Tag Archives: Adobe Lr5

2014/05/20 (T) Software Redemption

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Linda was off to the bakery again this morning, but not as early as yesterday.  She had a mid-afternoon meeting which put her return trip at the worst of the evening rush hour.  She is still under the weather, so the last two days have definitely been more work then fun.

I was disgusted enough with my experience yesterday trying to download and install the Adobe Creative Cloud  Desktop app (ACCD) that I decided not to work on my computers this morning.  I had, however, left my new ASUS laptop on all night in the hope that the ACCD app would finish downloading and install correctly.  Sometimes you have to just step away so I started a load of laundry and made a list errands.  Sometimes the best way to step away is to literally get out of the house (or bus) and since errands have a purpose, and provide a sense of accomplishment, they are always good therapy.  I got the laundry out of the dryer and left just after noon.  I got back around 4 PM with bags full of essential but inexpensive stuff; think “TP” and you will have the right idea.

While I was out I got Mike (W8XH) on the S. Lyon 2 meter ham radio repeater and arranged for him to help me with my e-mail issues on my new laptop.  I started another load of laundry when I got home and then checked on my computer.  ACCD had finished installing correctly!  I have no idea how long it took; the progress bar did not move when I sat and watched it.  I started up my old laptop to check e-mail and discovered that we appeared to have a very slow Internet connection.  All of my online programs worked fine yesterday (except the ACCD installation), and they were all working today, but not very fast.  The difficulty I had installing ACCD may have been an Internet connection issue rather than an Adobe issue, but I will never know.  We have an AT&T High Speed Internet (HSI) landline.  The only thing slower is dial-up.

ACCD was open and showed me a list of apps.  Most of the apps had a “Try” button, which is an attempt on Adobe’s part to inflate our monthly bill to gigantic proportions.  Lightroom (Lr) and Photoshop (Ps), however, had “Install” buttons, a good sign that Adobe had the correct details for our ACC account.  I clicked the Install button for Lightroom and went upstairs.  I was feeling progressively worse through the day and after Linda called with her ETA I decided to take a nap.

Linda reheated the leftover pasta from Sunday’s dinner.  After dinner I checked on the progress of the Lightroom download/install.  It was done and showed the status as “Up To Date”.  Today was turning out to be a good day, so I clicked Install for Photoshop, finished editing some blog posts, answered a few e-mails, and turned off my old computer.  With no other devices trying to use our Internet connection I was optimistic that I will find it downloaded and installed in the morning.  Linda tried to install Microsoft Security Essentials on her laptop earlier today and suddenly had programs she did ask for or authorize as best she was aware.  Thanks Microsoft.  Attempting to remove them brought up additional vendor dialog boxes so we let it be for now.  We were both too tired and feeling to poorly to think carefully or do online research to figure out what was going on.  With any luck Mike can help us with this on Thursday.

 

2013_12_24 (T) Christmas Eve in Florida

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If you had asked me even 10 years ago if we would ever be in Florida on Christmas Eve I would have scoffed at the suggestion.  And yet here we are; and loving it.  We got up around 8 AM to clear skies and cool temperatures, the overnight low having gotten all the way down close to 50 degrees F.  There was a light breeze, and it was a bit brisk, but we were bemused to see people bundled up like they were in Michigan (where the temperatures were near 10 deg F).  Speaking of Michigan, there are quite a few people here at Williston Crossings RV Resort from our state, as well as from Ontario, Canada.

I made coffee, as I do every morning, and that got Linda up, as it does most mornings.  Teeko’s Sweet Seattle Dreams is a 50/50 mix of their Seattle Blend (caffeinated) and Sweet Dreams blend (decaffeinated).  We were the first customers that Jeff made this particular combination for, and he liked the aroma so much he is considering brewing up some to serve by the cup.  Not that we’re addicted or anything, but we like to start our day with the smell of coffee being ground and brewed.  The drinking that follows isn’t too bad either.  I uploaded several blog posts before breakfast and a few more afterwards while Linda went for her first walk of the day.  She is very focused on getting in at least 10,000 steps every day, and determined to drag me along.  🙂  We then headed for Gainesville, Florida to do some grocery shopping.

There was a Christmas Eve social at 4 PM in the Activities Building at Williston Crossings RV Resort; BYOBeverage and a hor d’ourves to share.  We didn’t have anything with us to share, so we picked up hummus and chips while we were in town.  Linda also needed various ingredients for our Christmas eve and Christmas day dinners.  Our research indicated that our best general purpose grocery option would be Publix, a large grocery store chain in Florida.  There are several in Gainesville (home of the University of Florida and the Florida Gators).  There is also an Earth Origins organic market in Gainesville.  One of the Publix stores is in the SW corner of the Gainesville area at the intersection of I-75 and FL-121, just 15 miles from the back entrance of the Williston Crossings RV Resort.  The Earth Origins market is in the northwest quadrant just north of the University of Florida campus.  Between the two stores we were able to find most of the products we are used to getting from the stores where we live, including Whole Foods.  We did not look for the Trader Joe’s in Gainesville on this trip, but we know there is one there if/when we need it.

We had a light lunch when we got back.  I continued to work on blog posts (I am almost caught up) while Linda entered receipts into Quicken and copied photo files from the NAS to her machine for redundant storage.

We took a roasted red pepper hummus and chips to the Christmas Eve social.  Our main reason for going was to be sociable, not for the food, but we always try to take something we can eat on the assumption that there won’t be anything else vegan available.  We got there just after 4 PM and left about an hour later.  During that time there were approximately 40 people there, enough to fill the room but a small percentage of the residents.  All seven people at our table were first time residents at Williston Crossings.  One couple was from Ontario and another had recently become full-timers, having sold everything and hit the road this past July.  Someone brought veggies, so we had something to eat besides the hummus and chips.

Linda prepared a lovely Christmas Eve dinner of angel hair pasta (somehow appropriately inappropriate for us) with mushrooms and sun-dried tomatoes tossed in an olive oil with garlic.  A little white wine to wash it down and some fresh strawberries for dessert finished the meal off nicely.

After dinner I went to the Adobe website to see if I could get some pre-sales technical support before deciding whether to order the Adobe Photoshop Photography Program.  This program is subscription based and includes Photoshop Creative Cloud and Lightroom 5 for $9.99 per month (with a one year commitment).  My Live Chat customer support person indicated that I would be able to use this on my old Windows XP Pro laptop, so I went ahead and ordered it.  Adobe was very efficient at taking my money, but as soon as I tried to download Photoshop I was informed that it was not compatible with my operating system.  Aaaarrrrgggghhhh.  I had a few “words” with the Live Chat person about this.  When our Live Chat session was done I was presented with a survey and I made it clear I was not pleased with the pre-sales support I had received which seemed more concerned with “helping” me to place the order than with accurately responding to my technical questions.

The subscription allows us to install the programs on two computers, and I did establish (I think) that we can move it to a new machine if/when we get one.  For now we downloaded the Creative Cloud app onto Linda’s much newer 64-bit Windows 8 machine and then used the app to download both Ps(CC) and Lr5 onto her computer.  Although Linda will probably not be the primary user of this software it at least got it installed so we can start learning how to use it.