Donnie
A web developer, musician and overall regular guy living the dream in blissful Birmingham, Alabama.
Homepage: http://www.finalint.com
Yahoo Messenger: dgarvich
Jabber/GTalk: dgarvich
AIM: dgarvich33
Posts by Donnie
Google To IE6, “Die already!”
Jan 31st
I’m a big, big fan of Google Apps. Their decision to allow people to piggyback on their services with their domains was nothing short of brilliant. Every domain I have set up since has used their service and I have nothing but good things to say about it.
Friday they gave me another reason to love them by sending me an e-mail informing me that:
In order to continue to improve our products and deliver more sophisticated features and performance, we are harnessing some of the latest improvements in web browser technology. This includes faster JavaScript processing and new standards like HTML5. As a result, over the course of 2010, we will be phasing out support for Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 as well as other older browsers that are not supported by their own manufacturers.
We plan to begin phasing out support of these older browsers on the Google Docs suite and the Google Sites editor on March 1, 2010. After that point, certain functionality within these applications may have higher latency and may not work correctly in these older browsers. Later in 2010, we will start to phase out support for these browsers for Google Mail and Google Calendar.
For those who need a translation:
We at Google, after careful observation of the Analytics trends for our Google Apps usage, have noticed a single defining characteristic shared by 100% of our problem users. This characteristic is an affinity for Internet Explorer 6. Therefore, in an attempt to rid ourselves of as many idiots as possible, we are dropping support for their favorite software. Stop using Internet Explorer 6 or stop using Google, we don’t care which.
This is a bold move by Google, although completely necessary (and inevitable) if they want to make the best applications the web has to offer. And honestly, I wish more companies would take this stance. But on the heels of telling China to shove it I’d say Google may have decided that they are now well established enough in both the political and technical arenas to start throwing some weight around.
I generally don’t like when big companies start using their size to dictate trends, but when I think about it that’s probably because almost always the big company does this to further their agenda. Rarely does my agenda fall in line with theirs. From a technology standpoint, Microsoft is the most frequent offender on this front, and we all know that when Microsoft throws its weight around it’s in an effort to make more people see things Microsoft’s way, not in an effort to make the world see things the agreed upon standards way. At least so far, Google seems to be forwarding web standards which are something that for better or worse we as a technical community have agreed upon as good.
I, for one, welcome our new Google overlords… As long as those overlords hate IE6 as much as I do.
Trillian 4.1 – One Giant Twitterific Leap
Jan 20th
I’ve been using Trillian Pro for years. It has always made managing the various chat mediums I have to stay contacted much easier and that makes my life better, so I’m willing to pay for the app. Now, though, with the introduction of Trillian Astra, the team over at Trillian seems to be honing in more and more on what exactly I want to have as an every day social power user. The newest release, Trillian 4.1 (released today) is no exception, catching me a little off guard with some of the great options it has provided me with.
In addition to using every available chat medium to stay in touch with different groups of people, I use Twitter… a lot. I have several accounts for several different reasons and they all have unique needs. In the past these unique needs have made me do a lot of juggling to be able to manage everything.
No more, thanks to Trillian’s new release of Astra. I mean, the client has all of the basics that you would expect, but in addition to those basics are the following reasons that Trillian Astra is now my favorite Windows based desktop Twitter client:
Multiple bit.ly Account Support
Sure, lots of clients allow you to manage multiple Twitter accounts. I’ve been using TweetDeck with decent success on that front for some time. Then there are some clients which actually allow you to integrate with your bit.ly account, so that when the Twitter client automatically shortens a link for you the link is added to your bit.ly account so you can track it like you would any other. But what about clients that let you manage multiple Twitter accounts which are each attached to their own unique bit.ly accounts? Is it really that mind-boggling that this would be something a power user would want? Who knows, but Trillian Astra got it right. Add your Twitter account then right click on the account in your contact list, click settings and WHAM-O you’re ready to enter your bit.ly API key and go to town.
Intelligent Character Limitation Counting
Something else that other clients should get on the ball with is knowing how many characters things like image uploads to TwitPic are going to take. No more wondering, biting your nails and hoping that your image upload URL doesn’t throw your character count over by one character, ending your perfect digital planetary alignment.
Tweet Screenshots
This one is really nice for technical tweets / blogs / etc. Basically, you can use any image in your tweet via TwitPic by dragging it into your message. But if you right click in your message, you have the ability to actually trim out a screenshot to use. Nifty!
Side Docking
I don’t check news sites any more. I don’t check my favorite band sites any more. I don’t have to, because I have a constant stream of updates that interest me flowing through Twitter. Now, thanks to Trillian’s function of docking to the side of your monitor (reserving space so that maximized windows don’t overlap it), something they’ve had for a long time, that stream is constantly available at a literal glance to my left.
There are, of course, still a few issues that exist (when you open a retweet you have to type / delete a character for the character counter to register) and some functionality I’d love to see added, but nothing that overrides how awesome the new Trillian is at managing my fairly advanced Twitter needs.
Notification Placement
This isn’t a Twitter specific update, nor is it unique to Trillian. But the ability to place your notification popups where you want them, even with multiple monitor support, means they don’t get in the way of something else that you were trying to do. It’s a really nice touch that makes a big difference to me.
Nice job guys! Now, about that post I made on your forums asking for the ability to have a transparent background with fully visible text…
Windows 7 Boots Slow – Check Your Wallpaper!
Jan 19th
Let me start by saying I have a monster of a machine. I use it for more demanding tasks than most people will ever ask their computer to do and it performs all of them admirably and quickly, all in 64-bit glory. Then, I upgraded to Windows 7.
Now, at first, things were unbelievable and I was in love. And truth be told, they still are and I still am, except during the boot sequence. Whenever I boot, the OS takes forever to load. It literally just sits, no disk activity, no notable processing, no informative messages on the screen, nothing. And then, all of a sudden, everything loads almost instantly. It’s almost as if there was an intentional delay or something. Suspicious, right?
So I started researching this today. I’m not exactly sure why it surprises me but apparently there is a bug in Windows 7 that causes a 30 second delay during boot if you use a solid color as your wallpaper. Silly me and my minimalist approach looking for better performance. I thought not loading a wallpaper would be easier for the machine to do than loading one.
I found the original article over on Lifehacker. Within that article they provide links to a hot fix and some workarounds. But I figured creating another article couldn’t hurt, just so people would know what was up.
Trillian Astra – The Dark Side (of skins)
Jan 13th
I don’t have enough time to make a short post here, so I’ll likely be leaving a long, rambling one. You’ve been warned. ;)
I’m a Trillian user. I love it. I bought it, I will continue to give them money as long as their product continues to meet my need of having EVERY chat network known to man connected at the same time. I know my IRC pals laugh at me for using Trillian, but whatever.
There were a couple of things I wasn’t crazy about in Trillian Astra, however. The primary being that the default skin was bulky, and the included secondary, minimalist skin (Cobalt) didn’t contain any dark themes. I’m sorry, but using a white background on chat windows just makes me feel, as a friend said, “flashbanged” every time I chat.
Surprisingly, there aren’t that many good skins out yet using the new features provided by Astra. There are a few, however, if you can figure out where to look. So I’m going to make that easier here and provide a collection of links to resources I used to get what amounts to a dark version of Cobalt.
Listing: A list of Astra Skins, Plug-ins and Mods
Skins: Cobalt Black Magick (Fixed) | Avion Pro
There, maybe I’ll come back later and write up how to disable specific sounds without losing the ones you want.
###
Update – 01.20.2010 – A new Trillian build was released today that improved, among other things, Trillian’s support for Twitter. This could change the way I use Twitter, moving me away from TweetDeck. However, the skin I had been using (Cobalt Black Magick) doesn’t yet support the new character counter functionality. So I’ve added a link to the other skin I love from the list, Avion Pro. – DG
iPhone Can’t Find Wifi, Oh No!
Oct 24th
Tonight I spent some quality time uncovering a bit of information I couldn’t find referenced anywhere else on the web. Not that this solution hasn’t already been written somewhere else, but among the many, many discussions about why an iPhone can’t access ANY wifi networks (apparently there are some hardware AND software issues with some iPhones) it was impossible to find what I needed.
First, the situation.
We have a working wifi network that was set up by someone else. We know it’s working because there are two laptops successfully connected. The network has no security enabled and is set up in combination mode (n/g/b). The router is made by Belkin.
We have three iPhones, all of which spend a great deal of time connected to wifi, none of which can access this network.
Now the solution. Remove spaces from the network name in the router settings. No, seriously… Go do it, it works.
Apparently our laptops (XP and Vista) had no problems working with the spaces, but the iPhones just weren’t getting it done. Hopefully this helps someone in the future, but to summarize: iPhones do not recognize wireless networks with spaces in their names.
TweetDeck – Making Twitter (more) Useful
Jul 27th
I can’t help it, I like Twitter. I love the format of communication it provides. People don’t have to know who you are for you to get their updates… and you don’t have to know who someone is for them to get your updates. That makes for some really interesting possibilities. Additionally, since the media blitz surrounding Twitter has continued to build, more and more “service” type of accounts have popped up which actually provide useful, timely information in a quasi-push format.
In general I’ve used pretty standard Twitter clients. Ones which were obviously based around what the standard Twitter web site provided as an interface. It’s a basic approach which just shows all the tweets that have come from all of your friends since you last took a look at it. I’m not particularly unhappy with the clients I’ve been using (in particular Twittelator Pro is good) but a month or so ago I decided to look around and see what was out there. Enter TweetDeck.
TweetDeck, right from the get-go, is different. It offers columns, which are basically different views of your Twitter information arranged… in columns. These columns can be built however you want to build them, which is where I have found my new best Twitter tool friend.
By default TweetDeck offers what you would probably consider pretty standard columns, “All Friends”, “Mentions” and “Direct Messages.” For a while, I depended on these and while they were cool, they didn’t offer much functionality that I didn’t already have elsewhere.
Then I got the bright idea to start using the columns to separate information. “What if I didn’t have an ‘All Friends’ column at all?” Well, it turns out that’s a great thing…
So I set about making a column for “Friends and Family” which included… er… all of my friends and family. Then I made a column for my “Professional” folks. I kept the mentions and direct messages columns. And here’s where it gets fun, I made a column for “Celebs and Bands” (I follow a lot of bands and band members) and one for “Services.” The “Services” column is where I did some things that were new to me… I followed several of my favorite news services and added them to this column. Now, I can use Twitter to keep up to date with my friends, post ideas / discussions and now… dun dun dun… keep up with news!
Further, what’s really, really cool is that TweetDeck allows you to create a TweetDeck account and save the columns you have created. Once you save them, you can sync your columns anywhere you use TweetDeck (it works on Windows, Linux, Mac [all using Adobe Air] and the iPhone). This is great for me since I use several operating systems as well as the iPhone. This made things really easy and I’ve found myself using Twitter more and more.
Google Chrome Launches
Sep 2nd
While it is admittedly early to be talking about a full-blown review, I’d like to at least take a moment to discuss one of the most significant browser releases in recent history.
As someone who has spent the last 13 years writing web applications I’ve seen first hand the path modern browsers have taken to get to where they are. Knowing what I know about this path, I can also say that the journey has been a long one full of good intentions and without much concern for developers (or standards). That’s why I’m so impressed with what Google is doing here.
Apparently Google “accidentally” sent a notification about their browser intentions a day early, resulting in a frenzy around their creative and informative announcement “comic.”
Then, today, they officially released the browser that was the source of all of the discussion. With their claims of speed, performance and standards compliance I was skeptical. After all, like I said I’ve been fed the “we made it faster” line a thousand times over the past 13 years and I’ve almost never been impressed. Sure, you can benchmark browsers and prove a 3% increase in speed but what does that buy me in the real world?
When we’re talking about Chrome, however, we’re talking about insanely fast. Let me be clear, I’ve developed a LOT of applications for intranet usage (internal company networks) and I can say that the “slowness” often felt while using web pages is not a result of bandwidth limitations or slow downloading. Instead, it is a latency experienced while the inefficient browser engines parse through the code needed to create a web page. This is even more obvious when the page has complex (read: useful) JavaScript in place. All that is to say, Chrome is so fast it does away with the expectations you have about using web pages.
I’ve read where some folks had problems with pages, but I’ve looked at all of the ones I am responsible for and found no issues whatsoever. This is probably because I test them in Safari, which uses the same engine for rendering as Chrome.
So for now, those are my thoughts. I’ll post more here if things go insanely awry, but I plan to use Chrome as my primary browser at home for a while to see what I run into. Oh… and I posted this using Chrome on WordPress, so we know that works!
More Chrome Information: http://tools.google.com/chrome/intl/en/features.html
Download Chrome: http://tools.google.com/chrome/
It’s an online life – Blogging
Jun 23rd
Online Life Tools: WordPress, Twitter (with Hahlo), Flickr
Replaces: Periodic personal communications
Recently there has been a significantly heightened interest in my life and the happenings therein from my friends and family. I would like to think this is because I’m so interesting, but I know it’s because my wife is pregnant. In the past, I would talk to certain friends and family members on a weekly or monthly basis and that was deemed plenty for staying up to date on my latest gripes about work, politics and the world in general. Now, however, people want to hear from me (us) much more often. So much so that at times (like after a doctor’s appointment) the next few hours is spent updating people on the phone. While this is nice, it isn’t always ideal, particularly when you have friend in, say, Kazakhstan.
Don’t get me wrong, I love talking to each and every one of these people. After all, they think highly enough of my family that they want to know exactly what is going on all the time. And while it is really nice to be loved, the fifth or sixth time you tell the same story you begin to forget details (or shorten the story because of exhaustion) which isn’t fair to whoever you’re talking to. Even worse is realizing a day or week later that you forgot to call or e-mail someone altogether! So while I still want to talk to all of these people as often as possible, sometimes putting things in a written format helps (especially when you have things like pictures you want them to see) get the story across or even just remind yourself of what the story is and should be.
In steps blogs, the ubiquitous internet communication device. Some herald them as the introduction of inaccurate journalism, some say they are serving to replace mainstream media outlets and even other people make fun of them as completely irrelevant. Whatever your opinion, you simply can’t deny their value as a way to keep up with friends and allow friends to keep up with you in an on-demand fashion.
So for this post, which is going to be long, I’ve broken things into the following subsets:
- WordPress – The ultimate blogging tool
- Twitter – The ultimate way to answer “What are you doing?”
- Twitter + Hahlo – The ultimate way to answer “What are you doing?” using your iPhone
- WordPress + Twitter – The ultimate way to answer “What are you doing?” via your blog
- Flickr – Photo sharing/blogging tool
- WordPress + Flickr – The way to add timely photos to your blog
WordPress
I use WordPress on my blogs (both personal and professional) as often as possible. The software is second to none in the blogging arena and while there may be software out there which provides an easier setup for first time bloggers anyone with a significant amount of blogging experience or complex blogging needs will end up using WordPress because of its flexibility and ease of use. Further, because WordPress is so standards compliant, it works great on an iPhone, even if doing more of the advanced tasks can be daunting.
WordPress comes ready for you to write articles of a published nature right out of the (digital) box. You can be up and running in very little time and have everything you need. So using WordPress alone covers most major announcements, but what about those smaller announcements that people seem to want from you. You know, the folks who call you and the first thing they say is “What are you doing?”
For those folks we have a wonderful application available to us called Twitter. Now recently Twitter has gotten some grunts from techies who are over-using it. They update it for, quite literally, everything they do and those who follow them end up getting far too many updates to be useful. Instead, I like to think of it as a way to notify people who are near me that I’m doing something that they too may want to be involved in. For instance, “I’m going to lunch at the new place on Main Street at 11:30AM” may result in a friend messaging me back “I’ll meet you there!” Another great example is, “Boy, what a day at work, I’m headed home” may result in a message from a friend saying, “We’re hanging out at the pool hall, stop by on your way home.” So obviously the utility is nice, as long as it’s not overdone.
To get up and running with Twitter just head over to their site and sign up. Initially I had some confused moments over what things in Twitter-dom meant, so I’ll list my findings here:
- Following – This is the term used for a “subscription” to a friend’s feed
- Tweet – The term used to reference the small (140 characters or less) Twitter blog posts
- Delivery Options – You can have messages delivered to you in many ways, e-mail, messaging, text-messages, web-only… Make sure if you choose text messages that you only enable them for people you are following who don’t post 50 times a day
Twitter is great on its own, you can use text messaging to post to your feed and you can use text messages to get responses from your feed. You can also use e-mail or a Jabber compliant chat client (GoogleTalk) for all things Twitter. When you have an iPhone, however, you’re always looking for something slick to make your life easier. So while Twitter rocks, someone went and improved it specifically for the iPhone.
Twitter + Hahlo
Meet Hahlo, an easy to use, web-based, iPhone specific interface to Twitter. If you want to save your text messages for other things or just like the robustness of a web-based app for using Twitter Hahlo is the way to post messages and get replies.
Hahlo doesn’t maintain its own database of messages, instead it just provides a nice interface into Twitter’s API. To get started with Hahlo is as easy as visiting their site and signing in using your Twitter account information. From there on, everything is pretty self explanatory and uses the same terminology as Twitter (see above).
WordPress + Twitter
So we’ve covered that Twitter is great and we’ve covered the best way to use Twitter via your iPhone. Now what about that blogging thing we were talking about?
As it turns out, WordPress and Twitter play extremely well together. Twitter provides your feed in an RSS format, so there are plenty of plugins for WordPress that allow you to sidebar up to the minute information via Twitter.
I use “Twitter Widget” by Sean Spalding for my needs and things seem to work great. There are instructions at the site as well as files for downloading.
So we’ve covered major events (using WordPress) and the answering of the ubiquitous question “What are you doing?” (using Twitter), what else could you possibly want to share using your iPhone and blog? How about pictures of what’s going on with you right now?
Flickr
Something that a lot of people have gotten into in recent years is photography. With the introduction and availability of digital cameras more and more people have been able to afford taking pictures of the things around them. This, of course, also applies to anyone with an iPhone.
One of the most engaging things about my personal blog, I’m told, is the fact that I keep updated pictures on there. To be honest, I started doing that as a way to share pictures with my wife. But the more and more I did it the more and more my friends have told me they love to see what pictures I’ll post every day.
In order to accommodate up to the minute photo sharing, you have to have a good place to store your pictures online. This is where Flickr excels.
If you go to the site and sign up you can immediately get started with uploading pictures you already have, which is nice and allows you to share your pictures with friends and get their comments. But for my purposes Flickr really shines when you start talking about its ability to consume images in nearly any way you can get them to the site.
Since this series of articles specifically talks about using the iPhone, I’ll outline how best to get your photo blog online and running.
- Sign up for an account at Flickr
- Set up your account to receive pictures via e-mail
- Add your custom e-mail address to your iPhone contacts
- Take pictures with your iPhone and e-mail them to Flickr
It seems simple because it is! The web interface for Flickr has a lot, and I do mean a lot, of functionality. It allows a lot of things that I don’t use and first time users can be confused by the many options. However, for the purposes of simply getting a picture online and sharing it with friends you can’t beat the simplicity of this approach.
WordPress + Flickr
Once again we have to ask the question “How does this work with my blog?” and just like with Twitter, the answer comes in the form of a WordPress plugin.
I’ve been using “flickRSS” by Dave Kellam. The plugin is simple enough to do what you want quickly and powerful enough to allow you to use CSS (zomg technical term!) to make things look however you want. So it should pretty well cover every experience level with WordPress, from new user to experienced blogger.
I almost always have a hard time writing a conclusion paragraph, particularly when the content is as diverse as this. So I’ll just end by saying that blogging has proven for me to be one of the most effective ways to stay in touch with family and friends. Oddly enough, I talk to my family and friends more than I did before on the phone, but now when we talk they already have the updates so instead of spending time rehashing stories I spend time talking to them about other things. It’s amazing what taking a little time to publish your stories can do for those who are interested in you.
It’s an online life – Messaging
May 13th
Online Life Tool: Meebo
Replaces: Nothing, but provides on-the-go usage of almost any instant messenger application
Instant messaging is something that has become ubiquitous in everyone’s online life, not just mine. Everyone who spends any time at all online uses at least one instant messenger application. Because of this a lot of times the best way to get in touch with someone is to message them. In fact, many online services are beginning to embrace messaging as a way to interact with their APIs.
While the iPhone has a great SMS application (which I’ll reference plenty later) sometimes you need to message someone on a specific protocol (AIM, MSN, Yahoo! Messenger, Jabber/Google Talk). In these cases Meebo does a great job of giving you web-based access and the ability to carry on a short conversation. I say short only because the client isn’t designed to always be on, so in general you have your conversation and sign off.
On my Windows Mobile device there were several applications I had purchased over the years in attempts to have an “always on” chat client. Everything from IRC to AIM was tried and I ended up disappointed with all of them.
For what it’s worth, Meebo is really, really good at what it does. But that doesn’t forgive the fact that there are still no really, really good built-in, “always on” messaging clients for those of us who are mobile and have an unlimited data plan which is always connecting anyway. Lucky for us iPhone users, word on the street is that there are hooks in the Apple SDK for the iPhone that will allow applications to continue running when not in focus. This should allow good messaging applications to be written, especially on the heels of a 3G release sometime in the near future. Beware, though, battery life will suffer.
Adobe Photoshop CS2 on Vista – The Horror!
Apr 28th
I had no idea that getting Adobe Photoshop CS2 to work on Windows Vista Home Premium was difficult. As a matter of fact, as someone who has been using Photoshop for many years I assumed it would be easy. Silly me. Following is my account of dealing with Adobe Support to try and get my legal copy of Adobe Photoshop CS2 to work on my new machine, which coincidentally came with Vista Home Premium. Note that the issues I experienced had nothing to do with Photoshop functionality, the only problem I had was getting the software to accept my serial number.
The Back Story
I’ll start by describing my situation. It wasn’t one that I initially thought was odd, but Adobe’s support personnel have had one hell of a time wrapping their mind around it so I can only assume that my situation is mind (and possibly time, space and physics) bending.
- I have owned and used Photoshop CS2 since 2005
- I recently purchased a new computer from Dell, it came with Windows Vista Home Premium (so I decided to try the much maligned OS)
- I wanted to install, register and activate my copy of Photoshop CS2 on my new computer
The Assets
Now that you have a little back story, I’d like to tell you how I’m set up just to be sure there’s no misunderstanding (again, Adobe support couldn’t fathom this setup).
- My new computer is a hardware monster, it dwarfs the minimum requirements for Photoshop CS2 from a hardware standpoint
- I still have the original download of Photoshop CS2 that I got from Adobe on a CD (I thought it was pretty standard to back up purchased and downloaded software, apparently it isn’t)
The Problem: Part 1
Now for the fun. While I was installing Photoshop it asked me for a serial number. Like a good customer and someone who writes software for a living I don’t keep a copy of the serial number along with the software install. Instead, I depend on Adobe to keep up with that for me. So during the pause in the installation I headed out to Adobe’s site and logged into my account to take a look at my serial number. When I got to the appropriate page, however, the site informed me that the registration services were not available.
“No problem” I thought, and continued to click the “Trial” button to go ahead and install Photoshop CS2 so I could use it for the task I needed and activate / register it later once the registration services were back online. Logic has been the downfall of many…
The Problem: Part 2 – The Problem Grows
I finished my task with no problems, saved my graphics files and continued on about my way comfortable in the knowledge that soon Adobe would be back online and everything would be tidied up.
So the next day before I head out for the day I check on the registration services site again only to find that it’s still down. I figured what the heck, I’ll call their support center. The conversation with the support personnel was pretty short… as she informed me that she couldn’t help me because the registration service was down.
“Well that’s less than ideal, but whatever…” I thought as I headed out the door.
Online Support
At some point during my day that day I had a thought, “I might as well submit an online ticket so the nice support folks can get to my problem as soon as the flaky registration service comes back online.” So as soon as I got home I sat down and submitted a support ticket using Adobe’s site.
Two days later (on Monday, which is fine, they don’t work weekends) I got an e-mail with a PDF attachment… apparently this is how Adobe’s support communicates… via an e-mail with a PDF attachment. What a clever way to try and force people to use Adobe Reader. Anyhow, the gist of the message was that they would be unable to help me because it was a weekend (note that this was sent on Monday). However, the message continues on to tell me that my Photoshop CS2 serial number will not work with Photoshop CS3. They then continue to assure me that they were happy to have solved this issue for me.
Of course, CS3 had nothing whatsoever to do with my problem, so I responded. Admittedly it took me until the next Saturday to do so (after all, the trial was working, getting it activated wasn’t my top priority). I was pretty straightforward but polite in my response that CS3 was nowhere to be found. I even used Photoshop CS2 to make the image below and attach it to the support ticket. You see, the only problem I had is that I couldn’t enter my serial number… nothing else was wrong!
On Sunday (the next day, at least these guys are prompt) I got a message informing me that it was the weekend. This time, however, I was instructed to call Adobe’s support telephone number instead of bothering the online support folks, they said the phone support personnel would be better qualified to handle my unique issue.
Telephone Support
So on Sunday I went ahead and called the Adobe support folks again. I got a nice individual on the phone who seemed genuinely eager to help me solve this issue of epic proportions.
Of course, all he could tell me was that Photoshop CS2 does not work on Vista, I need to upgrade to Photoshop CS3. After me spending 20 minutes trying to convince him not only did it work, but I used it to make the attachment on the ticket, my support tech was ready to get rid of me. He told me to call back some other time, when the technical support folks would be around. I had to wonder who exactly I had been talking to all this time if not technical support.
Going Rogue
The time had come for me to put some of my own time into solving this problem. In all honesty, it wasn’t that hard to solve once I put my mind to it. I had originally hoped for a quick fix from Adobe but once it was obvious they were not going to be of help… and that my trial would run out… I had to figure out how to make things work on my own.
I researched the problem on the web and found some vague references to it, but nothing that out and out told you how to fix it. Thus this article…
There seem to be several approaches to fixing the problem that people have found over time. However, I found what worked for me and it goes a little something like this:
- Uninstall Photoshop completely
- Disable Vista’s UAC functionality
- Re-install Photoshop CS2 in Windows XP SP2 compatibility mode
- Enter your serial number during the initial installation
- Run Photoshop CS2 in Windows XP SP2 compatibility mode
I will add a more detailed post at some point in the future which outlines each of the steps in detail, possibly with screen shots if I find the time (now that my copy of Photoshop isn’t going to expire).
Note that I was never able to get the “Activation” popup in Photoshop to work, it would always give me the error listed in the picture above. However, the first time I used my serial during installation using the steps I just outlined everything seemed to work great.
The Conclusion
Adobe Photoshop CS2 does, in fact, work on Windows Vista Home Premium if you’re willing to toy with it. Of course, having to toy with it is the reason I don’t use Photoshop’s competitors.