Archive for January, 2013

Adobe Dreamweaver CS3

Wednesday, January 30th, 2013

Adobe-branded feature-rich software are not anything new to the community but a website editor? Yes, Adobe did that as well; what was released last time under the Macromedia banner is now Adobe’s peach. Dreamweaver now comes integrated with Photoshop and others in the Adobe Creative Suite and looks to be quite an impressive application.

Let us describe this one as a powerful, smooth-running machine. What advanced web designers shall really like in the new Dreamweaver is its unchanged, basic interface and the features, with Adobe adding just the little bits that would impart to it the 21st century look. Other stuff that Adobe added are inclined more to the technical side – a full CSS support provided by validation and style sheet management tools and a new GUI for Spry Framework; JavaScript code snippets (these are to display dynamic elements including XML feeds). Veteran Dreamweaver users, you got to upgrade yourself to this new version if you are to build up-to-date, CSS-based codes. Not only that, fine-tuning the most complex of Web sites is also just a matter of point-and-click with the DWCS3.

Adobe Dreamweaver CS3

But then, what caused major annoyance are the menus and toolbars, overstuffed with more than what they should actually accommodate. Intimidating as well as confusing – it doesn’t matter whether you are into the field for long or just a newbie, without being attentive enough, it’s sure to play some practical jokes. Complaints exist regarding the right-click menus too; where are the context-sensitive options? Dreamweaver also have sent to exile the tools for managing dynamic data and the word-processing feature is just fragile.

In case there is a broken code, Dreamweaver shall immediately point it out, but didn’t we expect it too tell us how to fix it? Be ready to be disheartened; it’s the same that applies on the help system, which proves to be inadequate at best. Professionalism must not always be laconic and Adobe must get the thing right.

However, when it comes to web editors, Dreamweaver has always remained the colossal help-at-hand since its early days of inception and with its recent entente with the Adobe Device Central, it provides the page previews that help to put them right on mobile phones/other portable device screens. With a monolithic library comprising contributed freeware extensions (Dreamweaver’s online resource), it is a much-improved Web editor capable of doing a lot more than it has in its previous version. If you are to make a statement in digital creativity keeping certain technical aspects aside, there’s absolutely no reason why you should not go for the Adobe Dreamweaver CS3. Weave your dreams, but with a little bit of caution.

Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional

Wednesday, January 30th, 2013

Let’s get a fact straight before we sneak a peek at the related nitty-gritty of the Adobe Acrobat 8 professional – The software has undergone a lot of changes though most of it is beyond the capability of the ordinary user to comprehend. All that have added up in the price of the package and at $499 (with $159 for upgrades) and the net result has favored…let’s dare say – the industry people who always operate in the high-level of technicalities.

Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional

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Now, let’s focus on the changes. At point blank, they are confusing and frustrating even to the long-time players in the print media industry. Doubts also remain regarding the feasibility of the new features, which might go unnoticed in many of the existing businesses. But is it all bad news?

Certainly not, for the paradoxical truth is there’s hope in despair. That brings into the picture an elegant, new interface studded with colorful icons instead of the version 7’s utilitarian tabs. Regarding access to other features, a simple right-click is far more smarter an option than going the other way round; the Acrobat 8 also places a separate icon for every selection on the desktop for a quicker access to the panel in future. But it’s indeed bad news that we don’t have an acre for the desktop.

But version 8 definitely deserves a pat on the back for the feature Adobe Connect; this meeting system resembles WebEx and MS NetMeeting and even at $395 per year, a personal meeting room works out cheaper than booking one in brick and mortar. Acrobat finally graduated to real-time.

Kudos must also go to the new feature that combines (not merge) all the supported file formats into a complete PDF package. Putting together several documents into one file definitely makes sending around a piece of cake that’s facilitated further by the options to remove headers, footers and watermarks from the original files. Instead, one can add a separate identifier for every page.

Among the security features, Acrobat now allows to remove sensitive information and add digital signature(s) to document(s), but only if the document(s) was created by Adobe Acrobat Pro. Else, 128-bit encryption is quite a satisfactory move.

But what do the Adobe team has to say about the small annoyances? The text selection tool comes first in this regard; precise selection is not always possible with it. The cursor also acts rather sluggish; would people be interested to make the software work on a lesser memory?

All creative professionals, be prepared to get frustrated with the version 8 Pro to the degree of delight that Acrobat 3D Version 8 and Adobe Acrobat 8 Standard once helped you to find. Go for the upgrade only if the new collaboration features are a necessity as much as the CMYK plate compression to the grayscale mode.


CS3-PSD-125x125

Adobe Acrobat 3D

Wednesday, January 30th, 2013

Let’s put Adobe Acrobat 3D as a means to empower Computer aided design, Computing Aided Maneuvers and CAE users. The software’s prime prowess lies in converting any given CAD file to 3D PDF format that’s highly compressed; this enables full 3D collaboration and CAD data in an exchange and use manner. This has resulted in an increased productivity in the engineering fields by eliminating the need for the CAD translators.

Adobe Acrobat 3D

Adobe Acrobat 3D. Communicate and collaborate more securely with the complete PDF solution for 3D design.

The new story began from Jan. 23rd this year. Adobe walked some extra distance to relieve manufacturers from the burden of creating and sharing documents; the new step proved a booster to the product designing and building processes. The new endeavor was given an epithet of Acrobat 3D and since then, aid is been spelt as aed – author, edit, distribute for the manufacturing companies globally.

The Knowledge Worker department of Adobe has built the Acrobat 3D based on technological aspects similar to other existent Acrobat products as well as the Breeze-collaboration software. The new approach helped Adobe succeed in solving the files and paperwork quagmire that often draws down the manufacturing companies when it comes to forwarding the product designs to a multitude of people.

Acrobat 3D allows forwarding CAD-generated 3D images that are supported by any current Acrobat reader, a stark contrast to any other licensed, expensive and specialized design programs. And ability for controlling the elements of a design makes stealing the designs a real tough job.

AEC professionals are sure to find Utopia with Acrobat 3D’s capturing and embedding abilities, but with Acrobat’s shift from 2D to 3D, it definitely loses out on intelligence in the sense it falls short when it comes to retain the non-geometrical properties of the 3D content. That leaves grounds for other designs review/checking applications to survive; it also spares Autodesk’s own DWF (another e-publishing format). If the Adobe PDF can develop its own unique 3D capabilities, only then it can differentiate itself in a stronger manner against the aforementioned, but not without making slight improvements to the present package. That includes less time for users to spend understanding the functionality of 3D capturing; setting configurations for individual designs; simple navigational capabilities instead of using JavaScript and a slash in the $995 tag.

The AEC industry being the most important market for Adobe’s Acrobat 3D, we expected more of direct support for the CAD (as well as BIM) applications with more emphasis on more of non-graphical object attribute data. That way, we could have had 3D PDF files that are richer than present. However, the kind of initial traction the software has gained till now, it seems that the manufacturing is going to embrace it more closely but not for very large projects.

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Adobe Acrobat Capture 3.0

Wednesday, January 30th, 2013

To speak about the Adobe Acrobat Capture 3.0 in an elaborate manner, we need to peep in first at the last decade, at the time when commercial Internet was in its very nascent stage. The requirement was for a means to unify paper with digital source materials to create something that would support a multiplatform environment and the PDF concept saw the daylights. Today, PDF (the full fidelity e-doc format) is the people’s choice.

Adobe Acrobat Capture 3.0

Adobe USA Store

What triggered Adobe to channelize their entire prowess for creating Adobe Acrobat Capture 3.0 is their realization on the PDF-to-editable file conversions; this is a feature that the OCR industry emphasizes much upon. Thus, the software can be said to be a blatant answer to the difficulties fully automatic processes and accuracy regarding text matter had posed for all these years. So Capture showed up as Adobe’s one and only product for document imaging, emphasizing on production-volume market for imaging.

Capture’s actual model started as a simulated client/server system that relied upon a mainframe structure for automatized functions and served as a workstation-based application for taking accurate text, page layouts and enhanced images a step above the rest. All the functionality added with a new user interface (the workflow builder is more like Windows Explorer) and a plethora of new tools (the Zone tool and the QuickFix for text-related correction) has brought over the most needed upgrade, but are never a stark change that would render the overall application as an alien entity.

The application engine of the Adobe Acrobat Capture 3.0 needs a mention here; a true load-balancing distribution process for OCR purposes being the main hallmark, it works seamlessly with the other automated engines as well and crashes lesser than its predecessor – the 2.01 version. But, with exception handling being boosted up to a great deal (and up to a better degree as well) than Acrobat Capture 3.0’s previous version, it seems to have proved better if Capture was made equal to the full-fledged capabilities of a few other software that have become a standard in the existing software market. Otherwise, the Capture version 3 must earn accolades for the improvements (they’re fantastic!) that can only be expected out of 3rd-gen software. And that includes the file-management system – it’s the workflow design that automatically moves the files through the consecutive steps. Bid administrative overheads goodbye.

Till now, it was the sweet part of the story. But fact remains that Adobe Acrobat Capture 3.0 has its other alternatives that are faster and stabler if one is not the sophisticated user per se looking forward to true layout reproduction, high-volume processing and Text & Graphics conversion. Else, one may have his/her way with it.

Adobe Acrobat Connect

Wednesday, January 30th, 2013

Adobe Acrobat Connect is another product from Adobe, and it steps right up to the expectations of anyone who has ever worked with, or received a document in .pdf format. This package, or maybe it should be called a service, is quick and easy to set up. All that you need to do is contact Adobe and you will be able to run a meeting, or hold a seminar, or even teach a class within minutes. Adobe hosts the Connect service on their computers and assigns you, the client, a permanent URL for as long as you contract use of the system. You don’t have to download any software to run Connect and it is ready to go as soon as you are.

Adobe Acrobat Connect

Adobe USA Store

Included with the hosting are add-ins for Windows or Macintosh, as well as a simple to follow step-by-step on getting started. All of the options that you might think of are either available with Adobe add-ins, which are indicated in the instructions, or through linking with such standards as Microsoft Office.

Adobe Acrobat Connect allows for screen sharing, and uploading of files to meetings. All controls and information needed to run a meeting are included in the package, or the add-ins. By using the associated product, Adobe Presenter as an add-in to your Microsoft Power Point you can upload your Power Point presentations to the Adobe Acrobat Connect Connect Enterprise Server, which will then become available as real-time anytime presentations or training for your staff or customer base. You can also set up your meeting so that you have presentations, films, and other information available which you can share as needed in your presentation You can also allow others within your organization to create meetings, and upload presentations.

As you would expect from Adobe, the interface is smooth and conforms to what has become the industry standard of point – click – drag, The smoothness with which this package integrates full motion video, live VOIP or other voice and video connection products makes it look like a candidate for the Industry Standard status that is enjoyed by the company’s other star product Adobe Acrobat.

This product is a third generation office integration tool. This is a highly polished product which may soon appear on lots of corporate desktops. The options for licensing of the product include corporate licensing, which includes the ability to host meetings on your own server(s), and running all the meetings, etc. that you want to, with all the attendees that you can get to come; an annual subscription which give you all the services and options of the first choice except for local, (in-house) hosting, and; a monthly or pay-per-use option, which allows for getting one’s corporate feet wet without blowing the budget.

Adobe Acrobat Distiller Server 6.0

Wednesday, January 30th, 2013

Adobe Acrobat Distiller Server 6.0 is a server-based .pdf conversion tool. This software will allow an organization to centralize the conversion of documentation into .pdf format. One of the benefits to be gained by doing this is the standardization of documentation into .pdf format. The well known Acrobat .pdf format is designed as a read-only, cross-platform format for documents of all kinds. Because .pdf format is an application of Adobe Postscript technology, moving all documents to .pdf also eliminates the dependency on the abilities to interpret font requests which match the document generator. Recently, more organizations are relying on .pdf also as a first level of security against unauthorized document modification all the time. Since Acrobat® is such a common standard, the enforcement of moving all documents to .pdf format is likely to be an easy request. The Server supports encryption and password protection.

Adobe Acrobat Distiller Server 6.0

Adobe Acrobat Distiller Server 6.0 comes as a solution to the medium to large corporate entity with a medium to large document load. The problems that these organizations are facing regarding document flow and generation include format standardization in those operations which use different operating systems and even within operating systems, when documents are generated to match specific output devices. Increasingly, there is also a problem dealing with the overhead on individual desktop or workstation machines, in generating document output either to other output devices or to convert documents to .pdf.

The Adobe Acrobat Distiller Server 6.0 works as an output server, handling outbound email, fax and print queues. It also integrates with Web applications for presentation of output documents. It concentrates all of these processes by offloading the conversion and distribution processes to itself as a dedicated server and thereby frees the local workstations to go on with other tasks, rather than creating the .pdf at the workstation. In today’s office environment, this represents a significant transfer of workload to a device which operates mostly on its own and doesn’t slow worker interaction doing background conversion and distribution or printing tasks.

System requirements for the Adobe Acrobat Distiller Server 6.0 are minimal: Pentium II with 128 MB RAM (256 recommended), with 245MB Hard Drive to run on Windows® OS; under Solaris OS Adobe also recommends 128 MB RAM (256 recommended), and availability of 150 MB in the install directory, and another 150 in the temporary directory, and; the Linux OS recommendations are the same as the Solaris recommendations. It supports PDF 1.5 specification The Server can act also as a file server/storage sever for the documents, and might even serve as a printer server.

The Adobe Acrobat Distiller Server 6.0 will run on almost any version of Microsoft Windows®, Sun Solaris®, or Linux. The Windows® package is available in English (U.S. and International) as well as French and German. The server is not cheap, retailing at approximately $5,000.00 for the 100 user license and approximately $15,000 for the unlimited user license.


Adobe Presenter – The Advanced Presentation Software

Wednesday, January 30th, 2013

Adobe Presenter creates impressive and professional presentations from your Microsoft PowerPoint presentations. The software also enables learning. Adobe Presenter delivers a high quality multimedia experience that puts life into your work. The options of audio and video can easily be incorporated into the presentation. You can also include simulation.

The software provides all kinds of templates for visual impact. A large degree of customization is possible. You can use Adobe Presenter to standardize the presentation format for your company or department. The software is easily customized for your brand with details like the company logo or a set of colors and patterns. The files from Adobe Presenter can easily be placed online to the Adobe Flash software.

Adobe Presenter

Adobe Presenter is a learning tool. The features include notes and quizzes. If required you can include a survey. All the slides of Adobe Presenter are interactive with the user. The e-learning system is compatible with other e-learning software. The online training provided by this software is for easy access to the users from any location. The software enables a virtual classroom on the Internet. Adobe Presenter also helps you as a marketing tool. You can also use this software for tracking and reporting requirements.

The presentation styles in the software help the viewers interact at the right pace. The experience will keep the user engrossed. You can edit the audio in your Adobe Presenter using the editing features. You can use a microphone for adding the audio or you can use any existing audio track. The software lets you record audio congruent with the slides by using the notes feature while recording. Notes can also be provided along with the presentation.

The software comes with inbuilt wizards that help you convert your Microsoft PowerPoint presentation to an Adobe Presenter presentation. It does not require any training to use this software. The software offers very high audio and image quality experience options when required.

The animation takes into account the entire range of animation available in Microsoft PowerPoint. Adobe Presenter can add any file or link to the presentation. The software has a feature that helps you see who has accessed the presentation and to what extent. This helps in measuring market response. All details of the creator can be entered into the presentation as required.

The quiz features of the software are very powerful. Adobe Presenter enables branching, and grade calculation for learning. It can use quizzes to measure retention.

Slide navigation and branching is easily possible using the software to deliver a flexible presentation. The software can be used to stream audio and video. The multimedia experience is completely synchronized with the activities of the user. Surveys can be used to gather marketing information or feedback from learning.

Given all these features, Adobe Presenter is a must have for every professional.


Adobe Top Dog

Wednesday, January 30th, 2013

Forrester Research conducted a lab-based evaluation of eight business process management suite (BPMS) suppliers that are best suited and most experienced with document-intensive processes across approximately 150 criteria. Forrester found that Adobe LiveCycle “Wows Customers In Document-Centric BPMS Processes”

Adobe Announces MAX 2006 Conference and Fourth Annual MAX Awards

Wednesday, January 30th, 2013

Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced the Adobe MAX 2006 Conference, to be held Oct. 23-26 in Las Vegas. MAX 2006 will give developers and designers a forum to network, share ideas, get hands-on technical training from certified experts, gain new skills and learn about new and emerging Adobe products and technologies. Adobe also announced the call for entries for the fourth annual Adobe MAX Awards, which recognize customer achievement in eight different categories.With the conference theme of “Beyond Boundaries,” the event will feature keynotes by Adobe CEO Bruce Chizen, President and COO Shantanu Narayen and Chief Software Architect Kevin Lynch.

“MAX 2006 is a significant milestone in the integration of Macromedia and Adobe, and an important forum for the developers and creative forces that are shaping the future of the Internet and design,” said Lynch. “Our combined development teams are busy at work on new technologies, products and levels of integration. At MAX 2006, we’ll offer a terrific opportunity to learn about the most recent innovations, look forward and connect with others in the community.”

MAX 2006 will feature more than 100 workshops and hands-on sessions. The event also will include technical support labs, partner exhibits, an engineering “sneak” session, certification programs, birds-of-a-feather networking events and presentations from industry experts. In-depth technical sessions will cover the range of Adobe products and solutions, including Web design and development, rich Internet applications, mobile and devices, enterprise applications, vertical solutions, graphic design, Web conferencing and e-learning. For a complete list of MAX 2006 sessions, visit: www.adobe.com/events/max/ .

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The winners of the 2006 MAX Awards, to be announced at the conference, will honor the most effective and compelling customer work in eight categories: achievement (high return on investment); advertising and branding; industry innovator; interactive process management; media and entertainment; mobile and devices; rich Internet applications and Web development; and training and collaboration. Adobe will begin accepting submissions on July 17. All entries must be submitted online by September 1. To see last year’s finalists, visit: www.adobe.com/macromedia/events/max/max_awards/ .

Adobe offers a discount to MAX attendees who register before Sept. 25, 2006. For more information, visit www.adobe.com/events/max/ , and to register visit www.adobemax06.com .

Adobe Max

Wednesday, January 30th, 2013

MAX 2006, the Adobe user conference, will be held at the Venetian Resort Hotel located in Las Vegas, Nevada. There you can learn new skills, explore emerging technologies, connect with peers, and move beyond the boundaries of what you believe is possible. The conference will be made up of over 100 different hands-on and workshop sessions presented by Adobe experts and other industry leaders on best practices and coming technologies. During the event you can exchange ideas with designers, developers, and other community members at networking sessions and “birds-of-a-feather” sessions while exploring Adobe technology at a variety of events and venues, including all-day pre-conference training sessions, a Test Drive and Product Support Lab, and Sneak Peek sessions. Sign up today and get $200 off registration.