Archive for April, 2005
Adobe kills Macromedia
Tuesday, April 19th, 2005Wired: Adobe Acquires Macromedia
Today is a day of mourning; mourning the loss of my second favorite company (Macromedia) to Adobe. Adobe rightly conceded the new media market because Macromedia sold products that interoperated with everyone (PHP? JSP? ASP? ColdFusion? Dreamweaver does them all), encouraged strict adherence to W3C standards (GoLive makes real web designers cry), and made rich media less about the constraints and more about the possibilities of the medium. Macromedia’s greatest strength was its focus: every geek and art tool to make interactive media work. Adobe failed at new media (GoLive, LiveMotion), made a laughable attempt at 3D (Dimension, Atmosphere), and continues to fail at being Apple (Final Cut (originally a Macromedia product) beats Premier, DVD Studio Pro beats Encore, Logic beats Audition, Shake and Motion beat After Effects, etc.). Adobe only brings blurred vision to Macromedia.
Adobe has become more and more Windows-only the last few years, while Macromedia has been committed to Mac OS X. I cannot even express my excitement when Macromedia bloggers solicited feedback on certifying ColdFusion for use on Mac OS X Server. (For the record, ColdFusion already runs nicely on Mac OS X.)
Adobe is the only benefitting member of this new relationship. I hope that Adobe will be smart enough to kill it remaining competing products in favor of Macromedia’s. As for the future of my beloved MX Suite, my crystal ball is blurry. I predict Flash will gain Photoshop layer style support for huge-ass exports and SVG support because no one uses it. I see Flash Paper disappearing and PDF forms arising from ColdFusion. One can only hope that Adobe does not distract the ColdFusion team and force them to make it run on Microsoft .Net.
Dub Weekend
Tuesday, April 19th, 2005The EVVY Awards accepted submissions last week and, well, the entries just don’t duplicate and FedEx themselves to all of the industry-recognized judges.
Emersonians submitted a record 592 entries for consideration. This was the second year The EVVY Awards used an online submission system. And who was at the center of its insanity (and by insanity, I mean development)? Yeah, you know it was me. While my PHP programming was perfect, logistical issues that could not be planned for resulted in my editing the MySQL database directly. This meant that I was up for three days on call when EVVYs people did not accept entries correctly.
Thankfully, it’s over! I celebrated Monday with friends in the gorgeous Boston spring weather. More so, Emerson did not have classes because Monday is a holiday in Massachusetts and the Boston Marathon prohibits any productivity downtown.
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Saturday, April 16th, 2005A lot of people awake. Oh wait, it’s 11:00.
–Arthur looking at my buddy list as Dub Night turned into Dub Weekend.
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Friday, April 15th, 2005Aristotle says you’re wrong. [...] Aristotle would say you’re a wimp but that you can become the just man by practicing justice.
— Professor Baeten
Emerson Arbitration
Thursday, April 14th, 2005
“Boycott Class April 13-14, Arbitrate Now”, organized by Boston Common facing Emerson students in the Little Building
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Thursday, April 14th, 2005I have to teach modernism because it’s the major art movement for your generation. Post-modernism is then either a progressive growth or sick step-child.
— Professor Shattuc, Media Criticism & Theory
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Launch Date
Tuesday, April 12th, 2005Apple finally announced Tiger! I admit with no shame that I spent over an hour this morning reading the entire Mac OS X.4 “Tiger” site. I am particularly interested in XGrid and Maya rendering. I hope someone develops a more eloquent solution once XGrid and Tiger reach the masses.
I cannot wait to wear my AtAT shirt and stand in line to enter the Apple Store for hours on release night with friends (like last time and last time).
Circle Editing
Thursday, April 7th, 2005It’s 3 AM. Arthur is editing a reel of his cinematography from Cambodia for The EVVY Awards. Keto is editing her MA202 first video project. I’m editing street interviews regarding wealth class and taste for my Visual Society class. Three pairs of headphones. Three Macs. All you can hear are many mouse clicks using Final Cut Pro. Bliss.
Blog Design Updates
Wednesday, April 6th, 2005Three of my blogging buddies redesigned their blogs recently.
- Adam Nolley sports a pretty PNG-24 transparent layer and nifty entry columns.
- Bryan Schwegler now appears in many shades of subtle blues and tabs, making Martha Stewart very happy.
- Ryan Harne gives gray more contrast.
These new designs naturally made me jealous, so I updated Curiously Jeremiah with much improved menus, “sand bagged” corners, better integration with WordPress 1.5, and better entry layout. More tiny changs are on the way.
Liberals LOVE Regulating Freedom
Monday, April 4th, 2005San Francisco May Regulate Blogging
Just when you thought the Federal Election Commission had it out for the blogosphere, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors took it up a notch and announced yesterday that it will soon vote on a city ordinance that would require local bloggers to register with the city Ethics Commission and report all blog-related costs that exceed $1,000 in the aggregate.
Blogs that mention candidates for local office that receive more than 500 hits will be forced to pay a registration fee and will be subject to website traffic audits, according to Chad Jacobs, a San Francisco City Attorney.
San Francisco’s governing bodies hate America’s freedoms. In addition to housing the most overturned court circuit in the country, the city now wants to regulate your freedom of speech. Note to self: don’t move there.
