PHOTODUDE.COM

New Hardware + New Software = Busy + Happy

I’ve had the new computer a little over a month, and I told you it’s Not Your Daddy’s Dell, as well as wrote about loading it up with My Essential Software, 2007. And since then, judging by this site, I went away for a while.

That’s largely because the new hardware was joined with new software … Adobe Creative Suite 3 Web Premium (what a mouthful!). You might recall my concerns from two years ago when the Adobe/Macromedia merger was announced … “the one that really scares me is Photoshop versus Fireworks [...] I’ve been paying for Photoshop upgrades for nine years, and for Fireworks upgrades for six years. I’d like to continue doing both. Please let me.”

None of those fears were realized, in fact, quite the opposite. Fireworks and Photoshop coexist wonderfully, along with Illustrator, Flash, Dreamweaver, and Bridge. I’ve been very impressed with the way all these rather disparate apps have been integrated, and the overall improvements in my workflow. Two years ago, I simply could not see how the merger of these two major competitors could result in “better software,” as it seemed to remove the competitive impetus for innovation. I am very happy to be proven wrong.

And in another case of “the squeaky wheel gets greased,” you might remember me grousing about how Adobe Ate Macromedia’s Manuals when I unexpectedly got no paper manual with my Studio 8 purchase, and the resulting foreign language joke.

As I knew it would, that posting last year caused John Dowdell, longtime Macromedia and now Adobe employee, to show up and see what he could learn. In the end, he asked me how I thought it should be handled next time.

I replied, “As for the issue of the manuals themselves … my advice is bold transparency, with copious options. State clearly on the order page that the manual is in digital form [...] Then, right below that, offer options for printed manuals … $14.95 for the main manual, $6.95 for Appendix A, etc.”

John replied that it “sounds like the right thing to get into the next interface,” and that “the bad experience you suffered might now help others avoid the same hassle in the future.”

And don’t you know I remembered every word of that transaction when I logged in at Adobe to make my upgrade purchase? Lo and behold, when I go to check out, there’s an option plainly listed where I can purchase a tree-based CS3 User Manual for an additional $24. Which I gladly pony up, with a satisfied smile.

So the next time you see me whining on this site, know that it occasionally actually makes a difference, beyond venting steam from my cranium before it blows. And many thanks to John Dowdell and the folks at Adobe for making me feel like such a big chunk of my money was very well spent. And paid to a company that has ears.

You will soon see some of the results of it here, in the form of a new print store, and a refreshed look on this site. In other words, I may be a bit quiet a bit longer as I spend my “spare time” (hah!) trying to get those ready to launch.