dust issue. They also are somewhat expensive, but much better quality than the stuff you would find at The Container Store. I could see myself still using them years from now.

In my social circle, there are a lot of people who have a vast interest in weather. We talk about it, we experience it, we take pictures of it, and watch The Weather Channel (I’ve also gained a liking for jazz music after watching weather forecasts pretty much all my life funny enough). We also have arguments about the different websites and which has more accurate information.

So today when I saw Robocat’s Thermodo project on Kickstarter, I didn’t even think twice before I pledged for a anodized aluminum edition of it. Considering that I live in a household where someone always wants to know what the current room temperature is, or how the weather is outside after I’ve been out with the dog in the backyard for awhile, it’s going to be something I use everyday. It’s also going to be fun analyzing the temperature in general. I’m going to put together a notebook just to do that and see how it goes.

The API is going to lead to some awesome stuff too. I like the idea of plugging it into my Mac and then seeing the actual temperature right in my menu bar. If it gets people to recycle their old iPads, iPods, and iPhones to repurpose them as weather stations, even better!

Listen up parents – You just bought an iPod, iPhone, or iPad for your kid? Sorry, but like a game console, these devices require you to spend more money down the road. “But there’s a free section!” Yeah, well, like the saying goes “There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch” – A majority of the free apps that can be found on the app store are disguised as a cute simulator, but beyond that point they are just simply money grabs. You don’t want your kid to end up like my mother, who has racked up on over $1,000 worth of in-app purchases in the last few months. And it only takes a single game for that to happen.

In the last few weeks, in-app purchases have been the talk of the tech world, everyone pointing fingers at each other blaming either Apple or so called “lazy” parents. The truth is that it has to do with Apple not advertising parental controls enough, but it also has to do with parents giving their kids a device and letting them run off with it like any other toy. If you wouldn’t let your kid go to a friend’s house because you didn’t know their parents, why would you be letting them wander off to download apps and games which can pretty much lead to the same problems.

But this DOESN’T have to be a problem, and I urge you, as either as a parent or sibling of a younger brother or sister to do something about it. Get involved! You don’t have to be so straightforward about it, and you don’t even have to have an iOS device yourself, but you have to educate yourself about the OS and the apps that a kid can and will come across in the store.

When my brother got his own iPod Touch, I made it a priority to make sure that he not only got caught up in all the freemium junk out there, but also a majority of the social based games. I want him to have fun when he’s playing a game, but I also want him to use his brain to get through levels and solve problems. There’s games that get boring really fast, and then there’s the ones that keep you playing from start to finish.

I’ve also got him into using apps like Wolfram Alpha, Sky Motion, and The Weather Channel. It’s not just a thing to play games on, showing them the educational benefits of these devices are great too. He uses them all everyday too. Wolfram Alpha is particularly useful because it’s a nice general place to find everything, I especially like it for simple definitions.

Most review sites make a point of not showcasing apps that have excessive In-App purchases and very little actual gameplay, so they are a great starting point – Touch Arcade is my favorite and they have an app too. Apple tends to favor the nicer games too, so looking through the New and Noteworthy and special collections is another thing I’d recommend.

When you have all these nice games, the freemium ones become lame and uninteresting. That’s your goal right there. You don’t want to force them to do it the manual way by waiting 24 hours for energy and turning off In-App purchasing, you want them to not play that game altogether.

And if you’re the older sibling like I am, and you have a parent who doesn’t think we should be spending money on our devices (like my dad does), I again advise you to take control and provide some guidance. Teaching the value of money early on is a great thing, especially when there are so many companies trying to take advantage of it and targeting young people and oblivious adults such as my mother.

The Chromebook Pixel is a $1,299 laptop that could easily last you ten years. If you’re looking to move away from the Windows ecosystem, you should really consider it. Especially for those of us that keep machines until they literally die on us, THIS is the perfect computer.

All the technology sites are telling you to stay clear away, but why? The $199 Acer Chromebook will be a miserable investment. You are better off buying the similar priced Nexus 7 that will give you better performance and battery life. Netbooks were awful, and that is exactly what the Acer laptop is – A netbook with a different OS. You’re going to throw it away next year when an updated model comes out.

The Pixel on the other hand has specs that are at the high end. And pretty much any rich media website you throw at it will be great (especially after they do a few system updates to enhance the experience). It is not just a computer that you can use for today’s technology, it’s future proofed. And when you’re buying a computer, this is an important aspect that you need to make sure any computer you’re buying has.

Another reason I would recommend the Chromebook Pixel is the fact that it DOES have a pretty good ecosystem. Let’s not forget that a lot of the major productivity tools that are cross platform are also web based and have Chrome apps to go alongside them. You can’t say that about Windows 8, which has been available for developers since 2011.

I would highly recommend it to casual Windows XP/Vista/7 users who don’t rely on anything except a browser to the internet. Think about that last $500 computer you bought. Is it still working for you? Is Facebook and Google both very laggy? Then you should consider spending more on your next machine. You do not get more bang for your buck on computer purchases, just like that one cent smartphone upgrade only gave you a phone with lots and lots of bloatware.