Re: Photoshop CS – great upgrade for digital photographers

Rick writes:

They do not have an essential monopoly in their
respective market like MS does …

Actually, they do. There is no effective competitor to Photoshop. Illustrator holds its own quite well, also. InDesign and PageMaker (and FrameMaker, IIRC) are still in competition with Quark XPress. Adobe’s PostScript and PDF have no competition.

—
Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly.

In comp.graphics.apps.photoshop Rick wrote:

"Bill Hilton" wrote in message

(no, I do *not* work for Adobe 🙂

You should.

Unless the market nips this nonsense in the bud, eventually we’ll all be renting our software, or paying per use for it. And that’s exactly what the market appears to be doing.
Two-thirds of Adobe’s customers are saying they either
won’t upgrade to CS, or are switching to different software because of activation.

Egos run very high at Adobe but the fact is they are not Microsoft. They do not have an essential monopoly in their respective market like MS does, and they won’t get away
with shoving activation down the market’s throat like MS did.

Rick

I think that’s a bit extreme. If Adobe keeps its promises the only folks inconvenienced are people like me who tend to chew up hard drives. Sure, I’d like it better if there was no activation. But I’ll upgrade as soon as I get the new machine to avoid the "I’ve got a new hard drive" hassle.

—- Paul J. Gans

"Mxsmanic" wrote in message

Rick writes:

They do not have an essential monopoly in their
respective market like MS does …

Actually, they do. There is no effective competitor to Photoshop.

Among pros, yes. That accounts for 15-20% of Photoshop sales. The other 80 or 85% of the market can and do use other, less expensive products. Adobe does not have anything resembling a monopoly on the market as a whole.

Illustrator holds its own quite well, also. InDesign and PageMaker (and FrameMaker, IIRC) are still in competition with Quark XPress. Adobe’s PostScript and PDF have no competition.

None of those Adobe products have a monopoly or anything close to one, and the latter two are licensed to the point where activation isn’t relevant.

Rick

"Rick" writes:

"Bill Hilton" wrote in message

(no, I do *not* work for Adobe 🙂

You should.

Unless the market nips this nonsense in the bud, eventually we’ll all be renting our software, or paying per use for it. And that’s exactly what the market appears to be doing.
Two-thirds of Adobe’s customers are saying they either
won’t upgrade to CS, or are switching to different software because of activation.

Wow. Who did the research on this?

—
-Stephen H. Westin
Any information or opinions in this message are mine: they do not represent the position of Cornell University or any of its sponsors.

On Mon, 24 Nov 2003 13:25:44 -0800, "Rick" wrote:

Unless the market nips this nonsense in the bud, eventually we’ll all be renting our software, or paying per use for it.

Regardless of how you feel, activation is here and is going to stay. People put up with even more annoying dongles for the longest time. A single quick check into a server to verify that your key isn’t being used by thousands of people is much less intrusive than having to keep a dongle plugged into your USB or parallel port any time you want to use the software, then having to spend another $100 to replace the dongle when it dies after a few years.

And that’s exactly what the market appears to be doing.
Two-thirds of Adobe’s customers are saying they either
won’t upgrade to CS, or are switching to different software because of activation.

Was that actually 2/3 of Adobe’s customers, or 2/3 of Adobe’s users? There’s a big difference since Photoshop is one of the most widely-pirated pieces of software out there. Of course, most pirates won’t upgrade or will switch to different software because they *can’t* activate.

Egos run very high at Adobe but the fact is they are not Microsoft. They do not have an essential monopoly in their respective market like MS does, and they won’t get away
with shoving activation down the market’s throat like MS did.

I don’t have much of a problem with activation. As long as no personally identifiable information is sent, I don’t see why it’s considered intrusive. Software piracy is a major problem and activation is one of the few forms of copy protection that actually works (mostly).

As for renting software, activation does not necessarily mean software rental. They are two completely independent concepts. Activation does make annual licenses easier to enforce, but it isn’t required. There already is software that expires after x number of days or x number of uses.

The only difference is that, without activation, the user just has to roll their clock back. However, for most businesses, that’s an inconvenience that just isn’t worth the money saved by not renewing. Limited use licenses will exist even without activation.

—
Troy

Troy writes:

Regardless of how you feel, activation is here and is going to stay.

It apparently didn’t stay with Intuit.

The problem with this scheme is not the activation itself, but the corruption of the disk drive that the activation system causes.

—
Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly.

On Tue, 25 Nov 2003 01:43:13 +0100, Mxsmanic wrote:

It apparently didn’t stay with Intuit.

Intuit’s activation was different. With their activation, if somebody got a new computer, they could no longer view their taxes. The taxes are in a proprietary format.

With Photoshop, if you don’t re-activate, you can still use another app to view your images.

The problem with this scheme is not the activation itself, but the corruption of the disk drive that the activation system causes.

Activation does not cause disk corruption. The problem is that the activation is tied to a specific physical hard drive. So, when you upgrade your drive, you lose your activation.

If Adobe handles re-activation the way Microsoft does, this isn’t a problem. With MS, you can re-activate x number of times within a certain time frame. If you go over this limit, you just need to talk to somebody on the telephone. As long as 3000 different people aren’t trying to activate a specific key, it’s never a problem.

—
Troy

Rick wrote:

Egos run very high at Adobe but the fact is they are not Microsoft. They do not have an essential monopoly in their respective market like MS does, and they won’t get away
with shoving activation down the market’s throat like MS did.

Unfortunately, at least at the high end, they do have a monopoly.

Fortunately, they haven’t (yet?) encumbered the Mac version with this nonsese, and, well, who cares about Windows anyway?

—
Jeremy |

The figures you quote:
"Two-thirds of Adobe’s customers are saying they either

won’t upgrade to CS, or are switching to different software because of activation."

Sound like pure horseshite to me.
But I can make up "facts too". Here’s one:

Nine tenths of all the people who say Adobe is losing business to other software because of the activation have IQs below 30 – and the other tenth are all at 32.

—
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com
home of The Camera-ist’s Manifesto
The Improved Links Pages are at
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com/links/mlinks00.html
A sample chapter from my novel "Haight-Ashbury" is at http://www.chapelhillnoir.com/writ/hait/hatitl.html
"Rick" wrote in message

"Bill Hilton" wrote in message

(no, I do *not* work for Adobe 🙂

You should.

Unless the market nips this nonsense in the bud, eventually we’ll all be renting our software, or paying per use for it. And that’s exactly what the market appears to be doing.
Two-thirds of Adobe’s customers are saying they either
won’t upgrade to CS, or are switching to different software because of activation.

Egos run very high at Adobe but the fact is they are not Microsoft. They do not have an essential monopoly in their respective market like MS does, and they won’t get away
with shoving activation down the market’s throat like MS did.
Rick

On Mon, 24 Nov 2003 16:16:35 -0800, Troy wrote:

On Mon, 24 Nov 2003 13:25:44 -0800, "Rick" wrote:

Unless the market nips this nonsense in the bud, eventually we’ll all be renting our software, or paying per use for it.

Regardless of how you feel, activation is here and is going to stay. People put up with even more annoying dongles for the longest time. A single quick check into a server to verify that your key isn’t being used by thousands of people is much less intrusive than having to keep a dongle plugged into your USB or parallel port any time you want to use the software, then having to spend another $100 to replace the dongle when it dies after a few years.

And that’s exactly what the market appears to be doing.
Two-thirds of Adobe’s customers are saying they either
won’t upgrade to CS, or are switching to different software because of activation.

Was that actually 2/3 of Adobe’s customers, or 2/3 of Adobe’s users? There’s a big difference since Photoshop is one of the most widely-pirated pieces of software out there. Of course, most pirates won’t upgrade or will switch to different software because they *can’t* activate.

No need to activate if you have the right crack.

"Tony Spadaro" wrote in message

The figures you quote:
"Two-thirds of Adobe’s customers are saying they either

won’t upgrade to CS, or are switching to different software because of activation."

Sound like pure horseshite to me.
But I can make up "facts too". Here’s one:

Tony "ad hominem" Spadaro speaketh again.

http://forums.about.com/ab-graphicssoft/messages?lgnF=y& tid=4599

Rick

Troy writes:

Intuit’s activation was different.

Apparently it used Macrovision technology which has the same problem with corruption of the disk.

Activation does not cause disk corruption.

It does in this case. The activation mechanism writes to reserved disk sectors, corrupting the disk.

—
Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly.

Tony Spadaro wrote:

The figures you quote:
"Two-thirds of Adobe’s customers are saying they either

won’t upgrade to CS, or are switching to different software because of activation."

Sound like pure [expletive] to me.

Rick wrote:

Tony "ad hominem" Spadaro speaketh again.

http://forums.about.com/ab-graphicssoft/messages?lgnF=y& tid=4599

Um, Rick, that is a self-selecting survey, so its results are just about meaningless. The survey does not show that two-thirds of *Adobe’s customers* say they won’t upgrade because of activation, it shows that two-thirds of *the people who voted in the survey* say that. Those people are hardly a random sampling of Adobe’s customers.

Surveys like this are heavily skewed toward people who care enough about the issue to vote. People who aren’t bothered by activation are much less likely to vote in the survey.

You can bet that if two-thirds of Adobe’s customers decided not to upgrade because of activation, Adobe would drop activation like a hot potato. But if you want to convince Adobe of that–or anyone who knows anything about statistics–you’ll need a survey with proper methodology, not a goofball self-selecting survey like this one.

-Mike (not speaking for my employer, Adobe Systems, Inc.)

(no, I do *not* work for Adobe 🙂

You should.

Unless the market nips this nonsense in the bud, eventually we’ll all be renting our software, or paying per use for it. And that’s exactly what the market appears to be doing.
Two-thirds of Adobe’s customers are saying they either
won’t upgrade to CS, or are switching to different software because of activation.

Egos run very high at Adobe but the fact is they are not Microsoft. They do not have an essential monopoly in their respective market like MS does, and they won’t get away
with shoving activation down the market’s throat like MS did.

Rick

I think that’s a bit extreme. If Adobe keeps its promises the only folks inconvenienced are people like me who tend to chew up hard drives. Sure, I’d like it better if there was no activation. But I’ll upgrade as soon as I get the new machine to avoid the "I’ve got a new hard drive" hassle.

you’ve payed for it, there’s your morals taken care of,
now you can just crack the damn thing and never worry
about it again…

On Mon, 24 Nov 2003 16:16:35 -0800, Troy wrote:

On Mon, 24 Nov 2003 13:25:44 -0800, "Rick" wrote:

Unless the market nips this nonsense in the bud, eventually we’ll all be renting our software, or paying per use for it.

Regardless of how you feel, activation is here and is going to stay.

Was that actually 2/3 of Adobe’s customers, or 2/3 of Adobe’s users? There’s a big difference since Photoshop is one of the most widely-pirated pieces of software out there. Of course, most pirates won’t upgrade or will switch to different software because they *can’t* activate.

I don’t have much of a problem with activation. As long as no personally identifiable information is sent, I don’t see why it’s considered intrusive. Software piracy is a major problem and activation is one of the few forms of copy protection that actually works (mostly).
As for renting software, activation does not necessarily mean software rental. They are two completely independent concepts. Activation does make annual licenses easier to enforce, but it isn’t required. There already is software that expires after x number of days or x number of uses.

The only difference is that, without activation, the user just has to roll their clock back. However, for most businesses, that’s an inconvenience that just isn’t worth the money saved by not renewing. Limited use licenses will exist even without activation.

My problem with activation is that my concept of purchasing something is that _I_ purchased it, not 1 or 2 of my computers purchased.

OK, I can install it on my home computer and my laptop, but I have to buy it all over again if I want it on the computer at work or the computer out in my hamshack.

I maintain that I own it, and should be able to use it on any machine I choose to use, whether its my machine or not. You could do this with a dongle.

The fact that a very large percentage of users will not become customers once activation is predominate just shows that activation proponents are _not_ losing all the money they claim they are losing. Whether going through the activation gyration will increase their bottom line or not will be problematical.

For my part, between the $600 plus pricetag and the fact that I’m an amateur photographer who simply owns a really nice digital camera (D1x), I’ll go with gimp, and suffer whatever shortcomings it may have. But if I want to use it on 6 computers, I’ll use it on 6 computers.

Dave Head

"Troy" wrote:

I don’t have much of a problem with activation. As long as no personally identifiable information is sent, I don’t see why it’s considered intrusive. Software piracy is a major problem and activation is one of the few forms of copy protection that actually works (mostly).
As for renting software, activation does not necessarily mean software rental. They are two completely independent concepts. Activation does make annual licenses easier to enforce, but it isn’t required. There already is software that expires after x number of days or x number of uses.

The issue to me isn’t intrusion or privacy, but the fact that the software vendor has their hand around my throat, and can cut off my ability to install (or even use, if they want) the software I have paid for, anytime they like. Everyone buys a new computer every few years, and anyone who thinks this does not amount to ‘renting’ software is being somewhat naive, IMO. At what point will Adobe cease registering the current version, making an upgrade necessary?

There is a legal issue that may not have been tested. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled several years ago that a software purchaser has the RIGHT (not privilege) to make up to two backup copies of any software they buy, no matter what the license agreement says. I am no lawyer, but it might be argued that such a registration process makes it impossible to effectively implement that right, especially if the software vendor were to go out of business, making registration impossible. Any legal minds around? 🙂
—
Judson McClendon (remove zero)
Sun Valley Systems http://sunvaley.com
"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life."

Dave Head wrote in part:

I’ll go with
gimp, and suffer whatever shortcomings it may have. But if I want to use it on 6 computers, I’ll use it on 6 computers.

You’re one of those, eh? Go ahead. Load your little open-source commie pinko terrorist programs on more than one computer, just like a, uh, a hacker! Soon that kind of program will be redefined as criminal in the US.

Sooner than you think, too.

You see, even if these programs aren’t themselves illegal, they encourage dangerous attitudes among the users. Imagine if *everybody* thought they had the right to control their computers as if they were their own property.

Corry

—
It Came From C. L. Smith’s Unclaimed Mysteries.
http://www.unclaimedmysteries.net

Jeremy Nixon …

Rick wrote:

Egos run very high at Adobe but the fact is they are not Microsoft. They do not have an essential monopoly in their respective market like MS does, and they won’t get away
with shoving activation down the market’s throat like MS did.

Unfortunately, at least at the high end, they do have a monopoly.
Fortunately, they haven’t (yet?) encumbered the Mac version with this nonsese, and, well, who cares about Windows anyway?

I’ve just joined the group, and within the next 2 weeks will be buying the Apple G4 17" notebook, along with the Adobe CS Creative Suite. I am a full-time college student earning a certificate in Website Development & Design, and both items are on my main "GITTIM" list. The last version of Photoshop I bought was 5.5, so it’s time for me to upgrade. I find no problem with activation as far as Adobe is concerned – they produce top quality software, and if that is what a person wants, he should be willing to pay the cost to assure the producer he is not working his *** off for nothing.

Tony Spadaro wrote:

Nine tenths of all the people who say Adobe is losing business to other software because of the activation have IQs below 30 – and the other tenth are all at 32.

Not true, I have an IQ of 33. So There!! 🙂

JP

Troy wrote:

Was that actually 2/3 of Adobe’s customers, or 2/3 of Adobe’s users? There’s a big difference since Photoshop is one of the most widely-pirated pieces of software out there. Of course, most pirates won’t upgrade or will switch to different software because they *can’t* activate.

TROY! TROY! TROY! you are going backward without knowing it! the pirates are the ones don’t have to deal with problem because they can by-pass the activation when the ones who pay Adobe are the ones who have to live with all kinda of actication problems.

Dave Head wrote:

For my part, between the $600 plus pricetag and the fact that I’m an amateur photographer who simply owns a really nice digital camera (D1x), I’ll go with gimp, and suffer whatever shortcomings it may have. But if I want to use it on 6 computers, I’ll use it on 6 computers.

Dave Head

I too am not an owner of a studio but like you the owner of digital camera so I wouldn’t have to spend extra money for extra problem. I have been using Photoshop since I got my 3rd scanner many years ago, and Photoshop was a special bundle deal (extra $100 for FULL version) and that was how I got started with Photoshop.

I am the only one using Photoshop and only one computer, but I just want to feel I have full control of what I pay for. The current Photoshop 7 is lot more than what I need, and I only use a very small percent of the what Phtoshop can do.

On Tue, 25 Nov 2003 12:05:16 -0600, (Joe) wrote:

TROY! TROY! TROY! you are going backward without knowing it! the pirates are the ones don’t have to deal with problem because they can by-pass the activation when the ones who pay Adobe are the ones who have to live with all kinda of actication problems.

I was talking more of the casual pirate, not the hard core pirate. I know the activation can be bypassed by those with the knowledge (and guts) to run a crack or a hax0red version of the app.

Activation is not meant to stop those pirates. Pretty much nothing can stop those pirates. I’ve seen many forms of copy protection over the years, from a laser-burnt hole at a specific location on a floppy to dongles to complicated code wheels. In each case, the protection was bypassed by simply modifying the app so it doesn’t look for the protection.

What activation stops is those people who burn a copy at the office or from a friend and take it home. It makes sure that people their Photoshop keys very carefully, since it can only be activated once.

Maybe I should have said "many pirates" instead of "most pirates." However, the fact is that activation does prevent many people from copying a program while still allowing people to easily make legitimate backup copies of the media.

—
Troy

"Michael Geary" wrote:

Tony Spadaro wrote:

The figures you quote:
"Two-thirds of Adobe’s customers are saying they either

won’t upgrade to CS, or are switching to different software because of activation."

Sound like pure [expletive] to me.

Rick wrote:

Tony "ad hominem" Spadaro speaketh again.

http://forums.about.com/ab-graphicssoft/messages?lgnF=y& tid=4599

Um, Rick, that is a self-selecting survey, so its results are just about meaningless. The survey does not show that two-thirds of *Adobe’s customers* say they won’t upgrade because of activation, it shows that two-thirds of *the people who voted in the survey* say that. Those people are hardly a random sampling of Adobe’s customers.

Surveys like this are heavily skewed toward people who care enough about the issue to vote. People who aren’t bothered by activation are much less likely to vote in the survey.

You can bet that if two-thirds of Adobe’s customers decided not to upgrade because of activation, Adobe would drop activation like a hot potato. But if you want to convince Adobe of that–or anyone who knows anything about statistics–you’ll need a survey with proper methodology, not a goofball self-selecting survey like this one.

-Mike (not speaking for my employer, Adobe Systems, Inc.)

Well, you see thing and you don’t believe it then what else you want to see? If you don’t believe the pool then at least you can see what has been going on around the Photoshop newsgroups, can’t you?

Usually there would be lot of talks about the newer features of newer version months before the release… now, almost no talk about the newer feature and most about the activation. I have dropped one Photoshop newsgroup (links to Adobe site I guess) because it had nothing but few hundreds of messages about activation daily, and I saw about 2 users (one was Carol) were so happy with the activation, they just can’t stop expressing their happiness (lot of messages from these 2 users and the activation).

I guess you can speak for your employer now, or at least for your bosses (the ones who pay you) <g>

"Joe" wrote in message

Well, you see thing and you don’t believe it then what else you want to see? If you don’t believe the pool then at least you can see what has been going on around the Photoshop newsgroups, can’t you?
Usually there would be lot of talks about the newer features of newer version months before the release… now, almost no talk about the newer feature and most about the activation. I have dropped one Photoshop newsgroup (links to Adobe site I guess) because it had nothing but few hundreds of messages about activation daily, and I saw about 2 users (one was Carol) were so happy with the activation, they just can’t stop expressing their happiness (lot of messages from these 2 users and the activation).

I guess you can speak for your employer now, or at least for your bosses (the ones who pay you) <g>

Exactly. The talk I’m hearing in the field about CS has very little to do with its new features, it’s all about activation. That’s why the poll showing 2/3 of existing PS owners aren’t planning to upgrade to CS because of activation strikes me as being an accurate (or at least close to accurate) figure.

Rick

From: "Rick"

the poll showing 2/3 of existing PS owners aren’t planning to upgrade to CS because of activation strikes me as being an accurate (or at least close to accurate) figure.

If the poll questionaire was filled out only by registered owners with valid serial numbers then Adobe will have a problem, and they’ll see it in the form of reduced sales.

If the questionaire was filled out largely by disaffected Photoshop "users" who suddenly find it harder to upgrade from their illegal copies then sales won’t be affected at all and Adobe will see that too.

Would be interesting to hear from Adobe as to whether or not the Win upgrade is selling as well as earlier upgrades, and compare it to the percent of Mac upgrades 🙂

Bill

lee belmont writes:

The last version of Photoshop I bought was 5.5, so it’s time for me to upgrade.

Why?

—
Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly.

(Joe) writes:

"Michael Geary" wrote:

<snip>

You can bet that if two-thirds of Adobe’s customers decided not to upgrade because of activation, Adobe would drop activation like a hot potato. But if you want to convince Adobe of that–or anyone who knows anything about statistics–you’ll need a survey with proper methodology, not a goofball self-selecting survey like this one.

-Mike (not speaking for my employer, Adobe Systems, Inc.)

Well, you see thing and you don’t believe it then what else you want to see?

Sales figures? Really, don’t present opinions and feelings as facts. The poll referred to, and the impression of the numbers of complaints in newsgroups, don’t really tell us much.

<snip>

—
-Stephen H. Westin
Any information or opinions in this message are mine: they do not represent the position of Cornell University or any of its sponsors.

Troy wrote in
news::

I was talking more of the casual pirate, not the hard core pirate. I know the activation can be bypassed by those with the knowledge (and guts) to run a crack or a hax0red version of the app.

Activation is not meant to stop those pirates. Pretty much nothing can stop those pirates. I’ve seen many forms of copy protection over the years, from a laser-burnt hole at a specific location on a floppy to dongles to complicated code wheels. In each case, the protection was bypassed by simply modifying the app so it doesn’t look for the protection.

What activation stops is those people who burn a copy at the office or from a friend and take it home. It makes sure that people their Photoshop keys very carefully, since it can only be activated once.
Maybe I should have said "many pirates" instead of "most pirates." However, the fact is that activation does prevent many people from copying a program while still allowing people to easily make legitimate backup copies of the media.

What you are referring to is the casual copier, they can

On 25 Nov 2003 19:12:01 GMT, (Bill Hilton)
wrote:

who
suddenly find it harder to upgrade from their illegal copies

Why should they find it difficult? A quick Google for Photoshop CS cracks turns up 96 000 hits. A blind mans labrador could find one.

On Tue, 25 Nov 2003 17:17:47 GMT, Unclaimed Mysteries
wrote:

Dave Head wrote in part:

I’ll go with
gimp, and suffer whatever shortcomings it may have. But if I want to use it on 6 computers, I’ll use it on 6 computers.

You’re one of those, eh? Go ahead. Load your little open-source commie pinko terrorist programs on more than one computer, just like a, uh, a hacker! Soon that kind of program will be redefined as criminal in the US.
Sooner than you think, too.

You see, even if these programs aren’t themselves illegal, they encourage dangerous attitudes among the users. Imagine if *everybody* thought they had the right to control their computers as if they were their own property.

Corry

Hee hee. I like it!

Hey, I belong to the NRA, too – another "Protect/Expand out rights" kinda organization…

Dave Head

lee belmont wrote:

Jeremy Nixon …

Rick wrote:

Egos run very high at Adobe but the fact is they are not Microsoft. They do not have an essential monopoly in their respective market like MS does, and they won’t get away
with shoving activation down the market’s throat like MS did.

Unfortunately, at least at the high end, they do have a monopoly.
Fortunately, they haven’t (yet?) encumbered the Mac version with this nonsese, and, well, who cares about Windows anyway?

I’ve just joined the group, and within the next 2 weeks will be buying the Apple G4 17" notebook, along with the Adobe CS Creative Suite. I am a full-time college student earning a certificate in Website Development & Design, and both items are on my main "GITTIM" list. The last version of Photoshop I bought was 5.5, so it’s time for me to upgrade. I find no problem with activation as far as Adobe is concerned – they produce top quality software, and if that is what a person wants, he should be willing to pay the cost to assure the producer he is not working his *** off for nothing.

I am aware of many who still use Photoshop 5.5 and though I’m using version 7, I think I liked version 6.5 better and may go back to it.

Nick

Rick wrote:

"Joe" wrote in message

Well, you see thing and you don’t believe it then what else you want to see? If you don’t believe the pool then at least you can see what has been going on around the Photoshop newsgroups, can’t you?
Usually there would be lot of talks about the newer features of newer version months before the release… now, almost no talk about the newer feature and most about the activation. I have dropped one Photoshop newsgroup (links to Adobe site I guess) because it had nothing but few hundreds of messages about activation daily, and I saw about 2 users (one was Carol) were so happy with the activation, they just can’t stop expressing their happiness (lot of messages from these 2 users and the activation).

I guess you can speak for your employer now, or at least for your bosses (the ones who pay you) <g>

Exactly. The talk I’m hearing in the field about CS has very little to do with its new features, it’s all about activation. That’s why the poll showing 2/3 of existing PS owners aren’t planning to upgrade to CS because of activation strikes me as being an accurate (or at least close to accurate) figure.

Rick

Frankly, I have no plans to use CS.

Nick

From: Nick C

though I’m using version 7, I think I liked version 6.5 better and may go back to it.

There was no version 6.5 …

Nick C writes:

I am aware of many who still use Photoshop 5.5 …

I haven’t upgraded that far. I’m still on 5.0.2. Works great.

—
Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly.

If you don’t know the difference between this nonsense and a real poll — you aren’t even one of the 32s.

—
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com
home of The Camera-ist’s Manifesto
The Improved Links Pages are at
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com/links/mlinks00.html
A sample chapter from my novel "Haight-Ashbury" is at http://www.chapelhillnoir.com/writ/hait/hatitl.html
"Rick" wrote in message

"Tony Spadaro" wrote in message

The figures you quote:
"Two-thirds of Adobe’s customers are saying they either

won’t upgrade to CS, or are switching to different software because of activation."

Sound like pure horseshite to me.
But I can make up "facts too". Here’s one:

Tony "ad hominem" Spadaro speaketh again.

http://forums.about.com/ab-graphicssoft/messages?lgnF=y& tid=4599
Rick

Yes I can see what has been going on, and while I think they have a valid point, and don’t like activation either, I think it’s incredably stupid to think a few pissed off cranks are in any way shape manner or form a true sampling of Photoshop users. They are closer to the idiot who posts obscenities on this forum from a pile of different email addresses — noisy, but numerically insignificant.
Since I’m the only person I know in this town who has a LEGAL copy of Photoshop (other than a few people who use it professionally in a couple graphics and print shops) and since I know at least 20 people who have ILLEGAL copies, I have to admit that some form of control is necessary. This particular form strikes me as a lot better thant the "dongle’ of some time back. It ain’t perfect but I’ll accept it — erven though that means I won’t be able to have CS on all 3 of my computers.

—
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com
home of The Camera-ist’s Manifesto
The Improved Links Pages are at
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com/links/mlinks00.html
A sample chapter from my novel "Haight-Ashbury" is at http://www.chapelhillnoir.com/writ/hait/hatitl.html
"Joe" wrote in message
"Michael Geary" wrote:

Tony Spadaro wrote:

The figures you quote:
"Two-thirds of Adobe’s customers are saying they either

won’t upgrade to CS, or are switching to different software because of activation."

Sound like pure [expletive] to me.

Rick wrote:

Tony "ad hominem" Spadaro speaketh again.

http://forums.about.com/ab-graphicssoft/messages?lgnF=y& tid=4599

Um, Rick, that is a self-selecting survey, so its results are just about meaningless. The survey does not show that two-thirds of *Adobe’s

customers*

say they won’t upgrade because of activation, it shows that two-thirds of *the people who voted in the survey* say that. Those people are hardly a random sampling of Adobe’s customers.

Surveys like this are heavily skewed toward people who care enough about

the

issue to vote. People who aren’t bothered by activation are much less

likely

to vote in the survey.

You can bet that if two-thirds of Adobe’s customers decided not to upgrade because of activation, Adobe would drop activation like a hot potato. But

if

you want to convince Adobe of that–or anyone who knows anything about statistics–you’ll need a survey with proper methodology, not a goofball self-selecting survey like this one.

-Mike (not speaking for my employer, Adobe Systems, Inc.)

Well, you see thing and you don’t believe it then what else you want to see? If you don’t believe the pool then at least you can see what has been going on around the Photoshop newsgroups, can’t you?

Usually there would be lot of talks about the newer features of newer version months before the release… now, almost no talk about the newer feature and most about the activation. I have dropped one Photoshop newsgroup (links to Adobe site I guess) because it had nothing but few hundreds of messages about activation daily, and I saw about 2 users (one was Carol) were so happy with the activation, they just can’t stop expressing their happiness (lot of messages from these 2 users and the activation).

I guess you can speak for your employer now, or at least for your bosses (the ones who pay you) <g>

"Tony Spadaro" wrote in message

If you don’t know the difference between this nonsense and a real poll — you aren’t even one of the 32s.

—
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com
home of The Camera-ist’s Manifesto
The Improved Links Pages are at
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com/links/mlinks00.html
A sample chapter from my novel "Haight-Ashbury" is at http://www.chapelhillnoir.com/writ/hait/hatitl.html
"Rick" wrote in message

"Tony Spadaro" wrote in message

The figures you quote:
"Two-thirds of Adobe’s customers are saying they either

won’t upgrade to CS, or are switching to different software because of activation."

Sound like pure horseshite to me.
But I can make up "facts too". Here’s one:

Tony "ad hominem" Spadaro speaketh again.

http://forums.about.com/ab-graphicssoft/messages?lgnF=y& tid=4599
Rick

"Tony Spadaro" wrote in message

If you don’t know the difference between this nonsense and a real poll — you aren’t even one of the 32s.

"Tony Spadaro" wrote in message

The figures you quote:
"Two-thirds of Adobe’s customers are saying they either

won’t upgrade to CS, or are switching to different software because of activation."

Sound like pure horseshite to me.
But I can make up "facts too". Here’s one:

Tony "ad hominem" Spadaro speaketh again.

http://forums.about.com/ab-graphicssoft/messages?lgnF=y& tid=4599

If you have any references to "real" polls I’d love to see them. Until then, the poll I referenced is _not_ nonsense. It was posted by a long-time member of the about.com graphics forum, and the responses are in line with what members of that forum had to say: http://graphicssoft.about.com/b/a/032001.htm It also agrees with most of the responses in this and other Usenet threads, comments from my own friends and business associates who use PS professionally, etc.

Rick

"Tony Spadaro" wrote in news:JbVwb.18429
$:

Since I’m the only person I know in this town who has a LEGAL copy of Photoshop (other than a few people who use it professionally in a couple graphics and print shops) and since I know at least 20 people who have ILLEGAL copies, I have to admit that some form of control is necessary.

What form of "control" are you talking about? Activation was cracked within 24 hours of release, AFAICT, and the crack very widely distributed.

This particular form strikes me as a lot better thant the "dongle’ of some time back.

And the present. Usually only used on very expensive and high-end pieces, the truth is cracks are just as easy to develop for dongle-protected software. They are most effective for the high-end market because it’s easier to convince corporations to tolerate them.

It ain’t perfect but I’ll accept it — erven though that means I won’t be able to have CS on all 3 of my computers.

There’s always the crack – after all, you *have* paid for it, and will only be using it on one machine at a time, yes?

Joe wrote:

Well, you see thing and you don’t believe it then what
else you want to see? If you don’t believe the pool then at least you can see what has been going on around the
Photoshop newsgroups, can’t you?

Usually there would be lot of talks about the newer
features of newer version months before the release…
now, almost no talk about the newer feature and most
about the activation. I have dropped one Photoshop
newsgroup (links to Adobe site I guess) because it had
nothing but few hundreds of messages about activation
daily, and I saw about 2 users (one was Carol) were so
happy with the activation, they just can’t stop expressing their happiness (lot of messages from these 2 users and
the activation).

I guess you can speak for your employer now, or at
least for your bosses (the ones who pay you) <g>

Did I say I don’t believe that people are unhappy about activation? No, I didn’t say that. I believe you that people are unhappy about activation. In fact, I’m unhappy about it myself, because Photoshop’s activation is incompatible with my primary backup system, full disk clones using Ghost. I back up my ThinkPad a couple of times a week by cloning the hard drive to a second drive (I have a few drives that I rotate through for this). Once in a while, I swap the backup drive into the main bay and boot from it, making that my new system drive. This way I’m sure that I’ve got a solid backup.

However, Photoshop CS doesn’t run when I boot from my backup drive, because Ghost doesn’t copy the special SafeCast sector. (Yes, Adobe employees have to live with activation too.) Windows XP’s version of activation has no problem with my Ghost backups–it doesn’t write to any reserved sectors, but uses an ordinary disk file to store its configuration data.

So I fully sympathize with anyone who has problems with activation. That said, I’ll repeat my point from my previous message: Rick stated as a fact that two-thirds of Adobe’s customers say they will refuse to upgrade to CS because of activation. However, the online self-selecting survey he based that claim on is inherently flawed, and no one with any background in statistics would give the survey’s results any credence.

If you can convince Photoshop management that activation is costing them money instead of making them money, they’ll drop it. But faulty self-selecting surveys won’t convince them. I doubt if newsgroup discussions will either, for the same reason–people who have a problem are much more likely to post than people who don’t.

-Mike (definitely not speaking for Adobe!)

"SNIP

If you have any references to "real" polls I’d love to see them. Until then, the poll I referenced is _not_ nonsense. It was posted by a long-time member of the about.com graphics forum, and the responses are in line with what members of that forum had to say: http://graphicssoft.about.com/b/a/032001.htm It also agrees with most of the responses in this and other Usenet threads, comments from my own friends and business associates who use PS professionally, etc.

Rick

Talk is cheap. It is very unlikely that 2/3rds of users will not upgrade or switch to other software. And I’d be willing to bet a pile of money on that if anyone can identify reliable statistics to determine the outcome. This of course excludes individulas using pirated software since they will have no negative impact on Adobe’s cash flow if they don’t upgrade ; )

"Don Coon" wrote in message

"SNIP

If you have any references to "real" polls I’d love to see them. Until then, the poll I referenced is _not_ nonsense. It was posted by a long-time member of the about.com graphics forum, and the responses are in line with what members of that forum had to say: http://graphicssoft.about.com/b/a/032001.htm It also agrees with most of the responses in this and other Usenet threads, comments from my own friends and business associates who use PS professionally, etc.

Rick

Talk is cheap. It is very unlikely that 2/3rds of users will not upgrade or switch to other software. And I’d be willing to bet a pile of money on that if anyone can identify reliable statistics to determine the outcome. This of course excludes individulas using pirated software since they will have no negative impact on Adobe’s cash flow if they don’t upgrade ; )

Cracks already exist, so it won’t be pirates who don’t upgrade. As is always the case with copy protection, the people who will be limited and/or inconvenienced by activation are legitimate customers.

Rick

In comp.graphics.apps.photoshop Michael Geary wrote:

Joe wrote:

Well, you see thing and you don’t believe it then what
else you want to see? If you don’t believe the pool then at least you can see what has been going on around the
Photoshop newsgroups, can’t you?

Usually there would be lot of talks about the newer
features of newer version months before the release…
now, almost no talk about the newer feature and most
about the activation. I have dropped one Photoshop
newsgroup (links to Adobe site I guess) because it had
nothing but few hundreds of messages about activation
daily, and I saw about 2 users (one was Carol) were so
happy with the activation, they just can’t stop expressing their happiness (lot of messages from these 2 users and
the activation).

I guess you can speak for your employer now, or at
least for your bosses (the ones who pay you) <g>

Did I say I don’t believe that people are unhappy about activation? No, I didn’t say that. I believe you that people are unhappy about activation. In fact, I’m unhappy about it myself, because Photoshop’s activation is incompatible with my primary backup system, full disk clones using Ghost. I back up my ThinkPad a couple of times a week by cloning the hard drive to a second drive (I have a few drives that I rotate through for this). Once in a while, I swap the backup drive into the main bay and boot from it, making that my new system drive. This way I’m sure that I’ve got a solid backup.

However, Photoshop CS doesn’t run when I boot from my backup drive, because Ghost doesn’t copy the special SafeCast sector. (Yes, Adobe employees have to live with activation too.) Windows XP’s version of activation has no problem with my Ghost backups–it doesn’t write to any reserved sectors, but uses an ordinary disk file to store its configuration data.

So I fully sympathize with anyone who has problems with activation. That said, I’ll repeat my point from my previous message: Rick stated as a fact that two-thirds of Adobe’s customers say they will refuse to upgrade to CS because of activation. However, the online self-selecting survey he based that claim on is inherently flawed, and no one with any background in statistics would give the survey’s results any credence.

If you can convince Photoshop management that activation is costing them money instead of making them money, they’ll drop it. But faulty self-selecting surveys won’t convince them. I doubt if newsgroup discussions will either, for the same reason–people who have a problem are much more likely to post than people who don’t.

-Mike (definitely not speaking for Adobe!)

I agree with you, and I’ve been one of the complainers.
And I’ll be upgrading once my new system is flying.

And I’ll likely be changing hard drives (as I do with
some regularity) and then I’ll try the process of doing
an official deactivation with a new activation on the
new drive. If it is painless, well and good. If it is
NOT painless…

I think that it would be wise for us all to wait until
we actually have activation-related problems. If we
do, THEN we scream.

—- Paul J. Gans

But a lot of people who think nothing of copying software will not use it if they have to "crack" it. It’s like everythign else, designed to keep the honest person honest – and it’s always a slippery definition, but it is also true that if a person has to do a specifically illegal operation, they are much more likely to stay within the law.
Heck, I had a friend who reduced customer pilfering from her store by about 80% merely by putting out a few little signs that said "Please do not Shoplift."

—
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com
home of The Camera-ist’s Manifesto
The Improved Links Pages are at
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com/links/mlinks00.html
A sample chapter from my novel "Haight-Ashbury" is at http://www.chapelhillnoir.com/writ/hait/hatitl.html
"Eric Gill" wrote in message

"Tony Spadaro" wrote in news:JbVwb.18429
$:

Since I’m the only person I know in this town who has a LEGAL copy of Photoshop (other than a few people who use it professionally in a couple graphics and print shops) and since I know at least 20 people who have ILLEGAL copies, I have to admit that some form of control is necessary.

What form of "control" are you talking about? Activation was cracked

within

24 hours of release, AFAICT, and the crack very widely distributed.

This particular form strikes me as a lot better thant the "dongle’ of some time back.

And the present. Usually only used on very expensive and high-end pieces, the truth is cracks are just as easy to develop for dongle-protected software. They are most effective for the high-end market because it’s easier to convince corporations to tolerate them.

It ain’t perfect but I’ll accept it — erven though that means I won’t be able to have CS on all 3 of my computers.

There’s always the crack – after all, you *have* paid for it, and will

only

be using it on one machine at a time, yes?

Now you’re talking like a sub 22 . – Just plain too stupid.

—
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com
home of The Camera-ist’s Manifesto
The Improved Links Pages are at
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com/links/mlinks00.html
A sample chapter from my novel "Haight-Ashbury" is at http://www.chapelhillnoir.com/writ/hait/hatitl.html
"Rick" wrote in message

"Tony Spadaro" wrote in message

If you don’t know the difference between this nonsense and a real

poll —

you aren’t even one of the 32s.

"Tony Spadaro" wrote in message

The figures you quote:
"Two-thirds of Adobe’s customers are saying they either

won’t upgrade to CS, or are switching to different software because of activation."

Sound like pure horseshite to me.
But I can make up "facts too". Here’s one:

Tony "ad hominem" Spadaro speaketh again.

http://forums.about.com/ab-graphicssoft/messages?lgnF=y& tid=4599

If you have any references to "real" polls I’d love to see them. Until then, the poll I referenced is _not_ nonsense. It was posted by a long-time member of the about.com graphics forum, and the responses are in line with what members of that forum had to say: http://graphicssoft.about.com/b/a/032001.htm It also agrees with most of the responses in this and other Usenet threads, comments from my own friends and business associates who use PS professionally, etc.

Rick

By preference, I use Corel Photo-Paint 8, but have also learned to use PS
5.0 LE, because shops prefer it. I like Photo-Paint, both because it is more
intuitive and it uses memory on large files much better than does PS.

Paul Riemerman

"Troy" wrote in message

On Mon, 24 Nov 2003 13:25:44 -0800, "Rick" wrote:

Unless the market nips this nonsense in the bud, eventually we’ll all be renting our software, or paying per use for it.

Regardless of how you feel, activation is here and is going to stay. People put up with even more annoying dongles for the longest time. A single quick check into a server to verify that your key isn’t being used by thousands of people is much less intrusive than having to keep a dongle plugged into your USB or parallel port any time you want to use the software, then having to spend another $100 to replace the dongle when it dies after a few years.

And that’s exactly what the market appears to be doing.
Two-thirds of Adobe’s customers are saying they either
won’t upgrade to CS, or are switching to different software because of activation.

Was that actually 2/3 of Adobe’s customers, or 2/3 of Adobe’s users? There’s a big difference since Photoshop is one of the most widely-pirated pieces of software out there. Of course, most pirates won’t upgrade or will switch to different software because they *can’t* activate.

Egos run very high at Adobe but the fact is they are not Microsoft. They do not have an essential monopoly in their respective market like MS does, and they won’t get away
with shoving activation down the market’s throat like MS did.

I don’t have much of a problem with activation. As long as no personally identifiable information is sent, I don’t see why it’s considered intrusive. Software piracy is a major problem and activation is one of the few forms of copy protection that actually works (mostly).
As for renting software, activation does not necessarily mean software rental. They are two completely independent concepts. Activation does make annual licenses easier to enforce, but it isn’t required. There already is software that expires after x number of days or x number of uses.

The only difference is that, without activation, the user just has to roll their clock back. However, for most businesses, that’s an inconvenience that just isn’t worth the money saved by not renewing. Limited use licenses will exist even without activation.
—
Troy

"Rick" wrote in message

"Don Coon" wrote in message

"SNIP

If you have any references to "real" polls I’d love to see them. Until then, the poll I referenced is _not_ nonsense. It was posted by a long-time member of the about.com graphics forum, and the responses are in line with what members of that forum had to say: http://graphicssoft.about.com/b/a/032001.htm It also agrees with most of the responses in this and other Usenet threads, comments from my own friends and business associates who use PS professionally, etc.

Rick

Talk is cheap. It is very unlikely that 2/3rds of users will not upgrade

or

switch to other software. And I’d be willing to bet a pile of money on that if anyone can identify reliable statistics to determine the

outcome.

This of course excludes individulas using pirated software since they

will

have no negative impact on Adobe’s cash flow if they don’t upgrade ; )

Cracks already exist, so it won’t be pirates who don’t upgrade. As is always the case with copy protection, the people who will be limited and/or inconvenienced by activation are legitimate customers.

Rick

How will they be "limited" or "inconvenienced"? If I can run two copies, I don’t see any problems. Activization is simple. What substance am I missing?

On Mon, 24 Nov 2003 16:59:37 -0800, Troy wrote:

On Tue, 25 Nov 2003 01:43:13 +0100, Mxsmanic wrote:

The problem with this scheme is not the activation itself, but the corruption of the disk drive that the activation system causes.

Activation does not cause disk corruption.

Yes it does, or at least can under certain set ups. The activation code writes data to hardcoded sector of the disk where many people have things like bootloaders installed. PS won’t check to see if there is any other data there but will overwrite it killing whatever software was there before. The second interesting question is what will happen if you have two different softpackages that need to be activated by writing to the same sector. I wonder if that’s even possible.

Dag

"Don Coon" wrote in message

"Rick" wrote in message

"Don Coon" wrote in message

"SNIP

If you have any references to "real" polls I’d love to see them. Until then, the poll I referenced is _not_ nonsense. It was posted by a long-time member of the about.com graphics forum, and the responses are in line with what members of that forum had to say: http://graphicssoft.about.com/b/a/032001.htm It also agrees with most of the responses in this and other Usenet threads, comments from my own friends and business associates who use PS professionally, etc.

Rick

Talk is cheap. It is very unlikely that 2/3rds of users will not upgrade

or

switch to other software. And I’d be willing to bet a pile of money on that if anyone can identify reliable statistics to determine the

outcome.

This of course excludes individulas using pirated software since they

will

have no negative impact on Adobe’s cash flow if they don’t upgrade ; )

Cracks already exist, so it won’t be pirates who don’t upgrade. As is always the case with copy protection, the people who will be limited and/or inconvenienced by activation are legitimate customers.

Rick

How will they be "limited" or "inconvenienced"? If I can run two copies, I don’t see any problems. Activization is simple. What substance am I missing?

If you had a desktop computer at home and in your office, and a laptop to work on the road, would you pay another
$600 to buy a second copy of Photoshop? Personally I
don’t know anyone who would (well, maybe outside of
Tony Spadaro), nor should they be forced to. It’s also
common these days for people to have more than two
computers in their homes, even though only one is used
at a time. Do you think those who use a cracked version of PS will be limited to two installations?

Rick

SNIP

Rick

Talk is cheap. It is very unlikely that 2/3rds of users will not

upgrade

or

switch to other software. And I’d be willing to bet a pile of

money on

that if anyone can identify reliable statistics to determine the

outcome.

This of course excludes individulas using pirated software since

they

will

have no negative impact on Adobe’s cash flow if they don’t upgrade

; )

Cracks already exist, so it won’t be pirates who don’t upgrade. As is always the case with copy protection, the people who will be limited and/or inconvenienced by activation are legitimate customers.

Rick

How will they be "limited" or "inconvenienced"? If I can run two

copies, I

don’t see any problems. Activization is simple. What substance am I missing?

If you had a desktop computer at home and in your office, and a laptop to work on the road, would you pay another
$600 to buy a second copy of Photoshop? Personally I
don’t know anyone who would (well, maybe outside of
Tony Spadaro), nor should they be forced to. It’s also
common these days for people to have more than two
computers in their homes, even though only one is used
at a time. Do you think those who use a cracked version of PS will be limited to two installations?

Rick

Well, I have two computers at home and a laptop for the road. I’d never, ever, ever consider doing any serious photo editing on a laptop. Tried it once during a trip out west and it was guess work at best. Any cheap editing program would have worked just as well on the laptop.

So two copies are more than enough.

"Don Coon" wrote in message

If you had a desktop computer at home and in your office, and a laptop to work on the road, would you pay another
$600 to buy a second copy of Photoshop? Personally I
don’t know anyone who would (well, maybe outside of
Tony Spadaro), nor should they be forced to. It’s also
common these days for people to have more than two
computers in their homes, even though only one is used
at a time. Do you think those who use a cracked version of PS will be limited to two installations?

Rick

Well, I have two computers at home and a laptop for the road. I’d never, ever, ever consider doing any serious photo editing on a laptop. Tried it once during a trip out west and it was guess work at best. Any cheap editing program would have worked just as well on the laptop.
So two copies are more than enough.

For you.

Rick

Troy wrote:

On Tue, 25 Nov 2003 12:05:16 -0600, (Joe) wrote:

TROY! TROY! TROY! you are going backward without knowing it! the pirates are the ones don’t have to deal with problem because they can by-pass the activation when the ones who pay Adobe are the ones who have to live with all kinda of actication problems.

I was talking more of the casual pirate, not the hard core pirate. I know the activation can be bypassed by those with the knowledge (and guts) to run a crack or a hax0red version of the app.

Activation is not meant to stop those pirates. Pretty much nothing can stop those pirates. I’ve seen many forms of copy protection over the years, from a laser-burnt hole at a specific location on a floppy to dongles to complicated code wheels. In each case, the protection was bypassed by simply modifying the app so it doesn’t look for the protection.

What activation stops is those people who burn a copy at the office or from a friend and take it home. It makes sure that people their Photoshop keys very carefully, since it can only be activated once.
Maybe I should have said "many pirates" instead of "most pirates." However, the fact is that activation does prevent many people from copying a program while still allowing people to easily make legitimate backup copies of the media.

Now it makes sense and I agree with you that they just can’t stop pirate, and the copy protection doesn’t make much or any difference to the pirates but only causing trouble to the ones who pay for it.

I have seen so many different kinds of copy protections and haven’t seen any can’t be cracked yet. Yes, I have seen the one burned hole to floppy, writing codes on extra track’s, adding dummy file to confuse DOS, dongle, parallel, game controller, writing hidden file to hard drive, floppy (to limit the number of installation).

"Don Coon" wrote:

Cracks already exist, so it won’t be pirates who don’t upgrade. As is always the case with copy protection, the people who will be limited and/or inconvenienced by activation are legitimate customers.

Rick

How will they be "limited" or "inconvenienced"? If I can run two copies, I don’t see any problems. Activization is simple. What substance am I missing?

Well, just help yourself with a cracked version then you will be a much happier Adove supporter. What you are missing is the trouble you may run into when your system crashing, upgrading system, upgrading hard drive etc.. then you will find out you miss the cracked version <g>.

"Joe" wrote in message
"Don Coon" wrote:

Cracks already exist, so it won’t be pirates who don’t upgrade. As is always the case with copy protection, the people who will be limited and/or inconvenienced by activation are legitimate customers.

Rick

How will they be "limited" or "inconvenienced"? If I can run two copies,

I

don’t see any problems. Activization is simple. What substance am I missing?

Well, just help yourself with a cracked version then you will be a much happier Adove supporter. What you are missing is the trouble you may run into when your system crashing, upgrading system, upgrading hard drive etc.. then you will find out you miss the cracked version <g>.

Oh! The sky is falling, the sky is falling, run…………

With Windows XP I heard the same crap. I’ve since upgraded both drives, the CPU, added memory, and in the process had to reinstall XP due to the replacement of the C: drive. It was no problem at all. I also notice that the XP activation whiners have mostly slithered away.

Rick writes:

For you.

In general, you need a really good monitor to do serious work with Photoshop. That excludes laptops.

—
Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly.

"Don Coon" wrote in message

"Joe" wrote in message
"Don Coon" wrote:

Cracks already exist, so it won’t be pirates who don’t upgrade. As is always the case with copy protection, the people who will be limited and/or inconvenienced by activation are legitimate customers.

Rick

How will they be "limited" or "inconvenienced"? If I can run two copies,

I

don’t see any problems. Activization is simple. What substance am I missing?

Well, just help yourself with a cracked version then you will be a much happier Adove supporter. What you are missing is the trouble you may run into when your system crashing, upgrading system, upgrading hard drive etc.. then you will find out you miss the cracked version <g>.
Oh! The sky is falling, the sky is falling, run…………
With Windows XP I heard the same crap. I’ve since upgraded both drives, the CPU, added memory, and in the process had to reinstall XP due to the replacement of the C: drive. It was no problem at all. I also notice that the XP activation whiners have mostly slithered away.

Not slithered away. Most are either using a cracked version of XP (which makes whining about activation unnecessary) or have simply decided against upgrading from Win2K. See how it works? And if MS’s claims about casual piracy were true their revenues from WinXP sales should have soared. They didn’t. Not even slightly. Meanwhile they’re spending millions every year supporting WPA. Adobe will have to
live and learn, just like Microsoft, Novell, Intuit etc.

Rick

Rick is such a power user he needs 45 computers running photoshop. Of course he only spends ten minutes a day at each and never actually gets anythign done, but man he can look busy,
For your information Ricky me boyo, I have Photoshop on 3 computers right now. My scanning and printing computer, my getting the work done computer, and this one where I might have to do a bit of tweaking before I put an image on the web or email it out. However, I never even put version 6 on this computer so I doubt I’ll feel any pain about not being able to upgrade it to CS.
You claim that you, and all of your thousands of angry anti-activision activists have legit copies of Photoshop currently, so you, like me should be able to leave your dozens of copies of 3,4,5,6, and 7 on all but your 2 most heavily used computers (in your case that would be the two you use to download porn). So your whole argument basically amounts to sour grapes and dumb gripes. You are pretty much the poster boy for the common put-down "Get a Life."

—
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com
home of The Camera-ist’s Manifesto
The Improved Links Pages are at
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com/links/mlinks00.html
A sample chapter from my novel "Haight-Ashbury" is at http://www.chapelhillnoir.com/writ/hait/hatitl.html
"Rick" wrote in message

"Don Coon" wrote in message

If you had a desktop computer at home and in your office, and a laptop to work on the road, would you pay another
$600 to buy a second copy of Photoshop? Personally I
don’t know anyone who would (well, maybe outside of
Tony Spadaro), nor should they be forced to. It’s also
common these days for people to have more than two
computers in their homes, even though only one is used
at a time. Do you think those who use a cracked version of PS will be limited to two installations?

Rick

Well, I have two computers at home and a laptop for the road. I’d

never,

ever, ever consider doing any serious photo editing on a laptop. Tried

it

once during a trip out west and it was guess work at best. Any cheap editing program would have worked just as well on the laptop.
So two copies are more than enough.

For you.

Rick

I wonder how all those people buying computers are getting the XP off them. Do you suppose they just throw away the hard drive and switch in a 20 Megger from their old IBM AT? Do you suppose that maybe you’re full of… Naaa – you don’t suppose anything like that – too much logic involved and your brain already hurts real bad.

—
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com
home of The Camera-ist’s Manifesto
The Improved Links Pages are at
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com/links/mlinks00.html
A sample chapter from my novel "Haight-Ashbury" is at http://www.chapelhillnoir.com/writ/hait/hatitl.html
"Rick" wrote in message

"Don Coon" wrote in message

"Joe" wrote in message
"Don Coon" wrote:

Cracks already exist, so it won’t be pirates who don’t upgrade. As is always the case with copy protection, the people who will be limited and/or inconvenienced by activation are legitimate customers.

Rick

How will they be "limited" or "inconvenienced"? If I can run two

copies,

I

don’t see any problems. Activization is simple. What substance am I missing?

Well, just help yourself with a cracked version then you will be a much happier Adove supporter. What you are missing is the trouble you may run into when your system crashing, upgrading system, upgrading hard drive etc.. then you will find out you miss the cracked version <g>.
Oh! The sky is falling, the sky is falling, run…………
With Windows XP I heard the same crap. I’ve since upgraded both drives,

the

CPU, added memory, and in the process had to reinstall XP due to the replacement of the C: drive. It was no problem at all. I also notice

that

the XP activation whiners have mostly slithered away.

Not slithered away. Most are either using a cracked version of XP (which makes whining about activation unnecessary) or have simply decided against upgrading from Win2K. See how it works? And if MS’s claims about casual piracy were true their revenues from WinXP sales should have soared. They didn’t. Not even slightly. Meanwhile they’re spending millions every year supporting WPA. Adobe will have to
live and learn, just like Microsoft, Novell, Intuit etc.
Rick

In comp.graphics.apps.photoshop Mxsmanic wrote:

Rick writes:

For you.

In general, you need a really good monitor to do serious work with Photoshop. That excludes laptops.

Actually you can do a fair amount of web work without a top dollar monitor. Net surfers monitors are all over the block on color and contrast. I find that contrast, sharpness, and size matter most in my web work.

Of course your milage may vary.

—- Paul J. Gans

"Don Coon" wrote:

"Joe" wrote in message
"Don Coon" wrote:

Cracks already exist, so it won’t be pirates who don’t upgrade. As is always the case with copy protection, the people who will be limited and/or inconvenienced by activation are legitimate customers.

Rick

How will they be "limited" or "inconvenienced"? If I can run two copies,

I

don’t see any problems. Activization is simple. What substance am I missing?

Well, just help yourself with a cracked version then you will be a much happier Adove supporter. What you are missing is the trouble you may run into when your system crashing, upgrading system, upgrading hard drive etc.. then you will find out you miss the cracked version <g>.
Oh! The sky is falling, the sky is falling, run…………
With Windows XP I heard the same crap. I’ve since upgraded both drives, the CPU, added memory, and in the process had to reinstall XP due to the replacement of the C: drive. It was no problem at all. I also notice that the XP activation whiners have mostly slithered away.

Same with WinXP, you can use the cracked version to bypass the actication, so you don’t need to be a whiner.

On Tue, 25 Nov 2003 21:06:36 -0800, "Michael Geary" wrote:

(snip)

Did I say I don’t believe that people are unhappy about activation? No, I didn’t say that. I believe you that people are unhappy about activation. In fact, I’m unhappy about it myself, because Photoshop’s activation is incompatible with my primary backup system, full disk clones using Ghost. I back up my ThinkPad a couple of times a week by cloning the hard drive to a second drive (I have a few drives that I rotate through for this). Once in a while, I swap the backup drive into the main bay and boot from it, making that my new system drive. This way I’m sure that I’ve got a solid backup.

My practice, also.. and an increasingly popular practice, I suspect.

However, Photoshop CS doesn’t run when I boot from my backup drive, because Ghost doesn’t copy the special SafeCast sector. (Yes, Adobe employees have to live with activation too.) Windows XP’s version of activation has no problem with my Ghost backups–it doesn’t write to any reserved sectors, but uses an ordinary disk file to store its configuration data.

Which is why I will not buy into Photoshop CS, but will continue with my (registered) copy of PS7.

If you can convince Photoshop management that activation is costing them money instead of making them money, they’ll drop it.

Well, it has cost them my contribution to their coffers.. insignificant though it may be..

"Anthony Lynch" wrote in message

On Tue, 25 Nov 2003 21:06:36 -0800, "Michael Geary" wrote:

(snip)

However, Photoshop CS doesn’t run when I boot from my backup drive, because Ghost doesn’t copy the special SafeCast sector. (Yes, Adobe employees have to live with activation too.) Windows XP’s version of activation has no problem with my Ghost backups–it doesn’t write to any reserved sectors, but uses an ordinary disk file to store its configuration data.

Just FYI, if you use Ghost’s "forensic copy" option ("-id" on the Ghost command line) it will copy reserved sectors on the disk (including sector 32, where SafeCast writes its signature).

Rick

"Michael Geary" …

Joe wrote:

Well, you see thing and you don’t believe it then what
else you want to see? If you don’t believe the pool then at least you can see what has been going on around the
Photoshop newsgroups, can’t you?

Usually there would be lot of talks about the newer
features of newer version months before the release…
now, almost no talk about the newer feature and most
about the activation. I have dropped one Photoshop
newsgroup (links to Adobe site I guess) because it had
nothing but few hundreds of messages about activation
daily, and I saw about 2 users (one was Carol) were so
happy with the activation, they just can’t stop expressing their happiness (lot of messages from these 2 users and
the activation).

I guess you can speak for your employer now, or at
least for your bosses (the ones who pay you) <g>

Did I say I don’t believe that people are unhappy about activation? No, I didn’t say that. I believe you that people are unhappy about activation. In fact, I’m unhappy about it myself, because Photoshop’s activation is incompatible with my primary backup system, full disk clones using Ghost. I back up my ThinkPad a couple of times a week by cloning the hard drive to a second drive (I have a few drives that I rotate through for this). Once in a while, I swap the backup drive into the main bay and boot from it, making that my new system drive. This way I’m sure that I’ve got a solid backup.
However, Photoshop CS doesn’t run when I boot from my backup drive, because Ghost doesn’t copy the special SafeCast sector. (Yes, Adobe employees have to live with activation too.) Windows XP’s version of activation has no problem with my Ghost backups–it doesn’t write to any reserved sectors, but uses an ordinary disk file to store its configuration data.
So I fully sympathize with anyone who has problems with activation. That said, I’ll repeat my point from my previous message: Rick stated as a fact that two-thirds of Adobe’s customers say they will refuse to upgrade to CS because of activation. However, the online self-selecting survey he based that claim on is inherently flawed, and no one with any background in statistics would give the survey’s results any credence.
If you can convince Photoshop management that activation is costing them money instead of making them money, they’ll drop it. But faulty self-selecting surveys won’t convince them. I doubt if newsgroup discussions will either, for the same reason–people who have a problem are much more likely to post than people who don’t.

-Mike (definitely not speaking for Adobe!)

Well, speaking as a self-selecting survey of size 1, I can say that 100% of paid-up Adobe PS customers will not be upgrading to software that writes to reserved areas of my HD in the way that CS does, for the reasons that you describe above: it is incompatible with my back-up strategy, and as a user who knows just enough to worry and not enough to fix problems, I don’t want to add another layer of uncertainty to my system for the future. No doubt Adobe can live without my £125, but I hope there are enough of us around to make ourselves heard the only place management listens … the golf course.

J.

I’m unhappy about it myself, because Photoshop’s activation is incompatible with my primary backup system, full disk clones using Ghost.

If this is an issue I would contact both Adobe and the Ghost manufacturer and find out who is responsible for a solution. I would be surprised if Adobe were disinterested in this information — they want to make this work.

If you can convince Photoshop management that activation is costing them money instead of making them money, they’ll drop it.

True. It is sad that this seems to be getting in the way because I think it is the first upgrade that has been worth the bucks in years! 16-bit support, large files, and other power enhancements really do pose a valuable upgrade for power users.

Why is it so good? See what the experts say;
http://bermangraphics.com/press/photoshopcs.htm

Photoshop CS is a recommended upgrade, find what you need for yourself (gifts?):
Photoshop CS (Full license)
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000DBOAX/newwriting / Photoshop CS (Upgrade)
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000DBOBZ/newwriting /

Adobe CS Premium Suite:
PC Full version:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000DBN6M/newwriting / PC Upgrade:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000DBNDJ/newwriting / Mac Full:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000DBN4H/newwriting / Mac Upgrade:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000DBNCT/newwriting /

I have it and have been using it…unlike PS6 (shape layers and enhanced vector handling) and PS7 (um, the healing brush? workspaces), I don’t find myself looking back.

Richard Lynch
author, The Hidden Power of Photoshop CS
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0782142559/newwriting / The Hidden Power of Photoshop Elements 2
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0782141781/newwriting / http://hiddenelements.com
http://ps6.com

So there is no activation for PS on OS-X! Good! Because that swings me to go Macintosh all the way! Got a G5 on order! The other benefit is that I get Apple’s pretty darn good digital video editing for free. I’ll give the lab XP-Pro system to somebody in dire need.

Paul J Gans wrote:

In comp.graphics.apps.photoshop Michael Geary wrote:

Joe wrote:

Well, you see thing and you don’t believe it then what
else you want to see? If you don’t believe the pool then at least you can see what has been going on around the
Photoshop newsgroups, can’t you?

Usually there would be lot of talks about the newer
features of newer version months before the release…
now, almost no talk about the newer feature and most
about the activation. I have dropped one Photoshop
newsgroup (links to Adobe site I guess) because it had
nothing but few hundreds of messages about activation
daily, and I saw about 2 users (one was Carol) were so
happy with the activation, they just can’t stop expressing their happiness (lot of messages from these 2 users and
the activation).

I guess you can speak for your employer now, or at
least for your bosses (the ones who pay you) <g>

Did I say I don’t believe that people are unhappy about activation? No, I didn’t say that. I believe you that people are unhappy about activation. In fact, I’m unhappy about it myself, because Photoshop’s activation is incompatible with my primary backup system, full disk clones using Ghost. I back up my ThinkPad a couple of times a week by cloning the hard drive to a second drive (I have a few drives that I rotate through for this). Once in a while, I swap the backup drive into the main bay and boot from it, making that my new system drive. This way I’m sure that I’ve got a solid backup.

However, Photoshop CS doesn’t run when I boot from my backup drive, because Ghost doesn’t copy the special SafeCast sector. (Yes, Adobe employees have to live with activation too.) Windows XP’s version of activation has no problem with my Ghost backups–it doesn’t write to any reserved sectors, but uses an ordinary disk file to store its configuration data.

So I fully sympathize with anyone who has problems with activation. That said, I’ll repeat my point from my previous message: Rick stated as a fact that two-thirds of Adobe’s customers say they will refuse to upgrade to CS because of activation. However, the online self-selecting survey he based that claim on is inherently flawed, and no one with any background in statistics would give the survey’s results any credence.

If you can convince Photoshop management that activation is costing them money instead of making them money, they’ll drop it. But faulty self-selecting surveys won’t convince them. I doubt if newsgroup discussions will either, for the same reason–people who have a problem are much more likely to post than people who don’t.

-Mike (definitely not speaking for Adobe!)

I agree with you, and I’ve been one of the complainers.
And I’ll be upgrading once my new system is flying.

And I’ll likely be changing hard drives (as I do with
some regularity) and then I’ll try the process of doing
an official deactivation with a new activation on the
new drive. If it is painless, well and good. If it is
NOT painless…

I think that it would be wise for us all to wait until
we actually have activation-related problems. If we
do, THEN we scream.

—- Paul J. Gans

Great solution. Buy it first then scream. <G>

Nick

In article <bptt10$1sc8j9$>,
Rick says…

Egos run very high at Adobe but the fact is they are not Microsoft. They do not have an essential monopoly in their respective market like MS does, and they won’t get away
with shoving activation down the market’s throat like MS did.

Damn right. Just today I had the great pleasure to tell
Adobe customer support that I won’t buy Premiere Pro but instead ordered Pinnacle Liquid Edition 5.5 for my new
video editing seat. For no reason other than their
activation policy.

It is even cheaper, has better integration into broadcast server environments and it simply feels better not to be treated like a criminal by somebody who wants my money.

—
Michael Quack

http://www.photoquack.de/glamour/1.htm
http://www.photoquack.de/fashion/1.htm

In article ,
Jeremy says…

Well, speaking as a self-selecting survey of size 1, I can say that 100% of paid-up Adobe PS customers will not be upgrading to software that writes to reserved areas of my HD in the way that CS does

Same here. My money for video editing software already went to Pinnacle instead of Adobe for exactly this reason.
(Yes I know that Premiere has no activation included- yet)

—
Michael Quack

http://www.photoquack.de/glamour/1.htm
http://www.photoquack.de/fashion/1.htm

In article <%a4xb.114531$>,
Don Coon says…

How will they be "limited" or "inconvenienced"? Activization is simple. What substance am I
missing?

The content of your harddrive, shreddered by SafeCast?

—
Michael Quack

http://www.photoquack.de/glamour/1.htm
http://www.photoquack.de/fashion/1.htm

In article <1Pexb.22065$>,
Tony Spadaro says…

I wonder how all those people buying computers are
getting the XP off them.

FDISK.

My server runs Linux, my firewall runs Linux, and soon
my office machines will be running Linux as well.

I stick with Photoshop 7, have switched from Premiere to Pinnacle Liquid Edition, keep an eye on Gimp, donate to
the local Gimp community….. yes, there is action to take.

—
Michael Quack

http://www.photoquack.de/glamour/1.htm
http://www.photoquack.de/fashion/1.htm

On Fri, 28 Nov 2003 05:46:36 -0800, "Rick" wrote:

"Anthony Lynch" wrote in message

On Tue, 25 Nov 2003 21:06:36 -0800, "Michael Geary" wrote:

(snip)

However, Photoshop CS doesn’t run when I boot from my backup drive, because Ghost doesn’t copy the special SafeCast sector. (Yes, Adobe employees have to live with activation too.) Windows XP’s version of activation has no problem with my Ghost backups–it doesn’t write to any reserved sectors, but uses an ordinary disk file to store its configuration data.

Just FYI, if you use Ghost’s "forensic copy" option ("-id" on the Ghost command line) it will copy reserved sectors on the disk (including sector 32, where SafeCast writes its signature).
Rick

Thanks for this.. had not known it could be done.

"Anthony Lynch" wrote in message

On Fri, 28 Nov 2003 05:46:36 -0800, "Rick" wrote:

"Anthony Lynch" wrote in message

On Tue, 25 Nov 2003 21:06:36 -0800, "Michael Geary" wrote:

(snip)

However, Photoshop CS doesn’t run when I boot from my backup drive, because Ghost doesn’t copy the special SafeCast sector. (Yes, Adobe employees have to live with activation too.) Windows XP’s version of activation has no problem with my Ghost backups–it doesn’t write to any reserved sectors, but uses an ordinary disk file to store its configuration data.

Just FYI, if you use Ghost’s "forensic copy" option ("-id" on the Ghost command line) it will copy reserved sectors on the disk (including sector 32, where SafeCast writes its signature).

Thanks for this.. had not known it could be done.

You’re welcome. -ib and -ir will also work. See: (link may wrap) http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/ghost.nsf/docid/2001111 413481325

Rick

"A single quick check into a server to verify that your key isn’t being used by thousands of people is much less intrusive than having to keep a dongle plugged into your USB or parallel port any time you want to use the software, then having to spend another $100 to replace the dongle when it dies after a few years."

PAY for a DONGLE? NEVER!! Never pay for a dongle…never, ever.

In comp.graphics.apps.photoshop Nick C wrote:

Paul J Gans wrote:

In comp.graphics.apps.photoshop Michael Geary wrote:

Joe wrote:

Well, you see thing and you don’t believe it then what
else you want to see? If you don’t believe the pool then at least you can see what has been going on around the
Photoshop newsgroups, can’t you?

Usually there would be lot of talks about the newer
features of newer version months before the release…
now, almost no talk about the newer feature and most
about the activation. I have dropped one Photoshop
newsgroup (links to Adobe site I guess) because it had
nothing but few hundreds of messages about activation
daily, and I saw about 2 users (one was Carol) were so
happy with the activation, they just can’t stop expressing their happiness (lot of messages from these 2 users and
the activation).

I guess you can speak for your employer now, or at
least for your bosses (the ones who pay you) <g>

Did I say I don’t believe that people are unhappy about activation? No, I didn’t say that. I believe you that people are unhappy about activation. In fact, I’m unhappy about it myself, because Photoshop’s activation is incompatible with my primary backup system, full disk clones using Ghost. I back up my ThinkPad a couple of times a week by cloning the hard drive to a second drive (I have a few drives that I rotate through for this). Once in a while, I swap the backup drive into the main bay and boot from it, making that my new system drive. This way I’m sure that I’ve got a solid backup.

However, Photoshop CS doesn’t run when I boot from my backup drive, because Ghost doesn’t copy the special SafeCast sector. (Yes, Adobe employees have to live with activation too.) Windows XP’s version of activation has no problem with my Ghost backups–it doesn’t write to any reserved sectors, but uses an ordinary disk file to store its configuration data.

So I fully sympathize with anyone who has problems with activation. That said, I’ll repeat my point from my previous message: Rick stated as a fact that two-thirds of Adobe’s customers say they will refuse to upgrade to CS because of activation. However, the online self-selecting survey he based that claim on is inherently flawed, and no one with any background in statistics would give the survey’s results any credence.

If you can convince Photoshop management that activation is costing them money instead of making them money, they’ll drop it. But faulty self-selecting surveys won’t convince them. I doubt if newsgroup discussions will either, for the same reason–people who have a problem are much more likely to post than people who don’t.

-Mike (definitely not speaking for Adobe!)

I agree with you, and I’ve been one of the complainers.
And I’ll be upgrading once my new system is flying.

And I’ll likely be changing hard drives (as I do with
some regularity) and then I’ll try the process of doing
an official deactivation with a new activation on the
new drive. If it is painless, well and good. If it is
NOT painless…

I think that it would be wise for us all to wait until
we actually have activation-related problems. If we
do, THEN we scream.

—- Paul J. Gans

Great solution. Buy it first then scream. <G>

Right. It helps not to appear to be an ass by screaming about something that isn’t true. After all, I’m talking major product boycott here.

— Paul J. Gans

Anthony Lynch wrote:

On Fri, 28 Nov 2003 05:46:36 -0800, "Rick" wrote:

"Anthony Lynch" wrote in message

On Tue, 25 Nov 2003 21:06:36 -0800, "Michael Geary" wrote:

(snip)

However, Photoshop CS doesn’t run when I boot from my backup drive, because Ghost doesn’t copy the special SafeCast sector. (Yes, Adobe employees have to live with activation too.) Windows XP’s version of activation has no problem with my Ghost backups–it doesn’t write to any reserved sectors, but uses an ordinary disk file to store its configuration data.

Just FYI, if you use Ghost’s "forensic copy" option ("-id" on the Ghost command line) it will copy reserved sectors on the disk (including sector 32, where SafeCast writes its signature).
Rick

Thanks for this.. had not known it could be done.

Let us know if you can then boot the system and run
photoshop from the backup drive. I’m sure many would
like to know.

—- Paul J. Gans

Paul J Gans wrote:

In comp.graphics.apps.photoshop Nick C wrote:

Paul J Gans wrote:

In comp.graphics.apps.photoshop Michael Geary wrote:

Joe wrote:

Well, you see thing and you don’t believe it then what
else you want to see? If you don’t believe the pool then at least you can see what has been going on around the
Photoshop newsgroups, can’t you?

Usually there would be lot of talks about the newer
features of newer version months before the release…
now, almost no talk about the newer feature and most
about the activation. I have dropped one Photoshop
newsgroup (links to Adobe site I guess) because it had
nothing but few hundreds of messages about activation
daily, and I saw about 2 users (one was Carol) were so
happy with the activation, they just can’t stop expressing their happiness (lot of messages from these 2 users and
the activation).

I guess you can speak for your employer now, or at
least for your bosses (the ones who pay you) <g>

Did I say I don’t believe that people are unhappy about activation? No, I didn’t say that. I believe you that people are unhappy about activation. In fact, I’m unhappy about it myself, because Photoshop’s activation is incompatible with my primary backup system, full disk clones using Ghost. I back up my ThinkPad a couple of times a week by cloning the hard drive to a second drive (I have a few drives that I rotate through for this). Once in a while, I swap the backup drive into the main bay and boot from it, making that my new system drive. This way I’m sure that I’ve got a solid backup.

However, Photoshop CS doesn’t run when I boot from my backup drive, because Ghost doesn’t copy the special SafeCast sector. (Yes, Adobe employees have to live with activation too.) Windows XP’s version of activation has no problem with my Ghost backups–it doesn’t write to any reserved sectors, but uses an ordinary disk file to store its configuration data.

So I fully sympathize with anyone who has problems with activation. That said, I’ll repeat my point from my previous message: Rick stated as a fact that two-thirds of Adobe’s customers say they will refuse to upgrade to CS because of activation. However, the online self-selecting survey he based that claim on is inherently flawed, and no one with any background in statistics would give the survey’s results any credence.

If you can convince Photoshop management that activation is costing them money instead of making them money, they’ll drop it. But faulty self-selecting surveys won’t convince them. I doubt if newsgroup discussions will either, for the same reason–people who have a problem are much more likely to post than people who don’t.

-Mike (definitely not speaking for Adobe!)

I agree with you, and I’ve been one of the complainers.
And I’ll be upgrading once my new system is flying.

And I’ll likely be changing hard drives (as I do with
some regularity) and then I’ll try the process of doing
an official deactivation with a new activation on the
new drive. If it is painless, well and good. If it is
NOT painless…

I think that it would be wise for us all to wait until
we actually have activation-related problems. If we
do, THEN we scream.

—- Paul J. Gans

Great solution. Buy it first then scream. <G>

Right. It helps not to appear to be an ass by screaming about something that isn’t true. After all, I’m talking major product boycott here.

— Paul J. Gans

But the studios count ticket sales as reflecting a pictures success. As long as the box office cash register is ringing, producers don’t care if a picture is liked or disliked.

Nick

Mxsmanic wrote:

In general, you need a really good monitor to do serious work with Photoshop. That excludes laptops.

Yeah, but, like, I have Photoshop on my laptop so I can do non-serious work while on the road — like getting a picture good enough to send to someone via email. I’ve calibrated my laptop monitor, and it’s a Mac Powerbook, so it’s actually quite close to good enough for serious work, though not quite there.

The activation process is an inconvenience. If I didn’t use a Mac, I’d have to re-activate every time I upgrade a computer — and though that doesn’t happen all that often, who’s to say when Adobe will stop taking activations for the current version to force upgrades? What if they go out of business completely?

If I have three computers, which I do, and I’m only going to be using Photoshop on one of them at a time, which I am, and I’m not going to be giving it to anyone else, which I’m not, then I’m not going to have any trouble under the usual license for commercial software. At this point it becomes less of a hassle to just get a cracked version of the program than to deal with activation, not to mention that I don’t feel like being treated like a criminal by default as well as being inconvenienced for having actually paid for some software which is extremely overpriced in the first place and which I could easily steal but choose not to.

If Adobe wants to know why Photoshop is so widely pirated, they need look no further than the price tag. Everyone I know with a non-legit copy of it would be happy to buy it for a couple hundred bucks, even in preference to a free stolen copy. If they cut the price in half they’d probably make more than twice as many sales.

How about an anti-pirating scheme based on public-key cryptography? Let my copy of the software run on any system as long as my private key can be used to decrypt some key file. That would be almost completely transparent in normal use, and I’d have no problem with it.

—
Jeremy |

Jeremy Nixon wrote:

How about an anti-pirating scheme based
on public-key cryptography?

A cleaner alternative to the current activation
schemes is the modular security dongle.

These used to be common back when there wasn’t
really a spare port, nor consistent port
behaviour, which caused them to be dropped.

But nowadays, virtually any computer on which
someone plans to run any Adobe product, XP or
any Macromedia product, has a USB port.

A USB 2.0 dongle, that was actually a hub, and
passed-thru the connection so as not to even
"consume" the port, would do the trick.

Adobe could include two dongles in each product.
Each dongle could contain submodules so a single
dongle could license multiple products.

You could install the software on multiple
machines, and move the dongle(s) to whichever
machine you were using.

I refuse to buy Activation-protected products.
I’d consider dongle-protected (in fact, I used
to run such a product eons ago when my home
computer was an early Unix workstation).

—
Regards, PO Box 248
Bob Niland Enterprise
mailto: Kansas USA
which, due to spam, is: 67441-0248
email4rjn AT yahoo DOT com
http://www.access-one.com/rjn

Unless otherwise specifically stated, expressing
personal opinions and NOT speaking for any
employer, client or Internet Service Provider.

Jeremy Nixon writes:

If Adobe wants to know why Photoshop is so widely pirated, they need look no further than the price tag. Everyone I know with a non-legit copy of it would be happy to buy it for a couple hundred bucks, even in preference to a free stolen copy. If they cut the price in half they’d probably make more than twice as many sales.

Many companies never get past the high-price/low-volume model. The ones that do eventually end up as poor as Wal-Mart.

When a product is first developed, the price has to be high if development costs are to be amortized in any reasonable period of time; sometimes even then it may take a decade. But Photoshop was written long ago, and each new update is more and more frosting on the cake and less and less any substantive change, so that argument began to wear thin several versions ago.

There’s worse. Quark XPress costs $2300 in Europe, and requires a dongle (no doubt because it costs $2300). It’s only worth about a tenth of that price. Quark could make more money with a lower price and higher volume, but understanding the advantages of volume sales seems to be beyond many managers.

How about an anti-pirating scheme based on public-key cryptography?

It has to be exportable and importable anywhere in the world. Crypto tends to cause legal problems.

Nevertheless, many types of software do use some species of crypto for copy protection.

Let my copy of the software run on any system as long as my private key can be used to decrypt some key file.

In the absence of special hardware, it’s very hard to link software to human users. It generally has to be limited to specific machines instead. The Ethernet card is an obvious choice. Even in cards that can change their addresses in software, the protection would still be possible because the card cannot have an infinite number of MAC addresses simultaneously.

—
Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly.

Jeremy Nixon wrote:

The activation process is an inconvenience. If I didn’t use a Mac, I’d have to re-activate every time I upgrade a
computer — and though that doesn’t happen all that often, who’s to say when Adobe will stop taking activations for the current version to force upgrades? What if they go
out of business completely?

Your license agreement does not expire when a new version of the software is released, and it does not expire if Adobe goes out of business. In either situation, Adobe would have to provide you with a patch to remove activation or some other way to make sure that the product could continue to be used.

See the license agreement:

http://www.adobe.com/products/eulas/pdfs/cs_combined.pdf

and the activation FAQ:

http://www.adobe.com/activation/main.html

-Mike (not speaking for Adobe, and not defending activation–just trying to help provide information)

Michael Geary wrote:

Your license agreement does not expire when a new version of the software is released, and it does not expire if Adobe goes out of business. In either situation, Adobe would have to provide you with a patch to remove activation or some other way to make sure that the product could continue to be used.

What does "have to" mean? How might I enforce this upon them? The only sensible answer is that I cannot, unless I happen to be in Bill Gates’s will.

And shouldn’t the barriers to my use of the software be removed when I pay for the license? If people go along with this crap, how long will it be before you have to make 60 phone calls to re-activate all your software every time you upgrade or change your computer?

It would sure be great if no Windows users at all bought Photoshop CS, and told Adobe it was because of this. I’ve already told them that the only reason I’m upgrading is because they’ve thus far spared Mac users from this nonsense.

It’s a shame there’s no comparable software. Someone obviously needs to put Adobe out of its misery.

—
Jeremy |

Bob Niland wrote:

A cleaner alternative to the current activation
schemes is the modular security dongle.

It’s only "clean" until you end up with your Adobe dongle daisy-chained from your Microsoft dongle plugged into your Macromedia dongle hanging off your Extensis dongle and so on…

—
Jeremy |

Jeremy Nixon wrote:

Bob Niland wrote:

A cleaner alternative to the current activation
schemes is the modular security dongle.

It’s only "clean" until you end up with your Adobe dongle daisy-chained from your Microsoft dongle plugged into your Macromedia dongle hanging off your Extensis dongle and so on…

Quark used to have dongles for XPress in Europe, causing MAJOR hassles. The program refused to recognise the dongle, or two different dongles didn’t work on the same machine. Quark, known for its great customer support, would react by simply suggesting that the customer should buy another computer in case of a ‘double dongle problem’. I don’t like activation either, but I would choose activation over dongles any time.

—
Johan W. Elzenga johan<<at>>johanfoto.nl Editor / Photographer http://www.johanfoto.nl/

Mxsmanic wrote:

Jeremy Nixon writes:

If Adobe wants to know why Photoshop is so widely pirated, they need look no further than the price tag. Everyone I know with a non-legit copy of it would be happy to buy it for a couple hundred bucks, even in preference to a free stolen copy. If they cut the price in half they’d probably make more than twice as many sales.

Many companies never get past the high-price/low-volume model. The ones that do eventually end up as poor as Wal-Mart.

When a product is first developed, the price has to be high if development costs are to be amortized in any reasonable period of time; sometimes even then it may take a decade. But Photoshop was written long ago, and each new update is more and more frosting on the cake and less and less any substantive change, so that argument began to wear thin several versions ago.

You don’t know that at all. It’s not how much of a change is achieved on the outside, it’s how much time it costs to develop those changes. I’m not a professional programmer, but I have done some programming myself. Some ‘small’ changes may actually cost a hell of a lot of work to implement, while some ‘major’ changes may not involve that much work at all. Furthermore, the more complex the program becomes, the more complex it will be to change things anyway. I wouldn’t be surprised if the changes from PS 7 to PS CS involved much more lines of code than the changes from say PS 3 to PS 4. I simply don’t know, because I can’t look into the Adobe kitchen. Can you?

There’s worse. Quark XPress costs $2300 in Europe, and requires a dongle (no doubt because it costs $2300). It’s only worth about a tenth of that price. Quark could make more money with a lower price and higher volume, but understanding the advantages of volume sales seems to be beyond many managers.

Who says that Quark would sell five times more if it were priced $500? XPress is a specialist tool. There are only so many of those specialists in the world who need it. The Wal-Mart model works fine for consumer goods, but not neccessarily for everything else. A low price does indeed expand the market somewhat, but not by definition with the same ratio.

By the way, PaintShop Pro is priced the way you suggest. So according to your theory, the JASC managers understood what the Adobe managers still don’t understand. But somehow I do not get the impression that JASC Software is doing much better than Adobe…

On Sun, 30 Nov 2003 07:49:15 -0000, Jeremy Nixon wrote:

Bob Niland wrote:

A cleaner alternative to the current activation
schemes is the modular security dongle.

It’s only "clean" until you end up with your Adobe dongle daisy-chained from your Microsoft dongle plugged into your Macromedia dongle hanging off your Extensis dongle and so on…

It would seem to be preferable because it recognizes that _you_ bought the software, not 1 or 2 of your computers.

When Microsoft went to activation on WinXP, that isn’t much of a problem, since an operating system is meant to be used on just 1 computer.

When they went to activation on Microsoft Office, that’s when I said I’m buying no more issues of office. _I_ buy office, not 1 or two of my computers. If I want to use office on my home computer, my laptop computer, and my work computer, and maybe somothercomputer, it is still _me_ using the software that _I_ purchased. I should be able to use the software I paid for anytime, anywhere. Saying I have to buy 2 or 3 or 4 copies just to be able to use them in different places or on different machines is a non-starter, and I won’t be paying for that.

Dave Head

Johan W. Elzenga writes:

You don’t know that at all.

I know most of it for certain; the rest I extrapolate based on experience.

It’s not how much of a change is achieved on
the outside, it’s how much time it costs to develop
those changes.

It costs very little to make those changes–that is often the driving force behind making them. Most companies, including Adobe, choose "enhancements" that are highly visible and easy to code. Major overhauls, such as redesigning memory allocation, are never undertaken, because the profit margins are lower, when they are positive at all.

This is why upgrades are so popular in the first place. It is _far_ easier and more profitable to endlessly "upgrade" an existing piece of software with tiny bells and whistles than it is to write entirely new software products. So you hardly ever see anything new, but you may see a thousand "upgrades" for the same old software, until the software becomes so bloated and complicated that even the most naïve customers are no longer willing to "upgrade" it.

Some ‘small’ changes may actually cost a hell of a lot of work to implement, while some ‘major’ changes may not involve that much work at all.

Rest assured, the major changes are not the ones that are preferentially chosen for upgrades.

Furthermore, the more complex the program becomes, the more complex it will be to change things anyway.

Which raises the question of why anything must be changed at all.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the changes from PS 7 to PS CS involved much more lines of code than the changes from say PS 3 to PS 4.

I wouldn’t be surprised if they also involved a much smaller fraction of the total lines in the product, too.

I simply don’t know, because I can’t look into the Adobe kitchen. Can you?

No, but all kitchens look pretty much the same.

Who says that Quark would sell five times more if it were priced $500?

Standard business wisdom. Wal-Mart sells a lot more than Gucci.

XPress is a specialist tool.

So was PageMaker, but it cost four times less than XPress.

By the way, PaintShop Pro is priced the way you suggest. So according to your theory, the JASC managers understood what the Adobe managers still don’t understand. But somehow I do not get the impression that JASC Software is doing much better than Adobe…

JASC is shifting towards the Adobe model (which is actually an industry-wide model, not specific to Adobe). All software companies do, once they develop beyond a certain point, unless they enjoy taking risks and/or use non-perpetual licensing systems.

—
Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly.

Mxsmanic wrote:

Who says that Quark would sell five times more if it were priced $500?

Standard business wisdom. Wal-Mart sells a lot more than Gucci.

Sure, but brands like Gucci may be much more profitable per dollar investment than Wal-Mart ever was. Besides, the question was not "Who says Quark would sell more?", but "Who says Quark would sell FIVE TIMES more". Yes, Quark would sell more. But if it was only two or three times more (because the market for this type of software is only limited), then Quark would LOSE a lot of money as a result of that move.

Standard business wisdom tells you that markets do not expand endlessly if you lower the price. By your definition, Quark would be far more profitable if XPress would only cost one dollar, because then a billion people or so would buy it, so Quark would make a billion dollars. Dream on. Even if Quark would give away XPress for free, it would still not be used by every person on the planet who owns a computer.

There is always a balance between price and copies sold. The optimum balance is never the highest price, but it’s seldom the lowest price either. Quark and Adobe apparently feel they have the right balance. Perhaps they do, perhaps they don’t, I don’t know and I’m certainly not making any statements about their choice. But your suggestion that lower prices are ALWAYS and BY DEFINITION the best business model, only shows you don’t know much about being in business.

XPress is a specialist tool.

So was PageMaker, but it cost four times less than XPress.

Your point being? PageMaker no longer even exists! Quark took the whole market, even though it was indeed so much more expensive! I think that proves MY point, hardly YOURS, don’t you think?

If PageMaker is an example of your ‘standard business wisdom’, I’m glad we’re not in business together… 😉

By the way, PaintShop Pro is priced the way you suggest. So according to your theory, the JASC managers understood what the Adobe managers still don’t understand. But somehow I do not get the impression that JASC Software is doing much better than Adobe…

JASC is shifting towards the Adobe model (which is actually an industry-wide model, not specific to Adobe). All software companies do, once they develop beyond a certain point, unless they enjoy taking risks and/or use non-perpetual licensing systems.

You’re missing the point. Again. Paintshop Pro is priced about one fifth of Photoshop. Yet PaintShop Pro is far less used than Photoshop and JASC is certainly not as profitable as Adobe. Apparently, price isn’t everything. Good standard business models that work for selling potato chips, do not neccessarily also work for selling specialist software.

—
Johan W. Elzenga johan<<at>>johanfoto.nl Editor / Photographer http://www.johanfoto.nl/

In article <1g58kbb.115nr28l09mo0N%>,
(Johan W. Elzenga) wrote:

[…] Quark, known for its great customer
support, would react by simply suggesting that the customer should buy another computer in case of a ‘double dongle problem’. I don’t like activation either, but I would choose activation over dongles any time.

Quark seems to be the model of how badly you can treat a customer and get away with it, and they did so because (allegedly) Quark is the Photoshop of page layout. Oh no! I don’t like the way that reads. (BTW – when you call Quark for help, do they speak English?)

In article <1g58kiz.12y6e0macidcoN%>,
(Johan W. Elzenga) wrote:

[…]
By the way, PaintShop Pro is priced the way you suggest. So according to your theory, the JASC managers understood what the Adobe managers still don’t understand. But somehow I do not get the impression that JASC Software is doing much better than Adobe…

Great point. That’s a real metric.

In article , Mxsmanic
wrote:

Johan W. Elzenga writes:

It’s not how much of a change is achieved on
the outside, it’s how much time it costs to develop
those changes.

It costs very little to make those changes–that is often the driving force behind making them. Most companies, including Adobe, choose "enhancements" that are highly visible and easy to code. Major overhauls, such as redesigning memory allocation, are never undertaken, because the profit margins are lower, when they are positive at all.

Back to the killfile for you, Mixmaster. Your impressionistic views of reality would be better put to fantasy literature. I think you are wasting your time here and in photography in general, unless you are the person who is keeping the SFX filter market alive.

Johan W. Elzenga writes:

Sure, but brands like Gucci may be much more profitable per dollar investment than Wal-Mart ever was.

If that were true, Wal-Mart would be small, and Gucci would be big.

Typically, the largest companies tend to be those that sell the largest volumes at the lowest costs. Microsoft, for example, makes a significant part of its income from OEM sales of its operating systems: millions of copies at a few dozens of dollars each.

Yes, Quark would sell more. But if it was only two or three times more (because the market for this type of software is only limited), then Quark would LOSE a lot of money as a result of that move.

They can lower the price until they see diminishing returns.

Your point being?

XPress is priced at more than it is really worth (although I do like it better than PageMaker).

PageMaker no longer even exists!

InDesign replaced it. One of those rare occasions when a company actually develops a new product. InDesign still is having trouble against XPress, though, since XPress already does just about everything that needs to be done–and since both appeal to business users, who don’t throw money away on useless features, this is important.

Quark took the whole market, even though it was indeed so much more expensive!

It was technically superior (it still is, but by a fairly slim margin, and InDesign has its advocates–I haven’t used InDesign).

You’re missing the point. Again. Paintshop Pro is priced about one fifth of Photoshop.

It used to be priced at about one tenth of the price of Photoshop.

Yet PaintShop Pro is far less used than Photoshop and JASC is certainly not as profitable as Adobe.

Are you sure?

—
Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly.

jjs wrote:

In article <1g58kbb.115nr28l09mo0N%>,
(Johan W. Elzenga) wrote:

[…] Quark, known for its great customer
support, would react by simply suggesting that the customer should buy another computer in case of a ‘double dongle problem’. I don’t like activation either, but I would choose activation over dongles any time.

Quark seems to be the model of how badly you can treat a customer and get away with it, and they did so because (allegedly) Quark is the Photoshop of page layout. Oh no! I don’t like the way that reads. (BTW – when you call Quark for help, do they speak English?)

I don’t know. I never called them personally, and I hope I never have to. I don’t think it matters though. If someone does NOT help you, what does it matter which language he uses while NOT helping you?

—
Johan W. Elzenga johan<<at>>johanfoto.nl Editor / Photographer http://www.johanfoto.nl/

Mxsmanic wrote:

Johan W. Elzenga writes:

Sure, but brands like Gucci may be much more profitable per dollar investment than Wal-Mart ever was.

If that were true, Wal-Mart would be small, and Gucci would be big.

No it wouldn’t. The most profitable companies (in terms of return on investment) are not neccessarily also the biggest companies in terms of turn over. Very high profit margins are more often than not made in niche markets, not in high volume markets. That’s exactly what Gucci does. It operates in a niche market. Wal-Mart on the other hand has chosen for the mass market with low margins. Both are solid business models, but aren’t interchangeable just like that.

Typically, the largest companies tend to be those that sell the largest volumes at the lowest costs.

True, but they aren’t always the companies with the highest profit margins and highest return on investment. Also, you need a mass market to begin with. You cannot sell large volumes at low costs, if the market doesn’t want large volumes anyway. The market for Xpress doesn’t ask for large volumes. Anyone who needs XPress is using it, but nobody will buy a few extra copies just for fun or because it was so cheap.

Microsoft, for example, makes a significant part of its income from OEM sales of its operating systems: millions of copies at a few dozens of dollars each.

Exactly. Because the market for the OS is a mass market. Every computer needs an OS to operate. But if Microsoft would make XPress, they would certainly not bundle THAT with every computer at a few dozens of dollars! They would charge top dollar for it.

Yes, Quark would sell more. But if it was only two or three times more (because the market for this type of software is only limited), then Quark would LOSE a lot of money as a result of that move.

They can lower the price until they see diminishing returns.

Sure they can. But why on earth would they do that? To please you? It wouldn’t make any business sense, because they would end up making the same money as they do now. And perhaps that’s exactly why they do NOT follow that route. They know they would sell little more, because they are already market leader. It would diminish their returns almost immediately.

Your point being?

XPress is priced at more than it is really worth (although I do like it better than PageMaker).

The fact that something else (that now doesn’t even exist anymore) is cheaper, is hardly proof that a product is priced more than it is really worth. Ladas are cheaper than BMW’s. What does that prove? That any car is only worth the price of a Lada?

PageMaker no longer even exists!

InDesign replaced it. One of those rare occasions when a company actually develops a new product. InDesign still is having trouble against XPress, though, since XPress already does just about everything that needs to be done–and since both appeal to business users, who don’t throw money away on useless features, this is important.

Thank you for proving my point that money isn’t everything. By the way; InDesign is also cheaper than XPress, and yet Xpress keeps the larger market share. Seems that not only the Adobe managers don’t understand your brilliant business model, even those stupid customers don’t! 😉

You’re missing the point. Again. Paintshop Pro is priced about one fifth of Photoshop.

It used to be priced at about one tenth of the price of Photoshop.

So? What’s your point now? Did PaintShop Pro outsell Photoshop TEN TIMES in the past and now only five times? And was JASC three times more profitable when PSP was two times cheaper? According to your ‘business wisdom’ it should have been.

—
Johan W. Elzenga johan<<at>>johanfoto.nl Editor / Photographer http://www.johanfoto.nl/

jjs writes:

Quark seems to be the model of how badly you can treat a customer and get away with it, and they did so because (allegedly) Quark is the Photoshop of page layout. Oh no! I don’t like the way that reads.

Unfortunately, it still rings true.

BTW – when you call Quark for help, do they speak English?

I’ve never tried to call Quark myself, as I’ve never heard anything good about their "support." They should have an engineer permanently on site to help me with any problems for what I paid for the software.

—
Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly.

In article ,
Mxsmanic says…

If that were true, Wal-Mart would be small, and Gucci would be big.

Gucci *IS* big. Okay, they might lose some of their
market share now that Tom Ford has left, but…..

—
Michael Quack

http://www.photoquack.de/glamour/1.htm
http://www.photoquack.de/fashion/1.htm

Johan W. Elzenga writes:

Sure they can. But why on earth would they do that?

Because prior to reaching that point, they’ll reach a point where volume and price best combine to maximize profits. In general, this point will be at a considerably lower price and larger volume than many of these companies might believe.

By the way; InDesign is also cheaper than XPress, and yet Xpress keeps the larger market share.

InDesign has a reputation for extreme bloat, and that alone is enough to prevent me from buying it. I don’t need Illustrator, Photoshop, Streamline, Framemaker, PageMaker, Première, and Acrobat all rolled into one two-hundred-gigabyte product.

Seems that not only the Adobe managers don’t understand
your brilliant business model, even those stupid customers don’t!

See above. InDesign is new; it remains to be seen whether or not it is actually better.

So? What’s your point now?

JASC is falling into the same groove as its larger competitors. I guess a lot of middle managers need new company cars.

Did PaintShop Pro outsell Photoshop TEN TIMES
in the past and now only five times?

I don’t know.

—
Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly.

"Michael Geary" wrote in message

Jeremy Nixon wrote:

The activation process is an inconvenience. If I didn’t use a Mac, I’d have to re-activate every time I upgrade a
computer — and though that doesn’t happen all that often, who’s to say when Adobe will stop taking activations for the current version to force upgrades? What if they go
out of business completely?

Your license agreement does not expire when a new version of the software

is

released, and it does not expire if Adobe goes out of business. In either situation, Adobe would have to provide you with a patch to remove

activation

or some other way to make sure that the product could continue to be used.
See the license agreement:

Bullshit.

And I DID "see the license" agreement. NOWHERE in that document OR on the web site you cite does it say that Adobe "has" to do any such thing.

Tom

In article <ffryb.260007$>, "Tom"
wrote:

"Michael Geary" wrote in message

Your license agreement does not expire when a new version of the software

is

released, and it does not expire if Adobe goes out of business. In either situation, Adobe would have to provide you with a patch to remove

activation

or some other way to make sure that the product could continue to be used.
See the license agreement:

Bullshit.

And I DID "see the license" agreement. NOWHERE in that document OR on the web site you cite does it say that Adobe "has" to do any such thing.

Leave it to the lawyers to discern the language, but it appears that Adobe does explicitly promise certain things on their web site (but not in the EULA), such as:

"In the event that a product is discontinued, Adobe will enable automatic approval of all activation requests for that product or provide a means to remove activation outright. In either case, the customer will not experience any change in software capabilities."

(and)

"In the unlikely event of the company’s shutting down, we will enable automatic approval of all activation requests or provide other technical means allowing users to continue using our products."

"jjs" wrote in message

In article <ffryb.260007$>, "Tom"
wrote:

"Michael Geary" wrote in message

Your license agreement does not expire when a new version of the

software

is

released, and it does not expire if Adobe goes out of business. In

either

situation, Adobe would have to provide you with a patch to remove

activation

or some other way to make sure that the product could continue to be

used.

See the license agreement:

Bullshit.

And I DID "see the license" agreement. NOWHERE in that document OR on

the

web site you cite does it say that Adobe "has" to do any such thing.

Leave it to the lawyers to discern the language, but it appears that Adobe does explicitly promise certain things on their web site (but not in the EULA), such as:

"In the event that a product is discontinued, Adobe will enable automatic approval of all activation requests for that product or provide a means to remove activation outright. In either case, the customer will not experience any change in software capabilities."

(and)

"In the unlikely event of the company’s shutting down, we will enable automatic approval of all activation requests or provide other technical means allowing users to continue using our products."

"Will" ->implies<- futurity only and in no circumstances whatsoever means "shall", let alone "must".

As for lawyers, you can be sure that Adobe’s lawyers looked over these socalled "promises" very carefully before they saw the light of day.

Tom

Johan W. Elzenga writes:

By the way; InDesign is also cheaper than XPress, and yet Xpress keeps the larger market share.

A lot of the reason for that is inertia. Large companies have years of documents in Xpress format, and lots of training invested in it. Switching would be expensive and difficult.

Mxsmanic wrote:

InDesign has a reputation for extreme bloat, and that alone is enough to prevent me from buying it. I don’t need Illustrator, Photoshop, Streamline, Framemaker, PageMaker, Première, and Acrobat all rolled into one two-hundred-gigabyte product.

If someone told you that’s what InDesign is, they were lying to you.

—
Jeremy |

In article <SUuyb.374151$>, "Tom"
wrote:

"Will" ->implies<- futurity only and in no circumstances whatsoever means "shall", let alone "must".

Silly me, the consumer who believes in plain English. But you should know that when someone with such resources as Adobe has makes a promise which includes ambiguity, the judgement almost always favors the person who would be disadvantaged – that’s us, the consumer.

BTW – Check out the license agreement as it concerns German and Austrian buyers. Man, ya don’t want to piss them off.

Johan W. Elzenga wrote:

By the way, PaintShop Pro is priced the way you suggest. So according to your theory, the JASC managers understood what the Adobe managers still don’t understand. But somehow I do not get the impression that JASC Software is doing much better than Adobe…

PaintShop Pro can hardly be considered a competitor to Photoshop, let alone a replacement, so I don’t think the comparison is valid.

—
Jeremy |

Jeremy Nixon wrote:

Mxsmanic wrote:

In general, you need a really good monitor to do serious work with Photoshop. That excludes laptops.

Yeah, but, like, I have Photoshop on my laptop so I can do non-serious work while on the road — like getting a picture good enough to send to someone via email. I’ve calibrated my laptop monitor, and it’s a Mac Powerbook, so it’s actually quite close to good enough for serious work, though not quite there.

The activation process is an inconvenience. If I didn’t use a Mac, I’d have to re-activate every time I upgrade a computer — and though that doesn’t happen all that often, who’s to say when Adobe will stop taking activations for the current version to force upgrades? What if they go out of business completely?

If I have three computers, which I do, and I’m only going to be using Photoshop on one of them at a time, which I am, and I’m not going to be giving it to anyone else, which I’m not, then I’m not going to have any trouble under the usual license for commercial software. At this point it becomes less of a hassle to just get a cracked version of the program than to deal with activation, not to mention that I don’t feel like being treated like a criminal by default as well as being inconvenienced for having actually paid for some software which is extremely overpriced in the first place and which I could easily steal but choose not to.
If Adobe wants to know why Photoshop is so widely pirated, they need look no further than the price tag. Everyone I know with a non-legit copy of it would be happy to buy it for a couple hundred bucks, even in preference to a free stolen copy. If they cut the price in half they’d probably make more than twice as many sales.

You and your friends need better paying jobs.

Regards,
Uni – The Professional Engineer

How about an anti-pirating scheme based on public-key cryptography? Let my copy of the software run on any system as long as my private key can be used to decrypt some key file. That would be almost completely transparent in normal use, and I’d have no problem with it.

Jeremy Nixon wrote:

Johan W. Elzenga wrote:

By the way, PaintShop Pro is priced the way you suggest. So according to your theory, the JASC managers understood what the Adobe managers still don’t understand. But somehow I do not get the impression that JASC Software is doing much better than Adobe…

PaintShop Pro can hardly be considered a competitor to Photoshop,

True, GIMP http://gimp.org is a closer match.

Uni

let

alone a replacement, so I don’t think the comparison is valid.

Uni writes:

True, GIMP http://gimp.org is a closer match.

Not for print.

—
Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly.

In comp.graphics.apps.photoshop Nick C wrote:

Paul J Gans wrote:

[huge snip]

Right. It helps not to appear to be an ass by screaming about something that isn’t true. After all, I’m talking major product boycott here.

— Paul J. Gans

But the studios count ticket sales as reflecting a pictures success. As long as the box office cash register is ringing, producers don’t care if a picture is liked or disliked.

Of course. Both the movie studio and Adobe are in
business to make money. One way to do that is to
keep the customers happy.

—- Paul J. Gans

In comp.graphics.apps.photoshop jjs wrote:

In article <1g58kiz.12y6e0macidcoN%>,
(Johan W. Elzenga) wrote:

[…]
By the way, PaintShop Pro is priced the way you suggest. So according to your theory, the JASC managers understood what the Adobe managers still don’t understand. But somehow I do not get the impression that JASC Software is doing much better than Adobe…

Great point. That’s a real metric.

However, we do not know the actual sales figures for either of them. Don’t forget that the more typical user of PaintShop Pro is not apt to frequent internet newsgroups asking questions.

—- Paul J. Gans

In comp.graphics.apps.photoshop Mxsmanic wrote:

Uni writes:

True, GIMP http://gimp.org is a closer match.

Not for print.

Not intended for print. Not intended to burn CDs or
download tunes either. It is just plain *lousy* at
those tasks.

—– Paul J. Gans

Paul J Gans writes:

Not intended for print.

Then it’s a very poor match for Photoshop, which was originally intended for that, and still is the best tool for the job.

—
Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly.

Ironically, someone used Adobe Photoshop CS to do a real number on this image. See the EXIF info; unsharp mask extremis?

http://www.pbase.com/image/22816462

The image was presented to me by "JPS" as an example of typical Foveon jaggies, but based on dozens of other samples, very little of it would be the fault of the sensor.

It looks like the original image was blurred by camera motion or poor focus, then oversharpened to produce extreme artifacts, which were then described to me in a "see, I told you so" manner. I’m not saying it was deliberate, but JPS must have had an inking that the image wasn’t pure.

As long as I linger in this newsgroup, I ask anyone posting samples to first verify they’ve not been altered. I only have a 56k modem and I;d rather see legit examples of true artifacts.

K2

Ironically, someone used Adobe Photoshop CS to do a real number on this image. See the EXIF info; unsharp mask extremis?

http://www.pbase.com/image/23675511/original

The image was presented to me by "JPS" as an example of typical Foveon jaggies, but based on dozens of other samples, very little of it would be the fault of the sensor.

It looks like the original image was blurred by camera motion or poor focus, then oversharpened to produce extreme artifacts, which were then described to me in a "see, I told you so" manner. I’m not saying it was deliberate, but JPS must have had an inking that the image wasn’t pure.

As long as I linger in this newsgroup, I ask anyone posting samples to first verify they’ve not been altered. I only have a 56k modem and I;d rather see legit examples of true artifacts.

K2

K2 wrote:

Ironically, someone used Adobe Photoshop CS to do a real number on this image. See the EXIF info; unsharp mask extremis?

http://www.pbase.com/image/23675511/original

Where do you see unsharp data in the EXIF?

"jjs" wrote in message

In article <SUuyb.374151$>, "Tom"
wrote:

"Will" ->implies<- futurity only and in no circumstances whatsoever

means

"shall", let alone "must".

Silly me, the consumer who believes in plain English.

Believe me, the English is plain enough for Adobe. They knew EXACTLY what they were saying.

But you should know
that when someone with such resources as Adobe has makes a promise which includes ambiguity, the judgement almost always favors the person who would be disadvantaged – that’s us, the consumer.

Just got off the last bus from Wonderland, did ya?

Tom

On Sun, 30 Nov 2003 21:37:43 -0800, Mark Johnson
wrote:

K2 wrote:

Ironically, someone used Adobe Photoshop CS to do a real number on this image. See the EXIF info; unsharp mask extremis?

http://www.pbase.com/image/23675511/original

Where do you see unsharp data in the EXIF?

EXIF doesn’t indicate that in particular, just that CS was used. Since the image was radically sharpened, I’m assuming that was the software responsible.

Foveon couldn’t sell a single chip if the pictures looked that ragged out of the box. This post is about people commenting on misleading samples, not Adobe.

K2

In comp.graphics.apps.photoshop Mxsmanic wrote:

Paul J Gans writes:

Not intended for print.

Then it’s a very poor match for Photoshop, which was originally intended for that, and still is the best tool for the job.

Yes, except for all the people who use Photoshop for web work, printing on a PC (which does not need color separations unless one has a far better home printing setup than most), or
e-mailing to family.

—- Paul J. Gans

In article <lBAyb.265922$>, "Tom"
wrote:

But you should know
that when someone with such resources as Adobe has makes a promise which includes ambiguity, the judgement almost always favors the person who would be disadvantaged – that’s us, the consumer.

Just got off the last bus from Wonderland, did ya?

University of Chicago School of Law, 1972.
Want to dual?

In article ,
(jjs) wrote:

Want to dual?

Duel! You idiot. Have some coffee. Wake up.

"K2" wrote in message

Ironically, someone used Adobe Photoshop CS to do a real number on this image. See the EXIF info; unsharp mask extremis?

That’s a typical result from the Sigma converter software. It sharpens even at it’s lowest setting.

SNIP

The image was presented to me by "JPS" as an example of typical Foveon jaggies, but based on dozens of other samples, very little of it would be the fault of the sensor.

Only the aliasing artifacts, and difficulties to get correct noisefree color, would be attributable to the sensor implementation itself.

Bart

In article ,
jjs says…

Want to dual?

Duel! You idiot. Have some coffee. Wake up.

Idiot yourselves. :-)) In digital photography it is
dual CPU, when powerful machines are the topic.

I wouldn’t want my double Xeons to duel….

—
Michael Quack

http://www.photoquack.de/glamour/1.htm
http://www.photoquack.de/fashion/1.htm

"Michael Quack" wrote in message

In article ,
jjs says…
[…]
Idiot yourselves. :-)) In digital photography it is
dual CPU, when powerful machines are the topic.

I wouldn’t want my double Xeons to duel….

Ecstacy! I came into the lab today to find two brand new G4s with 4gb RAM, dual fixed discs, a 20" and a 23" studio monitor and, and, life is good! 🙂 Duel on the Duals!

On Mon, 1 Dec 2003 11:31:06 -0600, "jjs" posted:

"Michael Quack" wrote in message

In article ,
jjs says…
[…]
Idiot yourselves. :-)) In digital photography it is
dual CPU, when powerful machines are the topic.

I wouldn’t want my double Xeons to duel….

Ecstacy! I came into the lab today to find two brand new G4s with 4gb RAM, dual fixed discs, a 20" and a 23" studio monitor and, and, life is good! 🙂 Duel on the Duals!

santa is early this year.

So now Linux is up to what .01 percent of the market? Nobody I know has removed XP from a machine to put ANY other OS on it, and I just don’t hear a lot of talk from people about getting a new machine without Windows. I’ve got nothing against Linux but if it don’t run Photoshop, and if it won’t run my Wacom tablet, and if it won’t run my scanners (all three of tehm) and if it won’t run the MS-DOS programs I still use, and if it won’t run Corel Draw, and if it won’t run Extensis Portfolio, and if it won’t run Word, and about ten other programs essential to MY working I’m certainly not goin to waste MY time with it — and neither are millions and millions of others.

—
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com
home of The Camera-ist’s Manifesto
The Improved Links Pages are at
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com/links/mlinks00.html
A sample chapter from my novel "Haight-Ashbury" is at http://www.chapelhillnoir.com/writ/hait/hatitl.html
"Michael Quack" wrote in message

In article <1Pexb.22065$>,
Tony Spadaro says…

I wonder how all those people buying computers are
getting the XP off them.

FDISK.

My server runs Linux, my firewall runs Linux, and soon
my office machines will be running Linux as well.

I stick with Photoshop 7, have switched from Premiere to Pinnacle Liquid Edition, keep an eye on Gimp, donate to
the local Gimp community….. yes, there is action to take.
—
Michael Quack

http://www.photoquack.de/glamour/1.htm
http://www.photoquack.de/fashion/1.htm

jjs wrote:

Leave it to the lawyers to discern the language, but it
appears that Adobe does explicitly promise certain
things on their web site (but not in the EULA), such as:
"In the event that a product is discontinued, Adobe will enable automatic approval of all activation requests for that product or provide a means to remove activation
outright. In either case, the customer will not experience any change in software capabilities."

(and)

"In the unlikely event of the company’s shutting down, we will enable automatic approval of all activation
requests or provide other technical means allowing users to continue using our products."

Tom wrote:

"Will" ->implies<- futurity only and in no circumstances whatsoever means "shall", let alone "must".
As for lawyers, you can be sure that Adobe’s lawyers looked over these socalled "promises" very carefully before they saw the light of day.

That’s amazingly silly, and really quite insulting. You are suggesting that one of Adobe’s lawyers said, "I’ve got it! If we just say ‘will’ instead of ‘shall’, then we won’t have to keep our promises!"

Adobe would fire a lawyer who thought that way.

Look–you may not like activation. I don’t like it either. As I mentioned earlier, it makes Photoshop incompatible with the Ghost disk-cloning backup system that has saved my skin so many times.

But Adobe’s management, and Adobe’s lawyers, are not the lying thieves that you imply. I *know* these people. I work with them. They are honorable people who keep their word. They are not the kind of people who would weasel out of a promise by saying "Ha ha! I didn’t say ‘shall’! All I said was ‘will’, so it wasn’t a real promise!"

Do you want to know why the activation FAQ says ‘will’ instead of ‘shall’? It’s because Adobe is an American company. Americans, speaking United States English, do not make the subtle distinction between ‘will’ and ‘shall’ that you’re so worried about. It’s our British friends, speaking the Queen’s English, who distinguish between those two words. The FAQ says ‘we will’ because that’s how you make a promise in America.

But don’t take my word for it. Read the detailed Usage Note on "will" vs. "shall" at dictionary.com:

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=shall

-Mike (not speaking for Adobe’s management, lawyers, or anyone by myself)

In article ,
Michael Geary wrote:

But Adobe’s management, and Adobe’s lawyers, are not the lying thieves that you imply. I *know* these people. I work with them. They are honorable people who keep their word.

Disclaimer: I don’t like activation, I think it’s a bad idea and counter-productive, just like CD "copy protection", in that the primary effect is to annoy your paying customers, and have little effect on piracy. However, it doesn’t affect me personally in this instance because I’m using the Mac version, and I find CS to be a good piece of sofware.

Having said that, this comment about "honorable people" within Adobe has a pretty hollow ring when one considers the appalling, scummy and frankly plain dishonourable way Dimitry Sklyarov was treated when he exposed just how fragile Adobe’s EBook "protection" was. An honourable company would have been grateful for him bringing attention to a weakness in their product, so that they could fix it, not sic the DMCA, a law which seems to have been passed entirely to preserve the business models of recording industry dinosaurs because they refuse to adapt to the modern world, on him.

So while I think Photoshop CS is a superb bit of software, I really don’t trust Adobe do behave in a way that is honourable in any way. They have done nothing to earn that trust, and quite a lot to destroy it. It makes me nervous when people in my own industry can be thrown in prison in a foreign country for just doing their job. Adobe let down its own industry very badly over that incident.

Michael Geary writes:

You are suggesting that one of Adobe’s lawyers said, "I’ve got it! If we just say ‘will’ instead of ‘shall’, then we won’t have to keep our promises!"

Sure, why not?

Adobe would fire a lawyer who thought that way.

Why? The words chosen can make a huge difference.

The FAQ says ‘we will’ because that’s how you make
a promise in America.

"We will" means "we wish to"; "we shall" means "it is definitely going
to happen." This distinction exists in English throughout the world, not just in the U.K., and it is certainly important in legal documents. The first form implies volition, but no guarantee; the second form leaves no room for failure to perform.

—
Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly.

Tony Spadaro writes:

Nobody I know has removed XP from a machine to put
ANY other OS on it …

I removed XP to install FreeBSD (a flavor of UNIX), but that’s specifically because I needed an inexpensive server, and the cheap machine I bought came preinstalled with XP. On my two desktop machines, I run Windows (XP and NT).

… and I just don’t hear a lot of talk from people
about getting a new machine without Windows.

I would not have minded getting a machine without an OS for my server, but it was no big deal to remove XP, nor did the presence of XP have much of an influence on the price (probably $40 or so).

I’ve got nothing against Linux but if it don’t run Photoshop, and if it won’t run my Wacom tablet, and if it won’t run my scanners (all three of tehm) and if it won’t run the MS-DOS programs I still use, and if it won’t run Corel Draw, and if it won’t run Extensis Portfolio, and if it won’t run Word, and about ten other programs essential to MY working I’m certainly not goin to waste MY time with it — and neither are millions and millions of others.

True, but that’s only because they lack the intense emotional and irrational hatred for anything Microsoft that drives so many Linux users to install Linux. There isn’t anything to recommend Linux from a technical or economic or practical standpoint; you might as well run MVS on your desktop. The real motivation for those who use it is hatred of Microsoft, as even a few seconds of conversation with them will make alarmingly clear.

—
Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly.

In article , "Michael Geary"
wrote:

Tom wrote:

"Will" ->implies<- futurity only and in no circumstances whatsoever means "shall", let alone "must".
As for lawyers, you can be sure that Adobe’s lawyers looked over these socalled "promises" very carefully before they saw the light of day.

That’s amazingly silly, and really quite insulting. You are suggesting that one of Adobe’s lawyers said, "I’ve got it! If we just say ‘will’ instead of ‘shall’, then we won’t have to keep our promises!"

Adobe would fire a lawyer who thought that way.

[…]
But don’t take my word for it. Read the detailed Usage Note on "will" vs. "shall" at dictionary.com:

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=shall

I agree, Mike. Well put. Tom is taking the cheap shot. Standard dictionary definitions of language do not neccessarily describe legal technical terms, but with the movement to publish readable contracts intended to be clear to the layperson, it is obvious enough that Adobe ‘shall’, regardless. ‘We’ the licencees read it, we understand it, and that’s what it will mean should there ever (God forbid) be a class-action suit.

In article , Chris Brown
wrote:

Having said that, this comment about "honorable people" within Adobe has a pretty hollow ring when one considers the appalling, scummy and frankly plain dishonourable way Dimitry Sklyarov was treated when he exposed just how fragile Adobe’s EBook "protection" was. An honourable company would have been grateful for him bringing attention to a weakness […]

Pure friggin slander, Brown! Do you know for certain that Adobe brought those charges? Or did the Feds? Adobe worked with the EFF to petition that the charges be dropped and Skylarov be released!

Let’s get it straight.

In article , Mxsmanic
wrote:

Michael Geary writes:

You are suggesting that one of Adobe’s lawyers said, "I’ve got it! If we just say ‘will’ instead of ‘shall’, then we won’t have to keep our promises!"

Sure, why not?

Adobe would fire a lawyer who thought that way.

Why? The words chosen can make a huge difference.

Maybe in backwards France, but not in the USA where such a license is to be unambiguous and clear to the informed licensee. Your usual impressionistic bullshit puts you back into the killfile, Mixmaster.

jjs writes:

Maybe in backwards France, but not in the USA where such a license is to be unambiguous and clear to the informed licensee.

The informed licensee knows his grammar.

Your usual impressionistic bullshit puts you back into
the killfile, Mixmaster.

Promises, promises.

—
Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly.

In article ,
Mxsmanic wrote:

True, but that’s only because they lack the intense emotional and irrational hatred for anything Microsoft that drives so many Linux users to install Linux. There isn’t anything to recommend Linux from a technical or economic or practical standpoint; you might as well run MVS on your desktop. The real motivation for those who use it is hatred of Microsoft, as even a few seconds of conversation with them will make alarmingly clear.

What utter nonsense. I use Linux because X86 boxen are cheaper than Sparcstations, and actually faster for many tasks.

In article ,
jjs wrote:

In article , Chris Brown
wrote:

Having said that, this comment about "honorable people" within Adobe has a pretty hollow ring when one considers the appalling, scummy and frankly plain dishonourable way Dimitry Sklyarov was treated when he exposed just how fragile Adobe’s EBook "protection" was. An honourable company would have been grateful for him bringing attention to a weakness […]

Pure friggin slander, Brown! Do you know for certain that Adobe brought those charges?

I think you mean libel, and you’re spouting:

http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/US_v_Elcomsoft/20010707_complaint .html

Quote:

"I have been employed as a Special Agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation for over twenty-five years"

[…]

"On June 26, 2001, I met with representatives of Adobe Systems, Incorporated (Adobe), located in San Jose, California. Kevin Nathanson, Group Products Manager, eBooks, Adobe, told me the following:"

[…]

" Adobe learned that Dmitry Sklyarov is slated to speak on July 15, 1001 at a conference entitled Defcon-9 at Las Vegas Nevada. Spano told me that he learned that Sklyarov is scheduled to make a presentation related to the AEBPR software program."

Seems perfectly clear to me, or would you like to accuse an FBI special agent of slander too?

Furthermore, Adobe’s subsequent backing down in no-way mitigates their inexcusable behaviour – it did not lead to the dropping of the criminal charges (and was therefore a low-cost option for them – the case goes on, but they get to look like they’re distancing themselves from it after the outcry their behaviour caused in the software engineering community), but rather the charges were eventually dropped as part of a bargin wherby he would testify against his own employer (subsequentally found not guilty). The guy also spent several weeks in a foreign penal system, somewhere he did not belong, and was refused permission to travel home for substantially longer. He didn’t deserve any of that, and if Adobe hadn’t brought its complaint in the first place, he would never have been victimised in this way.

So, to be brutally honest, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if, a few years down the line, users of Photoshop CS on Windows found not upgrading to be a rather difficult thing to do. Adobe doesn’t exactly have a great track record when it comes to doing the decent thing.

Chris Brown writes:

What utter nonsense. I use Linux because X86 boxen are cheaper than Sparcstations, and actually faster for many tasks.

Why Linux instead of some other authentic flavor of UNIX?

—
Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly.

In article ,
Mxsmanic wrote:

Chris Brown writes:

What utter nonsense. I use Linux because X86 boxen are cheaper than Sparcstations, and actually faster for many tasks.

Why Linux instead of some other authentic flavor of UNIX?

Because it’s the only X86 UNIX that supports the software I need to use.

"Michael Geary" wrote in message

Tom wrote:

"Will" ->implies<- futurity only and in no circumstances whatsoever means "shall", let alone "must".
As for lawyers, you can be sure that Adobe’s lawyers looked over these socalled "promises" very carefully before they saw the light of day.

That’s amazingly silly, and really quite insulting. You are suggesting

that

one of Adobe’s lawyers said, "I’ve got it! If we just say ‘will’ instead

of

‘shall’, then we won’t have to keep our promises!"

No. YOU are suggesting that. I said no such thing.

What *I* said was the language used gave Adobe an out (wonder of wonders) and that the language was vetted by Adobe’s lawyers before it saw the light of day. If Adobe does NOT use lawyers to draft their license terms, I’ll be happy to buy a full page ad in the newspaper of your choice and print an apology.

If they do use lawyers, and of course they do, you can bet your ass they choose their words VERY carefully.

Adobe would fire a lawyer who thought that way.

Then we will be reading about all the bloodletting at Adobe’s legal department any day now because ALL lawyers "think that way". They are PAID to "think that way".

Look–you may not like activation. I don’t like it either. As I mentioned earlier, it makes Photoshop incompatible with the Ghost disk-cloning

backup

system that has saved my skin so many times.

Haven’t figured our forensic backup yet?

But Adobe’s management, and Adobe’s lawyers, are not the lying thieves

that

you imply.

This is so far over the top as to be ridiculous.

I *know* these people. I work with them.

Then tell them activation sucks, costs them money and only hurts honest clients.

They are honorable
people who keep their word.

No one said they were not. You are the one running around with your hair on fire about "thieves", "weasels", lying", etc. Actually starting to make me
wonder though…

Give it a rest and come back to what I REALLY said.

They are not the kind of people who would weasel
out of a promise by saying "Ha ha! I didn’t say ‘shall’! All I said was ‘will’, so it wasn’t a real promise!"

I’ll have to take your word for that as there is nothing in writing to indicate any such thing.

Maybe you can give an example. Does Adobe do business just taking vendors word? I know a promise and a handshake was a business model used by some companies and private individuals in days gone by, but is this the way Adobe operates now?

You pass the word on that, I’ll wait for your response.

Do you want to know why the activation FAQ says ‘will’ instead of ‘shall’?

Yep. Because that was the language chosen. And vetted by… who?

It’s because Adobe is an American company. Americans, speaking United

States

English, do not make the subtle distinction between ‘will’ and ‘shall’

that

you’re so worried about.

Bullshit. I’m not talking about Joe six-pack wandering aimlessly down the street. And you damn well know it. You must be grossly ignorant of contract law and the terms used to even say such nonsense, yet you ascribe motives to ME questioning the terms.

The FAQ says ‘we will’
because that’s how you make a promise in America.

That is not how lawyers make "promises" in America… or any other country.

But don’t take my word for it. Read the detailed Usage Note on "will" vs. "shall" at dictionary.com:

Why? One more time… we are not talking about playground usage, we are talking about legal usage. You seem to have missed that somehow. Or are ignoring it.

Makes no difference anyway.

The language is there in plain view. To suggest it somehow escaped notice by your legal department is disingenuous at best.

Oh, and if it does not matter, have your web site bubbas change it to "shall". No big deal, right? Words mean the same thing, right?

Run that little editorial change past your lawyers and see what they say.

Right.

Tom

In article <xY8zb.284772$>, "Tom"
wrote:

Then we will be reading about all the bloodletting at Adobe’s legal department any day now because ALL lawyers "think that way". They are PAID to "think that way".

Your cynicism is dwarfed only by your lack of intelligence.

They are not the kind of people who would weasel
out of a promise by saying "Ha ha! I didn’t say ‘shall’! All I said was ‘will’, so it wasn’t a real promise!"

I’ll have to take your word for that as there is nothing in writing to indicate any such thing.

Nope. Make that your cynicism ^IQ < your reading comprehension skills.

It’s because Adobe is an American company. Americans, speaking United

States

English, do not make the subtle distinction between ‘will’ and ‘shall’

that

you’re so worried about.

Bullshit. I’m not talking about Joe six-pack wandering aimlessly down the street. And you damn well know it. You must be grossly ignorant of contract law and the terms used to even say such nonsense, yet you ascribe motives to ME questioning the terms.

You sir, know nothing. It’s not specifically contract law, anyway.

The FAQ says ‘we will’
because that’s how you make a promise in America.

That is not how lawyers make "promises" in America… or any other country.

My god, you get more and more stupid by the sentence!

Why? One more time… we are not talking about playground usage, we are talking about legal usage. You seem to have missed that somehow. Or are ignoring it.

Pardon my use of a technical legal term, but you don’t know JACK SHIT!

"Some moron called jjs" wrote in message

Pardon my use of a technical legal term, but you don’t know JACK SHIT!

Scintillating display of, er, "intelligence". What a prince among debaters. What crushing wit…

I was wrong to introduce jjs as a "moron" above. He does not reach that height. He is just an idiot.

By the way, I used the correct technical terms.

Tom

Mxsmanic wrote:

Michael Geary writes:

The FAQ says ‘we will’ because that’s how you make
a promise in America.

"We will" means "we wish to"; "we shall" means "it is definitely going to happen."

At the risk of sounding dumb, why not just say "we wish to" or "it’s definitely going to happen"? I mean, legal documents aren’t known to skimp on the word count.

Mxsmanic wrote:

Tony Spadaro writes:

Nobody I know has removed XP from a machine to put
ANY other OS on it …

I removed XP to install FreeBSD (a flavor of UNIX), but that’s specifically because I needed an inexpensive server, and the cheap machine I bought came preinstalled with XP. On my two desktop machines, I run Windows (XP and NT).

Hey, Anthony – any opinion on Windows 2000 vs XP?
My limited reading suggested that they were closely
related, and that 2000 is slightly smaller & faster on a given machine.

"phaedrus" wrote in message

Mxsmanic wrote:

Tony Spadaro writes:

Nobody I know has removed XP from a machine to put
ANY other OS on it …

I removed XP to install FreeBSD (a flavor of UNIX), but that’s specifically because I needed an inexpensive server, and the cheap machine I bought came preinstalled with XP. On my two desktop machines, I run Windows (XP and NT).

Hey, Anthony – any opinion on Windows 2000 vs XP?
My limited reading suggested that they were closely
related, and that 2000 is slightly smaller & faster on a given machine.

I’m not Anthony, but I recommend XP. Lots of little things work better. 2000 is, after all, an operating system from the previous century 🙂

Tom wrote:

Give it a rest and come back to what I REALLY said.

That is always a good idea. 🙂

Tom, I’m sorry I overreacted to what you said. I think when you swore at me it put me on edge.

Even so, I really don’t think that the FAQ talks about what Adobe "will" do instead of "shall" do in order to avoid making an actual commitment. It’s simply because it’s a FAQ written in plain English, not a contract written in legalese. "We shall" would sound odd and stuffy in this particular document.

But let’s not argue the point. I’ll take you up on your suggestion and ask our legal department about it.

-Mike (speaking only for myself, not Adobe)

Michael Geary wrote:

But Adobe’s management, and Adobe’s lawyers, are not the lying thieves that you imply. I *know* these people. I work with them. They are honorable people who keep their word.

Chris Brown wrote:

Disclaimer: I don’t like activation, I think it’s a bad idea and counter-productive, just like CD "copy protection", in that the primary effect is to annoy your paying customers, and have little effect on piracy. However, it doesn’t affect me personally in this instance because I’m using the Mac version, and I find CS to be a good piece of sofware.

Having said that, this comment about "honorable people" within Adobe has a pretty hollow ring when one considers the appalling, scummy and frankly plain dishonourable way
Dimitry Sklyarov was treated when he exposed just how
fragile Adobe’s EBook "protection" was. An honourable company would have been grateful for him bringing attention to a weakness in their product, so that they could fix it, not sic the DMCA, a law which seems to have been passed entirely to preserve the business models of recording industry dinosaurs because they refuse to adapt to the modern world, on him.
So while I think Photoshop CS is a superb bit of software, I really don’t trust Adobe do behave in a way that is honourable in any way. They have done nothing to earn that trust, and quite a lot to destroy it. It makes me nervous when people in my own industry can be thrown in prison in a foreign country for just doing their job. Adobe let down its own industry very badly over that incident.

I should refrain from commenting on this, except to note that after meeting with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Adobe did call for Dimitry’s release and withdrew its support for the criminal complaint against him.

For anyone not familiar with the case, this issue of the EFF newsletter discusses it:

http://www.eff.org/effector/HTML/effect14.15.html

Here is a joint Adobe-EFF press release:

http://tinyurl.com/xhzs or
http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/pressroom/pressreleases/2001 07/20010723dcma.html

And a subsequent Adobe FAQ about the case:

http://tinyurl.com/28nj or
http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/pressroom/pressreleases/2001 08/elcomsoftqa.html

-Mike (speaking only for myself, not Adobe or anyone else)

phaedrus writes:

Hey, Anthony – any opinion on Windows 2000 vs XP?

I used Windows 2000 for too short a time to form an opinion on both. W2000 was fine while I used it–no problems. I use XP on one machine now because one of my scanners requires it (it won’t run on NT). No problems with XP, either; it seems to be at least as stable as my NT server.

My limited reading suggested that they were closely
related, and that 2000 is slightly smaller & faster on a given machine.

They are both build on the same code base, which they share with Windows NT. NT, XP, and 2000 are all versions of the same OS, and this OS is _completely_ different from and superior to the old consumer versions of Windows (95, 98, SE, ME, etc.).

Actually, all three of my machines (FreeBSD, XP, and NT) are so solid that I can’t say for sure which of them is the most stable. They will all stay up and running until I boot them; I haven’t had any blue screens or system crashes in quite some time–not enough, in any case, to develop any statistics on reliability.

—
Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly.

Michael A. Covington writes:

I’m not Anthony, but I recommend XP. Lots of little things work better. 2000 is, after all, an operating system from the previous century 🙂

W2000 is said to be better for business use, and I tend to believe that. XP is heavily consumer-oriented; W2000 has traditionally targeted the business market. You can interpret this as saying that XP will be more friendly and compatible, and W2000 will be more secure and stable. However, they are both built on the same OS, so they are very similar. Indeed, I can still run all the NT utilities on XP without any trouble.

—
Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly.

"Michael Geary" wrote in message

Tom wrote:

Give it a rest and come back to what I REALLY said.

That is always a good idea. 🙂

Tom, I’m sorry I overreacted to what you said. I think when you swore at

me

it put me on edge.

Even so, I really don’t think that the FAQ talks about what Adobe "will"

do

instead of "shall" do in order to avoid making an actual commitment. It’s simply because it’s a FAQ written in plain English, not a contract written in legalese. "We shall" would sound odd and stuffy in this particular document.

But let’s not argue the point. I’ll take you up on your suggestion and ask our legal department about it.

-Mike (speaking only for myself, not Adobe)

Way to go. A reasonable reply is always the way to make someone acting like a jerk feel bad. Now I feel bad. 😉

On a more amiable note then… thanks, and I look forward to hearing what legal’s response will be. Note that ‘will’ is here used to indicate futurity. (Sorry, I couldn’t help myself)

🙂

Tom

Tom wrote:

Way to go. A reasonable reply is always the way to make someone acting like a jerk feel bad. Now I feel bad. 😉

Don’t feel bad! It’s just the nature of the medium–online conversations tend to get heated even though you don’t mean them to.

If we were talking face to face, we’d probably have both broken out in a fit of laughter asking ourselves, "Why are we arguing about ‘will’ vs. ‘shall’?" 🙂

On a more amiable note then… thanks, and I look forward to hearing what legal’s response will be. Note that ‘will’ is here used to indicate futurity. (Sorry, I couldn’t help myself)

I shall let you know what I find out! 😉

-Mike

I know little about 2000 other than my what my son (the one time IT person) told me: "AVOID IT!"

—
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com
home of The Camera-ist’s Manifesto
The Improved Links Pages are at
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com/links/mlinks00.html
A sample chapter from my novel "Haight-Ashbury" is at http://www.chapelhillnoir.com/writ/hait/hatitl.html
"phaedrus" wrote in message

Mxsmanic wrote:

Tony Spadaro writes:

Nobody I know has removed XP from a machine to put
ANY other OS on it …

I removed XP to install FreeBSD (a flavor of UNIX), but that’s specifically because I needed an inexpensive server, and the cheap machine I bought came preinstalled with XP. On my two desktop machines, I run Windows (XP and NT).

Hey, Anthony – any opinion on Windows 2000 vs XP?
My limited reading suggested that they were closely
related, and that 2000 is slightly smaller & faster on a given machine.

"Tony Spadaro" wrote in message

I know little about 2000 other than my what my son (the one time IT

person)

told me: "AVOID IT!"

With advice like that, it is perhaps not surprising he is a "one time" IT person.

Unless, of course, you are mistaking his admonition against Win ME (a real piece of junk), confusing it with Win 2000, which is really not a bad version.

Tom

Mxsmanic writes:

Why Linux instead of some other authentic flavor of UNIX?

This kind of remark(*) makes it safe to discount any comments from the Maniac about operating systems… (though given his track record, maybe we should be waiting for meaningful comments on some subject before according him any credence)

—
David Gay

*: The cue is "authentic", which is a) pointless (who cares?), b) ad hominem (ad osem?). Without it it would actually be a reasonable question.

He left IT because he was sick of dealing with idiots – besides accounting pays better and you don’t have to pretend the ahole who screwed up the database isn’t really at fault since he’s the CEO. I’ll stick with his recommendations — he also said ME was complete trash.

—
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com
home of The Camera-ist’s Manifesto
The Improved Links Pages are at
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com/links/mlinks00.html
A sample chapter from my novel "Haight-Ashbury" is at http://www.chapelhillnoir.com/writ/hait/hatitl.html
"Tom" wrote in message

"Tony Spadaro" wrote in message

I know little about 2000 other than my what my son (the one time IT

person)

told me: "AVOID IT!"

With advice like that, it is perhaps not surprising he is a "one time" IT person.

Unless, of course, you are mistaking his admonition against Win ME (a real piece of junk), confusing it with Win 2000, which is really not a bad version.

Tom

Stupid and stubborn is a nasty combo, Tony.

If you’re going to give out ignorant advice in a public forum the least you can do is find out why your ex-IT-whiz friend thinks Win2K should be avoided. The fact is, he doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about.

Rick

"Tony Spadaro" wrote in message

He left IT because he was sick of dealing with idiots – besides accounting pays better and you don’t have to pretend the ahole who screwed up the database isn’t really at fault since he’s the CEO. I’ll stick with his recommendations — he also said ME was complete trash.

—
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com
home of The Camera-ist’s Manifesto
The Improved Links Pages are at
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com/links/mlinks00.html
A sample chapter from my novel "Haight-Ashbury" is at http://www.chapelhillnoir.com/writ/hait/hatitl.html
"Tom" wrote in message

"Tony Spadaro" wrote in message

I know little about 2000 other than my what my son (the one time IT

person)

told me: "AVOID IT!"

With advice like that, it is perhaps not surprising he is a "one time" IT person.

Unless, of course, you are mistaking his admonition against Win ME (a real piece of junk), confusing it with Win 2000, which is really not a bad version.

Tom

Tom wrote:

"Tony Spadaro" wrote in message

I know little about 2000 other than my what my son (the one time IT

person)

told me: "AVOID IT!"

With advice like that, it is perhaps not surprising he is a "one time" IT person.

Unless, of course, you are mistaking his admonition against Win ME (a real piece of junk), confusing it with Win 2000, which is really not a bad version.

Tom

Indeed, WinME is to be avoided, but Win2k is fine, it just isn’t the latest state of the ‘art’. But then a lot of people are happy with a 3 year old ‘new’ car….

Tony Spadaro wrote:

He left IT because he was sick of dealing with idiots – besides accounting pays better and you don’t have to pretend the ahole who screwed up the database isn’t really at fault since he’s the CEO. I’ll stick with his recommendations — he also said ME was complete trash.

Well, he was right on that one. Batting .500, I guess he was an IT manager… Grin.

Rick wrote:

Stupid and stubborn is a nasty combo, Tony.

If you’re going to give out ignorant advice in a public forum the least you can do is find out why your ex-IT-whiz friend thinks Win2K should be avoided. The fact is, he doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about.

Rick

Other than being a bit outdated and cumbersome for a home user, there isn’t anything wrong with Win2k.

Indeed, WinME is to be avoided, but Win2k is fine, it just isn’t the latest state of the ‘art’. But then a lot of people are happy with a 3 year old ‘new’ car….

ME was indeed a piece of shit, definitely the worst windows 9x (yeah, worse than Win95A). But why would anybody want XP? Is your computer running too fast?

In article <051220030635188988%>, Randall Ainsworth wrote:

ME was indeed a piece of shit, definitely the worst windows 9x (yeah, worse than Win95A). But why would anybody want XP? Is your computer running too fast?

XP (pro) is just fine. You may have an early Wintel configuration.

I am sorely disappointed with our new dual-processor G5’s (4gb RAM) with two spindles and PS7. My Wintel XP (1.5gb RAM) box is not so much slower with the average workload that I can justify those pricey G5s. Of course the Wintel has four fixed drives and PS is configured to use them all (beginning with an offset from the system swaps), and the G5 has only two drives. I will be doing some diagnostics while watching the G5 use of the work files and some other metrics, but as far as I’m concerned, something is _deadly_ wrong with the OS-X PS7 combination. The outcome of getting these G5 systems is that all the BoyZe have abandoned their Wintel/XP systems so I have more computers now instead of one big, overpriced, snazzy GUI toy.

Yes Rick – you are inheritly stupid and stubborn, but that is quite all right, as I and millions of others are fully aware of what a jerk you are and pay no attention to you.

—
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com
home of The Camera-ist’s Manifesto
The Improved Links Pages are at
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com/links/mlinks00.html
A sample chapter from my novel "Haight-Ashbury" is at http://www.chapelhillnoir.com/writ/hait/hatitl.html
"Rick" wrote in message

Stupid and stubborn is a nasty combo, Tony.

If you’re going to give out ignorant advice in a public forum the least you can do is find out why your ex-IT-whiz friend thinks Win2K should be avoided. The fact is, he doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about.

Rick

"Tony Spadaro" wrote in message

He left IT because he was sick of dealing with idiots – besides

accounting

pays better and you don’t have to pretend the ahole who screwed up the database isn’t really at fault since he’s the CEO. I’ll stick with his recommendations — he also said ME was complete trash.

—
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com
home of The Camera-ist’s Manifesto
The Improved Links Pages are at
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com/links/mlinks00.html
A sample chapter from my novel "Haight-Ashbury" is at http://www.chapelhillnoir.com/writ/hait/hatitl.html
"Tom" wrote in message

"Tony Spadaro" wrote in message

I know little about 2000 other than my what my son (the one time IT

person)

told me: "AVOID IT!"

With advice like that, it is perhaps not surprising he is a "one time"

IT

person.

Unless, of course, you are mistaking his admonition against Win ME (a

real

piece of junk), confusing it with Win 2000, which is really not a bad version.

Tom

On Wed, 26 Nov 2003 03:35:05 GMT, "Tony Spadaro" wrote:

Yes I can see what has been going on, and while I think they have a valid point, and don’t like activation either, I think it’s incredably stupid to think a few pissed off cranks are in any way shape manner or form a true sampling of Photoshop users. They are closer to the idiot who posts obscenities on this forum from a pile of different email addresses — noisy, but numerically insignificant.
Since I’m the only person I know in this town who has a LEGAL copy of Photoshop (other than a few people who use it professionally in a couple graphics and print shops) and since I know at least 20 people who have ILLEGAL copies, I have to admit that some form of control is necessary. This particular form strikes me as a lot better thant the "dongle’ of some time back. It ain’t perfect but I’ll accept it — erven though that means I won’t be able to have CS on all 3 of my computers.

What on earth are you talking about? These pirates would never dream of buying a legal copy in any case, certainly no cause for additional "control" as you put it. Many legal copies of Photoshop are sold simply because of the number of users that are already familiar with the program, even Bill Gates knew that years ago. Free advertising, you might say, not market share loss.

Then you won’t be unhappy if I take your work and sell it without giving you a commission, right? After all, if I leave your name on it, it should be good advertising. So where can I download all your pictures?

—
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com
home of The Camera-ist’s Manifesto
The Improved Links Pages are at
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com/links/mlinks00.html
A sample chapter from my novel "Haight-Ashbury" is at http://www.chapelhillnoir.com/writ/hait/hatitl.html
"Warren" wrote in message

On Wed, 26 Nov 2003 03:35:05 GMT, "Tony Spadaro" wrote:

Yes I can see what has been going on, and while I think they have a valid point, and don’t like activation either, I think it’s incredably stupid

to

think a few pissed off cranks are in any way shape manner or form a true sampling of Photoshop users. They are closer to the idiot who posts obscenities on this forum from a pile of different email addresses —

noisy,

but numerically insignificant.
Since I’m the only person I know in this town who has a LEGAL copy of Photoshop (other than a few people who use it professionally in a couple graphics and print shops) and since I know at least 20 people who have ILLEGAL copies, I have to admit that some form of control is necessary. This particular form strikes me as a lot better thant the "dongle’ of some time back. It ain’t perfect but I’ll accept it — erven though that means I won’t be able to have CS on all 3 of my computers.

What on earth are you talking about? These pirates would never dream of buying a legal copy in any case, certainly no cause for additional "control" as you put it. Many legal copies of Photoshop are sold simply because of the number of users that are already familiar with the program, even Bill Gates knew that years ago. Free advertising, you might say, not market share loss.

"Jeremy Nixon" wrote in message

Fortunately, they haven’t (yet?) encumbered the Mac version with this

nonsese, and, well, who cares about Windows anyway?

What a dweeb.

The *majority* of computer users "care" about Windows anyway, dweeb, since Windows users are ***in the majority***. Or haven’t you taken the time to notice?

—

On Fri, 05 Dec 2003 04:45:38 -0600, Ron Hunter
wrote:

Tom wrote:

"Tony Spadaro" wrote in message

I know little about 2000 other than my what my son (the one time IT

person)

told me: "AVOID IT!"

With advice like that, it is perhaps not surprising he is a "one time" IT person.

Unless, of course, you are mistaking his admonition against Win ME (a real piece of junk), confusing it with Win 2000, which is really not a bad version.

Tom

Indeed, WinME is to be avoided, but Win2k is fine, it just isn’t the latest state of the ‘art’. But then a lot of people are happy with a 3 year old ‘new’ car….

Yes, that’s true–but there’s little doubt that WinME was a marketing blunder, and WinXP Home Edition isn’t much better. It’s seems to me odd that consumers would approve of software that limits the extent of their hardware modifications, but the market will always prevail. People still use Win2K that are sick of spyware and for various reasons not willing to put a pirated WinXP Pro on their machines.

SNIP

Yes, that’s true–but there’s little doubt that WinME was a marketing blunder,

Why? It made MicroSoft some easy money. Not a blunder from their perspective I bet : )

and WinXP Home Edition isn’t much better.

Huh?! Care to elaborate? WinXP, Home or Pro editions, are a quantum improvement over Win ME.
Short of specifics, one would have to clasiify your statements as ignorance.

It’s seems to me
odd that consumers would approve of software that limits the extent of their hardware modifications, but the market will always prevail. People still use Win2K that are sick of spyware and for various reasons not willing to put a pirated WinXP Pro on their machines.

Scroobie writes:

Yes, that’s true–but there’s little doubt that WinME was a marketing blunder, and WinXP Home Edition isn’t much better.

Windows ME and Windows XP are two different worlds–they are two entirely different operating systems.

—
Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly.

Mxsmanic wrote:

Michael A. Covington writes:

I’m not Anthony, but I recommend XP. Lots of little things work better. 2000 is, after all, an operating system from the previous century 🙂

W2000 is said to be better for business use, and I tend to believe that. XP is heavily consumer-oriented; W2000 has traditionally targeted the business market. You can interpret this as saying that XP will be more friendly and compatible, and W2000 will be more secure and stable. However, they are both built on the same OS, so they are very similar. Indeed, I can still run all the NT utilities on XP without any trouble.

I have used XP but prefer 2000. 2000 is better for business because it doesn’t contain all the ‘extras’ that XP has which I personally think slow it down, the interface looks jazzier for starters. At the time I had conflicts with some of my hardware which work fine in 2000.

Just trying to think of the word I wanted to use instead of extras……clutter, clutter is what I was looking for.

Stuart

Stuart writes:

Just trying to think of the word I wanted to use instead of extras……clutter, clutter is what I was looking for.

I use W2000 at home and at work, but recently spent a few hours in front of a Win XP system. I discovered that it’s possible to turn off pretty much all the junky stupid cluttered stuff, and make it look pretty much the same as Windows 2000. Not that I think W2K is the perfect user interface, but it’s familiar and functional. XP looks like it’s trying to appear to kids.

Dave

On Tue, 16 Dec 2003 19:31:13 GMT, "Don Coon"
wrote:

SNIP

Yes, that’s true–but there’s little doubt that WinME was a marketing blunder,

Why? It made MicroSoft some easy money. Not a blunder from their perspective I bet : )

and WinXP Home Edition isn’t much better.

Huh?! Care to elaborate? WinXP, Home or Pro editions, are a quantum improvement over Win ME.
Short of specifics, one would have to clasiify your statements as ignorance.

Yours, one would presume. WinXP home edition keeps a record of your hardware modifications and shuts down when it decides you’ve changed your system too much. If you’re not aware of this, then perhaps you should be.

It’s seems to me
odd that consumers would approve of software that limits the extent of their hardware modifications, but the market will always prevail. People still use Win2K that are sick of spyware and for various reasons not willing to put a pirated WinXP Pro on their machines.

Dave Martindale wrote:

Stuart writes:

Just trying to think of the word I wanted to use instead of extras……clutter, clutter is what I was looking for.

I use W2000 at home and at work, but recently spent a few hours in front of a Win XP system. I discovered that it’s possible to turn off pretty much all the junky stupid cluttered stuff, and make it look pretty much the same as Windows 2000. Not that I think W2K is the perfect user interface, but it’s familiar and functional. XP looks like it’s trying to appear to kids.

Dave

I turned it all off when I used it but I stopped mainly because of the hardware problems.

Stuart

Howdy folks
Here’s my 2 bits worth
I use both W2K Pro and XP Pro on the same machine I use dual boot. I have noticed W2K has some limitations that XP has overcome, size of hard drive etc but XP has introduced other issues that W2K does not have a problem with i.e. under XP it died when I changed my motherboard different chipset, I had to do a fresh install W2K did not have problem with it btw the motherboard’s were both Epox
XP seems to make some tasks easier.
This has been my experience, I hope this helps.
Lee.
"Dave Martindale" wrote in message

Stuart writes:

Just trying to think of the word I wanted to use instead of extras……clutter, clutter is what I was looking for.

I use W2000 at home and at work, but recently spent a few hours in front of a Win XP system. I discovered that it’s possible to turn off pretty much all the junky stupid cluttered stuff, and make it look pretty much the same as Windows 2000. Not that I think W2K is the perfect user interface, but it’s familiar and functional. XP looks like it’s trying to appear to kids.

Dave

(Dave Martindale) wrote:

I have noticed W2K has some limitations that XP has overcome, size of hard drive etc but XP has introduced other issues that W2K does not have a problem with i.e. under XP it died when I changed my motherboard different chipset, I had to do a fresh install W2K did not have problem with it btw the motherboard’s were both Epox

That seems to depend on what actually changed on the motherboard.
I did a motherboard change myself a few weeks ago (Asus P2B to Asus CUSL2). Linux (RH 8) came up on the first boot, reconfiguring drivers and drive locations on the fly, fully functional immediately. Windows 98 took about an hour of loading new drivers from various places, but it was eventually fully functional. Windows 2000 wouldn’t boot (blue screen apparently in the disk driver) and couldn’t be "repaired" either, though I wasted several hours while the repair procedure said it was doing something. I ultimately had to reinstall W2000.

I don’t think I’ve ever successfully done a mobo swap under Win2K. The usual result is that it will get all the way to the white loader screen and then BSOD with a "Boot Device Unavailable" message. No amount of repair or reinstallation will fix it. Every time, I’ve had build a new installation and then slave the original drive in to suck the data from it. I’ve never gotten a good answer as to the exact why of this, but it’s the biggest PITA Win2K has.

—
| James Gifford * FIX SPAMTRAP TO REPLY |
| So… your philosophy fits in a sig, does it? |
| Heinlein stuff at: www.nitrosyncretic.com/rah |

"Lee" writes:

I have noticed W2K has some limitations that XP has overcome, size of hard drive etc but XP has introduced other issues that W2K does not have a problem with i.e. under XP it died when I changed my motherboard different chipset, I had to do a fresh install W2K did not have problem with it btw the motherboard’s were both Epox

That seems to depend on what actually changed on the motherboard.

I did a motherboard change myself a few weeks ago (Asus P2B to Asus CUSL2). Linux (RH 8) came up on the first boot, reconfiguring drivers and drive locations on the fly, fully functional immediately. Windows 98 took about an hour of loading new drivers from various places, but it was eventually fully functional. Windows 2000 wouldn’t boot (blue screen apparently in the disk driver) and couldn’t be "repaired" either, though I wasted several hours while the repair procedure said it was doing something. I ultimately had to reinstall W2000.

Dave

James Gifford wrote:

I don’t think I’ve ever successfully done a mobo swap under Win2K. The usual result is that it will get all the way to the white loader screen and then BSOD with a "Boot Device Unavailable" message. No amount of repair or reinstallation will fix it. Every time, I’ve had build a new installation and then slave the original drive in to suck the data from it. I’ve never gotten a good answer as to the exact why of this, but it’s the biggest PITA Win2K has.

That sounds like the IDE controller plug and play problem. Microsoft has an article about it here:

"STOP 0x0000007B" Error After Moving Windows 2000 System Disk to Another System
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q271965

Windows XP has the same issue, and there’s an article for XP here:

You Receive a Stop 0x0000007B Error After You Move the Windows XP System Disk to Another Computer
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;314082

Basically, the PnP identifier for the new IDE controller is missing from the registry and needs to be added manually. You can either add the entire list of IDE PnP IDs found in these KB articles, or you can add the specific one your new motherboard needs.

-Mike

The only thing I changed was the motherboard oh and I run scsi and sata the difference in the motherboard one was a via chipset and the other is nvidia.
"Dave Martindale" wrote in message

"Lee" writes:

I have noticed W2K has some limitations that XP has overcome, size of

hard

drive etc but XP has introduced other issues that W2K does not have a problem with i.e. under XP it died when I changed my motherboard

different

chipset, I had to do a fresh install W2K did not have problem with it btw the motherboard’s were both Epox

That seems to depend on what actually changed on the motherboard.
I did a motherboard change myself a few weeks ago (Asus P2B to Asus CUSL2). Linux (RH 8) came up on the first boot, reconfiguring drivers and drive locations on the fly, fully functional immediately. Windows 98 took about an hour of loading new drivers from various places, but it was eventually fully functional. Windows 2000 wouldn’t boot (blue screen apparently in the disk driver) and couldn’t be "repaired" either, though I wasted several hours while the repair procedure said it was doing something. I ultimately had to reinstall W2000.

Dave