adobe

In yet another sign that Adobe is quickly getting the "open" message, as Stephen Shankland reports. It's not open source, but it's further momentum on that road within a company that is already displaying a marked propensity to go open.

Think about what happens if Adobe truly moves toward open source. Not necessarily in its consumer-side products today, but in its enterprise business. Here's a company with a tremendously broad reach on the desktop. Adobe could be a huge disruption for the enterprise and the consumer world if it were to extend its reach even further through an open source distribution and development methodology. Lightroom, as noted, is just one more step down this path:… Read more

I guess there's life in them old proprietary software bones yet. At least, there is for Oracle. As "cave men" go, Oracle is evolving very quickly, as Jason Maynard (Credit Suisse) notes:

Some of the key highlights from the call were 21% y/y cash flow growth, a re-acceleration of the technology business to 15% growth, and 46% operating margins in Q4. We think the vertical applications acquisition strategy is proving to be an effective tool to win both new accounts and pull through additional middleware and database products. Oracle appears to be gaining share in the … Read more

Adobe's Digital Editions lets you manage your e-book collection with large icons taken from the book covers, an uncluttered interface, and the ability to create playlist-style "bookshelves." Released for both Windows and Mac, the iTunes-style management might just help make e-books the Next Big Thing.

In this First Look video, take a quick tour of the app from its unusual install process onward.

The Photoshop Lightroom 1.1 update will be available from Adobe Systems' Web site later this week, but the company inadvertently released it for a short period Monday night.

"During the course of delivery testing, the update was publicly available through the Adobe.com store for a short period of time this evening," Lightroom Product Manager Tom Hogarty said in a forum posting Monday night. "The update has been removed from the Adobe.com store and will be reposted, once all of the testing has been completed internally."

Meanwhile, one forum poster who said he found … Read more

Chumby, the snuggly hybrid of stuffed animal and widget device, will be introduced next month to a small group of beta testers willing to shell out $179.95. The device, which has been in private testing for the last 10 months, lets its owners add and access all sorts of Internet-enabled widgets, including weather information, sports scores, horoscopes, and even Flickr slide shows. The team plans to make it available to everyone else later in the year.

According to Chumby's creators, part of the launch delay has been due to the inclusion of video, which required getting Adobe's Flash Lite 3 … Read more

I didn't fully appreciate how much Adobe Photoshop Lightroom changed how I deal with digital photos until I tried the latest version of the regular Photoshop software, CS3.

I shoot raw images almost all the time, and I wanted to try out the new features of Adobe Camera Raw 4.1 that's available only to Photoshop CS3 users. I like its new "clarity" adjustment, and appreciate more control over sharpening, but trying those tools out felt like a trip back to the stone age.

Lightroom isn't perfect, and it doesn't replace regular Photoshop. But … Read more

Someone was certainly following the KISS method when it came to designing Adobe's new electronic book reader, Adobe Digital Editions.

Adobe on Tuesday announced the release of Adobe Digital Editions 1.0 available for free download to Windows and Mac users.

The application provides a very basic and easy-to-navigate interface for storing, sorting, viewing and annotating digital text files along the lines of what Apple's iTunes does for audio and Google's Picasa for pictures.… Read more

Someone was certainly following the KISS method when it came to designing Adobe's new electronic book reader, Adobe Digital Editions.

Adobe on Tuesday announced the release of Adobe Digital Editions 1.0 available for free download to Windows and Mac users.

The application provides a very basic and easy-to-navigate interface for storing, sorting, viewing and annotating digital text files along the lines of what Apple's iTunes does for audio and Google's Picasa for pictures.

The only main difference is that Adobe offers no automatic search and import feature, and does not have a direct portal to the Internet for searching and downloading books.

There are two main views from which to navigate the entire application. The library view lets you manage your collection, while the reading view lets you work within one individual eBook or PDF file.

Adobe Digital Editions is compatible with any PDF or .epub (International Digital Publishing Forum standard) file. Loading files consists of either dragging and dropping them into the application window or choosing "Add File" in the Library menu.

You can view books through Adobe Digital Editions in thumbnail or list view by title, author, publisher, last read, number of pages, date added or status. You can also read any metadata, such as permissions information, attached to a file.

Adobe Digital Edition's "bookshelves" are akin to playlists. You drag and drop files from the general library into bookshelves in a column on the left to categorize books, magazine and other digital documents by genre, type or source.

Books can be viewed in double or single page views of adjustable screen fits.

The simplicity makes sense given the fact that the software is intended to integrate with the Sony Reader.… Read more

Category: Publishing

Adobe's Flash was once shunned in the world of Web design, but it has since grown into a powerful and lightweight platform for delivering video and other media-rich pages to users on multiple computing platforms. Flash has two components, one is the authoring platform for developers, and the other is the Flash player plug-in, which lets users experience the Flash content in their browsers.

One of the most common uses of Flash on the Internet is by video-hosting sites like YouTube. These services encode their videos in Flash formats, and play them in customized video players. Users … Read more