If you skipped Macromedia Dreamweaver 8, have an Intel Mac or Photoshop CS3, then this might be worth upgrading to. Otherwise, the ugly new icon is the most noticeable new feature. They want you to open your wallet far too wide for this upgrade, if you ask me.
There seems to be a theme today…
What is it with Adobe.com? I tell it to remember me as a registered user, and it never does. It’s not as if cookies aren’t set — it shows “welcome, ” and then my account ID. It knows me. But if I click on “Your Account”, it asks me to sign in. How stupid is that? It wastes my time, every time. They’re important, and I’m not. Not a great way to treat customers.
Normally, the way these things work, is that once you log-in to a site, you can close the window and come back later without having to log in again — as long as you don’t quit the browser. Not with Adobe.com. It forgets every time.
And what’s up with those horrid drop-down menus? Are they trying to trigger an epileptic seizure?
Of course, this is how it works in Safari on Mac OS X. No doubt it works just fine in Firefox, or IE7, or IE6, or some other browser I don’t use (when not testing web sites). But Adobe ships their products for Mac OS X, and their web site should work in the default web browser for Mac OS X. Period. It’s not as if their site navigation is some minor feature on their site…
That’s enough ranting for today. Stay tuned for a look at my experience with Dreamweaver CS3 (aka DW9).
Well, I got my order through. Took Adobe four hours. Not so cool, really.
Downloaded the software. Took nearly an hour, but that’s not unexpected. (It was 1.5 GB…)
Then I installed the Dreamweaver CS3 updrade (from Studio 8/Dreamweaver 8). It took quite a while to install.
Then it asked for my CS3 serial number. No problem.
Then it asked for my upgrade-qualifying Dreamweaver serial number — because it couldn’t find one at the default location. Well, DW8 is sitting right there, /Applications/Macromedia Dreamweaver 8/Dreamweaver 8, big as life and twice as ugly.
So I fish my DW8 serial number out of my records. It won’t accept it.
I launch DW8, type the number on the “about” screen (which matches the one in my records) by hand. No dice.
I go to Adobe.com, log in, lookup my old Macromedia order info. Copy the DW8 serial number. Paste it into DW CS3’s field. Still no joy.
All three numbers match. This is too much.
After 10 minutes listening to the worst muzak ever, Hershey comes on the line. She’s very friendly. I walk her through my issue. A few minutes later she gives me a generic DW8 serial number, and bingo! It works. Thank you, Hershey.
And thank you, Adobe, for making me feel like a sucker for paying for my software.
So it’s time to upgrade some Adobe products. No, the reviews haven’t been positively glowing, but I do generally like their products… I’ve been using Adobe and Macromedia’s online stores for as long as they’ve existed, and today’s experience has been my worst to date.
After selecting products, adding them to the cart, and entering finanical vitals, it tells me this:
Thank you for visiting the Adobe Store.
We are currently reviewing your order!
Apparently Nitrozac and Snaggy weren’t far-off with their Mortgage Your Home Edition… This is now a process, not a transaction.
You will receive an email within the next business day confirming the status of your order.
Your credit card will not be charged until your order has been processed.
WTF? I thought this was ecommerce. I give you credit card info, you give me downloads. Now. Not tomorrow. Not later today. Now.
The only waiting should be for the hundreds of megabytes of data I have to download.
As with Microsoft and its Office suite, Adobe needs to realize that it’s competing with free products.
In some cases that means open source (e.g. The GIMP and the many open source Office alternatives). It often means their own software (”is CS2 good enough? Nah. Wait for CS4…”).
When companies like Adobe or Microsoft or Sony make the purchasing experience painful in this way, who do they think they’re hurting?
Link.
All I can add to this, is that I’d rather they ship a solid 10.5 than a 10.5 that makes me wish I’d stuck with 10.4.
Former Pink Floyd front-man Roger (”Which one’s Pink?”) Waters has released a track called Hello (I Love You) as part of the The Last Mimzy soundtrack.
This brings his total song output since 1992’s Amused to Death to seven — eight, if you count the live version of Each Small Candle.
That’s not counting live recordings of earlier works or his opera, ?ɂİa Ira.
Hey, Roger, you really ought to put an album out.
