Categories
life opinion randomness software

Random Thought for 11/4/15– this post is “high priority”

We live in a world where, today, you can reach someone faster than you might even think (literally!). There are tweets, DMs, IMs, and all sort of social media messaging. There are even more “old school” means of communication– like the phone. And email.

Speaking of email– why is is that people still use “High Priority” when sending email (I know of one person that sends all emails as high priority. We’ll get to that in a moment). If something is of such importance, maybe following up with a call (or preceding the email with a call) might not be a bad idea. It might even give the recipient some context as to why it’s important to the sender.

Of course, there’s also the question of why it’s still put in the email software code. If we’ve “outgrown” the need for labeling things as “high priority” when there are more efficient ways to relay info in really short time windows, then why is this feature still put in, like some vestigial do0dad?

Just a thought.

And while I’m thinking, let’s go back to “all high priority, all the time”. If everything is that important, then everything becomes unimportant, so when there is something that is that important, it’s ignored as just another email. It’s sort of like the story of Peter and the Wolf.

So, as long as software manufacturers feel that this is some useful feature, we’ll be stuck with it. Let’s use it judiciously in the meantime.

Categories
advice software tips & tricks

Design tip for Tuesday, February 18, 2014

If you work in the most current version if your software of choice…
When creating files that you know will be handled by others outside your organization, presume that they will not have the latest version, and “downsave” the file (It also helps to outline fonts, but that’s a discussion for another time). This should help prevent conversion issues like unnecessary clipping paths, and type-filled text boxes breaking up in odd places.

Categories
life randomness software

Adobe apps– which one’s your fave?

I’ve been seeing on-and-off for a few days now various blog posts and tweets asking and discussing if such-and-such app is better/more useful than this other one. And, because the last couple of days I’ve spent a fair amount working in InDesign (probably the Adobe print app that, over the last few months I’ve spent the least amount of time in doing work), I figured I’d ask out loud:

Which of the Adobe Creative Suite apps  is your favorite?

It could be it’s the one you spend the most time in, or it could be the one you know the best, but don’t really spend that much time in anymore. Or, it just happens to be the one that crashes the least. Whatever.

My short answer is Illustrator. I started out as a Photoshop phreak, but once work-related circumstances pushed me into the deep end of the Illustrator pool, I found that it wasn’t the big scary, foreign-looking interface and app I had made it out in my head to be. In fact, I found I liked it and, to stretch the metaphor out, the water was fine.

I still use Photoshop (and InDesign, Dreamweaver, et al) whenever appropriate, but if I just want to noodle around with ideas and concepts, Illustrator’s where I go. A digital moleskine of sorts.

So, which one’s your favorite?