adobe

Installing a new version of software should be trivial thing--especially for popular software such as the Adobe Systems' Flash player, which is used by millions of people every day. But no.

For one, the Flash player does not play well with the other kids in the sandbox. That is, trying to remove the currently installed version via the Windows XP Control Panel Add/Remove applet is a waste of time. The first three machines I tried this on resulted in three different outcomes, and the software was not removed on any of the machines. Instead, Adobe has an uninstaller for the Flash player.… Read more

On December 18, give or take,* Adobe Systems released a security bulletin that basically says old versions of the Flash player are buggy as heck (see Flash Player update available to address security vulnerabilities). Specifically, versions 9.0.48.0 and earlier contain nine different bugs that Adobe calls critical. Simply viewing a Web page is all it takes for a bad guy to take control of your computer. This is true on Macs and Linux too. The only way to be safe is to upgrade to the newest version, 9.0.115.0.

These bugs in the Flash player … Read more

In yet another sign that the world's leading software companies are losing their inhibitions around open source, Adobe announced today the launch of the open-source BlazeDS project, high-performance remoting and messaging technology used to "connect back-end data sources to rich Internet applications written with its Flex development tool." This is very cool.

BlazeDS will be made available for free under the Lesser General Public License (LGPL). Adobe will initially hosts the open-source project and next year plans to create a separate site to host BlazeDS and its Flex developer tool which it intends to open source, said Phil Costa, director of product management for Adobe's Platform Business Unit.

The software is not meant to replace other messaging products, such as enterprise service buses, Costa said. Instead, it can get data from messaging software to move data between databases or enterprise applications and Flash clients, he said. … Read more

Adobe Systems on Thursday released the code for messaging software designed to connect back-end data sources to rich Internet applications written with its Flex development tool.

Called BlazeDS, the software is a subset of Adobe's full-featured LiveCycle Data Services ES, which it will continue to sell to its corporate customers.

BlazeDS will be made available for free under the Lesser General Public License (LGPL). Adobe will initially host the open-source project and next year plans to create a separate site to host BlazeDS and its Flex developer tool, which it intends to open-source, said Phil Costa, director of product … Read more

Molly Wood and CNET TV's Insider Secrets takes you through a tripartite of free alternative to Adobe Photoshop. Although Photoshop's a great program, for some users it provides way too much editing power and it's way too expensive. Try one of these freeware substitutes, and also check out our series on building your own Adobe Creative Suite using top-notch freeware applications. Part One; Part Two

Update: I clarified the caption of the illustration to better indicate what editing had gone on to produce the side-by-side images.

Microsoft has taken the beta tag off a plug-in to let Photoshop read and write files in the HD Photo format, which Microsoft is standardizing as JPEG XR.

The free plug-in is available for download for Windows and Mac OS X systems. The plug-ins work on Windows XP and Vista, Mac OS X 10.4 and 10.5, and Photoshop CS2 or CS3, Bill Crow, who's overseen the HD Photo and JPEG XR effort, wrote on his blog … Read more

Dave McAllister over at Adobe is suggesting that the ballot for PDF for Draft International Standard ballots are in, and with 93% apparently in favor, things are looking good for ISO 32000 PDF. Reading through Dave's post, it's clear that this is a much better way to create a true "standard" than what happened with OOXML.

OOXML was a case study in bare-knuckled lobbying. PDF? Not at all.

Now this was a lot of effort to pull together. We did follow a "lobby-free" policy with this effort. We did answer concerns when we were asked to clarify. We did log a few air miles when invited to discuss this in public forums. And we also took the PDF specification 1.7, removed any product dependencies, and created a world class draft standard. ...… Read more

Adobe Systems on Tuesday is expected to announce that it will dramatically cut the price of its server software for streaming video over the Web.

Flash Media Server 3, which is set for release in January, will now come in two versions. Flash Media Streaming Server will cost $995, and Flash Media Interactive Server will cost $4,500.

With the current version, Adobe sells its Media Server for between $4,500 and $45,000.

The company is lowering prices in response to customer requests, said Kevin Towes, product manager for Adobe Media Server. "What we've been hearing is … Read more