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After installing Snow Leopard all my CS4 applications displayed the same error dialog above. So I went through the gruesome task of re-installing CS4 and I still got the same error. Even running the Adobe License Recovery utility several times (with several reboots) didn’t solve the issue. It was driving me mad! Fortunately, thanks to a reply to a post in another blog that it was solved.

Here’s how. I had to delete the following folder:

/Library/Preferences/FLEXnet Publisher

When I launched Photoshop it asked me for my serial number and once entered, all the CS4 applications worked perfectly.

Here’s a quick tip on how to make the dock in Leopard look less garish. First, switch off the 3D effect by typing the following into a terminal:

defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean YES; killall Dock

When the dock relaunches it should look nice and minimalist. I also like to use Dock Dividers to group my applications. As Brandon Kelly, the creator of Dock Dividers, explains: Dock Dividers are little do-nothing apps that you can place in your Mac’s dock to visually separate your apps into groups.

Since you can only have user-generated content on the right side of the Dock, I copied the icon from the application and pasted it onto folders. I named the new “document dividers” with spaces to help me separate folders and documents I like to have there.

And here’s a quick before and after comparison. Enjoy!

The Droste Effect is a technique whereby an image is rendered recursively to create a mind-bending (or brain-hurting) result. If you look at MC Escher‘s famous works you’ll see how a master artist uses this technique.

Now let’s have some fun. Download and install Adobe’s Pixel Blender Photoshop plugin, then get the Droste Effect Filter and start warping!

The effect is a lot more effective when it’s in motion. Take a look at OneInThree‘s fantastic video for Wild Beasts. I have to stress that the video was done mathematically by OneInThree themselves and not using the Adobe plugin. Enjoy!

Since I bought my first MacBook three years ago, I’ve migrated my applications and data across to every upgraded laptop. I suspect my MacBook Pro isn’t working as efficiently as it would after a clean system install. Would re-installing Leopard and the applications stop those random beachballs spinning? At the risk of making a rod for my own back, I’ve decided to do just that. I’ll update this post when it’s all done.

See you on the other side.

Monday, May 4th:

In between birthday parties, visitors, cooking, tidying up, the gym and various other distractions, I managed to resist the surprisingly strong impluse just to restore everything from the Time Machine backup and forget about doing a spring clean. I managed to keep the momentum going though and so far, the system feels snappier. Powering up or rebooting takes a lot less time and applications like Photoshop now launch in one bounce.

I’ll do a final update when everything’s back. Stay tuned.

Monday, May 4th, 9pm:

All done! All apps installed, as you can see from the dock above. I’ll run the Mac through it’s paces this week and see how Photoshop and Illustrator (the main beachball culprits) perform. So far the experiment went smoothly and the system feels faster, as mentioned before. I wouldn’t rush to do this again and I doubt installing Snow Leopard will force me to. Would it?

This month’s Esquire cover features the lovely Megan Fox. What’s unique about the photo is the camera used to take it: the Red ONE.

Greg Williams, the photographer, in his own words:

“It allowed her to act,” Williams says. “She could run scenes without being reminded by the sound of a shutter every four seconds that I was taking a picture. As in still photography, a lot of it is capturing unexpected moments. This takes that one step further.”

Is this crossover the start of something new? Will photographers be encouraged to use new digital cameras like Red? Isn’t it exciting when new technology crosses over old barriers, when these tools are used beyond what their creators intended?

There’s more on the Esquire site including a live cover photograph!

Philips have just launched their new 21:9 Home Cinema screen. What’s 21:9? To paraphrase Nigel Tufnel, it’s 5 more than 16:9. It’s a super-wide cinema-home-scope Ambilight screen. And let me save you the trouble: you’ll want one.

To celebrate and demonstrate the new product, Philips hired Adam Berg to film an amazing ultra-super-slick timeslice loop called Carousel. Looking at it with my compositor’s eye, all I could think was, “WOW!” Philips have a nice behind-the-scenes microsite with the director, DOP and VFX supervisor chatting about the project.

Enjoy!

When did this go live? Traffic updates on Google Maps for the UK. It also works on the iPhone as well!

Apple just released a public beta of Safari 4. First impression: it’s fast! Second impression: What happened to the Tabs bar?

For the past few years I’ve had a little Apple-related ritual. Whenever iLife is released I walk over to the Apple Store in Regent St and buy it. iLife ’06 and ’08 (they skipped ’07 I think) sit on a shelf in the study upstairs.

The one application from the suite that gets used much more than the others is iPhoto. iPhoto ’06 was a slow, clunky beast but I still faithfully used it to organise, tag and upload to Flickr (using Connected Flow’s FlickrExport) and even created and ordered one or two hardcover books. The ’08 version was much faster and the Events feature was fun to use.

iMovie ’06 was simple and straightforward. ’08 had me scratching my head a few times and came to the conclusion that I preferred the previous version. As for iDVD ’08, I don’t think I even launched it once. That’s no reflection on the software which I think is pretty good but times have changed. The ’06 version was used and used a lot. Garageband is great for recording scratch tracks for work and the ’08 release had a very handy Movie layer to sync voiceovers.

The one app I never used was iWeb. The fact that it doesn’t talk to TypePad, WordPress or Blogger was a great disadvantage and even though I know that it isn’t tethered to .Mac/MobileMe, it still feels constrained.

So, iLife ’09 is the one that’s going to break my little ritual. The one I have no interest in buying. Faces and Places? My D60 doesn’t have a GPS function (there is a third party shoe-mounted one apparently) and I can tag my photos with the person’s name. iMovie? No thanks, Final Cut Pro does the job a lot better. If iDVD had BluRay support it would be really interesting as opposed to being nearly useless now.

There isn’t a single feature that would compel me to buy this version, not one. Does anyone else have a different opinion?

This is the first serious competitor to the iPhone. I just finished watching the Pre introduction video at CES and was very, very impressed with it. The software is smooth and the first true multi-tasking system I’ve seen in a mobile and dare I say, better than the iPhone. Even the wireless Touchstone induction charger is well thought out.

No word on price yet and availablity in the UK and Europe but if whichever network bags the exclusive deal and matches O2′s all-inclusive free data then this is going to be a big hit.

Alright Apple, here’s your competition. What are you going to do about it?