Is Adobe staffed by idiots?

[ThePresence]

I've been using (legal!) Adobe products for years, and I'm generally a fan of their programs. After upgrading to Win7 64bit I noticed that my PDF preview icons disappeared in windows explorer. Apparently many people have this problem and so someone wrote a fix of pure win. When he called Adobe to explain to them what THEY did wrong, they tried charging HIM!

I wish I could bill Adobe for my time fixing their mess. The ridiculous thing is that whenever we've tried to officially inform Adobe of bugs in their code (like blindly calling through a null pointer after a failed QueryInterface), bugs which we've found and worked around for ourselves but which may cause problems for other people, they've asked us to pay them for a support contract. WTF? Who is supporting whom here, exactly?

W.T.F?

 

[Bateluer]

Next time, be smart and use open source code from the start.

 

[PingSpike]

Shens, I don't believe anyone could generally be a fan of their programs.

 

[ThePresence]

Shens, I don't believe anyone could generally be a fan of their programs.

And why not? I was a graphic designer and art director, so I used many of their programs. I understand Flash was developed by Macromedia, but it's now an adobe program, and InDesign is world's better than Quark XPress ever was. etc. etc.

 

[xanis]

Shens, I don't believe anyone could generally be a fan of their programs.

I'm a Graphic Designer and my livelihood depends on the Adobe Creative Suite. I don't know if there are even any programs that truly compete with CS (except for maybe GIMP, Quark, etc.), but I find the software powerful and easy to use. Also, it's pretty much the industry standard, so it's not like I really have a choice.

 

[ThePresence]

I'm a Graphic Designer and my livelihood depends on the Adobe Creative Suite. I don't know if there are even any programs that truly compete with CS (except for maybe GIMP, Quark, etc.), but I find the software powerful and easy to use. Also, it's pretty much the industry standard, so it's not like I really have a choice.

Quark doesn't touch InDesign, and it does not have the ability to embed layered files.

 

[PingSpike]

I'm a Graphic Designer and my livelihood depends on the Adobe Creative Suite. I don't know if there are even any programs that truly compete with CS (except for maybe GIMP, Quark, etc.), but I find the software powerful and easy to use. Also, it's pretty much the industry standard, so it's not like I really have a choice.

That's fine, but Acrobat reader should undo any goodwill that CS received! Plus, its not like abobe is giving CS away at bargain prices.

 

[TwiceOver]

Yeah I often wonder what they are smoking when I see the price of Acrobat. Glorified Word at $300+ per seat.

 

[Jeff7]

Next time, be smart and use open source code from the start.

What's a comparable package to Illustrator? I've tried Inkscape, but I don't think the interface isn't nearly as friendly or versatile (no snapping support either?).

I used CS2 for awhile at work, which was ok, but the snapping wasn't too good.
CS4 is better with snapping. But it crashed constantly. From what I read, they attempted to use OpenGL acceleration to speed up some of the processing, but I guess the gerbil that programmed it the OpenGL engine bother trying to debug it. And saving your work frequently didn't help, because the act of saving was something that could trigger a crash. Sometimes clicking Exit would end the program by way of a crash.
Disabling the OpenGL acceleration with a settings file tweak took care of the crashes, but it runs kind of sluggish now.

 

[fatpat268]

I'm not a big fan of adobe either... they really messed up Photoshop (imo).

Honestly, their best photoshop was CS2 and they've been going downhill since.

 

[ThePresence]

What's a comparable package to Illustrator? I've tried Inkscape, but I don't think the interface isn't nearly as friendly or versatile (no snapping support either?).

I used CS2 for awhile at work, which was ok, but the snapping wasn't too good.
CS4 is better with snapping. But it crashed constantly. From what I read, they attempted to use OpenGL acceleration to speed up some of the processing, but I guess the gerbil that programmed it the OpenGL engine bother trying to debug it. And saving your work frequently didn't help, because the act of saving was something that could trigger a crash. Sometimes clicking Exit would end the program by way of a crash.
Disabling the OpenGL acceleration with a settings file tweak took care of the crashes, but it runs kind of sluggish now.

Corel can do some of the vector work Illustrator does, but not nearly at the same level. I have never experienced the crashing issues with CS4. Are you on a Mac or PC?

 

[ThePresence]

I'm not a big fan of adobe either... they really messed up Photoshop (imo).

How so?

 

[Ichinisan]

Answer to title without reading OP:

YES!

Why does your fucking READER need to restart my system for every update? WHAT'S SO DAMN COMPLEX ABOUT A DOCUMENT VIEWER!!?

 

[Jeff7]

Corel can do some of the vector work Illustrator does, but not nearly at the same level. I have never experienced the crashing issues with CS4. Are you on a Mac or PC?

I'm on a WinXP PC.
The guy in the graphics department who uses Illustrator heavily is on a Mac. He gets crashes a lot too. His remedy for it is some kind of snapshot program that saves the system state every minute or so, or something like that. When Illustrator crashes, this other program restores it back to where it was.

And from looking around online, there are quite a few complaints about CS4 being very unstable. Be glad that your installation is working.

 

[manimal]

I always use foxit for my readers but the wife INSISTED I install abode reader on her new laptop...guess what?.....It without ANY prompts installed Mcafee security scan....



WTGDF

 

[zinfamous]

Shens, I don't believe anyone could generally be a fan of their programs.

They own the creative industry, and make some fine fine software.

But it is a whored-up buggy mess, that's for sure.

 

[xanis]

That's fine, but Acrobat reader should undo any goodwill that CS received! Plus, its not like abobe is giving CS away at bargain prices.

Acrobat is an abortion of a program, I'll give you that. I actually don't even remember the last time I used it... any PDFs I read get opened in Preview or in Safari/Chrome's built-in reader.

 

[Cheesetogo]

I always use foxit for my readers but the wife INSISTED I install abode reader on her new laptop...guess what?.....It without ANY prompts installed Mcafee security scan....



WTGDF

I noticed this too. I hate Adobe so much.

 

[manimal]

I noticed this too. I hate Adobe so much.

I dont mind publishers making a few pennies here and there from PROMPTED installs but forcing an install is like raping my computer...


rape I say rape!

 

[lxskllr]

I got McAfee when trying to install their stupid Flash updater. First off, I don't want a standalone program to update your garbage plugin. Second, I couldn't download the updater without checking the McAfee box. The download button wouldn't appear without that box checked. I had to install that crapware, then uninstall it :^S

 

[olds]

I always use foxit for my readers but the wife INSISTED I install abode reader on her new laptop...guess what?.....It without ANY prompts installed Mcafee security scan....



WTGDF

I prefer Foxit Reader. But I print postage at USPS and it requires Adobe Reader.

 

[JD50]

Perfect example of why FOSS > closed source software

 

[Bateluer]

I always use foxit for my readers but the wife INSISTED I install abode reader on her new laptop...guess what?.....It without ANY prompts installed Mcafee security scan....



WTGDF

Yeah, this pissed me off when I updated the Reader version on my work computer. McAfee icon showed up on the desktop after the reboot, I was confused because I didn't remember even seeing the box to uncheck it.

 

[manimal]

Yeah, this pissed me off when I updated the Reader version on my work computer. McAfee icon showed up on the desktop after the reboot, I was confused because I didn't remember even seeing the box to uncheck it.

this is one case where I would advocate second amendment remedies..

 

[Chaotic42]

Obviously, look at their UIs. Next question.