Adobe Creative Suite 2: Illustrator

When it comes to vector art programs, my preference has always been for Corel Draw, but the latest version of Adobe Illustrator in the Creative Suite 2 package got my attention with several new features. CS2 is too large a collection to discuss in a single program, so each of the major components will get their own show. I'm starting with Illustrator because it's the Adobe program that I've previously considered to be lacking. The CS2 version goes a long way toward changing my mind on that issue.

I'm told that people who have some artistic talent sometimes sketch something on a napkin at a 2-martini lunch or on the back of someone's shirt at a 2-day rave and then want to use that sketch as the starting point for art that they'll be creating on a computer. The usual process is to look at the sketch and recreate it by sketching it again with a digitizing tablet. What's needed is either a computer and digitizing tablet that will be at home at lunch or at a rave or a way to convert that sketch to vector art. Adobe has come through with a solution. Click the images below for larger views.

First, though, maybe I should answer the question. "Why vector art?" Let's say that I've made this bad sketch of a cat and I'd like to do something with it, but I need it to be a lot larger than it is.

So I make it larger. Now it's not very clear as you can see from the appearance of the mouth, just below the whiskers.

I'd really prefer that it look like the image at the right and a new feature in Illustrator allows me to achieve that. Surprisingly, it's not even very difficult to accomplish.

The process begins with the scan

I used Photoshop as the target for the scan, but you can use any application that can create a bitmap file that Illustrator can place.

I adjusted the Epson Scan application to create a 100spi grayscale scan and adjusted the tone curves a bit to eliminate smudges on the paper. I then saved the file as a Photoshop image (PSD), started Illustrator, created a new blank image, and placed my cat scan. (Sorry. I had to do that.)

With the image in place and selected, I noticed that Illustrator gave me a new option called Live Trace. I pushed the button and everything changed again. This time I had little triangles that let me turn the original "art" on and off and let me charge the view of the vector image that Illustrator had created in seconds.

In some cases, you'll want to compare the vector result or the actual outlines without any fill or outline with the original scan.

This is the original image with the outlines.

Here I've zoomed in to illustrate that the vector art remains crisp and clear.

Here's where the real fun begins. Now that I have the vector image, I can make changes to it. Vector images are mathematical descriptions of lines and fill colors. It I want to modify the part of the drawing that defines the right side of the cat's mouth (left facing the cat) all I need do is grab one of the adjustment handles and move it around.

Instead of being sharp and pointed, this little part of the drawing is now rounded. And once again I have proved conclusively that I am not an artist.

Tracing a somewhat more complex subject

I wondered what might happen if I used the function to trace something with more detail. A lot more detail. A photograph of a cat, for example. Fine detail. Fur. Whiskers. Lots of colors.

Here's the image I started with. You'll note that one of the selections in the trace functions defined presets (more than a dozen of them) is for a detailed photograph. That's the one I selected. The process took longer than when I was tracing my simple stick-art cat, but I considered it surprisingly fast.

At the right, you see how much detail the trace created.

And here is a close-up that shows how much detail the application captured from the photograph.

Anything missing?

Yes, one feature: Illustrator is an application that graphic designers use and the development process may require dozens of sketches just to create a single item. Creating a logo can easily involve 10 or more different approaches, each with a series of tests, but Illustrator cannot have more than one page per file. Multi-page files have been a staple of Corel Draw for as long as I can remember and the pages can even have different sizes. I had expected to see that feature in this version.

But if that's my most serious objection, and it is, it's clear that there's a lot to like about Illustrator CS2.

Technology corner rating for ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR CS2

EIGHT CATS: Illustrator and the entire CS2 suite are remarkable in their ability to work together and for the first time I can feel somewhat at home using Illustrator, but why is it still impossible to have more than one page in a file?

How the Technology Corner rating system works.

Where's the Federal Trade Commission when you need them?

A few weeks ago (see July 17 Google article) I wrote about some misleading ads that I encountered on Google. The ads are from the "Online Reward Center", a company that seems to be working with BMG Music, Discover, Disney, and Video Professor. You "win" something if you happen to live in the right Zip code (anything from 00000 to 99999 is acceptable, along with Zip codes "YouLie" and "Fool". The deal is that you have to sign up for some "free" offers to get the "free" gift. But if you do that, you'll soon find out that you have to sign up for lots of other "deals" to get your "free" gift. I had to ask Google's PR staff twice, but eventually they told me "Thanks for your inquiry and thanks for the feedback on the ad. We will review advertisers who we receive complaints for and determine if they meet our policies. Generally speaking we do not discuss specific advertisers so I am unable to comment on this specific ad in question."

If you have any lingering questions about the ethics of Online Reward Center, here is one more data point. On July 23, research led me to a discussion board in search of some background information. One of the discussion boards generated a pop-under from one of my "favorite" organizations, FastClick. (Click the image at the right for a larger view.)

I had won a computer, it told me. I noticed that the dialog box offered a Cancel button, but I also assumed that it wouldn't work. As you can see, I'm clicking Cancel. Result: The dialog box remained on the screen and an additional browser window opened with an offer from Online Reward Center.

This looks familiar, doesn't it! As with the offer from a few weeks ago for a "free" Ipod, this offer wants my Zip code for validation.

I tried 00000 and, of course, that was a good Zip code as far as Online Reward Center is concerned, just as it was weeks ago.

That there are offering on the Internet designed only for suckers isn't a surprise. What is a surprise is that at the bottom of the screen are logo for company that most of us consider legitimate operations.

Music clubs are well known for making offers that have lots of catches, but what is Discover doing here? And Disney? These are companies that try to present a squeaky clean image and here they have associated themselves with an organization that uses deception to get people onto their website and then immediately lies to them. I don't know anything about Video Professor, but I will probably avoid doing business with them.

In the meantime, here's what I am doing to make sure that the companies I am doing business with realize that not everyone who uses the Internet is an imbecile.

• BMG: I have cancelled my membership.
• Discover: I have paid the (small) balance and cancelled the account.

Tinker Tools System is a must if you own a Mac

I decided to upgrade my little underpowered G3 500MHz Ibook to Tiger and because there was no critical data on the machine, I elected to erase the 10BG drive and install a fresh copy of the operating system. It is perhaps worth nothing that this computer's hard drive is half the size of the hard drive in my Ipod. The operating system consumed so much space that with only Tiger on the machine I had just 4.58GB free. Putting this into perspective: I bought this little Ibook in 2001 and it came with a 10GB hard drive. In 2003, I purchased an Ipod and it had a 20GB hard drive. Today even inexpensive computers have at least 40GB hard drives.

My first thought was that the dozens of "localization" files that Apple installs by default must take up a lot of room. A quick Google search suggested that this was true and that an application I'd looked at previously would help remedy the problem. I downloaded a copy of Tinker Tool System and ran it in "evaluation mode" so that it would do more than just show me what it would do if it was registered.

The author of Tinker Tool System (not to be confused with the author's Tinker Tool) allows the program to be used in evaluation mode 4 times before the program reverts to "demo" mode. In evaluation mode, all of the program's functions work. One of those functions allows removal of the localization information and that's what I selected.

On a slow G3 machine, it took Tinker Tools System about 15 minutes to identify the files it would remove and another 30 minutes to remove them. I left French on the machine, along with Spanish and Russian, but allowed Tinker Took System to remove all of the other languages -- 15,881 language "packages" and about 1GB of space. When the process ended, I had 5.5GB free. When you have a 10GB hard drive, 1GB is important.

That was enough to convince me to register the application

Looking around at the other functions provided by Tinker Tool Systems, I decided that I really needed to register the program for my Powerbook. It's not an expensive application -- just $9US.

For one thing, the application includes a "maintenance" panel that automates the process of running regular maintenance procedures that are important to Unix systems. This alone is probably worth the $9 fee, although you can find similar applications that are free.

Tinker Took Systems also includes the ability to examine the cache files for most browsers and clean them. As with Windows machines, the cache files can get out of hand, particularly if you're operating on a computer with limited disk space.

Another useful feature is the "info" panel that lets you see information about the computer's processor, memory, ROM, and operating system version. The same panel has a "Log Files" tab that provides quick, easy access to all of the computer's log files -- and Unix systems have a lot of log files.

If you add Tinker Tools (free) to Tinker Tool System, you'll add the ability to modify the way the system works. For example, I like to have the Dock at the bottom of the screen, but on the right side instead of in the middle. Apple allows me to place the Dock on the left, on the right, or at the bottom -- but always centered. Tinker Tool lets me place it on the left or right (top, middle, or bottom), on the bottom (left, middle, or right), or even where Apple says it cannot go: On the top (left, middle, or right.).

How hot is your Mac?

And that's not all. The author also provides several other useful utilities. I've mentioned occasionally how hot Mac Powerbooks are, but saying that my lap is on fire isn't exactly definitive.

Using the free Temperature Monitor, I can see immediately just how hot the computer is. This application won't work with my G3 Ibook because it doesn't have any temperature sensors. The G4 Powerbook, however, does have sensors.

After being turned on for about 15 minutes, the Powerbook's processor was more than half way to boiling. The power supply was even hotter. The battery was hot enough that I could no longer hold the computer on my lap, and the disk drive was 116 degrees.

If you've wondered why Apple has decided to move away from the PowerPC chip and to start running its computers on Intel processors, this is one of the reasons. IBM and Motorola haven't been able to develop a chip that will run cool enough to be used in a notebook computer.

The G5 processor has been in Apple's desktop systems for more than a year (some models are water cooled!) but even the no-longer-state-of-the-art G4 processor hits nearly 140 degrees in normal operation! This is one of the problems Apple plans to solve with Intel processors.

How hot did it get and when did it get that hot? The computer and everything inside starts of, of course, at room temperature. That's only a theory, mind you, but scientific evidence suggests that it's valid -- along the lines of the theory of gravity or the theory of evolution. The Powerbook has 5 temperature sensors -- CPU/controller, CPU, power supply, battery, and disk drive. Within seconds, the power supply was at 108 degrees, the CPU at 100 degrees, the disk at 89 degrees, and the battery at little more than room temperature -- 78 degrees. One minute later, the power supply was at 112, the CPU at 102, the disk at 93, and the battery at 79. When the computer is running but not doing any work, temperatures level off at just under 130 for the power supply, about 120 for the CPU, 105 for the disk, and 93 for the battery. Under moderate load, as shown above, the power supply exceeds 140 degrees, the CPU hits 135, the disk drive nearly 117, and the battery remains a cool 95 degrees.

These readings are for a G4 processor. The G5 processors run even hotter and this is one of the main reasons Apple has been unable to build any G5 notebook systems. The only way to hold a G4 Powerbook on your lap is to first cover your lap with something to protect it -- the Columbus telephone book is a good choice.

Nerdly News

Why does my new 2-button mouse have only 1 button?

Apple this week finally decided that owners of its computers are smart enough to use a mouse with two buttons, but you can still see only one button. Actually, the mouse is, in true Apple style, both sophisticated and simple: Sophisticate on the inside, but simple on the outside. The tiny button (which is really used for scrolling) allows users to scroll up, down, left, or right. The mouse "buttons" themselves (up to 4) are controlled by software. The mouse knows where you're touching it and, based on how the software is set up, decides whether you're an unsophisticated user (a toddler, for example) who wouldn't understand more than one button or a power user who wants more than a single button. They're calling it "Mighty Mouse" (Did they have to sign a license to use the name?) and Apple calls the $50 mouse "a better mouse." The marketing department managed to expand those 3 words to this: The Mighty Mouse, they say, is "the first multi-button mouse that retains the simplicity of a single-button mouse, and can be used as a single- or multi-button mouse depending on the user's preference." OK, it really is pretty cool ... All kidding aside, this really might be a better mouse. And -- much as many digital cameras have built-in "shutter" sounds because that's what consumers expect -- the mouse has a built-in speaker so that it will "click". And -- by the way -- Apple's new mouse requires OS X Tiger (10.4) if you want to use the customized buttons. It will also work with Windows 2000 or Windows XP. The San Jose Mercury News (Apple's hometown newspaper) commented: For Apple, which has long touted the single-button mouse as the pinnacle of ease-of-use, the Mighty Mouse represents something of a shift in thinking and perhaps even an admission that the single button mouse is something of an anachronism.

After all, even the late Jef Raskin, the "father of the Macintosh," and the man responsible for its single-button mouse, said in 2004 it was time for Apple to add the oft-requested second button. "When I was designing the software for the Macintosh, in designing the interface, I figured that if there was only one button, there would never be any question on what you have to press," Raskin told Berkeley Grok. "I think this was probably a mistake. In fact there is an appendix in my book which discusses why I think this was a mistake and what I think I should have done. One of the reasons I made the mistake is that there is a certain school of industrial design dating back to the Bauhaus which says that designs have to be simple, uncluttered, and clean. In particular, don't put writing on it except for brand names or logos. If we had had a multiple-button mouse with two keys, labeled something like "select" and "activate," it would have been much easier to use, but the idea of putting writing on keys did not occur to anybody, including me. So if I was designing one today, it would have two buttons and they would be labeled." (San Jose Mercury News)

Copy protected CDs make life hard for Ipod owners

See if you can follow the logic here:

• You like the Foo Fighters, Jermaine Dupri, and the Dave Matthews Band, so you buy their latest CDs.
• You then stick the CD into the player on your computer and attempt to load the music onto your Ipod.
• It doesn't work because Apple's Fairplay software doesn't work with protected Windows Media Audio files.

So this is a victory for the record companies. They've stopped piracy and you can't listen to the music you bought.

Or did they?

As it turns out, you can get the music onto your Ipod, but you'll need to take a couple of extra steps ...

You import the CDs to your PC, burn a new CD from the files, then RIP the CDs you just created, and save those files in a format the Ipod can use.

Will someone explain to me how this reduces piracy or serves the customer?

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