art101
2006-12-13 05:23:51 UTC
The depth of my hatred for Adobe tonight is nearly boundless. Like most
longtime FreeHand users, I greeted Adobe's purchase of FreeHand with a sense of
foreboding and dismay. I hoped that Adobe would continue to support and develop
this extraordinary drawing tool. Stupid me. FreeHand ran circles around that
lumpy piece of junk called Illustrator. Always did, always will. Macromedia
knew this when they bought FreeHand from Aldus (Remember them? Aldus pretty
much invented desktop publishing), eons ago, way back in the 1990s. And then
Adobe got so big and powerful that the FTC allowed Adobe to buy FreeHand and
gut Macromedia's dead carcass. Corporate feeding frenzies rule our nasty,
modern world.
FreeHand MX 11.0.x was working well up to or around Mac OSX 10.2.x. I recently
bit the bullet and "upgraded" to OSX 10.4.x (aka "Tiger" -- argh, Apple, ditch
the cat names, OK? Since most of those big cats are on the brink of extinction,
naming your flagship OS after an endangered species is a weird, ironic
marketing choice).
All hell has broken loose since I "upgraded." Simply turning on FreeHand's
"snap to grid" and turning it off again is now impossible. Adobe offers a lame
"TechNotes" workaround that doesn't truly work.
Adobe doesn't care. And why should it? Adobe only wants us all to buy their
version of some fabulous next new thing -- like "CS" (aka "Creative Suite" --
an Orwellian doublethink marketing campaign if ever there was one). Adobe is
nothing more than another money-grubbing corporate nightmare. Customer loyalty
and trustworthy products don't figure in Adobe's bottom line... let alone
respect or commitment to the venerable art of graphic design.
I used to love getting up in the morning. I used to love turning on my Mac and
making art. I thought I was the luckiest man in the world! I could make art and
design and pay my bills! Stupid naive me.
Hours of my life melted away forever this afternoon. I'll never get them back.
I was just trying to make some graphic design for a paying client. For every
five minutes I spend on an idea these days, I spend an hour or so trying to
make software express it. The ratio of art to product is crazy... especially
considering the stupid amount of money Adobe charges for products that never do
what Adobe says they'll do. It's all snake oil and trickery.
I wish I could go back to FreeHand 3.1. It was a brilliant piece of software.
R.I.P. FreeHand. Rest in peace. Shame on Adobe. Shame. I'm tired and sad
tonight, and my deadline is shot to hell. I used to make digital art, but now
I'm just another digital ditch digger. Just another consumer, hooked on this
never-ending heroin spiral of "upgrade" after never-ending "upgrade."
I looked at the very first serious drawing I ever made with a vector drawing
program (FreeHand 2.0) tonight. You can see it
http://www.art101.com/gallery/tdf.htm. From a purely technical point of view,
it's not a bad drawing... and the technology that made it possible is gone
forever. Bought and sold by the jerks who own the code.
OK. I'm done with this rant. Thanks for reading it. I guess I'll go check my
email now... an inbox full of more image-based spam peddling pump 'n dump stock
market scams. I used to love the 'net, almost as much as I used to love drawing
with FreeHand.
longtime FreeHand users, I greeted Adobe's purchase of FreeHand with a sense of
foreboding and dismay. I hoped that Adobe would continue to support and develop
this extraordinary drawing tool. Stupid me. FreeHand ran circles around that
lumpy piece of junk called Illustrator. Always did, always will. Macromedia
knew this when they bought FreeHand from Aldus (Remember them? Aldus pretty
much invented desktop publishing), eons ago, way back in the 1990s. And then
Adobe got so big and powerful that the FTC allowed Adobe to buy FreeHand and
gut Macromedia's dead carcass. Corporate feeding frenzies rule our nasty,
modern world.
FreeHand MX 11.0.x was working well up to or around Mac OSX 10.2.x. I recently
bit the bullet and "upgraded" to OSX 10.4.x (aka "Tiger" -- argh, Apple, ditch
the cat names, OK? Since most of those big cats are on the brink of extinction,
naming your flagship OS after an endangered species is a weird, ironic
marketing choice).
All hell has broken loose since I "upgraded." Simply turning on FreeHand's
"snap to grid" and turning it off again is now impossible. Adobe offers a lame
"TechNotes" workaround that doesn't truly work.
Adobe doesn't care. And why should it? Adobe only wants us all to buy their
version of some fabulous next new thing -- like "CS" (aka "Creative Suite" --
an Orwellian doublethink marketing campaign if ever there was one). Adobe is
nothing more than another money-grubbing corporate nightmare. Customer loyalty
and trustworthy products don't figure in Adobe's bottom line... let alone
respect or commitment to the venerable art of graphic design.
I used to love getting up in the morning. I used to love turning on my Mac and
making art. I thought I was the luckiest man in the world! I could make art and
design and pay my bills! Stupid naive me.
Hours of my life melted away forever this afternoon. I'll never get them back.
I was just trying to make some graphic design for a paying client. For every
five minutes I spend on an idea these days, I spend an hour or so trying to
make software express it. The ratio of art to product is crazy... especially
considering the stupid amount of money Adobe charges for products that never do
what Adobe says they'll do. It's all snake oil and trickery.
I wish I could go back to FreeHand 3.1. It was a brilliant piece of software.
R.I.P. FreeHand. Rest in peace. Shame on Adobe. Shame. I'm tired and sad
tonight, and my deadline is shot to hell. I used to make digital art, but now
I'm just another digital ditch digger. Just another consumer, hooked on this
never-ending heroin spiral of "upgrade" after never-ending "upgrade."
I looked at the very first serious drawing I ever made with a vector drawing
program (FreeHand 2.0) tonight. You can see it
http://www.art101.com/gallery/tdf.htm. From a purely technical point of view,
it's not a bad drawing... and the technology that made it possible is gone
forever. Bought and sold by the jerks who own the code.
OK. I'm done with this rant. Thanks for reading it. I guess I'll go check my
email now... an inbox full of more image-based spam peddling pump 'n dump stock
market scams. I used to love the 'net, almost as much as I used to love drawing
with FreeHand.