articles at macworld uk online:
Quark pricing RIPs off Britain
at the bottom there is a comparison of international prices between quark xpress 7 and adobe creative suite 2.
“Adobe’s pricing isn’t a lot better. A standard version of Adobe’s Creative Suite 2 costs £809 in the UK (excluding VAT). It’s $899.95 in the US and €1,699 in Europe.”
it makes quark xpress 7 look cheap in comparison, but it’s a moot point because xpress 7 is (in terms of purpose) basically equivalent to adobe indesign cs2. the CS2 suite also includes photoshop, imageready, illustrator, and golive. now who offers the better deal? (CS2 is still hideously expensive.) so in terms of VALUE and “bang for your buck,” adobe’s the clear choice.
in terms of the pricing rip off… GO FIGURE! they’re obviously trying to take advantage of their international consumers… shame on you, quark and adobe, both.
Guitar lessons for iPod ship
(meaning a guitar lesson program for the iPod is being shipped… as far as i know there is no iPod ship, but that would be cool. hey, it’s a boat!)
“iPlayMusic has introduced Beginner Guitar Lessons for the Mac, a guitar learning application for Macs and video-enabled iPods.
The guitar lessons integrate with iLife applications, including GarageBand, iTunes and iWeb. Students will learn a little guitar, including how to play and sing popular songs. Users can view lessons or listen to their new performances in iTunes or on their iPod.”
cool.
CBC.ca posted a story yesterday [source article removed] about an incredible discovery by a Canadian scientist in the US. he “has discovered bacteria that produce the world’s strongest glue.”
“Bacteria covering a quarter are able to hold the weight equivalent of an elephant, Brun said.”
You might be saying goodbye to Elmer in a couple of years:
“Caulobacter crescentus bacteria produce the adhesive substance, which researchers believe could replace dozens of glues currently on the market.”
But then again, sometimes one doesn’t want something that strong for daily practical purposes. I seem to remember my godfather repairing my broken sandal with Goop. Goodbye Goop? I guess we’ll find out. It could be a very environmentally-friendly alternative to chemicals.
I was reading a page about new (old) CSS3 propositions and the support different browsers offer. Any surprise as to what supported the least? (None, in fact.) Internet Explorer. Of course.
Internet Explorer is the bane of my existence as a designer. Because I don’t have to put up with it on a day-to-day basis, I’m not forced to put up with its crap. Lately because I’ve had the opportunity to check my designs on a PC while I’m working on them on my Mac, I’m discovering IE’s odd quirks. What renders beautifully in Safari will look the same 97% of the time in Firefox on PC, and maybe 85% in IE. I’m surprised that number is so high, but I’ve been careful and have learned a few solutions that I’ve kept on hand to avoid tearing my hair out. There remained one puzzle though:
WHY was there a gap under my images?
Solution? I googled my problem (turns out this is a good alternative to D.I.Y.) and found an easy solution: display:block. Ta-da! here’s an easy read about it and some more standards-compatibility charts. The funny thing is that I’ve never noticed this before.
Other problems: dimensions of boxes are wonky, positioning text within those boxes and having the padding being off, things difficult to get centered. Maybe I still have more learning to do, but why should it have to be this difficult when it works perfectly in two browsers? Because they’re designed better?
IE is still the most popular browser, but Firefox is smarter and IE is being… outfoxed.
