the Creative Cakery

As some of you already know, I have chosen to stop using this account, as the title is seen as negative, regardless as to the fact that it is just a name, Nether the less the new identity is just as bizarre, The Creative Cakery, the cakes being a metaphor for great design, plus it means that I get to make cakes, so win win on my part, and those who also want free cakes from me.

If you like the stuff that I have posted here then check out my new blog, (and new website when the server is finally put right.) Until then the new posts will be on the creative cakery’s blog at: http://thecreativecakery.wordpress.com, or you can just click the banner below.

Termination

This blog was set up a while ago in order to  show who I am as a creative person; which included that of my personal life that I felt was interesting enough to share with the online blogging world, although I am not stopping this I will be moving to a new blog, this will be in keeping with my new design identity and thus the new name will be set up.

A link back to this blog will be posted and I hope that people will continue to read some of my comments and reviews (which have helped the abrupt departure from this alias, due to people not liking my personal reviews.)

The new identity will be released on this blog and will form a static hame page from where you can link to the newer content and hopefully follow.

iStat Menus Version 3

Finally the new update to that handy piece of software is out and this time you, have to pay, so like most people I will stick to version 2 and not get the network working on my new Macbook; or this is what I though when I first heard about iStat now charging; seeing as the pop up has happened a few times since the release of V3 I have thought about upgrading to it, mainly because the network function of this software was the reason for downloading it in the first place only to find that it does not work on my new MacBook, and because I feel that I want to give something to the developers who took time to create this really quite handy and functional software.

If you have paid a lot of money for a new Mac then you already know that you want to look after it, keep it in full working order and if there should be a problem you would want it fixed asap, so with this application you can quickly see if there are any under lying problems that may cause your computer to not be working fully; this could be one of the dual cores not working in hot conditions, a fan over spinning, the disk drive overheating and so on, and I feel that I would rather know what is happening than wait for something major, which can stop my work flow.

-Paid apps, are you kidding?!-

Like most people I love free software, so the recent development to the iStat menu telling me that it is now paid didn’t go down well, as I have been waiting for an update to fix the network problem on my new MacBook. Alas the update came with a price, this time literally, the software is now 10USD for a single license and it gives a new cleaner, and easier to use interface which compliments a lot of their other work, seeing as they are developers for the iPhone and Mac, I told myself over and over agin that the update was not that important but I couldn’t hold out, so I went ahead and brought the upgrade.

The upgrade is as nice as I thought it would be plus extra, the interface is really easy to use and very nice to look at, not that is a reason to spend money on this app, along with helping out the developers I feel that this was money well spent, I now get tech support, updates till a new major update i assume, or they could be really nice and give updates forever now that I have paid for it, either way I now have the upgrade and I love it.

If you need the update to get the network working on your Mac then I would highly recommend this to you without hesitation, so go to the preferences menu, click ‘check for update’ > get it now > install > buy > be happy , Easy.

If you have never even tried the free version up till now, then your missing out (assuming that you like to know whats happening with your mac, which I do, seeing as it costs rather a lot to not notice that the heat sink might be overheating), so www [dot] it over to: Bjango

While you wait, check out these screenshots:

CS5 64-Bit???

I have just installed the trial for this new piece of kit, and being curious I decided to have a look in activity monitor to see what was happening in the background only to find out that the only program out of the 5 main programs running in Intel 64-bit was Photoshop, all of the other programs were still in the 32-bit seen in the previous versions. Now either I have heard wrong and Photoshop is the ONLY 64-bit program or there is something not right at Adobe.

{update} or possibly because this is a trial they have only shown PS in 64-Bit to illustrate the difference between the software, before the final release; if so I do not remember them making this clear, and if I was right to believe that they ‘Could’ Be duping the consumer by selling the products as 64-bit, while only giving them PS in this format.

To Buy or Not to Buy CS5

Firstly id like to say that I had been very sceptical about the newest release of the Creative Suite as it hasn’t been that long since I brought CS4, which for me was a brilliant upgrade from 3 and 3million times better than 2, all of which I have brought, I know, mental for a student right…

I have been following the updates of the software and I decided to follow the live event that introduces it; and within minutes I was very impressed by some of the new features that not only allow you to be quicker but allow you to do more, with ease. Now I haven’t actually tried it yet and thus can’t tell for sure that it will be a lot better but the trial will be downloaded as soon as and test run before the official launch.

-To Buy-

Photoshop with a very quick and easy to use 3D features that can be a great stepping stone if you don’t know 3D design, or cannot learn it.

Photoshop with intelligent background input, where you can take a normal image, crop out an element but have PS fill in the now empty space with actual background that wasnt present on the file.

Illustrator that allows you to align dashed strokes to corners.

Illustrator that allows you to control the weight of a specific point of a stroke.

InDesign that gives you multiple sized pages in the same file.

InDesign that gives you multiple media with in the program and with present animations that are straight from the code of Flash.

Flash Catalyst is a new program which I have trialed before, the ease of design with all the functionality of coders.

Native 64-bit architecture, which improves the overall performance of the software on most new-ish machines. (which run 64-bit and have sufficient hardware capabilities)

-Not to Buy-

A lot of the new features are really good and could come in handy overall; but with the price increase and the features being very minor for me are the pros better than these cons?…

The price increase is not by a little, but by a fairly big amount; CS2 cost me £180, CS3 cost me £235, CS4 cost me £225, CS5 is £336, so is it worth the increase of a cool one hundred?…possibly!

The features are, and will be very good, but I somewhat feel that they would be novelty rather than productive, I don’t use Photoshop that much to take advantage of the new features, I don’t even edit my photos in Photoshop, I use the impressive features of Aperture 3 for minor colour adjustments. Most of the new features with in the 2 main programs that I use are minor compared to the expense, different size pages in ID is a great, while the stroke options are fantastic, I have only needed this function on 2 occasions where I over come them by creating a new document with ease.

Also I do know Dreamweaver but since working in a Web Development agency I have begun to use the phenomenal power of the Visual Studio Collection from Microsoft, namely Visual Web Developer 2008 Express (as it was free.)

-Verdict-

If the features work well, and the speed is actually improved on my computers (as all current tests are only averages by a select amount of, slightly, biased companies) I can see a real incentive to upgrade once again. But I will not make my final verdict till I have installed the trials and tested them out for myself.