gHacks technology news » adobe

Adobe Releases Flash 10.1 and Air 2.0 Previews

Martin — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 23:14:49 +0000

Adobe today released two technology previews for Adobe Flash and Adobe Air. Adobe Flash 10.1 Pre-Release and Adobe Air 2.0 Beta are now both available for download at Adobe Labs. Both applications are available for all supported operating systems (Windows, Mac and Linux) although some of the new features introduced are limited to a specific operating system.

Flash 10.1 introduces several new key features including video hardware acceleration (only available in Flash for Windows), better mobility support including smartphone and other Internet-devices support and additional option for media delivery. Users interested in installing the new Flash Player version should note that it is not the final release but a community preview which is mainly aimed at developers.

This public prerelease is an opportunity for developers to test and provide early feedback to Adobe on new features, enhancements, and compatibility with previously authored content. Consumers can try the beta release of Flash Player 10.1 to preview hardware acceleration of video on supported Windows PCs and x86-based netbooks. You can also help make Flash Player better by visiting all of your favorite sites, making sure they work the same or better than with the current player. We definitely want your feedback to help improve the final version, expected to ship in the first half of 2010.

Interested users can take a look at the announcement over at Adobe Labs, read the release notes or watch Flash Player 10 demonstrations online.

The second major release today is the release of Adobe Air 2.0 Beta which also comes with many enhancements over the current Adobe Air release. This includes a long list of features like the following:

* Support for the detection of mass storage devices.
* Advanced networking capabilities like secure sockets, UDP support, and the ability to listen on sockets.
* Support for native code integration.
* The ability to open a file with its default application.
* Multi-touch and gesture support.
* New APIs for access to raw microphone data.
* Webkit update with HTML5/CSS3 support.
* Global error handling.
* Improved cross-platform printing
* Improved security and support for enterprise and government standards.

Like Flash Player 10.1 Adobe Air 2 is a beta release that is not aimed at the general Internet community but at developers who want to test the new technology or adapt their products to make use of these new features and options. Those users can take a closer look at the release notes and the announcement of Adobe Air 2.0 which contains follow up links to get started.

Tags: adobe, adobe air, adobe beta, adobe flash, air 2, flash 10

Adobe Reader Security Update

Martin — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 07:56:03 +0000

Adobe has released a security patch for their Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat line of products that fix several security vulnerabilities that have been rated as critical. The vulnerabilities that have been discovered could cause Adobe Reader or Adobe Acrobat to crash which could potentially allow attackers to take control of the computer system. The security patch raises the version of Adobe Reader to 9.2 which is the version that users should install to protect their software programs from potential exploits.

Downloads are available for both Adobe Reader and Acrobat at the Adobe website for Windows, Mac and Unix. Acrobat users find download links for their product in the Adobe Security Bulletin which also contains details about the vulnerabilities that have been patched.

Our reader Paulus mentioned that the light version of Adobe Reader – called Adobe Reader Lite – is already available at various download sites including Major Geeks. Adobe Reader Lite is a third party project that removes several modules of Adobe Reader which are usually not needed by most users including popups and plugins.

Users who only want PDF reader capabilities can also take a look at Adobe Reader alternatives which are usually much faster than the original and more secure as well as they are not that targeted by hackers yet. Viable options include Foxit PDF Reader or muPDF.

Tags: adobe, adobe reader, adobe reader update, pdf reader

Expect A Massive Patch Day Tomorrow

Martin — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 10:28:02 +0000

Tomorrow is a day that could force many system administrators into overtime as both Microsoft and Adobe plan to release security patches for several of their products. Microsoft alone plans to release 13 security patches and updates for various Microsoft operating system, Microsoft Office and other Microsoft products. The patch day is also the first to include a critical security patch for Microsoft’s upcoming operating system Windows 7.

Adobe on the other hand plans to release security patches for its popular PDF reader Adobe Reader that are also rated critical. The updates will all be released tomorrow and system administrators will certainly their hands full updating the computer systems that run the software and operating systems.

A closer look at the Microsoft Patch Day reveals eight critical security vulnerabilities and five important vulnerabilities that will get fixed with the patches that are released tomorrow. The majority of vulnerabilities affects the Windows operating system but it does also include one critical Internet Explorer vulnerability.

System administrators and Windows users are encouraged to visit the two websites linked above for further information. These websites will also contain the links to patch the security vulnerabilities. Windows users can also use Windows Update, Microsoft Update or Automatic Updates to update their operating system.

Tags: adobe, adobe reader, microsoft, patch day, patches, security vulnerabilities, windows-update

Adobe Reader Security Vulnerabilities

Martin — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 20:06:39 +0000

Adobe has posted information about a known critical security vulnerability affecting Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat on Windows, Mac and Unix operating systems. According to Adobe there are reports about a limited attack on the Windows versions of Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat 9.1.3 (and most likely earlier). A patch that is fixing the issue will be released by Adobe on October 13 for all operating systems as part of the Adobe Reader and Acrobat quarterly security update.

Windows Vista and Windows 7 who have DEP enabled (that’s Data Execution Prevention) are protected from the exploit. Users who work with different operating systems are encouraged to disable JavaScript to protect against the specific known exploit. Adobe mentions that it is on the other hand possible to create an exploit that does not rely on JavaScript.

Adobe plans to resolve this issue as part of the upcoming Adobe Reader and Acrobat quarterly security update, scheduled for release on October 13. Adobe Reader and Acrobat 9.1.3 customers with DEP enabled on Windows Vista will be protected from this exploit. Disabling JavaScript also mitigates against this specific exploit, although a variant that does not rely on JavaScript could be possible. In the meantime, Adobe is also in contact with Antivirus and Security vendors regarding the issue and recommends users keep their anti-virus definitions up to date.

Probably the best protection at this point is to uninstall Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat and install a third party pdf viewer like Foxit Reader, muPDF or STDU Viewer. Additional information are available at the Adobe website.

Tags: adobe, adobe acrobat, adobe reader, adobe reader exploit, adobe reader vulnerability, pdf

Adobe Reader, Acrobat and Flash Player Zero Day Vulnerability

Martin — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 14:08:36 +0000

Adobe has issued a security advisory that describes a critical vulnerability in the current versions of Adobe Reader, Acrobat and Flash Player. The vulnerability “could cause a crash and potentially allow an attacker to take control of the affected system”. Adobe’s Flash Player seems to be affected completely while the file authplay.dll is the reason for the vulnerability affecting Adobe Reader and Acrobat as well. Adobe mentioned that the vulnerability is already exploited in the wild via targeted attacks against users running a Windows operating system and Adobe Reader 9.

Apple Mac and Unix systems are affected by the vulnerability as well but the exploit that is currently in the wild is only affecting Windows. Adobe suggests to enable UAC in Windows Vista (and Windows 7). Windows XP users should consider moving or deleting authplay.dll to protect their computer system from the threat against Adobe Reader and Acrobat “but users will experience a non-exploitable crash or error message when opening a PDF that contains SWF content”.

An alternative would be to uninstall Adobe Reader or Acrobat and install one of the available third party pdf readers like Foxit Reader or Sumatra.

Adobe does not offer any advise on the Flash Player vulnerability. The only viable option seems to be to disable or even uninstall Flash and wait for the patch which is expected to be released on July 30 and July 31.

Tags: acrobat, adobe, adobe reader, adobe reader vulnerability, adobe vulnerability, flash player, flash player vulnerability

Adobe Fixes Critical Shockwave Vulnerability

Martin — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 06:51:09 +0000

Adobe has issues a security patch for their Adobe Shockwave software program that fixes on vulnerability that has been rated critical. The vulnerability gives attackers, who can attack systems remotely, control over affected computer systems. The interesting aspect of the issued patch is that Adobe recommends to completely uninstall Adobe Shockwave 11.5.0.596 or earlier on their computer systems before installing the latest version of the software product in which the security vulnerability has been fixed.

To secure a computer system running Adobe Shockwave a user would therefor have to uninstall Adobe Shockwave, perform a system restart and install the latest version of Shockwave after the reboot.

The Security Bulletin that has been published at the Adobe website gives little information about the vulnerability other than it can be remotely exploited and that it only affects the Microsoft Windows operating system. Users are encouraged to download the latest version of Adobe Shockwave on the program’s website.

It should also be noted that this vulnerability targets only Adobe Shockwave and not Adobe Flash. Thanks goes to Dante for sending me the information per email.

Tags: adobe, adobe flash, adobe shockwave, security vulnerability, shockwave, shockwave update, vulnerability

Adobe Reader and Acrobat Security Updates

Martin — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 12:48:30 +0000

Adobe has released a set of security updates for their Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat software products that fix a variety of security vulnerabilities that could be used to crash the Adobe application and allow the attacker to take control of the computer system. The security vulnerabilities have been rated as critical and Adobe users are encouraged to update their versions of Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat as soon as possible.

The security updates are provided for Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat software products running on both Microsoft Windows and Apple Macintosh operating systems. The security bulletin that was issued yesterday contains links that point to downloads for all affected programs and operating systems.

The affected programs are:

Adobe Reader 9.1.1 and earlier versions
Adobe Acrobat Standard, Pro, and Pro Extended 9.1.1 and earlier versions

Adobe recommends users of Adobe Reader and Acrobat update their product installations to versions 9.1.2, 8.1.6, or 7.1.3 using the instructions above to protect themselves from potential vulnerabilities. The above updates apply to Windows and Macintosh. Security updates for Adobe Reader on the UNIX platform will be available on June 16, 2009; this Bulletin will be updated to reflect their availability on that date.

Security conscious users might want to consider switching from Adobe Reader to a third party application like Foxit Reader, Sumatra PDF or PDF-Xchange Viewer.

Tags: acrobat, adobe, adobe acrobat, adobe reader, adobe reader vulnerability, adobe security

Adobe Presentations Online

Martin — Wed, 27 May 2009 08:29:21 +0000

Acrobat.com Presentations is a new Adobe online service that allows users to create presentations online. The service was build with Flash which is the only other requirement next to an Adobe account.

The main focus of Presentations is work collaboration as it makes it possible to work with multiple contributors on the same presentation. The usual workflow in many companies is that one person works on a presentation at a time and saves that presentation on a shared folder or sends it to the next person as an email attachment so that the next contributor can start working on it.

Multiple users can work on the same document simultaneously. It is for example possible that one user works on the text of a slide while a designer works on the layout and graphics.

Several build in themes and layouts are available with the option to create new themes to incorporate corporate design for example.

Editing features offer the usual assortment of text and list controls, shapes and images that can be used to create the presentation. It is possible to preview the presentation as a slideshow directly on the site or export it as a pdf document.

There is unfortunately no support for importing or exporting Microsoft PowerPoint documents yet which is probably the number one feature that would make the Presentations service more attractive to users and businesses.

Acrobat.com Presentations is an interesting service for users who want to create presentations with colleagues or friends who do not mind that the presentations can only be exported as pdf documents.

Tags: acrobat, acrobat.com presentations, adobe, adobe presentations, microsoft powerpoing, presentations

Adobe Photoshop Speedup

Martin — Fri, 08 May 2009 12:41:29 +0000

Adobe Photoshop, among with other products created by Adobe including the notorious Adobe Reader, are known to start slowly. This is one of the main reasons why computer users install and use alternative products which might not offer the full feature set but make up for that in speed and performance. The price of the products might play a role as well. Not everyone can or wants to change the product on the other hand. That’s where a product like Adobe Photoshop Speedup comes in handy.

The software program has been designed to speed up the start of Adobe Photoshop. It supports all Photoshop versions from Photoshop 3 to 8 and tries to identify the installed version automatically upon start. Adobe Photoshop Speedup is a portable software which means it can be run from any location. It asks the user to enter information about the installed Adobe Photoshop version manually if it cannot be located automatically.

Adobe Photoshop Speedup will display a basic interface afterwards that allows the user to remove items from the Adobe Photoshop startup including plugins, Cmap and Base and Photoshop Presets.

Specific plugins can be removed from the startup process which afterwards will usually be noticeably faster. The settings can also be restored at a later time in case some of the plugins or features should be loaded at startup again.

Tags: adobe, adobe photoshop, photoshop, photoshop speedup, portable software, windows software

Adobe Reader 9.1 Lite

Martin — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 09:58:17 +0000

Software programs usually grow with every release. Some of the remarkable products that made it from a tiny resource friendly application are Nero Burning Rom and Adobe Reader. Users who are fed up with those overweight programs usually flock to third party applications that provide a balance between resource usage and functionality. An alternatives for Adobe Reader is for example the popular pdf reader Foxit Reader.

Another possibility are so called lite versions of software suites. Both Nero Burning Rom (Nero Lite) and Adobe Reader have been modified by developers to reduce the program’s load times and storage requirements. Adobe Reader Lite has been recently updated to version 9.1 to catch up with the official Adobe Reader 9.1 release. Several plugins and other features that are usually not needed by the majority of users have been reduced from Adobe Reader Lite to make the software program more resource friendly. The basic functionality of working with pdf files has been retained.

The result is size decrease of more than 140 Megabytes compared to the official version of Adobe Reader 9.1 which uses 204 Megabytes of storage space after installation. Downloads are available for the English and other localized editions of Adobe Reader 9.1.

Adobe Reader 9.1 Lite speeds up the startup of Adobe Reader tremendously. It is a good alternative for users who prefer to use the original products instead of third party solutions.

Tags: adobe, adobe reader, adobe reader 9.1, adobe reader lite, foxit reader, pdf reader, windows software

Unofficial Adobe Reader Patch Released

Martin — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 14:22:29 +0000

You might have read about a new vulnerability in Adobe Reader 9 and previous versions that is affecting all platforms and rated critical. The vulnerability can be used to crash an application and allow an attacker to take control of the computer system. Adobe announced plans to release the official patch for all affected products on March 11. That’s more than two weeks after the patch has been acknowledged by them and a serious problem considering that there are reports that the vulnerability is already exploited.

Lurene Grenier, a security researcher at Sourcefire, has published an unofficial patch for Adobe Reader 9 that is installed on a computer running the Microsoft Windows operating system. The patch comes with no guarantees and involves the replacement of a dll file in the Adobe Reader directory. Users should make sure to backup the dll before replacing it to be prepared for eventualities. Windows users with previous Adobe Reader versions will have to upgrade to Adobe Reader 9 before they can apply the patch.

There is another recommendation (by US-CERT)which is helpful for users of other operating systems or Windows users who do not like the idea of replacing a dll on the computer system:

Disabling Javascript in Adobe Reader by going to Edit > Preferences > JavaScript and unchecking enable Acrobat JavaScript.
Preventing IE from automatically displaying PDFs. This can be done via a Registry tweak described on the US-CERT notification.
Disable rendering of PDFs within web pages. This can be done from the Edit-Preferences menu in Adobe Reader.

It is recommended to act swiftly to prevent that the vulnerability can get exploited on the computer system. Users of third party PDF software programs are not affected by the vulnerability.

Tags: adobe, adobe reader, adobe reader 9, adobe reader fix, adobe reader patch, adobe reader vulnerability, pdf, pdf vulnerability

Of Cracks, Hacks And Jailbreaks

Martin — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 18:11:37 +0000

What a day. It started with news that hackers managed to circumvent controls in the T-Mobile G1 Android mobile phone that allowed them to install new programs and even a new operating system. A step by step tutorial has been posted on an Android developer forum. Applied incorrectly the hack could render the mobile phone completely useless and void the warranty leaving the user with a bricked phone and no way of getting a free repair or replacement for it. The hack is giving the user root access to the phone.

Then there was the news that Adobe issued a security patch for both Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat that fixed several security issues which would allow attackers to remotely execute code on the target machine. The patch can be downloaded from the official Adobe website and should be applied by users who work with Adobe Reader or Adobe Acrobat.

Lastly PC World published an article claiming that WPA Wi-FI encryption was cracked. (Thanks to Lee Mathews for sending this in via email). Security researcher Erik Tews is said to demonstrate how he was able to crack any WPA encryption in around 15 minutes at the PacSec conference in Tokyo next week.

To do this, Tews and his co-researcher Martin Beck found a way to break the Temporal Key Integrity Protocol (TKIP) key, used by WPA, in a relatively short amount of time: 12 to 15 minutes, according to Dragos Ruiu, the PacSec conference’s organizer.

Users who use wireless connections should make sure that they are using WPA2 encryption. If their router is not supporting that kind of encryption it could mean to check the Internet for firmware updates that add that possibility or to purchase a new wireless router that supports it.

Tags: adobe, adobe reader, android, android phone, g1 jailbreak, g1 phone, google phone, t-mobile g1, wpa, wpa cracked

Adobe Flash Player Clickjacking Vulnerability

Martin — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 12:18:22 +0000

Dante send me a link to an interesting article that described the latest Adobe Flash Player vulnerability. Adobe published a security advisory yesterday that described a clickjacking vulnerability. In short: An attacker could lure the unsuspecting user into clicking on a link that would give the attacker access to the computer’s microphone and webcam without the user’s knowledge.

Adobe published a temporary workaround to protect the computer system against this form of attack that users should apply until the release of a patch that would fix the critical issue.

To apply the workaround users should visit the Flash Player’s Settings Manager by following the link. There they should click on the Always Deny button which would prevent any website from accessing the microphone and webcam settings.

The new setting has to be confirmed in the popup that appears automatically after clicking on the Always deny button. The patch is said to be available before the end of October.

Tags: adobe, adobe flash, clickjacking, flash clickjacking, flash player, flash vulnerability

Disable Adobe Updater

Martin — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 21:19:55 +0000

Adobe installs a software called Adobe Updater with many of its products. The updater will automatically connect to the Internet to check for updates for the installed Adobe products. Adobe Updater, that’s the name of the application, will be installed in another folder on the system.

Most users probably do not mind the regular automatic update checks but some might prefer to update the Adobe software products manually. This is important in business environments where patches are extensively tested before applied to client machines.

It is actually not a big problem to disable Adobe Updater if an Internet connection is available. All that needs to be done is to execute the Adobe_Updater.exe file that is located in the Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Updater6 directory on the hard drive. The application will perform an update check and notify the user about updates. The updates won’t be installed however until the user clicks on the Download And Install Updates button.

A click on Preferences will load the configuration screen shown in the above screenshot. Unchecking the “Automatically check for Adobe updates” box will do the trick. Mac OSX users can basically do the same. The location of the Adobe Updater program on their system is /Applications/Utilities/Adobe Utilities/Adobe Updater5/.

Tags: adobe, adobe acrobat, adobe update, adobe updater, adobe_updater.exe, disable adobe update

You’d be Stupid Not To…

joshua — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 08:15:32 +0000

Adobe Reader is the *worst example of software bloat I’ve ever had the bad experience of using. In fact I have not idea why I did use it for so long.

Adobe comes bundled with Windows and it includes the ability for previews in the Explorer sidebar so I guess that was useful enough for me not to worry. But lately I’ve had to read and use a lot of PDF’s and the fact it can manage to use up to 70mb of Ram for just three documents made me decide to look for an alternative.

I found Foxit Reader (well actually I already knew about it), it’s the best PDF reader and here’s why:

Tiny Size, Foxit Reader weighs in at under 3mb, 17Mb lighter then Adobe Reader sounds a bit ridiculous but it’s true.

Light on Resource, it’s fast and uses about a third of the memory that Adobe Reader does.

Tabbed Browsing, I wish all productivity and office software included tabbed browsing, but luckily Foxit Reader does. For me personally, consulting 10 PDFs at a time is pretty normal and it’s much easier to work without my task bar clogged up.

More intuitive, All the most commonly used tools are laid out nicely along the menu bar.

Stacks of extra stuff if you can be bothered to find it, that includes minimising to the system tray, looking up words in the dictionary, playing multimedia embedded in documents, reading history and so on.

Other boring features, yadda yadda Foxit Reader also includes better security and privacy controls, a tool for converting the PDF into a text file and an annotation tool for diagrams, drawings and notes.

Controls itself, no background updating, prompting, nagging, connecting to the Internet or generally being a severe annoyance. (“Adobe 8.7292 is available! Do you wish to update?”)

However,it’s not perfect (Although I did discover there are a hell of a lot more features in PDF readers then I sure ever use them for).

Light and fast though it is, it does actually lack a few things which I do like about Adobe Reader. The two major ones are that Adobe lets you preview PDFs in the Explorer sidebar and copy and past text and objects straight from the PDF.

Ultimately though, speed and performance trumps both of those and Foxit is my choice for today!

* Actually I think I should have said the best example, but you know what I meant… stupid English language.

** Also, incidentally, If you are a Songbird Media Player user then I’m working on a theme which aims to give Songbird 0.7 a more integrated look when used in Windows Vista.

Tags: adobe, foxit, reader

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Adobe Reader 9 Lite

Martin — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 11:16:10 +0000

Adobe just released a new version of the Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat. Mostly with features that end users like you and me will never use. Or does any of you really need Improved CAD and geospatial functionality, Native Adobe Flash® support or PDF Portfolios. The new version does load faster than the previous one but the loading time pales in comparison to third party alternatives like Foxit Reader, Sumatra or even Adobe Reader 9 Lite.

The creator of the Windows Vista Codec package created a lite version of Adobe Reader that got rid of most of the stuff that bloated the PDF reader but was not used by most users anyway. The lite version does not load as fast as Foxit Reader for instance but makes up for it by still being the official Adobe product, something that a few users probably prefer.

Adobe Reader 9 Lite uses roughly 6 Megabytes of memory and 18 Megabytes of Swap space when running which is extremely well for that kind of applications. I can definitely recommend using Adobe Reader 9 Lite if you have no use for most Adobe Reader features. Foxit Reader and others are still excellent alternatives that come with an even lower memory footprint and faster load times.

Tags: adobe, adobe reader, adobe reader lite, foxit reader, pdf, pdf reader

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Adobe Reader and Acrobat Critical Security Update

Martin — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 13:48:51 +0000

Adobe has released a security update for its products Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat for both Microsoft Windows and Apple Macintosh that closes one critical security vulnerability. Affected versions are Adobe Reader 8.0 through 8.1.2, Adobe Reader 7.0.9 and earlier, Adobe Acrobat Professional, 3D and Standard 8.0 through 8.1.2 and Adobe Acrobat Professional, 3D and Standard 7.0.9 and earlier.

Adobe Reader 9 and Acrobat 9 as well as Adobe Reader 7.1.0 and Acrobat 7.1.0 are not affected by the security vulnerability. The vulnerability causes the applications to crash which can allow an attacker to take control of the host system.

Downloads are available that fix the security vulnerability in Adobe Reader 8 for Windows and Macintosh computers. Take a look at the security bulletin issued by Adobe if you are using Adobe Acrobat or a previous version of one of the products to find the links pointing to updates for your product.

Tags: adobe, adobe acrobat, adobe reader, adobe security, adobe vulnerability

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Colour Schemes

joshua — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 17:13:12 +0000

I have spent this week struggling with colour schemes for my blog.

I found deciding on a colour scheme to be an incredibly frustrating process, and what I finally settled on was fairly safe but not very original or exciting either. However here are a few of the tools that I used to help me locate colours, palettes and inspiration, hopefully this can be useful to you too.

Adobe Kulur
My favorite because of the great community. A lot of really good palettes here and plenty of things to help you designing. Kulur refers to both the website and the AIR application which you can download here.

The AIR application has a useful feature of letting you drag schemes separately onto your desktop to compare various palettes. Once you have decided you can copy the RGB values straight onto the clipboard.

Colour Browser
Another AIR application, this one doesn’t need to be connected to the Internet and is useful as a desktop tool for storing various palettes and schemes. This tool is for creating your own palettes, not finding other peoples and is pretty simple but useful.

Color Scheme Generator 2
A color wheel you can use to create a palette from, has a number of options such as pastel, dark pastel, contrast pale etc.

ColorSchemer ColorPix
ColorPix is great. Install it and you can use it to find out what color anything on your screen is. Perfect for stealing someone else’s great scheme or creating variations. If used in conjunction with the Colour Schemer Gallery then you can really find some great ideas.
Tags: adobe, color, color schemes, design

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Acrobat.com Online

joshua — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 15:10:50 +0000

Adobe recently released a new set of office applications online to compete with the dominant Google Docs, Zoho and possibly Windows Office Live.

It was released alongside Adobe Flash9 and received a small amount of coverage, so I decided to have a quick look at what it offered.

Acrobat.com contains 5 services, 3 of which previously existed as Adobe Buzzword (Word Processing), Adobe Brio (Collaboration) and Adobe Share (File sharing). Acrobat doesn’t offer a complete office suite replacement as the lack of spreadsheets and presentations are a notable omission.

Instead Acrobat.com provides a way to create, publish, share, collaborate on and discuss documents with other people. In fact it does this better then any other free online service I can think of, although it’s worth remembering this is still a beta release so expect some issues.

Aside from the three services mentioned Acrobat also has My Files which is a file manager with a generous 5 gigabytes and Create PDF which can convert up to 5 files at a time into Adobe PDF. A 200mb limit is imposed but that shouldn’t be too much of an issue. It supports all major formats (Microsoft Office, Open Office, Star Office and image files).

For me the best feature is the AIR application for desktop access, unfortunately it doesn’t seem to support offline synchronisation and access.

I’m going to keep using Google Docs for now but I think this will definitely be one to watch.
Tags: acrobat, adobe, documents, office

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Find the latest and best Adobe Air apps

Daniel Pataki — Tue, 20 May 2008 06:23:53 +0000

I am so hugely fond of Adobe Air apps right now because they are just so useful, easy to use and look so good. I also found a great site showcasing the latest and greatest app and although I rarely talk about just one site, I thought this one was worth a mention and a little praise, let me quickly telly you why.

FreshAIRapps is a breath of fresh air (haha) on the web, I see so many sites out there just automatically aggregating content and posting 5% content and 95% adsense. This website does have some ads, but what the real value of it is that the writer actually takes the time to try each app. Clicking on an app will take you to its page where you can see a short description and a look from different angles, the design eye and the technical eye.

What’s great is that he actually manages to write negative stuff. I use about 5 apps that he showcases and he has found the exact problems I have, and this is what makes freshAIRapps such a valuable site. In addition the pics are wonderful and the content I hope will be increasing as AIR apps come out. If you’re in on the hype definitely check out this page!

Tags: adobe, adobe air, applications

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