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Mac alternatives to the Adobe CS Apps

By on April 11, 2010 in General

I recently installed Adobe Creative Suite 4 on my Macintosh. I wanted to use Photoshop for some graphical work, and InDesign for technical document creation. I unselected all the other components that I didn’t want to install. After the installer was finished I had a several, 8 or 9 if I recall correctly, new folders in my Application folder with various Adobe apps in them. I was only installing 2 apps. Why all the other folders? This should have been a sign that Adobe are now pedlars of bloatware. The running apps themselves were slow on my MacBook Pro (2.8Ghz C2D, 4GB Ram and 7200rpm disk machine).

I uninstalled the whole lot. Well I tried. The uninstall option left several bits of Adobe detritus in my Applications folder and in my Preferences Folder. I deleted that manually.

Bye-bye and good riddance Adobe CS. Maybe CS 5 will be different but I doubt it. Given their poor record with the Mac version of Flash I don’t have much hope for their other Adobe produced Macintosh software in the near future. BTW if you haven’t installed ClickToFlash on your Mac, to control Flash loading when browsing, I’d recommend you do so as soon as possible.

Below are some links for alternatives to the Creative Suite Apps. These might fit your needs better than the full Adobe CS offerings. These may not have all the same features of Creative Suite applications, but they are lightweight, easier to use and probably better for most non-professionals. However, some of those listed below are probably better for professionals. Final Cut and Soundtrack, for example.

Alternatives to Photoshop

  1. Pixelmator – http://www.pixelmator.com/
  2. Acorn – http://www.flyingmeat.com/acorn/
  3. GraphicConverter – http://www.lemkesoft.com/content/188/graphicconverter.html
  4. GNU Image Manipulation Program – http://gimp.lisanet.de/Website/News/News.html

Alternatives to inDesign

  1. Pages – http://www.apple.com/uk/iwork/pages/what-is-pages.html
  2. Swift Publisher – http://www.belightsoft.com/products/swiftpublisher/overview.php

Alternatives to Adobe Acrobat

  1. Skim – http://skim-app.sourceforge.net/

Alternatives to Dreamweaver

  1. RapidWeaver – http://www.realmacsoftware.com/rapidweaver/

Alternatives to Illustrator

  1. EasyDraw – http://eazydraw.com/
  2. OmniGraffle – http://www.omnigroup.com/products/omnigraffle/

Alternatives to Premier Pro

  1. iMovie – http://www.apple.com/uk/ilife/imovie/
  2. Final Cut Pro – http://www.apple.com/uk/finalcutstudio/
  3. Final Cut Express – http://www.apple.com/uk/finalcutexpress/

Alternatives to Soundbooth

  1. Soundtrack Pro – http://www.apple.com/uk/finalcutstudio/soundtrackpro/
  2. Fission – http://rogueamoeba.com/fission/

Alternatives to After Effects

  1. Motion – http://www.apple.com/uk/finalcutstudio/motion/

I’ll add to this list if any others come to my attention. I might add some options for Microsoft Windows based users as well. Feel free to give me your suggestions for either Macintosh or Windows apps that do any of the functions shown in the lists.


New stuff from Macworld Expo 2009

By on January 5, 2009 in Technology

This entry will be a place to find the new hardware and software that gets released this week to coincide with Macworld 2009 and CES 09. Check back over the next week or so as this page gets updated with stuff that catches my eye.

Productivity Applications

Apple iLife ’09 – Latest version of the best available consumer media suite.

Apple iWork ’09 – Update to Apple’s productivity suite. Nice additions to Keynote and Pages. Endnote and MathType integration with Pages is a nice addition. I’ll be using Endnote and Mathtype a lot for courses I’m doing. This might mean I don’t have to use Microsoft Word.

Microsoft announce that they will make it easier for Office for Macintosh 2008 to connect to and use SharePoint services.

Music Creation

Toontrack Drumtracker – Convert audio drum recordings into drum midi data.

Development Tools

Widget Press ModelBaker – Web development app to quickly build web apps, iPhone & iPod touch web apps and Android web apps.

FileMaker Pro 10 – latest iteration of the easy to use database application.

Odds and Sods

Xsilva Lightspeed – Mac based Point-of-sale system. Run your retail business on Mac!

Plastic Logic eReader – Upcoming ebook device. Loots very nice.

More praise for Hellstrom’s Hive

By on June 25, 2008 in Writing

I finished listening to the audio book version of Frank Herbert’s Hellstrom’s Hive yesterday. God, I love that book. It is so crying out for a sequel. I want to know what happened next, then over the following few years, decades, and centuries. I’m now reading the book again. On my Sony Reader of course. I created a LRF version of the book from a PDF I “found”. I’ve bought two paper copies of the book and an audio version. I’ll buy an authentic eBook version when I can.

I might take some notes and jot down some thoughts of possible sequel ideas in Scrivener as I read it this time…