Posts Tagged ‘cs4’

Sometimes it’s harder to act busy than to be busy

Saturday, August 29th, 2009

Yes, it’s been six weeks since my last installment in this exercise.  Bad blogger! Bad Blogger!  But I have been keeping busy and creative, obsessing about getting the new website up before Labor Day.  So here’s how I overcame my “creative deprivation” that I described in my last post:

Adobe CS4 would not re-install on my computer and Adobe tech support had abandoned me…completely.  My only option if I wanted to get back to work was this: buy a new computer.  I could scarcely afford a new machine in this economy, but I was left with no choice.  And that’s what I did.  Got up and running in the typical 10 days that it takes to get all the little apps to fire as desired, and then I got back to work.  This is a disposable society on so many levels.

Finishing the website has been a learning curve of the steepest order.  Flash is a bitter mistress, often the source of great confusion resulting in utter humiliation.  I persevered, I suppose, by accepting my ignorance and compromising on some of the bells and whistles.  Plain and simple: I am not a coder and find the whole affair to be repugnant.  But I do much admire those who can deal with it.  Geeks have created a language that runs everything in the world, and only geeks can understand it.  So what does that tell you about who is really in charge around here.

Okay, a lightweight post, but enough for now.

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Posted in all posts, general musings, just for fun, projects | 1 Comment »

Creative deprivation

Thursday, July 9th, 2009

eyeThis has not been a fun experiment. And it certainly has not been voluntary.  For more than a week I have been without my precious suite of Adobe software.  No photoshop or illustrator, no flash or dreamweaver, none of the other buggy but vital tools for creation and expression…and livelihood.  It’s really starting to freak me out!

ham1oWith the loss of just this one major component (as opposed to the whole system), I find my brain turning lethargic and unfocused, my eyes groping for icons that are no longer there, my finger perched on the touchpad, craving a good path, a new layer, an artful dodge and burn. I’m not kidding.

I feel the need to point out — above the fold –  that this is Adobe’s doing.  The internet teems with stories of CS4’s many challenges.  It’s a bear to install and, in my case, many components simply stopped working or disappeared.  I downloaded updates which would not install.  I consulted a litany of forums and help sites.  Finally, I uninstalled and now cannot re-install.  Tech support has been of little help, escalating the case several times with no follow-up.  No one there will help, although everyone is very pleasant about it.

I’ll also say that I have long considered the suite — especially photoshop — to be THE most awesome program I have ever encountered or even heard of.  And I’ve been using it for 15 years, almost daily.  It’s proven a priceless creative partner.

Up until ten days ago I had been working on my new website, leaping from photoshop to flash, dancing between illustrator to dreamweaver.  The flourishing array of programs were making real whatever my head could imagine.  Even with the many bugs, I could find workarounds, getting both sides of my brain to swoop in like avenging angels.  Then the bugs became too much, infecting too many links in the chain, slowly killing my partner, my friend.

And so I said goodbye to my friend, sort of forcing my it into a coma so that it might be reborn on the other side of an install and a half dozen reboots.  But my friend hasn’t emerged from its coma, apparently because there are still too many tiny toxins in the code and silicon to make it safe for my friend to yet rejoin this world.  Until those are eradicated, it seems, my friend is a piracy concern to its great overlord, Adobe Systems.

I miss my friend, but while I wait and wait to welcome it home, I am finding new means of expression, or rather old.  My friend’s absence has prompted me finally to blog with greater consistency.  The written word I cherish more than almost anything.  And so while one friend lies lifeless on a hard-spun disk in a plastic pouch, my dearest friend, the written word, is flowing from my fingers again out into the ether.

Godspeed, dear words!  Get well soon, CS4.

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Posted in about, all posts, general musings, just for fun, state of the industry | 3 Comments »

Especially heavy call volume

Wednesday, July 8th, 2009

What gave people bitter fits of frustration before technology and tech support came along?  Probably things like the weather, ornery farm animals, their children.

Here’s the thing: Day 7 without a vital suite of products working on my computer.  That’s frustrating enough, scouring the internet for fixes, trying them, failing, tweaking container proxies and failing in a whole different way.  There are tons of sites that address the very issues I am facing, so I know I am not alone.  Cold comfort.

Let’s contact the company which is headquartered five miles from my house.  In the old days I could have probably taken my $2400 set of software to HQ and had someone get under the hood.  They might have even offered a tour, a chicken dinner, some compassion.  Those days are long gone, and I’m pretty sure the security force is wise to such schemes.  After all, who wants to get THAT close to their customers?

Instead, I am talking to people 12,000 miles away.  We’ve done a lot of talking lately, all instigated by me.  Over the course of this past week, the issue has been escalated numerous times with promises of a call-back within 24-48 hours.  Those windows have passed repeatedly, without a peep.  So I call back and the issue is escalated again.  I went from level 1 to level 2, and today I skipped right up to level 5.  No matter how high it goes, no one is actually helping me.  We customers are such pesky creatures.

Whatever the problem is, they assure me, it is not with their products.  It’s with my system or some other widg or gadg residing within.  Ah, the last refuge of a tech support scoundrel.  They boast that “thousands of people use our products without any trouble.”  The second-to-last refuge: blame the customer.

So I ask: If you make such great products, how come the pre-recorded message warns of “especially heavy call volume”?  Are people calling to say how smoothly their software is running?  That they are amazed at how well it plays with the tick-plagued OS? When can I pay you another few grand for the new not-ready-for-market upgrade?

Of course, such lousy support is not isolated to this company.  There are plenty of companies with deplorable customer service in defense of their buggy products.

Speaking of buggies, I bet those could be pretty frustrating things to make work.

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Posted in all posts, general musings, state of the industry | No Comments »