Showing posts with label resources. Show all posts
Showing posts with label resources. Show all posts

31 May 2010

[design] I Like Windows 7 - But I Still Prefer Mac OS X. Here's Why.

2425.Just like a lot of people trained in design, I love Apple. And the previous post where I solicited public comment on the idea of using a Mac Mini as my design center made me think about why I was so set on staying Mac.

I love Apple.

Well, let me qualify that a bit.

I like the company. Jobs sometimes leaves me with that "uh-oh" feeling. But I love Mac OS X.

I've had a foot in both the Mac and PC worlds almost ever since I owned a computer. I've known friends who swore by their Macintoshes while we were piecing together Windows machines before we could finally own a Mac. I've seen and used Windows 7 and I've got to say that, within the Windows paradigm, all the upgood press you've heard about it is dead on the money: Win 7 looks good, works good, and is the most well-behaved Windows yet.

But, given my choice I'll stick with the X.

Why?

One word: Darwin. Another word: architecture.

Installing applications in X is a breeze and, even though the under-the-hood works has changed since the days of the earlier Macintosh OS's, the basics are still the same: for most applications, uninstalling still remains a matter of simply dragging the file to the trash.

I've just never been able to do that in Windows, even Win 7. And what dependencies there are are pretty easy to find. I don't need a "wizard" to install or uninstall a lot of things. That's simplicity because I can see what's going on. DLL? What's that?

The organization of the file system makes a great deal more sense to me. It's more intuitive. I also know Unix ... not as a pure power user, but enough of a power end-user that if I need to find something, I can break open Terminal and go looking. To me, the command shell of DOS is was always like a kind of poor-mans Unix, that doesn't quite work the way it ought to. Unix command line cryptic? I took one look at DOS Power Shell and my eyes instantly glazed over. And, unlike Windows, since Darwin is a flavor of Unix, it has a bunch of nifty and useful things installed that I'm well familiar with – vi, ftp, rlogin, ssh, all sorts of stuff that I learned to use effectively a long time back.

So, it's my hat's off to Win 7. It is indeed everything they're selling it as. But I'll stick with the X, because the X makes a whole lot more sense, and I feel a lot less lost in the Darwin environment.

It just works ... for me.

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19 May 2010

[design] Free Scripts To Help Adobe InDesign Deal With MSWord Files

2415.Here's some free niftyness that I stumbled on today, via CreativePro.com: four scripts that will help you deal with text formatting in imported MSWord files, which is pretty much the bulk of the files you'll be importing and styling and which, even I can say, will occasionally give you unforgivable pains in da tuchas ...

These scripts help you correctly apply styles without having to bother with overrides, deal with GREP and export character styles. They also help you apply nested styles and turn GREP styles to character styles.

And a bonus free nifty free thing! I just found this out, but a membership to InDesign Secrets, a very good resource site to keep as one of the tools in your online toolkit, is now free! I just signed up and since there's no such thing as too much good quality free advice about InDesign, I think everyone should.

Just go to http://indesignsecrets.com and click on the Become A Member! link on the upper right below the search box. They'll send you a registration code … put the code number in the box and you're home, son!

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06 May 2010

[design] Escape From Illustration Island

2405.Here's a great site I just stumbled on to.

Local illustrator Thomas James is one of those creative professionals that I think our chosen professions would die out without, because without such people we'd all feel completely isolated and alone. They don't believe the illustration or design world is a pie with only a limited amount of pieces to give out, but that you increase what's out there by sharing what you know.

His omnibus site is Escape From Illustration Island. It's the sort of site where he encourages community and shares what he knows about what's cool and what helps you go 'round to get 'round. He helps you fuel your passion.

I'm still getting to know and going round the site, but it sure looks good. It's quite inspiring and even though this might not be the most read blog around, if you stumble this way, I recommend it.

The amount of stuff requires more of a review than I have time to give it. The quality, however, is a high standard, and if nothing else, the sentiment is a winning one: No illustrator is an island, and he wants to help you build a bridge off yours.

How can you not accept a hand like that?

Also, these go into my links basket.

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