CreativeTechs Tips

Interested in Adobe Creative Suite? This is a weekly newsletter for creative professionals who use Macs (but Windows users are welcome too). If you're new here, you may want to subscribe via RSS or Email or Twitter for a mix of new tips each week. Thanks for visiting!

This isn’t a tip. It’s a screenshot Kyle just sent me from one of the cooler projects we’ve been involved in so far this year. Kyle and Jordan prepared an entire network of computer images that a client took to China on a laptop drive. Kyle had to help them configure the network sufficiently over the phone so he could get in remotely and finish the office setup.

This is, from front to back, an RDC connection to a windows machine running in VMWare on another mac, which is running on a mac, when is screen shared from another mac, which is connected to via iChat Screen Sharing feature, and is in China.

Read the Full Tip »

If you do website design and development on a Mac, this is one of those tips you should love. Everyone else can skip this one (Don’t worry we’ll be back with something else for you next week).

PHP and MySQL features don’t come enabled on the built-in OS X web server. It’s possible to access those features with some command-line gymnastics. But we have a MUCH easier way.

MAMP is a free standalone web server you can download and run in minutes. Run this application and push “Start Servers” and you are running a test web server on your Mac with PHP and MySQL services already configured.

MAMP: One-click-solution for your personal webserver.

MAMP stands for: Macintosh, Apache, MySQL and PHP. These are the four main constituents you need to design and develop a full featured website or application on your Mac. Web developers, enjoy! Read the Full Tip »

Google recently released a new service that lets you perform searches for images that are visually similar to each other:

Google Labs: Similar Images Search

Start by searching for an image using a traditional search term (for example, search for apple). Once you find a result that is close to what you’re looking for, click on the "Similar Images" link and Google finds images it believes to be similar in appearance.

Source: This tip drawn from a mention on the terrific CreativeBits site.

I’ve been looking at various online tools to create an international calendar for our worldwide training program. I ran into this handy world clock map you can easily embed in a blog.

It doesn’t solve our immediate problem, but it was interesting enough that I wanted to try it out!

Make Mac Work is our sister blog focused on helping people who manage Macs in larger Enterprise environments. We’ve been working behind the scenes, and today we’re unveiling a clean new look to the site:

Jordan has updated most of the article archives for Mac OS 10.5 Leopard. For a sense of this site’s technical focus, browse through some of the essential articles:

» Deploy Portable Home Directories
» Master Open Directory
» Configure Network Installation
» Manage Account Preferences
» Control Software Update
» Bind to Active Directory

If you are an IT professional who is responsible for supporting Macs, this website is a resource you’ll want to bookmark. Read the Full Tip »

There are three basic tools I need as a modern technical consultant: A flash drive to keep software utilities handy; a small screwdriver to open the occasional computer case; and (most importantly) a steady supply of business cards for referrals and introductions as I talk with people during the day.

I’ve spent more time than I can justify pulling together a basic toolkit that’s with me all the time. Here for your enjoyment, costing less than $100, is my keychain toolkit:

LaCie 8GB iamakey USB Flash Drive. ($35)

Swiss Tech Screwz-All Keyring Tool. ($4.75)

MOO MiniCards & MiniCard Holder. ($19.95 per 100 cards)

I looked at a lot of different products before settling on these three. If you are curious, read on for some alternate flash drives and keychain screwdrivers you might also consider. Read the Full Tip »

We’ve seen sporadic cases of Photoshop, InDesign, or Acrobat that stop working at various design firms, with the dialog box show above.

“Licensing for the product has stopped working. This product has encountered a problem which requires that you start your computer before it can be launched.”

If this happens to your, make note of the error code, and take a look at this handy, exhaustive entry in Adobe’s Knowledge Base:

Adobe: “Licensing for this product has stopped working”

In that article (far too lengthy to summarize), Adobe helpfully explains nine different ways your legally purchased and properly installed Creative Suite products might have licensing failures, and the variety of ways those issues can be addressed.

Source: CreativeTechs technician, Jasson Lewellen, has discovered and solved many of these issues firsthand at various studios around Seattle. This issue is also covered this week in our sister technical blog, Make Mac Work: CS4 Licensing Stops Working

Last year we published a tip showing how web designers could test their website designs on Apple’s iPhone Simulator. Here is another, simpler, tip along those lines.

Many companies today are creating special versions of their website that automatically display for iPhone visitors. Some examples include Amazon, Google, Bank of America, and even our CreativeTechs Tips blog.

Turn on Safari’s Developer Menu option and you can easily tell Safari to impersonate an iPhone (or other browser types) when visiting different webpages. It isn’t the same as a full iPhone simulator, but this can be pretty useful for web designers testing custom site designs.

Read the Full Tip »

Mactracker is a free utility that maintains detailed information on every Apple Macintosh computer ever made. Including items such as processor speed, memory, optical drives, graphic cards, supported Mac OS versions, and expansion options. The collection also includes information on Apple mice, keyboards, displays, printers, scanners, digital cameras, iPod, Apple TV, iPhone, Wi-Fi Cards/Base Stations, Newton, and Mac OS versions.

For long-time Mac users, browsing through the history of Mac models can be a fun trip down memory lane. On a practical level, this information can be useful when manually compiling an updated inventory of your studio’s computers. Read the Full Tip »

This is a bit off-topic from our tips format. I’d like to put out a request to the more technical readers in our audience. Our lead enterprise engineer, Jordan Bojar, has been asked to pull together a book proposal based on his Make Mac Work blog.

If you have never visited, Make Mac Work is our sister blog covering IT issues facing Macs in Enterprise environments. If that sounds interesting, you can browse some of the essential articles in the blog archives:

» Portable Home Directories
» Master Open Directory
» Configure And Deploy NetInstall
» Manage Account Preferences
» Control Software Update
» Bind to Active Directory

If you are an IT professional who is responsible for supporting Macs in larger corporate networks, I’d recommend you bookmark this blog. And we’d appreciate any feedback or suggestions you might be willing share to help Jordan flesh out his book proposal.

Thanks.