Author: Nick Hodge

Into that goodnight, GoLive?

A part of the Acrobat 8 launch today, Creative Suite Premium is getting a revamp.

And not just with Acrobat 8. Goodbye GoLive, hello Dreamweaver 8.

GoLive Systems, a small Hamburg Mac-only developer, was purchased by Adobe before the dotcom boom. Sadly, it might have been the boom’s first casualty as it languished behind Dreamweaver.

No surprises here.

Forms are the key to Acrobat 8.0 Professional

As I am no longer “inside the Adobe-loop”, I found out about the announcement courtesy of Robert Scoble’s post. Of all people!

My first question: where is the beta of the Reader? With Acrobat 7.0, the beta Reader shipped very close to the announce. Also, Intel Mac users; I am assuming its Universal binary, as the system requirements clearly mention “Intel” processors. There are still too many Windows-only features for a denizen and poster-child for cross-platformness (read Forms Designer).

OK, onto the good stuff. Forms are the bane of everyone’s existence. Even lawyers.

Every paper form that I have to fill out I cringe. Purposely, I filled in the last Census online.

All forms should be online/digital/electronic.

They should be smart, and know who I am. There have been some attempts at getting browsers to remember data.

They don’t have to match printed forms; if a physical (or wet) signature is required: I should be able to just print + sign. Smarter forms will let me fill in online and submit online or via email. Securely.

Adobe Acrobat 8.0 Professional:

Enable advanced features in Adobe Reader

Enable anyone using free Adobe Reader software to participate in document reviews, fill and save electronic forms offline, and digitally sign documents.

If you are small organisation, and just want to collect data quickly, it looks like Acrobat 8 (Professional) is going to help out. The Datasheet has a footnote “For ad-hoc forms distribution and data collection for up to 500 people”

One of the most frustrating, and therefore commented on missing abilities has been for people to be able send out forms, and have anyone with the free Reader fill it in, and send it back. Previously, the only mechanism has been to purchase a big block of code called “Adobe LiveCycle Reader Extension Server“

This lead to all sort of hocus-pocus Javascript libraries, and server-hackeries. Thankfully, software is making it simpler. Like it should be.

I note with interest that guys at PlanetPDF.com in Melbourne has missed this one as at 6:30pm AEST.

Vista RC1 OK on Parallels 1896.2 (and Acrobat 8)

Watching the Parallels web site, I noted that the engineers had posted some more info, and a later build. 1896.2 I don’t know what the .2 means; probably that .1 wasn’t quite right.

Waiting for a better video driver (to use up the 256Mb of the MacBook Pro, without resorting to Boot Camp)

Anyway:

Vista RC1

Is Vista RC1 build 5600 installed and launched OK. Office 2003 installed perfectly on RC1; now I am hunting down an installer for Office 2007. Dontcha just love software?

Beta Technical Refresh 2 on Beta 2 on Release Candidate 1 on build 2 of Release Candidate 2 on MacOS 10.4.7. Schwarzwaelder Kirschtorte.

Speaking of cakes, Acrobat 8.0 is announced. I don’t have Acrobat 8 in any form, so I cannot add the cherries.

Watching the Language Wars

Today, at least in the US, it is Programmer’s Day.

Maybe it should be called “International Programming Language Peace Day“. The level of advocacy for various programming languages reaches rhetorical heights last seen during the one of the not-so-successful 18th century revolutions.

When not speaking to humans, other programmers to reading the latest advocacy on their language of choice: programmers stitch together the wild thoughts of others to munge data into information.

Programmers are the people who use computer languages, in their various forms, to get computers to do cool things. From blikenlights to cool online maps: there are a pyramid of programmers responsible for your computer experience. A programmer is behind the “ding” in the lift you used this morning; and the software that validated your ticket on the bus ride to work.

The beauty of computer languages is that they never seem to stagnate: like modern, spoken languages: they evolve as the world changes. Except those that are abandonware.

Microsoft has recently released my current favourite programming language, Python, as a CLR/.net language: IronPython. This implements Python as a dynamic language on the CLR engine.

C# is the language of implementation for CLR, as is Sun’s Java is for the JVM. A# (Ada), B#, D# F# (OCaml), G# (Generative language), J# (Jsharp), P# (Prolog), L#. More sharps than Beethoven.

The language wars has returned to an old field: dynamic languages. The grand-daddy of dynamic languages, LISP, has received some recent positive PR. One person, Paul Graham, is the poster millionaire for LISP. Lazarus of LISP.

This week, Sun Microsystems parried Microsoft’s IronPython by hiring the team behind JRuby. The aim here is to implement the Ruby dynamic language on the Java Virtual Machine (JVM). Some months ago, this team was able to get a Ruby on Rails working on the JVM.

Whilst the big language guys battle it out, is Erlang the next Ruby, or is it just a viking proto-language with the best non-pun name? The Erlang community is starting to come out of their telephone exchanges.

No language has deemed to have arrived in the 21st Century until there is a web framework written around it. C# is ASP.NET, Python has Dyango, Ruby has Rails, Erlang has Jaws, Scheme has Magic… and so it goes on.

This broken thing called Javascript that has been reborn with AJAX, and is receiving daily blood transfusions of new features.

All of these languages just remind me of my personal alltime favourite language love of my life: Hypercard’s HyperTalk. As Hypercard is no longer sold, and “Classic MacOS” is a battle to get going on my MacBook Pro – sadly it is a language as useful as Cornish.

So, for a short period of time it is back to one of HyperTalk’s children: Applescript. Basketweaving for the mind.

Google Inside your Business

Google and Intuit have announced a major partnership. Along with the Google Maps changes this week where an organisation can advertise at a location – the world of web applications and deeper connection between the desktop and information – is at hand.

It would be extremely unlikely in the near-term that a web-based accounting application for small businesses would fly – as financial information is the holy-of-holies for business. One can just imagine the privacy watchers having a field day arguing against sensitive numbers being scattered through the tubes.

In my mind, being more connected with this information aids the flow of business. The less paperwork in the world is a good thing. But my mind is a not a safe place for ideas such as this.

Back onto Intuit: recently, Australian retailers such as OfficeWorks and City Software have been advertising Quicken for AU$0.00 (after $99 cash back). Everyone in marketing knows that there is never a 100% redemption on these cash back offers; but still the numbers seemed “odd” to me – didn’t add up to being beneficial to Intuit at all. If the redemption rate drifted above 70% (that is, 70% of purchasers sent in their Intuit coupon, the each unit sold would cost more than they received in revenue in direct costs)

There are secondary revenue opportunities: post-sales support agreements and the ability to direct-mail market future upgrades to the users who have redeemed their cash-back.

With the Google announcement, it all falls into place: the revenue is either from support agreements you would purchase to help you determine whether something is an asset or a expense. The second revenue source is online, in-your-face, in context advertising.

Accountants and bookkeepers the world over are now going to see multiple advertisements whilst sending out the day’s invoices.

As the world of pure-in browser applications moves to richer client applications, the new revenue stream open to smaller developers is enticing.

Getting marketing people into the application as an advertising “platform” is the challenge. Interesting world.

Rorohiko ImpositionCompanion for InDesign CS, CS2

The Lightning Brain ImpositionCompanion Plug-In helps to overcome some limitations of InBooklet SE, which doesn’t impose correctly when a document contains objects that overlap two or more pages. The Lightning Brain ImpositionCompanion Plug-In unlinks text threads and splits objects which overlap two or more pages. This allows the page order to be changed without problems.