Computer Woes: Everything Back to Normal?

Okay, tip number one: if you have a job deadline, and you need a complete overhaul to your (brand new) computer before you can do it, do not have too much to drink at dinner before you get started. Tip number two: do not continue to drink while you're working!

Yes, there was some revelry at dinner (and cards) with friends we hadn't seen in a month. And yes I really needed to get this work done when I got home. Why cocktails at home too then? Because the work I was doing was so freakin' mind-numbingly frustrating. Still a bad idea, because I can't adequately remember the details of the work I was doing to know if I got it 100% right! What I did manage, even operating at 25% brain capacity:

- Refresh of Windows 8, allegedly without disturbing my files, but wiping out installed applications
- Reinstall of sign software (the most important thing on my computer, for my home office)
- Reinstall of CorelDraw Graphics Suite (the next most important thing)
- Reinstall of AOL 9.7 (because it's just how I work, all right?)

But things still weren't ready to go, because the computer would not recognize my USB dongle for the graphics program. And, the external cloud hard drive was inaccessible. So, since my deadline loomed for a work project, I logged in on The Other Half's computer (my old computer), where I'd wisely kept everything intact under my user identity. It's the very first time I've found the separate computer user accounts even remotely worth the effort. But, I found, the move from one room to the other (literally only one room away) was just too much for the iomega/Lenovo cloud drive, which refused access! OHMYGOD! It's supposed to be accessible from anywhere in the world (so long as you send an evite and download their cumbersome software on the receiving computer). No dice.

SIGN MAKERS: If you're trying to install an older version of Gerber Omega Composer (like my 2.6.1), ignore warnings that it isn't compatible, and when it says it can't find the dongle? Try unplugging it and replugging it, and try again. If that doesn't work, try reinstalling the Sentinel driver, and--same deal--unplug and replug as necessary. I've done this three times now, twice on this computer and once on my mom's to test the program. Once you are successful, it seems to "stick," and remembers where the dongle is. Or, pony up the $1000 for an upgrade to the new version. Though I'm not sure Gerber has certified its compatibility either.

So--moderately hung over--I had to solve that problem, achieved by going around the Lenovo software, and directly through the network via Windows Explorer. Mapped the cloud drive, and all is right with the world, or at least in The Other Half's office, and I got my work done. Afterwards, I had little interest in working on computers any more, but really kind of had to. I don't need a deadline in front of me again, without being ready. So, back to my office, and. . .

- I re-setup Windows 8.1, because Microsoft didn't offer me a choice. Once you've got it, you've apparently got it for good. This is okay though, because faced with 8 after having 8.1 is weird.
- I got the computer to recognize the sign software (Gerber Composer 2.6.1, and older version that does work with Windows 8 if you futz around with it), with the dongle
- I had the exact same issue with the cloud drive as on my old computer, so once again did an end-run via Windows Explorer, and map the drive that way (screw you, Lenovo!)
- I reimported all of my personal settings for the graphics software, for Internet Explorer, set up my computer to be my computer, something I'd done only two weeks before
- I'm now rebuilding my documents, music and other files, which went away. Though I know I refreshed using the option that allegedly doesn't damage your files, I sure can't find 'em, not even with Windows fancy new search tool

Here's where I'd like to ask a general question of my readers about music stored on a PC. From one PC to the next, I've built my music library, cobbled from here and there, copying the whole thing to the next newer PC. Along the way, I eventually ripped all of my CDs to the computer, and of course downloaded a bunch of music through Amazon, and through the library.

On every computer, at any given time, I'd notice that songs would disappear. She's So Unusual by Cyndi Lauper may be missing track 1 (track 1 always seems the most susceptible), 3, 4 and 9. If I have multiple albums by the same artist, it would always seem that at least some of them would be missing tracks. And the collection seems to get more Swiss-cheesy over time. Does anyone know why this happens? I can't be the only one it happens to.

And that has been my life the last week or so. I've destroyed my brain cells (and I don't mean just with alcohol!), ignored other facets of life, and been fairly unpleasant to be around. All while sticking to my Atkins Diet and exercise program! And I still have some work to do. But I have to say, I'm very nearly to a place where I'm happy with my PC purchase, and closer to actually liking Windows 8.1.

Funny thing, though. The initial thing that lead to all of these problems--trying to fix my AOL mail to properly display headers--still doesn't display headers. And since they briefly worked with the refresh of Windows 8, but not after the refresh of 8.1? I think we've found the culprit.

First Mac Lesson Successful

Okay, first off, I wasn't trying to shoot the moon here. I thought that the best first test of my newish MacBook Pro was to make something that would be quick and easy for me on the PC with CorelDRAW.

Jinx in her favorite Christmas present.

So, I thought, why not LOLCats? Basically, all that is involved in that sort of graphic is a picture with text on top. You find a picture of a cat first. I had this one from my own cat under the Christmas tree.

Okay, that'll do. But what should it say?

"I CAN HAS BOX"

"WOT? DIS AINT DA BED U BOT ME?"

"TANKS FER XMUS PRESINT. JERBULLZ WUZ DELISHUS!"

"WOT? I'Z NOT TU FAT FER DIS BOX!"

Okay, you get the idea. A suitably pidgin English phrase wuz was all I needed.

Now, in CorelDRAW, I'd just paste the picture on the pasteboard, after copying from its location (in this case, Facebook). Will that work in Illustrator?

Picture pasted copying it from the internet and posting
onto the pasteboard in Adobe Illustrator CS5.

As it turns out, yes! In my previous Mac, such an action would have returned an error message. But it works in Adobe Illustrator CS5. Cool

Next, I had to type my message. Then, select the text and pick a font, in this case "Impact" will foot the bill. Then, assign an outline, and color the letters white. This is what most LOLCat pictures look like after all.

But I ran into a small problem. And to understand what it is, you sort have had to deal with vector graphics yourself.

The outline, when applied and thickened up tends to obscure the letter faces. As you can see in the next picture.

Yucky outline. Howz I ficks?

See, not too pretty, is it. In CorelDRAW, I would simply have applied the "behind fill" command, and possibly "scale with image," in case I wanted to change the size of the text, but keep the outline proportional. This is second-nature stuff to me in Corel, and even in Gerber Omega Composer, my sign software at work. But not so, at least as far as I can find in Illustrator.

No matter. I've worked with enough files from Mac artists to know that they cheat in their drawings to achieve the same effects that I apply the correct way! So, I simply copied the text, pasted in place--which I had to figure out how to do!--and removed the outline from the newly pasted text. Voila!

Voila!

Now, before you jump on me, I'm completely aware that this is a super-duper simple exercise, particularly for experienced Illustrator artists. In Corel, I could do the job in under three minutes, no problem. And in truth, it probably only took twice that long in Illustrator for me. But it goes to show you that you can apply knowledge from one program to a similar but different one. It will take more study to find out if "behind fill" and "scale with image" are features within Illustrator, and I just don't (yet) know where they are.

I will say that I much prefer the Corel/PC interface, having used it for so long. I love the dynamic toolbar in Corel, that puts all of your tools' variables in one simple toolbar, and changes them, depending upon which tool you're using. It's invaluable. It also may have a doppelgänger in Illustrator, and I just haven't found it.

For now, this satisfies my "must learn on the Mac" New Year's resolution, at least for today. Tomorrow, I'll try something a little more challenging. For now? I'z done. Now I can has cheezburger.

Incidentally, this operation would have taken an interminable amount of time on my old PowerBook. With the MacBook Pro, I was running iTunes (Adele's 21), PhotoShop, Adobe Illustrator and Safari, all at once, and toggling between them. There was no performance lag, no "spinning beach ball of death." It works. So I can say without reservation that 2011's four-year-old Mac is a much more useable than 2009's five-year-old Mac! Don't buy a PowerBook on eBay under any circumstances (I can say this now that mine sold!).

Mac Update: My Struggles with "Switching" Continue (Take 3)

I've never had this happen before. I've written essentially the same post twice before, and both times had all of it simply vanish.  The post itself may not even be worth the effort, but having narrowed down the problem (a website that apparently doesn't want their images used, attributed or not), I'm going to give it a shot anyhow.

In my ongoing effort to teach myself the Mac OS X Leopard operating system and Adobe CS3 graphics suite, I've tried to teach myself something new every week by creating something.  So, when I needed some street signs for a blog post, I forced myself to sit at my Mac rather than my PC. Using CorelDRAW X3 on my PC, I could complete the job in just a few minutes.  All I needed was two rectangles with radiused corners, some white text, and a nice faux green reflective background. Throw in a soft drop shadow, and voila! Child's play.

Image from Corel.com.
Note the absense of clutter.

I found the project much more vexing with Adobe Illustrator on the Mac platform.  My one-off job took me an hour and a half as opposed to 5-10 minutes.  Part of the problem is just the clutter and distraction offered with the Adobe suite. I've loathed Adobe products since the old days of PageMaker. I don't like the way anything is displayed, I don't like how "import" is called "place," and I especially don't like the 1,000 palettes covering up what I'm working on. Add this to the Mac showing any open programs through all of the little gaps between palettes, and it all hits me like gibberish.

I couldn't figure much of anything out without the Help menu (which turns out to be pretty awesome).  I find this learning curve to be much steeper than the one I faced 13 years ago, when I had to apply my Corel knowledge to the Gerber Omega/Graphix Advantage Composer sign software.  The sign industry grew up on the PC platform, and I was lucky to have started there too with VP Graphics, and then CorelDRAW 2.  While clunky at first, Composer grew to adopt many similar characteristics of Corel's software.  But with Adobe, I'm a lot more adrift.  The knowledge transfers, but the learning experience is frustrating.

A screenshot of Illustrator on my Mac

But I had an epiphany while trying to write this (three times).  Since Corel allows you to set up CorelDRAW and Photo-Paint to look nearly identical to Adobe Illustrator and PhotoShop, my next lesson is going to be on the PC, but with this feature turned on.  It would be nice if Adobe offered a similar feature, but maybe I'll have an easier time of things if I'm in a familiar program while navigating unfamiliar tools. We'll see.  Meanwhile, my home schooling project is turning out to be a lot more frustrating, and a great deal less fun than I'd hoped.

Mac Update: My Experience Learning PhotoShop CS3

In my ongoing efforts to train myself both on the Mac and with Adobe CS3, I assigned myself a project.  Arising from a discussion on Facebook, I decided to create an image of a good book burning. Naturally, I'd pick books from the likes of Sean Hannity, Laura Schlessinger, Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, Jonah Goldberg, Bill O'Reilly, Karl Rove and the like.  First, I had to find an image of a bonfire:

Then, I needed some images of books.  So far, so good, so easy. Although, I must say, doing this in Corel Photo-Paint X3 (my self-taught image editor of choice) is more intuitive for me.  With Corel, all I have to do when I find an online image is press Ctrl+C to copy it, then in Corel press Ctrl+Shift+N to open the new image.  In PhotoShop, I can't find the "paste new image" feature, so I saved each online image and opened them in PhotoShop.

Next, I had to mask each book to remove its background.  This is something I learned over the years in Corel through trial and error.  While the tools in PhotoShop are similar, I found that it was nowhere near as intuitive, and nowhere near as fast. I'll concede that I did not use tutorials or a "For Dummies" book.  I just tried to figure it out myself, something that has served me well in Corel.  Clearly, I may have to get a "how to" book after all (and man I hate following instructions!).

Next, I had to paste each masked book onto the bonfire, and then size, rotate and skew them to make it look like they're scattered around.  This caused much frustration. In Photo-Paint, selecting, skewing and changing individual pasted objects is child's play. . .simple and easy.  In PhotoShop, I found that I had to navigate menus, palettes, right-clicks and layers.  It was excruciatingly frustrating.  Applying changes vexed me, and I found the only way to easily accomplish the task was to change tools, and wait for the "apply changes?" prompt.

After playing around with all of these images for close to two hours, this is the result I came up with:

Final image, created on Mac PowerBook with PhotoShop
(Click to embiggen)

It's pretty much what I was going for, but looks like what it is: a bunch of pasted books in front of a bonfire.  After all the time I spent, I was disappointed.  And I wanted a better image for the blog.  So, I came into the PC I'm so much more familiar with, opened Corel Photo-Paint, and started from scratch. Well, almost scratch.  I found that I can semi-successfully network the Mac to the PC (it's inconsistent, and does not work as easily as all the "switching to Mac" books say it is), so all of my original images could be imported without looking for them again.

I opened each book image, and the bonfire. In Photo-Paint, I re-masked all the books, pasted them into the bonfire image, rotated, skewed and sized them.  I brushed out some of the edges of the book to let the background peek through. I added flames with the image sprayer tool.  In short, I got a much better, much more realistic image, and I completed it in about 15 minutes!

Final image created in Corel Photo-Paint on my PC
(Click to embiggen)

Now, I'm not saying that either image is a masterpiece. My intent wasn't for extreme photo-realism, just basically a political cartoon.  I spend enough time on the computer as it is, and most of my created-for-blog images are quickies.  But so far, this process is so much easier and faster on my PC, I can already tell that teaching myself Adobe CS3 on the Mac is going to be an arduous slog.

Screen Shot of Mac Desktop During Project

Part of the problem is the whole layout of each program, and the fact that I've gotten so used to the Microsoft Windows way of doing things. That, and the fact that Corel has such dynamic, easy-to-use tools.  In Corel, every tool you pick opens a dynamic toolbar, with all settings available at your fingertips.  Adobe uses palettes (which Corel has if you want them, but they dock nicely to the edge of the screen, and stay out of your way), which litter the screen, and distract my eye.  Also, Windows programs can be zoomed to full-screen, blotting out all other open programs.  Each program can take sole focus, acting as a container for only what you're working on.  On the Macintosh, windows overlap, with no containing boundary.  So, if you have a web browser open, it is visible under all of your Adobe palettes, your open image window, everything.

Windows 7 Sceen Shot During Project

This clutter hurts my brain, and frustrates me no end. I'm sure there are second-nature cures for much of this (if you're a seasoned Mac user), but making all of that go away is not intuitive.  And I'll bet there isn't a Mac setting to put a containing window behind all of those palettes.  If you look at my two screen shots here, you can see an example of the clutter on the Mac, and the nice, open, clean workspace on the PC.  But it goes beyond that really.  What I want is a feature that Corel has had for years.  If you're an Adobe user crossing over to Corel, you can quickly change the layout to emulate Adobe, lickety-split.  The whole layout changes to look just like you were using PhotoShop (or Illustrator, if you're using CorelDraw).  Adobe could give the Corel-using artist an enormous leg up by returning the favor.

So, my self tutelage continues. It is clear that I'm going to need to get some lesson-teaching books if I don't want to go crazy.  But that in itself is gonna drive me nuts.  I'm too many years along to be learning my ABCs and 123s.  Imagine wanting to learn algebra, but being forced to start with 1st-grade addition and subtraction, and working your way up.  Ugh.  This is not as fun as I thought it would be.

Microsoft Windows in Danger of Collapse?

Say it ain't so! I've been--if not a fan--a constant user of Microsoft Windows since shortly before it went mainstream. I started with Windows 3.0, which was needed to run the Aldus PageMaker and CorelDRAW! programs. It still had to be loaded in tandem with Microsoft DOS in those days. Windows didn't really get wind in its sails until version 3.1.

All the while, I learned how it worked, what to tweak, and how to customize it and live with its limitations (and work around them). Shiny, sparkly Mac products came and went, and yet I was never tempted. Then Windows Vista appeared, and for some reason, I never adopted it. At work, we depend upon our proprietary sign-making hardware, and with 12 computers, upgrading is expensive and a pain in the butt.

The boss got a new notebook computer which came with Vista, and we also got one at home. It isn't all that different, but I haven't sussed it out like earlier versions. I've even split the difference on my desktop computers at home and work by applying Vista "lookalike" software. So everything looks pretty much the same.

Anyway, lots like me didn't make the switch--or worse, made the switch and hated it, even sometimes reverting to XP. Is it too late for Microsoft to fix their mistakes?

[Excerpt]

Gartner Warns Of Windows Collapse, Says Change Needed

A controversial analysis by Gartner looks into Microsoft's Vista woesIts no secret that Windows Vista wasn't the resounding success that Microsoft hoped for. While Microsoft managed to push decent sales, it failed to surpass Windows XP's success and received a largely critical reception from the press. Microsoft is taking the situation seriously, and is pushing aggressively to replace Vista, with Windows 7 in 2010, hoping for better luck.

Read more at: Daily Tech

Software I Can't Wait For: CorelDRAW X4

Photo from Corel.com

I work in the sign industry, which means I work on a PC platform. This is counter-intuitive to most graphics people, who tend to favor Macs. The reason for this is that sign making machines, once they fully embraced the computer age, opted for the PC. While it may be theoretically possible to operate some of the machines with a Mac, it would certainly take away from the Mac's alleged ease-of-use.

This all worked out for me, because I've been using PC software for graphics almost since such programs were made available. I've used CorelDRAW since version 2. Add to that the fact that I'm a bit Mac-phobic (not scared of them, just dislike them), and also have a profound distaste for Corel's main competitor, Adobe. So I'm kind of excited by a new release from Corel.

One feature that Corel has had for a long time--and one that Adobe lacks--is the ability to set the interface to look almost exactly like the competition. So if you find yourself in front of CorelDRAW, and you are trained on Adobe Illustrator, in a few quick clicks you can be in familiar territory. The only chance Adobe has at ever converting me is to return the favor.

If you're curious about what CorelDRAW X4 (the 14th release) has to offer, here's a preview.

[Excerpt]

CorelDraw Graphics Suite X4

CorelDraw is often regarded by designers as a Creative Suite for marketing departments, but this hasn’t stopped Corel pitching it as much at creative professionals as those who create media as only part of their job. The Graphics Suite X4 bundle combines vector artwork design, page layout and image editing in a single package that costs around a third of Adobe’s equivalent package. . .

Read more at: Digital Arts