This 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!
With 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.