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I received my Photoshop CS package this past week, and was very pleased to see that once again, Adobe was nice enough to include a video training CD from total Training, by Deke McClelland. Deke’s video CD’s are excellent, as are his "Photoshop Bible" books.
First, I want to state that I have the highest regard for Adobe and Photoshop. And, I think that Deke is a great teacher and writer, with lots of great teaching videos and books. But somewhere along the way, some serious goofs were made relative to this latest training CD for CS. The following explains what happened.
I received a rude shock when I went to play the tutorial CD – actually several rude shocks. I’m running a high end XP system, and I’m an advanced user.
1. In the past, all that I had to do was to insert one of Total Training’s CDs, and it would start up immediately. This time, it appears that an "install" is needed (of some sort of a shell utility) in order to play the CD. By itself, this is not a problem, but I can’t fathom why it was now needed.
2. The install went well, and then the CD window came up, and I clicked on a button to start the tutorial. Things progressed, a "loading" message appeared, and then an error message window showed up stating that the program couldn’t find the CD. Why this happened, I couldn’t fathom – after all, my machine just installed the shell program that presumably is needed to run the CD. Trying to cancel out of this window wasn’t easy, but finally I was able to shut down things.
3. I then ejected the CD, and tried again – same results.
4. I took a look at the CD in a file manager, and only three items showed, totalling about 2 MB. So I assumed that for some reason, the main material was "hidden". Changing the viewing options in the file manager did confirm that.
5. I then copied the CD to a folder on one of my hard drives, and tried rerunning the installation from there. The utility installed OK. But, when I went to run the tutorial, I had the same crazy problem as before – telling me to put the CD into the drive.
6. So, I called Adobe, and they referred me to Total Training. I called them, and finally got through to a tech support person. He implied that the CD drive was designated as drive "D" in some of the instructions in the installed utility, which would run the tutorial. He then asked me to confirm that my CD drive was indeed drive "D". I told him it was not. I have a high end setup, and my drives go out to drive "M", and my CD drive is drive "K". I got the feeling that he assumed that all systems had the CD drive as drive "D".
7. When I asked him how to get around the problem, he suggested that I rename my drives to make the CD drive as "D". When tech support people tell me things like this, I normally flip my cork, but I kept my cool. This is similar to tech support perons who tell me that I should reformat my hard drive, and start over to resolve issues where their software has caused some havoc. I learned long ago to not listen to such suggestions.
8. It now seemed that the video tutorial was something I wouldn’t be able to use. But, I decided to try an approach that had worked in the years past on some other problem of a similar nature. I restored the install from the CD drive, and called for the tutorial to "play." Of course the same error message window came up. I then kept hitting the "cancel" button, and after 8 hits, the tutorial started – "amazing, but true", as Russell Brown of Adobe would state.
9. This is a pretty sad way to have to use this CD tutorial.
SO, WHY WAS THE FOLLOWING DONE?
A. Why wasn’t the protocol left just as it was last year for the PS 7 tutorial CD? That worked fine. And why were the main tutorial files given a hidden attribute.
B. If indeed the playing software had the CD drive hard coded in as drive D, it would seem that the programmer who would do that needs some help.
C. And, it seems that Total Training needs better tech support people, when they start telling users to start renaming system drives to work around their problems.
Hopefully someone from Adobe will read this message, and take appropriate action.
Ron Hirsch
First, I want to state that I have the highest regard for Adobe and Photoshop. And, I think that Deke is a great teacher and writer, with lots of great teaching videos and books. But somewhere along the way, some serious goofs were made relative to this latest training CD for CS. The following explains what happened.
I received a rude shock when I went to play the tutorial CD – actually several rude shocks. I’m running a high end XP system, and I’m an advanced user.
1. In the past, all that I had to do was to insert one of Total Training’s CDs, and it would start up immediately. This time, it appears that an "install" is needed (of some sort of a shell utility) in order to play the CD. By itself, this is not a problem, but I can’t fathom why it was now needed.
2. The install went well, and then the CD window came up, and I clicked on a button to start the tutorial. Things progressed, a "loading" message appeared, and then an error message window showed up stating that the program couldn’t find the CD. Why this happened, I couldn’t fathom – after all, my machine just installed the shell program that presumably is needed to run the CD. Trying to cancel out of this window wasn’t easy, but finally I was able to shut down things.
3. I then ejected the CD, and tried again – same results.
4. I took a look at the CD in a file manager, and only three items showed, totalling about 2 MB. So I assumed that for some reason, the main material was "hidden". Changing the viewing options in the file manager did confirm that.
5. I then copied the CD to a folder on one of my hard drives, and tried rerunning the installation from there. The utility installed OK. But, when I went to run the tutorial, I had the same crazy problem as before – telling me to put the CD into the drive.
6. So, I called Adobe, and they referred me to Total Training. I called them, and finally got through to a tech support person. He implied that the CD drive was designated as drive "D" in some of the instructions in the installed utility, which would run the tutorial. He then asked me to confirm that my CD drive was indeed drive "D". I told him it was not. I have a high end setup, and my drives go out to drive "M", and my CD drive is drive "K". I got the feeling that he assumed that all systems had the CD drive as drive "D".
7. When I asked him how to get around the problem, he suggested that I rename my drives to make the CD drive as "D". When tech support people tell me things like this, I normally flip my cork, but I kept my cool. This is similar to tech support perons who tell me that I should reformat my hard drive, and start over to resolve issues where their software has caused some havoc. I learned long ago to not listen to such suggestions.
8. It now seemed that the video tutorial was something I wouldn’t be able to use. But, I decided to try an approach that had worked in the years past on some other problem of a similar nature. I restored the install from the CD drive, and called for the tutorial to "play." Of course the same error message window came up. I then kept hitting the "cancel" button, and after 8 hits, the tutorial started – "amazing, but true", as Russell Brown of Adobe would state.
9. This is a pretty sad way to have to use this CD tutorial.
SO, WHY WAS THE FOLLOWING DONE?
A. Why wasn’t the protocol left just as it was last year for the PS 7 tutorial CD? That worked fine. And why were the main tutorial files given a hidden attribute.
B. If indeed the playing software had the CD drive hard coded in as drive D, it would seem that the programmer who would do that needs some help.
C. And, it seems that Total Training needs better tech support people, when they start telling users to start renaming system drives to work around their problems.
Hopefully someone from Adobe will read this message, and take appropriate action.
Ron Hirsch
MacBook Pro 16” Mockups 🔥
– in 4 materials (clay versions included)
– 12 scenes
– 48 MacBook Pro 16″ mockups
– 6000 x 4500 px
