Month: May 2010

Last week I had the chance to attend the official presentation of the Adobe Creative Suite in Barcelona. People from the Adobe headquarters in Spain showcased many of the new features in all Adobe apps, doing live test with sample documents, videos and images. We could see the the amazing effect of content-aware tools in Photoshop, the helpful coding utilities in Dreamweaver and the new online CS Live services.

The new Creative Suite 5 is presented in five different versions: Design Standard, Design Premium, Web Premium, Production Premium and Master Collection – each one of them with different app configurations, aimed at different types of users. CS5 includes 15 updated products, 1 new application (Flash Catalyst), 250 new features and a pack of online services, and it has required 85 million lines of code and 18 months of work.

According to Adobe, the Creative Suite 5 has been developed with two kinds of customers in mind: independent developers and designers, and for the first time, companies. Their purpose with this new CS edition is to remove any creativity boundaries, help you be more productive and accurate, and also make core processes in design and editing easier and faster.

Let’s take a closer look to all the exciting features and enhancements included in the new Creative Suite 5.

Photoshop

Photoshop is undoubtedly the one app that everyone is looking forward to with every new release of Adobe’s Creative Suite. The all new Photoshop CS5 has met all our expectations, including new tools that simplify difficult, repetitive tasks and make photo editing easier for everyone. Some of the new features are an enhanced selection tool (with improved edge definition parameters), the amazing content aware setting in the Healing Brush and the Fill tools, the new Puppet warp functionality, a whole new set of brushes that behave and react like real-life brushes dipped in oil paint, an enhanced Camera Raw module to work with RAW images, and an improved HDR management utility. If you want to see more, don’t miss the preview of Photoshop CS5 we wrote a few weeks ago.

Continue reading “New features in Adobe Creative Suite 5”

The news I’d been waiting for finally turned up this week. During the first quarter of 2010, Android overtook iPhone to reach 2nd place in the US smartphone market, behind Blackberry. To many observers, this will come as no surprise – Android is available on an ever-increasing roster of devices while the iPhone is just… the iPhone. It’s also worth pointing out that new iPhone models are always released in June, so there’s a possibility that this change will be reversed in Q2/Q3 – though how many consumers are aware of this, I’m not sure.

Still, the evidence does seem to suggest that Google’s ‘one platform, many devices‘ strategy might end up making the difference in achieving market dominance for a mobile OS. Both RIM and Apple are dedicated to proprietary, closed platforms, RIM on a line of Blackberry handsets, Apple on effectively a single phone. While it’s tempting to say that perhaps RIM will eventually release Android devices – their OS is so old, it would make sense – I don’t believe that’ll happen any time soon.

What I do believe is that within two years, Android will overtake both Blackberry and iPhone – and, yes, Symbian – to become the world’s dominant mobile phone operating system. In fact, Android will probably claim as much as 50% of the US market. This will be due mainly to Google’s strategy rather than any particular consumer swing towards Android. Though as it approaches 50%, Android will start to feel some customer loyalty and OS awareness, I suspect that like Symbian, many of its users will be completely unaware of its name.

But Google’s catch-all strategy won’t just make Android more popular. It’ll also actively drive users away from iPhone. Why? Because when half the people you know share data, games and more on one platform, that becomes the de facto platform for your social group. iPhone – like Mac – has achieved this sort of dominance in some very influential social sets (like people working for tech companies, in new media and in marketing, advertising and PR) but as the continued dominance of Blackberry indicates, Apple has failed to make serious inroads to become the phone of choice for many professionals in more traditional industries.

Finally – and perhaps most importantly – Apple is not great at constant innovation within one product line. That’s hardly surprising because no single company seems to be able to achieve the ‘permanent revolution’  dream of a continually exciting device. Apple’s history makes its own shortcomings all too clear: the company regularly introduces exciting new products which attract a loyal user base… and then, save for occasional refinements like a faster processor, leaves those devices and moves on to new product lines. In two years, the iPhone will be slightly better than it is now. But it’ll still be an iPhone. And the iPhone, for all its brilliance and all the impact it has had, will be getting old by then. Apple will either have to innovate an entirely new phone device (no, not the iPad) or the iPhone’s user base will grow more slowly and eventually settle. Just like Mac.

If you’ve got World Cup fever and you’ve got an iPhone, then here are 5 top downloads and applications to celebrate the beautiful game and the biggest footballing show on Earth:

Just like the ‘real’ FIFA 10, FIFA 10 for iPhone is a fully licensed simulation that lets you play in competitions from a wide range of World leagues, ranging from the Scottish Premier League to the Brazilian League. There’s also a wide selection of international teams, and you can compete for the ultimate prize, the FIFA World Cup.

While FIFA 10 may have the name and brand, many may find that X2 Football 2009 has the gameplay. This excellent soccer simulation looks and feels a lot like Pro Evolution Soccer, only a little scaled back, of course. The control system in X2 Football 2009 will feel very comfortable and familiar for anyone who has played a football game on their console. Note that you’ll have to upgrade to the full version to play matches.

It’s hard to imagine a mobile version of the game could be anything like as in-depth as the original, but Football Manager Handheld 2010 offers a surprisingly rich management experience. You can take control of a team from a choice of 34 leagues across 11 different countries. You get to set tactics, pick formations, issue team and individual instructions, organize training, scout players and make transfers.

If you’re simply interested in following the real thing, then ESPN 2010 World Cup is one of the best ways of following the World Cup live. The sheer amount of information it offers is staggering. In fact, if you try to read everything on it the World Cup would probably be over by the time you’ve finished. The main screen lets you browse different categories, including: Teams, News, Fixtures, Venues and Tournament History.

If you want something even closer to the action, then how about the Southafrica2010 World Cup Soccer Cup Tracker. SouthAfrica 2010 is specially designed to provide you with moment-by-moment coverage of all the games. The app features something called Gamecast which delivers all the essential and crucial moments during a match as it happens. News is delivered via all four official FIFA RSS feeds so you’ll be the first to know.

As a Spanish native speaker, I find myself often checking lyrics for my favorite songs in English. But even if your mother tongue is English, there are always certain words you don’t quite understand – because the background drums are too loud, or the singer has a strange accent, or they simply made the word up.

Bob Dylan’s handwritten lyrics for It ain’t me babe (oddsock)

Luckily most media players today have a special plug-in, created precisely to search the web and retrieve the lyrics for whatever song you’re currently playing. So if you ever wonder what the heck they’re saying in any specific song, here’s a list of a few lyrics plug-ins you can use with a bunch of popular media players:

• Is Winamp your media player of choice? You should use Lyrics Plugin for Winamp
• For those who use iTunes, here’s iTunes Lyrics Importer
• If you use Windows Media Player, you need Lyrics Plugin for Windows Media Player
• If you prefer Spotify, then you should get ListDJ

Remember the excellent comedy B-movie Tremors? Developers Tom Fulp and Johnny Utah have recreated the killer worm scenario in arcade game form with this great little flash title, Tremerz.

Using the mouse to move your Kevin Bacon-like hero, you’ll run and jump through the frontier style town picking up survivors, who’ll then follow you as you try to avoid the attacking killer worms! Die, and it’s back to the start, which is the only really frustrating thing about Tremorz. Otherwise it’s a fun piece of casual browser gaming. How long can you survive? Find out here.