Although the new version of Fireworks has been in public beta for a while now, I haven't talked much about it here yet. Not because it's not an exciting release, quite the opposite, but only because until a month ago I was basically working 2 full time jobs and since I turned a full time freelancer, I've worked hard at setting up my new business, rebranding its image and getting into my freelance groove. I'll talk about all that later but I'm just saying that I just did not have the time to write anything meaningful about Fireworks CS4. This post is just a start.
Anyone who's read this blog before or had to "endure" some of my long winded tirades about Fireworks's development and direction in the last few years knows that I just haven't been happy at all about a lot of what happened and a lot of the decisions that have been made during the development of the last 3 versions. On one hand, I have been a long time evangelist of the product but, on the other hand, one of its harshests critics as well. That's because I care about it... a lot. Fireworks is one of the reasons I was able to build a nice Web design business for myself on the side while working a full time job in the printing industry. It enabled me to work faster and get ideas into concrete form easier than with any other graphic application I've used before or since. So it has long been a key part of my toolset and now that I do this full time, it's becoming even more important to me.
But there is a lot to be happy about in the new CS4 version. It still misses some long requested features but it has finally started moving in the right direction again and actually made a huge leap forward.
If you do not want to download and install beta software and are not interested in reading lenghty new features descriptions, please just take a few minutes to watch this video on Adobe TV that features Alan Musselman (who is an application architect from the Fireworks team) demonstrating some of the key new features and improvements in Fireworks 4.
It's been a very long time since I've been this excited about a new Fireworks release but this one really is a fantastic and worthwhile upgrade. Beyond the UI changes, most of the new features go to workflow efficiency and ease of use which have been Fireworks' main strenghts from the beginning. With this release, it's really starting to shape up like the creative powerhouse application it was always promised to become. I can't wait to see how much further Fireworks will jump with the CS5 version...
I've been reading a few more comments about Google Chrome last night and this morning and have kept using it for browsing since yesterday. Here's a few more points :
- My comments from yesterday and today take into account that Chrome is a first beta. People have to remember that this is not yet a replacement for anyone's regular browser. Many comments say that it doesn't support extensions like Firefox, IE or Opera (they may call it diffferent things but you get my gist). It also has some annoying rendering bugs that seem to be due to Webkit and misses basic functionality like a way to turn off scripts which is a very good point that a commenter to my previous post brought up. All valid points but remember that this is a FIRST beta. Chrome will evolve.
- I saw a comment today on Jeffrey Zeldman's site that summed up my first impression of it : "At present this seems like a solution waiting for a problem". The more I think about it, the more I think that's true. Did we "really" need a new browser in the market?
- The above ties in with some of Zeldman's comments as well as Tantek Celik who commented on the same post. Both say the same thing which is that, in order to compete, a new browser must offer something that others do not. They then discuss ways a browser may differentiate itself and Tantek brings up the point that, with a similar feature set, a browser may win market share by bringing better performance. So far, this seems to be the main thing Chrome brings to the table. But is it enough?
- While Chrome is certainly much faster than Firefox, even Firefox 3 which improved its prdecessor's very sluggish performance, is it really much faster than Opera 9.5? Not in my experience. On some pages, Opera is actually still faster than Chrome. So again, is it enough?
Like I said yesterday, only time will tell what impact Chrome will have when it reaches gold status and reaches a wider audience outside Web professionals and hard core tech geeks. Will people be willing to swicth? Personally, I have my doubts, especially if Chrome's differentiation factors are not more visible than just speed. That may be enough for some people but most IT departments will probably keep using IE and those who moved to Firefox, Opera or Safari may choose to stay with the devil they know...
I just downloaded and installed Google Chrome after reading the comic book that explains the details of the project. I had been hearing rumors about it last week but I didn't pay much attention to them. In the last couple days there had seemed to be much anticipation (and over-hype) about its release and what it means. I must say I was prepared to be underwhelmed... and, as a Web designer, thinking, who needs yet another new browser to test sites into? But after using it for a little bit, I must admit I like what I see.
My initial hesitation came mostly from the fact that, aside from its search engine technology, I haven't been impressed by much of what Google has released in the past. I don't use GMail and I don't use Google Documents for the same basic reason. So far, I still much prefer desktop applications for email and office type tasks and my communications and organizational activities are pretty much centered in Outlook 2007. It works very well for me and my data is on my own machine where I want it. I never liked Web based email to begin with.
But Chrome is different because it is a desktop application and the foundations and ideas on which it was built are very interesting. As many noted and despite a lot of over-hype (what else is new in the tech world...), Chrome has a lot of things that were already in other browsers. My main browser is Opera 9.5 and I really have not seen any other that is as fast or feature-rich. But Chrome is fast too... damn fast actually, especially with JavaScript and I really like the minimal interface. This is a first beta and can only improve with time. Also, so far all my sites I looked at with Chrome display correctly and pretty much the same as Safari, FF 3 or IE7. Its text rendering seems identical to Safari which is normal since both are based on the WebKit rendering engine.
So, in summary, Google Chrome seems like a solid entry in the crowded browser world and will only get better. But, I would take the premature previsions of some pundits that Chrome will cause the demise of MSIE with a huge grain of salt... Haven't we heard that one before?
Won't tech commentators ever learn that "regular" people are creatures of habit and are unlikely to change browsers just because a new player's in town? Don't they get that Microsoft is entrenched in the business world for the foreseeable future? Those who should be worried by this are the other smaller players IMO, like Opera and Firefox and maybe even Safari which seems to be as entrenched on the Mac as MSIE is on PCs... for now.
Anyway, only time will tell how Chrome will affect the browser wars but it is a good piece of software that brings welcome competition and innovation. And did I say it was fast! I'm writing this blog post in it through TinyMCE now which unfortunately doesn't work in Opera yet. Good going with this one Google!
It's been a week since I signed up on Twitter now and, in spite of my expectaions I must say I'm loving it. There are a lot of very helpful people there and it makes me feel like I'm more part of the community.
As I said before, the experience is made a lot more enjoyable by using a good Twitter client instead on the Web interface. I still use Twhirl which I mentionned in my last post and it works great for me. Seems popular too. But the one thing that is really annoying is the limits Twitter puts on the number of "API requests" such clients make. For some reasons, this number is set to 20/hour these days (usually around 70) so I can't get as frequent updates as I did last week.
Twitter's infrastructure seems quite fragile and is frequently overloaded which is too bad because the service is great and far more useful than I expected (more on that later). So it seems I'm there to stay...
I've started to use jQuery on the current project I'm working on and I really love it so far. It's a lot easier to grasp than I expected and is very lightweight for such a powerful framework.
When the site is done I'll post a link to it. I've used jQuery for tabbed forms, form data manipulation and updating of page text and more. There's one thing I didn't find out how to do with it or if even a plugin exists for it and it's a specific kind of tooltips implementation. jQuery does have tooltip plugins but none I found can easily take the text from ANY element in a page and show it in the tooltip when mousing over another element.
The contents of my tooltips was long and needed to be formatted so I placed it in hidden divs with a class named "descriptions" and those divs are hidden by the script so available as linked references if JS is off. I'm really surpised I couldn't find a similar implementation for jQuery. The tooltips script I used is the one from Walter Zorn. If anyone knows of one that works similarly (needs to load content from any ID'd element on the page) then please share! :-) The one thing I do not like about Zorn's script is that it relies on the onmouseover and onmouseout attributes and I would like to keep the code cleaner.
Fireworks is finally getting some long overdue exposure. A beta of the next CS4 version has been posted on Adobe Labs today. I will blog about this in more details later this week. Long story short is that there is a lot to love in this new version and Fireworks is finally gainning some maturity and sophistication. There are still many areas that need work like, for example, its desperately archaic color management features as well as not having any way to maintain links to external assets (just to name these two) but a LOT of progress has been made in this release...
Check it out !
For the last few weeks, I've been having a lot of issues with my font management software. For a Web or graphic designer, a good font management program is very important so I've been scrambling to find solutions.
I had been using Extensis Suitcase for a long time but the Windows version doesn't have a proper search feature and that is something that can really help when you are looking for fonts for a project. That's why I had been experimenting with other apps. One of those apps was Proxima Software's FontExpert. But the thing is, both have pros and cons and I basically used one for a while and the other for a while then back again. Want examples of things one does well while the other doesn't? here it goes:
Suitcase Pros:
- It is a mature app with a polish that is hard to beat
- It has a very streamlined and easy to use UI
- It comes with automatic font activation plugins for both Illustrator and InDesign and, coupled with is FontSense technology, they work very well.
Suitcase Cons:
- It lacks a search feature in the Windows version
- It is harder on resources than FontExpert as it uses a resident service that start with every Windows boot.
- It's activation process depends on the infamous "Bonjour Service" (more on that later).
FontExpert Pros
- It has a very extensisve feature set that includes tagging and categorizing fonts and searching them.
- It offers access to detailed information for each font.
- It is very light on resources
FontExpert Cons
- Its interface can be confusing, especially its implementation of Groups and Worklists and what each is used for. Suitcase is a lot easier to deal with in that regard.
- Documentation is lacking
- It has an auto activation plugin only for InDesign and the CS3 version is flaky. It was preventing InDesign to load for me so I had to uninstall the plugin.
Up to a few weeks ago, I was using Suitcase because, even without search, its operation was more trouble free and it really worked well with InDesign and Illustrator when I openend a filed that used fonts that were uninstalled. But one day, it stopped loading on Windows startup or manually. After a bit of detective work I realized that the issue was tied to the "Bonjour Service". No matter what I try, I cannot get that stupid service to start and Suitcase depends on it being started to start itself.
I tried downloading the latest version of Bonjour from Apple but that won't start either. I have made no change purposefuly to my machine that could explain this. Maybe some kind of Windows update is preventing Bonjour to start but I have no idea why and no amount of Googling has given me a solution. Extensis are no help.
I had no choice but to uninstall Suitcase and install FontExpert. But I started having problems with that too. Fonts would not display correctly within the app nor within applications using them even if they were activated. They defaulted to a basic sans-serif that looked nothing like the typeface I was using. So I was screwed and I needed to find another font management application. I'm starting a new project these days and it includes the creation of a logo so I need to look at a lot of fonts...
After a bit of research I found Hi-Logic MainType. It looks a bit like FontExpert but more streamlined and its Group features is directly linked to folders on your machine which is a lot closer to how Suitcase worked. All fonts display correctly in it and it has a "filter" feature that helps find fonts based on several criteria and it seems to work quite well. I'll see how it works for me over time.
In the meantime, if any of you that read this blog have experienced problems with the Bonjour Service failing to start or have heard of a solution to that problem then please, post a comment here. Suitcase is not the only app depending on it and I would love to fix this issue on this machine.
An overview of the last year on pixelyzed.com
Now that 2008 is just about to start, I thought it would be a good idea to write a pixelyzed.com style year end review.
There's been a lot of activity in our little world last year as well as in other areas of the software industry. Throughout 2007, I discussed products and technologies that can help our work flows and processes in new ways and my own process has evolved significantly. Now I'll try to summarize some of it and share some of my best finds of the year in several categories. There are some new things in here I didn't discuss before so enjoy!
pixelyzed is growing
Although I still am not a very prolific blogger, Pixelyzed has grown in readership last year and I have made an effort to share my more interesting discoveries as they apply to Web designers and creative professionals. I have also tried to write about more varied topics and I will keep doing so in the new year.
2007 has been a year of growth and change for my career as well. I have tackled a couple of large Web design projects and have started doing sub-contracting work again.
Behind the scenes, I have been working on a new version of my professional site webfocusdesign.com and started marketing locally more aggressively. Once the new version of that site goes up sometime in the next few months, I will intensify these marketing efforts.
Another project I've been working on is my wife's portfolio site as she is a gifted artist- painter. I've gone through a few design iterations and we finally decided to go with a very simplified and uncluttered look. I've looked at dozens of painters and photographers' Web sites and realized that the better ones really put the emphasis on the artist's work and everything else recedes. We also decided to go Flash all the way which means I'll have to re-acquaint myself with it and give myself a quick crash course. If anyone has good advice on good Flash books, I'm all ears. I don't want books that go through the basics but books that teach solid techniques for real world projects and functionality.
The year in software
This is a really quick overview as I will write a separate post dedicated to the year in software to be published later. I must say that 2007 has been a very exciting year for me. Here are a few of the standout products I've been using last year which have been helping me get my job done more efficiently.
The major new software suite release from Adobe... and the first iteration of the integration of existing Adobe products and former Macromedia ones. There was a lot to get excited about here as most products received serious upgrades. Standouts for me include Illustrator and InDesign.
In spite of all our speculation, Fireworks is still alive and got better under Adobe's care. After the extreme disappointment that Fireworks 8 was, Fireworks CS3 was an encouraging release. But Adobe still has a lot of work to do to fulfill Fireworks' early promise as key areas of the application have been neglected for years and still have got no love in CS3. Looking forward to CS4, there are several key areas I'd like to see improve. More in my next post...
Creative Suite 3 is the release that finally and officially marked the death of FreeHand and the official word from Adobe is that FreeHand users should now migrate to Illustrator. This decision leaves a lot of long time FreeHand users who feel that Illustrator is not an adequate replacement in the cold and I feel for them. Removing competition is never good for any industry and this is no exception. More later...
MindManager is my best software find of 2007. It's the application that had the biggest impact on my process and work flow. It is a fantastic knowledge and information management tool that is flexible enough to help through all phases of a Web design projects. I would really encourage every creative professional to at least try it. I will keep sharing tips and ideas on how I use MindManager in my own work through the new year so stay tuned!
The perfect companion to MindManager, JCVGantt can both be use as a standalone application and as an add-in for MindManager. Planning and scheduling projects has always been a hard and tedious task for me. JCVGantt Pro makes it a lot easier and integrates seamlessly with MindManager. It is extremely flexible in how it lets users set resources parameters like working and non-working times and days, hourly and fixed costs and more. It updates the Gantt charts, total costs and the MindManager maps it is tied to in real time as you make changes to resources or tasks. A great discovery for me.
The other piece in my project management and administration puzzle. I've been using Studiometry since mid 2006 to track and keep client and project information, track communications but also as a timer for billable time and then for invoicing. Studiometry does a lot more than that and it got a major upgrade to version 5.0 in 2007. Check it out!
Control information overload and get the latest info from all your favourite Web sites in one place. I've been using FeedDemon to subscribe and read RSS feeds for a while now (since it first came out) and I couldn't live without it. It this age of information overload, it's the main "hub" through which I get industry news and more. It has too many features to go into here but if you use Windows, this is the only feed reader you need to consider...
Vista got a bad rap last year for a variety of reasons but I love it myself. Moving to Vista has brought me little trouble and a real boost in enjoyment and productivity. It'S true that my new computer has the powerful hardware to support it so Vista for me is fast and extremely stable. Much more so in fact than XP ever was for me. A great surprise for me and I can't wait to see the improvements SP1 brings.
The year in music
Many of you know I'm a musician and a music fanatic in general. 2007 was a great year in music for me as well. I'll also post a separate entry on my musical finds of the last year but here's a little taste of my 3 best musical discoveries of 2007. More later...
2007 is the year I discovered satellite radio and more specifically, XM Radio. It is where I discovered several of the artists who's music I fell in love with in 2007. XM Radio has more varied playlists than Sirius and more interesting channels. I carry my radio from the home to my car and the office and I re-discovered the joy of listening to music for hours. I discovered many new talents on XM and I bought more CDs in the last year alone than in the prior 5 because of it. Couldn't live without it now...
My biggest musical crush of the year... on more levels than one ;-). If you never heard of Grace Potter & The Nocturnals, you have to visit their site and listen to some of the samples.
They play great music lead by a phenomenal voice with amazing raw emotional intensity. And Grace is adorable to boot... ;- ) Just give them a listen if you like rootsy but intense rock music based on well above average songwriting. Current stand out songs for me include "Apologies" and "Loose Some Time" (next week it may be two other songs...) both of which are slower numbers but the band also excels at the more intense rockers that fill out the rest of the album and fuel their live shows.
The music press is simply gushing about them and her and the band apparently gives amazing concerts. Don't miss them if they come play in your city. If they ever come play in Montreal, I'll be first in line to see them... In the meantime read this review of one of their recent shows to whet your appetite.
Another young and extremely gifted female songwriter. Higgins is folksier than Potter but just as intense. This Australia native was another XM Radio discovery for me. Not long after hearing her music on XM, my wife and I had the pleasure of seeing her perform on the Australian segment of Live Earth and we were immediately hooked. Great melodies sung with a very noticeable Aussie accent that just adds to the charm of her music. I'm really surprised she does not get more airplay or exposure in North America.
Again, give her music a listen, you'll be glad you did.
The year in learning
One of the more exciting aspects of working in the Web design industry for me is the need to continually learn new things. I have discovered a few great resources last year that I will now share with you.
Some of those resources or sites that may seem pretty basic to those who've been in this business for a while but I like reading about different approaches so I can look at my work from a fresh perspective from time to time. Some of this stuff will be known to you but it may still contain great refreshers.
Less experienced Web designers would be wise to look at some of those resources closely, spend quality time at those sites and absorb some of the wisdom their creators are spreading mostly for free.
Learning keeps your mind young and fresh so, enjoy!
For any designer interested in reading excellent practical articles with great design tips and ideas published on a regular basis, Before & After delivers great value for the money and teaches you how the pros do it and why. Even pros will learn new things and will at the very least be inspired to try new approaches to solve design problems. I know I have.
I've actually been a subscriber for a couple years now but it seems the quality of the articles has kept improving throughout the year. If you subscribe you'll also get access to a number of past issues. Before & After magazine is one of the best of its kind so take a look at the sample PDF's on the site and you'll see what a great value it is.
I discovered this e-book through the feed of the "Web Design From Scratch" Web site created by Ben Hunt. Every working Web designer should probably read it as it is shock full of great tips and advice for creating efficient Web sites that succeed at creating great user experiences.
The book is very well written in that it does not just explain the principles behind Hunt's "Save the Pixel" design philosophy but also provides numerous case studies of Web site re-designs. Each case study shows the original site and explains why it wasn't exactly successful. Then it shows the redesigned version and explains why it works better and why key design decisions were made.
The book would be an excellent resource even for seasoned Web design pros but it should be required reading for all aspiring and new Web designers but especially wannabes who think that what they do is design when they have no real process and just like to make "pretty things" without forethought, planning or direction. Sadly, there are a lot of people like that in our industry vying for the same projects we're pitching for. This book demonstrates very well why real design is a lot more than mere decoration and why every pixel counts when your site tries to communicate a brand or message as clearly as possible. Best $30 I spent all year...
Start creating better, more effective designs too. Get "Save The Pixel" through my affiliate link here.
Ben Hunt's Web site which claims to be "A complete guide to designing web sites that work".
This site is an extensive resource that contains a lot of free content as well as paid stuff like the "Save the Pixel" book discussed above. One of my great finds of the year.
A site I discovered through another site's feed in FeedDemon. IdeasonIdeas touches on a wider variety of subjects than pure design talk. One of the recent discussions centered on the pros and cons of Requests For Proposal or RFPs and started the discussion by stating why they thought they were bad for designers and why.
If you've ever had to deal with such issues (and what designers hasn't) then you know what a pain and a waste of time RFPs can be. Commenters brought up other good points and that is what that blog is about. Great discussions on subjects that matter to communications professionals and brand strategists.
Looking forward to 2008
While I don't like to play the guessing game of predicting the future, we should probably all look ahead to the future now and plan where we'd want this year to take us. Our future is ours to create and imagine so here's a few things I'm looking forward to in 2008.
Continuing growth
I'm planting the seeds of a growing business by re-designing my own professional Web site. We might all benefit from re-visiting our own branding and marketing efforts. As a freelancer it is sometimes more difficult because what we are marketing is our own expertise and our brand is ourselves. I'm looking forward to improving my own marketing skills as this will also benefit my clients.
Waiting for Fireworks CS4
Readers of this blog know how important Fireworks is to my design process. I have been a vocal Fireworks evangelist for years now. As I stated above, I think that Fireworks CS3 was solid transitional release under the new care of Adobe. But Fireworks is not without problems... In my next post which will be about the year 2007 in software, I'll discuss how I now see Fireworks' place in mine and a typical Web designer's arsenal and where I would like it to go next.
2008 on Pixelyzed.com
All in all, 2007 was a great year on many levels for me and for the industry but I feel it was a transitional year. I'm really looking forward to what 2008 brings and hopefully, some of the bigger personal changes I have been planning on for a long time will finally happen. Stay tuned!
Regarding the blog, I don't like to make promises and break them so I will not claim that I will write more often in 2008. All I can promise is that I'll keep working on building my "voice". What I try to share with people here are ideas and resources I feel are worthwhile. What this blog and site will never become is a link whore that simply links to other content with little or no new take on it. If that means I post less often than some other bloggers because I don't spread the latest "meme" without critical thought or commentary then so be it.
I will keep speaking my mind and try to strike conversations on issues that matter to me and which I believe should matter to other design professionals.
Thank you very much to all who follow this site and blog and those who have commented here or sent me e-mail throughout the year. It's good to know people appreciate what I try to share and care enough to comment on it. See you all in 2008!
Famous blogger Robert Scoble has published a very interesting post today about Apple's advertising and brand promise following his experience upgrading his Mac computer with Apple's latest updates. He is making the point that Apple claims the Apple experience is better, that Apple builds better quality computers, various hadware and software than its competitors. So when he reported problems with his upgrade, many apple users flocked to his site to post comments blaming him for his troubles and criticizing him for criticizing Apple's marketing.
I don't usually comment on issues like this but I have seen this kind of wolf pack mentality before as well and I find it disturbing. I don't drink anyone's Kool-Aid and I find those Windows/Mac debates tiresome and irrelevant because my computer is ultimately just a tool to me. Not a social standing object and not a way to try and be cool. Both sides will argue that their camp is the best and you are basically a moron for believeing otherwise. But Mac fanatics just have this extra little bit of zeal, that smug self-righteousness of the "true believer". Not every Mac user is like that of course and many of them see their machines simply as the tools that they really are. But there are those who really buy into the Mac lifestyle thing or the "brand promise" Scoble talks about. Nothing wrong with that if it makes you happy but when any criticism of the Mac marketing hype brings on the flames then maybe these Mac users take their little Apple branded gizmos much too seriously...
They're just computers people, it's not the brand name on them that matters, it's what you create with them!
Following on my two previous posts on the subject of mind mapping (here and here), I have recently found another piece of my "mind mapping for project management" puzzle.
I'm currently developping my project planning and tracking methodology based on mind maps made with MindManager and I am determining both what specific maps I'll use and what are the exact client deliverables I'll create from them. One particular aspect I've often had trouble with is determining a project's schedule. I've now found the perfect tool to help me with this pocess and it is a plugin for MindManager called JCVGantt Pro.
As the name implies, JCVGantt Pro creates Gantt charts which are a staple of project management methodologies. I had never used Gantt charts previously eventhough I knew what they were (my other project tracking application Studiometry has them) but I had never used them before because, for me at least, they were a pain to create directly.
The amazing thing with JCVGantt Pro is that it ties directly into MindManager maps and updates you make in one app are directly reflected into the other. What this means is that, from a specifications map for example, I can separate each item into smaller specific tasks which I can time estimate more easily and create dependencies between them using relationships. When I then sent that to JCV Gantt Pro it creates a timeline for the project as a Gantt chart and I can track tasks as they get done.
But the really great thing I discovered which I didn't know about previously is that, in JCV Gantt Pro and probably in other similar software, I can give each task a "resource". Resources can be anything from specific items like fonts or stock images you need to purchase (whose cost goes towards the project total) but, more importantly in this case, "human resources". The human resource concept is very significant because it defines how much time a "human resource" can devote to tasks within each week and the hourly cost of each "resource". The time per week concept is important for me because I am a one man operation and I can devote only a specific amount of hours each weekday to Web work and slightly more on weekends. What that means is that, not only does JCVGantt Pro calculates the cost of the project based on all the tasks and their allocated resources but it "spreads" the work across the timeline according to the time constraints of each resource.
In short, if a project required 100 hours to complete in total and I could work 40 hours a week on weekdays and not on weekends then it would require 2 1/2 weekes to complete the project. Since, in reality I can only devote about 22 hours a week to Web work (at best) spread on all 7 days of the week, the same project would take me over 4 1/2 weeks to complete and JCVGantt Pro will determine that automatically and draw the Gantt chart accordingly. It even goes further into spreading resources across concurrently running tasks and moving tasks that depend on the completion of previous ones further on the timeline.
I really wish I had discoverd all those incredible tools earlier. Not only do MindManager maps help me keep track of all project specific info in one place but, with the help of JCV Gantt Pro, I can now give clients realistic schedules and get much better cost estimates than ever before. My first project using this new methodology is taking me longer than usual to complete but from that project I will be able to create the map templates I will re-use on every future project..
There is a significant time investment in the learning process in addition to the cost of the software the software for a one man shop like mine but I would really encourage other freelancers and small Web shops to explore similar methodologies if you are not already using them. It's really proving to work very well for me and will remove a lot of the tedium of project management tasks that used to slow down projects for me. Not only that, it will help me create better early clients deliverables (specification documents, creative briefs, proposals/quotations, etc) but it will also help me create better quality projects.
It seems that Adobe is currently quite busy coming up with new useful technology and services. The first one is Share which is currently in Beta on Labs. Share is a service for publishing and sharing documents from anywhere and with whoever you choose. The intersteing thing I see for me is that you could create a repository of documents you would like to share with clients and set permissions so that each client can only get at what concerns them. I've only given Share a quick look but it seems very useful. You sign on with your existing Adobe ID and password.
The second one is even more intriguing for designers and Fireworks enthusiasts. It's a new application that Adobe previewed at Max which will serve as an RIA building tool for designers. Make sure you read this blog entry from Narciso Jaramillo (nj) which answers many questions about Thermo and has links to 3 movies of the MAX presentation of Thermo on YouTube.
Thermo looks like a very promising application that will enable non-developers entry into the world of RIA design and development. Adobe touts it as a great tool for collaboration between designers and developers where both can work on the same project using both Flex Builder and Thermo and not "break" each other's work. Really check out the blog post I linked to above and whatch the movies on YouTube. The Thermo presentation really is impresive.
What I can't wait to see is how the interoperability between Thermo and Fireworks will work becaue, Fireworks still hasbetter design specific tools but Thermo goes a lot further into being a real RIA design tool than the similar embryonic features added to Fireworks CS3 (smart symbols in the Common Library and basic MXML export). What is also unclear to me with the arrival of Thermo is how that side of Fireworks will evolve if at all in future releases. Whatever happens, I would still like to see that side of Fireworks evolve if only to limit wasted effort and and I would also love to see great interoperability between the two apps. Time will tell...
My last post described the process of how I chose a mind mapping application. The introduction to that post briefly described why I thought it could be a valuable tool for idea generation and data organization and explained that I would use it as a project planning and management tool for my Web design and development projects.
Since then I have been reading a lot about project management in both a general way and specifically with the aid of MindManager. It has been an eye opening experience for me and I have been learning a lot. As a freelancer, I didn't necessarily have a very systematic project management process in place although I did have a generalized process I adhered to which included specific "phases". What I lacked is a way to organize and track all the ideas, data, documents and files linked to a project in a clear an efficient manner.
Now that I've started using MindManager in a couple of real life projects, I already see that it's going to become an invaluable tool for me and I've only just scratched the surface of all that it can do so far. I'm trying to find the methodology which is going to work for me and that is going to be an evolving process. A lot of what has been written regarding project management revolves around managing larger teams of people in software development projects. For a freelancing Web designer like me, the process is going to be different but all I've been reading has forced me to re-think my methods and this can only lead to improvements that are going to save me time and effort as well as help me serve my clients better.
Mind mapping is not for eveyone but I haven't been this excited about a new dicovery in a long time. From all I have read, there seems to be two distinct approaches to mind mapping. The inventor of the process, Tony Buzan advocates a very organic type of mind mapping with lots of color, large images and curvy lines. To me, this would quickly become annoying and takes away from the clarity of mind maps. My brain naturally likes a more linear or organized approach and more business oriented applications like MindManager make a lot more sense to me.
In any case, I would advise any creative who like me had some problems dealing with all the data, ideas, concepts we need to deal with to try mind mapping software. It really helps make sense of the clutter and frees your creativity...
In the last few weeks I have been researching and evaluating Mind Mapping software to aid me in the early planning stages as well as structuring of Web site design and re-design projects. I think the concept of Mind Mapping offers a very efficient manner of gathering large amounts of data or ideas quickly then organize it, format it, tag it, transform it into an action-plan, schedule, to do list or re-use it in a multitude of other formats.
If you are intrigued by the idea of Mind Mapping or have been looking for such software yourself, here's some comments on my recent experience and short reviews of the 5 applications that made my short list and why. I've tried several others but I quickly "rejected" them for several reasons and I won't mention them here.
You probably should know right off the start that I am quite new to mind mapping to begin with so my criteria and experience may differ from someone who's been using it for a long time. I also plan to mostly use mind mapping in relation to the planning and management of Web site design and re-design projects. During the course of my evaluation, I've created and re-created a map of a Web site I've been hired to re-design. It's a large Web site with a lot of content as well as llinks to external resources. Re-creating its structure as a mind map has permitted me to identify and note repetition in content, out of date content and links as well as find relationships between elements found in separate sections of the site. It was the perfect project for me to try out mind mapping and I loved it.
The Mind Mapping Process
About the applications I tried themselves, the first thing I have to tell you is that, aside from one exception, it seems you really get what you pay for in the area of mind mapping software because most mind mapping apps only excel one area and are really weak in others. In order to understand what I mean by that you have to know that I divide the process of mind mapping into 3 areas or steps. Not all areas may be as important to you as they were to me. Those area for me include, brainstorming, editing/adding information and exporting.
These 3 areas are explained below:
1- The mind mapping or brainstorming process itself:
At this stage you need an app that gets out of the way and let you add topics and sub-topics (sometimes called ideas, nodes or items) and navigate them with the smallest amount of effort possible. You're trying to get your ideas or data down as quickly as possible without any thought flow interruptions. The best apps let you start a map, then type your main idea/topic directly then hit enter to "finish" it then hit enter again to move to the next "sibling" topic or press Insert (close to Enter on most keyboards) to start a sub-topic then type text again, Enter to finish, Enter or Insert to move on. You would be surprised how many apps complicate this process needlessly. Navigation is done simply using the arrow keys. You should never have to touch the mouse to click in the map or worse still, click a button in the mapping app's UI to add an item. Quick and simple is the key here.
2- Editing and refining the map by adding data and adding formatting:
This is where you add icons, relationships, links (URLs or links to local documents or internal map topics, Web sites, etc), notes or attachments. This is also here where you format the look of specific items to differentiate them from one another and add further hierarchy than the natural topic/sub-topic/sub-sub-topic hierarchy the map contains naturally. This area is where all the mind mapping apps I tried vary the most. The one I chose has the richest set of tools here (and I'm just starting to skim the surface), including named styles you can use to format nodes/topics easily and spread changes automatically to others who have the same style applied. You also need to be able to add notes to further "explain" certain items or ideas further. Not all mind mapping apps offer the ability to add and format notes. You also should be able to change the layout of the entire map. This area is very deep so I'll stop here for now but there's a lot of stuff you can do here to enrich the basic map data and give it more meaning. Some of them even give you the ability to transform an item/topic into a task with start and end dates, icons to denote percentage of completion and more. Several apps excel here but none of those I tried go as deep as the one I chose.
3- Exporting to other formats (for client deliverables like outlines or interactive maps they themselves can play with for example):
This is the area where most mind mapping apps fall very short for me with a couple of exceptions. To me and I may be one of the few thinking this, what's the use of creating a detailed map if you cannot export this data into other useful forms. A simple hierarchical text outline really is something very basic that should be easy to export. Even better is if links, icons and notes are exported along with the outline and basic formatting applied to differentiate all elements. Better yet is tying the outline levels to styles in an existing Word template file directly. Again, only one app goes the extra mile and many do not go past the first step which is a pretty useless simple graphic export (inserted in a Word, Powerpoint or PDF file). Here, you'll here a lot of promises of MS Office integration and what-not. But if, like me, your idea of integration goes further than adding a solid bitmap image copy of your map to a Word or PowerPoint file with no text whatsoever, then many mind mapping apps will disappoint you here. Only 3 apps amongst those I tried offer anything really useful here and all 3 actually go above and beyond in different ways.
The Reviews
So what are all these apps I've kept hinting about. I'll spare you the worst and will only highlight 4 of them and mention a 5th because I think it has great potential and offers much more than mind mapping.
1- In first place and the top of the crop for me is MindManager 7 from Mindjet. It is also unfortunately one of the most expensive of the lot at $349.00 but it's already helping me greatly start a redesign project on the right foot. This one is deep and although it doesn't offer the stunning Flash export of the next second place app, MindJet offers a free reader application you can point your clients to if you want them to interact with the real app and see things the same way you did. Otherwise it can export to Word with a full outline, TOC, full map images and all the data and "metadata" you added to the map. Amazing. It also has 2 flavors of Powerpoint export which I haven't really explored yet. Next is Visio export. As I don't have Visio I cannot comment. Next is MS Project export which ties to the tasks oriented editing I hinted at earlier. I don't have Project either but think Gantt charts and the like. Seems quite powerful. Next still is what seems like great integration with Outlook. Think tasks again, schedules and the like. I don't use Outlook anymore and never did in that way so I cannot say how it does here. PDF export could be better but i goes beyond inserting a simple solid graphic in a PDF file. Think editable text here (it's rarer than you'd think). I'm still learning the app so I'm sure there's much more I could mention. Last point is about the UI. MindManager (like my Honorable mention app below) use a MS Office 2007 "ribbon-like" UI. Not everyone likes this but I use Office 2007 at work and although it took me a few days to get used to it, now love it nd would never go back. MindManager's UI is definitely the most sophisticated of all the apps I tried and it's very uncluttered for an app that offers so many tools at your fingertips. See it here:
http://www.mindjet.com
2- In second place for me is FreeMind... yes the free, open-source mind mapping app. It excels at brainstorming, does an adequate job of formatting and it offers the most incredible and unique interactive Flash export. It also export to a few other special formats like the also open-source ToDoList application. It has good Word export as well but it's been a while since I used that so I cannot remember the level of detail. Drawbacks include some rough areas due to the fact that it's still beta software (0.8.0 is the stable release, latest is 0.9.0 beta 12). Well worth considering. See it here:
http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
3- In third place for me is MindApp from Varatek software. Very inexpensive at $29.95 and very good at steps 1 and 2 (brainstorming and formatting). Where it fell short for me is export. Well worth downloading the trial, especially if you don't foresee needing very detailed exporting into other formats. It was on my short list. See it here:
http://www.mindapp.com
4- In fourth place is The Brain's PersonalBrain. A most intriguing app which I really tried to like more. It may serve someone else's needs better. It is on the expensive side (not far behind MindManager) and doesn't have nearly the same depth in the formatting department. Maybe I would have discovered more had I spend more time with it. Great brainstorming abilities and very good Web export with a data pane at the bottom and interactive map at the top. See it here:
http://www.thebrain.com/
Honorable mention goes to SmartDraw 2008. It doesn't have as seamless brainstorming abilities as the 4 others but it still does a good job of it. It excels at the formatting aspects. It also offers a lot more than mind mapping so, eventhough that's not its core purpose, it's very good value for the money. Great formatting abilities, disappointing exporting. Not exactly cheap either but I'll keep an eye on its growth. Another point against it for me was a very cluttered ribbon-like UI. Much less successful here than MindManager. It sometimes feel more like a big glorified Microsoft Wizard than a drawing application. It may be that it's aimed at business people and I'm a designer used to apps like Fireworks, Illustrator, FreeHand or InDesign. Still well worth trying but you better be quick about it... it only offers a pityful 7 days trial. For an app sold at nearly $300 USD, this is rather cheap IMO. See it here:
http://www.smartdraw.com/
Last topic I'd like to touch is support and user community. Only two of the commercial apps I tried have forums: MindManager and PersonalBrain. FreeMind has a forum on SourceForge where developers seem to be active. I've also tried to contact two companies. One is SmartDraw which I contacted to express how disappointing I though their exporting abilities were (forgot to complain about their ridiculous trial's lenght). I then had a very interesting email conversation with one of their sales rep over the course of 2 or 3 days... even though I was clear I would not buy their product. They seemed open and eager to get user comments and suggestions. Kudos to them for this.
On the other end of the spectrum was MindApp. I wrote them with a couple of pre-sales questions using a form on their site. Never heard back. To me this is unforgivable, even when your product is as inexpensive as theirs is.
Conclusion
I hope my comments in this post will help anyone looking to get into mind mapping. The process of trying out mind mapping apps has definitely sold me on the idea of mind mapping itself. I find that using software to enter and organize ideas and data quickly very freeing. It also creates something tangible and much more malleable than scribbles on a piece of paper. You can come back to your map, refine it, add to it and re-export or re-purpose it in a variety of useful forms (denpending on the app you choose of course). It's also a lot quicker than doing it on paper would be for me.
I love mind mapping now eventhough I'm far from being an expert and can't wait too apply the process to other areas of both my professional and personal lives and see how it can help me further.
I've been wanting to address this issue here for a while now and this morning I got an email from one of my long time readers asking about it. So I decided to write a quick post to illustrate the issue and offer a solution.
The problem: how Fireworks renders certain 1 pixel strokes as a blurred 2 pixels stroke depending on what tool is used to create the shape or path the stroke is applied to or if the shape or path is cut after it has been created. Rotating an object even by 90 degrees can also affect the rendering of the object's stroke or its fill's edge if the object has no stroke. Look at the following image I created a while ago that illustrates the issue.
The grid in the background of that image is a 1px X 1px grid. It looks very large there because I took that screenshot from within Fireworks at 3200% zoom level. What this illustrates is that the actual nodes or anchors on paths can be positioned either exactly at grid lines intersection points or exactly in the middle of a "pixel block". In reality, Fireworks is not limited to those two positions as it can position objects in much finer increments than half pixels on the canvas. The two positions above are the automatic defaults when creating or editing objects with Fireworks' native tools.
The result of the above is that, when a path's anchors or nodes are positionned in the middle of a pixel, then a 1px soft stroke will render normally as a 1 pixel stroke. If you want to see how this works, open Fireworks now and follow these steps:
- Select the regular rectangle tool.
- Set the stroke to black and use the Pencil-Pixel Soft troke type and a size of 1.
- Draw a rectangle on the canvas. The stroke should look likea 1 pixel stroke that is sharp, clean and uniform.
- Switch to the Rounded Rectangle tool and draw another rectangle using the same stroke settings. The stroke will now look like a grey 2 pixels stroke instead of the sharp 1 pixel stroke of the first rectangle.
- Switch back to the black arrow tool and select your first rectangle.
- Swicth to the kife tool and cut its path anywhere. The stroke rendering will instantly change to look like a 2 pixel grey stroke (or a blurry 1px black stroke depending how you look at it...). In any case, it doesn't look like what you set. Notice that the stroke setting is still at 1px Pencil-Pixel Soft so the look of the stroke shouldn't have changed.
According to Adobe, this is normal behavior yet, to me, this is a serious bug. They created a technote you can find here addressing the issue in more detail than I do here but I really believe that Fireworks should be smart enough to do what it needs to do to comply with the stroke settings applied by the user, even when a path is being edited. But as you can see, it doesn't always do so.
There is a solution though but you need to use a third party extension to fix this. Go to this page then download and install Senocular's Transform Panel extension. With it, you'll be able to do what you still cannot do with Fireworks' native tools: size and position objects by sub-pixel increments. Using the Transform Panel.s X and & flields, select the object with the stroke rendering issue and "move" it by a half pixel in one or bothdirection depending on the object (you can enter decimals in those fields which is something you still cannot do in Fireworks' own Property Inspector).
Using the Transform Panel, you can now take control of how Fireworks anti-aliases strokes, fills and even text. Once you start using it you'll never go back to the PI, especially if you start using the included 9 Points Proxy below the x and y fields to size and position objects from reference points other than the default (and only) top and left. I'll write another post specifically about the Transform Panel soon because it has become one of the tools aI used most in Fireworks, supplementing and replacing a native toolset that should have gained similar functionality years ago (IMO). It's a truly fantastic extension that will save you countless time and headaches...
There has been a few threads in the Adobe Fireworks forum recently where some users were having performance issues with Fireworks on Windows machines. Most of the time, their problems can be traced back to their using either Norton or McAfee antivirus software. Both of those are notorious resources hogs that use ungodly amounts of RAM and CPU power and slow down people's computers, even with today's powerful hardware.
I have used both antivirus software in the past and can vouch from experience that they can bring a computer down to its keens in terms of performance. This was several years ago when computers were already much slower than today but it seems not much has changed since then. You would think that both AV software vendors would have improved the well known and documented performance issues with their offerings but it seems that the same problems their users were facing 8 to 10 years ago are still present today. If at least those applications were actually good at what they were created to do (finding and removing viruses) then you might forgive a performance hit but every shootout or test I have read in the last 2 or 3 years shows that they are barely adequate at their primary task.
If you are also having performance issues with Fireworks or any other application and you are using either Norton or McAfee products, I would strongly advise that you re-examine your choice and look for other and better alternatives. After having tried countless antivirus packages and researched the issue thoroughly, I settled on Eset's NOD32 about 3 years ago and I have had no problem whatsoever since then. NOD32 has the smallest resources footprint of all antivirus software but also the best detection and removal track record. It won't slow down your system and will not hinder your email application. It's really well worth the price.
Another very good alternative is AVG AntiVirus wich I ran before NOD32. They also have a free version with most of the pro version's features.
If you are using Norton or McAffee products, you owe it to yourself to try better alternatives and regain your system's power and performance, especially if your regularly use resources intensive graphics applications like Fireworks or any other similar software. Don't just take my word for it, try them...
More Entries
|
|
|
