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WordPress: Will It Work for You?

November 2nd, 2010

Web site software ranges from template-based applications that make things quick and easy (like Apple’s iWeb) to programs so complex that beginners, and a surprising number of longtime users, get lost (Adobe Dreamweaver). Of course, “code heads” can build sites with a simple text editor, since no matter how you create a Web page it’s the HTML behind the scenes that brings all the pieces – text, images, colors, links, etc. – together as a (hopefully) compelling whole.

As the Internet matured, “Web log” diaries became “blogs” while specialized tools allowed small business owners and writers to create a Web presence by themselves. WordPress: Will It Work for You? Among today’s top Content Management Systems, the 800-lb. gorilla is WordPress, which can be integrated with other site-building tools like Dreamweaver or used on its own. If you are considering WordPress, CRE Rentals’ discussion below will help you decide if it is right for you.

Word Press…it’s not Dreamweaver

Frankly, it’s not like any of the major site-building applications. Developed for writing content, WordPress is not your best choice for creating a site with a broad range of page types and media. Yes, there are templates available for making WordPress “sites,” but that’s not its strength.

It’s great for SEO

In its standard form, WordPress is good for SEO, but only gets into “great” territory after you install the “All In One SEO” plug-in. This tool greatly increases the number of SEO options, and adds some very potent capabilities. Among other things, you can stop the “spiders” from crawling through your archive pages, which eliminates the chance of their mistaking them for duplicate content.

There’s more to SEO than what’s on the page

In practice, the impact of on-page SEO will pale in comparison to what you do with backlinks and off-page SEO tactics. WordPress is designed to help writers, in particular, because “content is king.”

WordPress has got the goods behind the page, too

WordPress outputs “proper HTML” and has plenty of available plug-ins to help with SEO tasks, plus provide solid analytics. As opposed to the output of some high-cost, high-learning curve programs, HTML from WordPress is neither non-standard nor “tainted” in any fashion.

It’s not push-button simple

Once you become familiar with WordPress, it could save you a great deal of time and effort, but when starting you must allow time for a steep learning curve. The bottom line is that the look and feel of blogs are not dependent on the tools, but on the skills and know-how of the designers using those tools.

The skills and know-how of CRE Account Executives is what gets you the right Mac Pro rentals for your production personnel, and the perfectly planned package of convention rentals for exhibits, booths and breakout sessions. You can call or send an e-mail, even fill out the online Quick Rental Quote form – we make things easy. You’ll encounter no learning curve working with CRE. You get straightforward solutions, on your schedule, at your site – and done right!

5 Unique Web Destinations

October 21st, 2010

Five Unique Web Destinations The World Wide Web is, and always will be, a work in progress. It is evolving, just like the people whose sites and surfing habits make it what it is from moment to moment. Here we offer up a number of unique, diverse destinations that offer both serious help and ways to spur your creativity. Without further ado, here are five very different sites offering you both personal and professional value.

Wolfram|Alpha is “a work in progress,” like the Web itself. It is evolving. Designed by math wizard Stephen Wolfram, the site will keep learning its job, and doing it better as time goes on. The technology undergirding the site is designed to develop, over time, an “understanding” of your questions to provide the best answers. If you’re impatient, though, stick with Google.

Metafilter has a spirit of togetherness something like a small-town college or high-tech startup. There are other “review and comment” sites like StumbleUpon and Digg, but Metafilter, the recognized “cream of the crop,” isn’t free like those. Dubbed “MeFi” by its fans, the site has kept out the bulk of the Web’s roving roughnecks by requiring a $5 fee. The quality of the answers available from AskMeFi is such high quality that, for many people, it alone justifies the cost.

Internet Archive (IA) is where you go to see what Apple.com looked like on day one, or see what the celebrity gossip sites were obsessing about in 1999. IA truly is a Web “time machine” that has embarked on an historic task to “back up everything that has ever been, or ever will be, on the Internet,” and as of mid-2010 had cataloged nearly 100 billion Web pages.

Popurls is considered by many to be the perfect home page for data diving info fanatics. It’s based on neither bookmarks nor RSS feeds, but simply pulls current headlines from major blogs, news sites, opinion pages and vlogs (video blogs) into a one wide-open Web “space.” On Popurls, you don’t have to check any boxes, assemble any links or install any “apps.” You can scan, gaze, graze or dive deep into many levels of links, depending on what you are trying to accomplish. If you are not trying to accomplish anything, no problem – it’s fun, too.

Etsy is the site that has become the “Earth Mother” version of eBay, as the computers and cameras give way to handmade clothes, crafts, furniture, artisan pieces and housewares. Some features will remind you of the famous, oversized auction sites, but the look of the photos and the layout – in addition to the way bids, purchases and seller ratings are done – keeps it feeling comfy and homey. There is a real intimacy to Etsy, since it truly is concerned with objects made with both great skill, and great care.

At CRE, we approach our jobs with great skill and great care, too. Whether you need convention rentals for a big conference, or a dozen potent Mac Pro rentals to finish a post-production job for TV, CRE Account Executives have the know-how to get you set up right. Call or e-mail, or fill out the handy online Quick Rental Quote form, and let us help you overcome whatever obstacles stand between you and a successful, finished project.

Office for Mac 2011: Review

September 16th, 2010

Microsoft doesn’t suffer from many corporate news leaks, probably because, as various industry watchers have noted, the top management itself keeps dribbles of information coming regularly. On Wednesday, September 8, 2010, the firm announced some more features for the upcoming Office for Mac 2011. Scheduled for release late next month, it follows Office for Windows 2010 that was released in June. As usual, it appears that the Mac version will be playing catch-up with the Windows version (both of which trounce Apple’s aging iWork 09) and getting many of the features left out last time (Office for Mac 2008). It will be a very powerful office suite, and you’ll need at least one of CRE’s iMac rentals to use it fully and quickly – and forget running it on any PowerPC-equipped Mac, as it will require OS X 10.6, which only runs on the Intel Macs.

Light (if you prefer, “lite”) versions of Word, Excel and Powerpoint will now be available in your Web browser. You don’t even have to use Internet Explorer, Microsoft having apparently learned its lesson about locking out competitors. These Office Web Apps can also be used offline, as they are placed on your hard drive in the default installation setup. Another feature coming in Office for Mac 2011 will be the “broadcast slideshow” feature, a recent upgrade to PowerPoint 2010 for Windows, that lets users show their PowerPoint presentations to others through their Web browsers. If you’re setting up a breakout session with CRE’s convention rentals, don’t forget this great alternative presentation method as a fail-safe back-up if something goes awry with your big-screen slideshow.

Collaboration nation

A very exciting new feature is co-authoring for document editing and sharing, which will allow multiple users to change and update Word, Excel and Powerpoint documents. (It is not yet clear whether these features work with the Office Web Apps.) To work with users outside your default computer network, businesses may need to be running SharePoint Foundation 2010, while individuals can use their Windows Live ID. This is one of the areas that needs some clarification in the next set of “product dribbles” from Microsoft HQ.

One interesting observation from a longtime MS-watcher is that Gates & Co.’s ads certainly feature a lot of Mac laptops. CRE’s MacBook Pro rentals were already popular, but it seems that Microsoft is emphasizing portability and wireless workflows in its Office for Mac 2011 campaign. It makes perfect sense when you think about it – it’s about ultraconnectivity, one of Bill Gates’ big unfulfilled dreams.

Concerning connectivity, using Office Web Apps will require SharePoint, but it is still not known whether SharePoint is required for the co-authoring to work on the Mac platform. Sadly, one of the most popular tools in Office for Windows 2010, the OneNote scrapbook that holds text, charts, images, audio and video, will not be in Office for Mac 2011. Also gone, but not to be missed, is Entourage, the former (underwhelming) e-mail program on the Mac side. It is being replaced with Outlook for Mac in Office for Mac 2011. A new scheduling assistant feature in Outlook lets you view your calendar(s) right in-line with your mail, a very handy-dandy thing.

CRE is the solution provider when you need the best Macs, PCs and peripherals for your digital work flow. From Xserve RAID rentals to Final Cut Pro-equipped Mac Pro rentals, we’ve got what you need to cut that mountain of digital assets down to size and push those pixels into place. For any work needing the most precise and potent tools, CRE is your best, most knowledgeable source. Fill out the Quick Rental Quote form, and we’ll get you outfitted to conquer that digital mountain in no time.

42″ Touch Screen LCD Digital Signage Display

August 31st, 2010

Hewlett-Packard (HP) has been at the forefront of touch screen technology for some time, and cranks out both touch-based all-in-one PCs as well as touch screen displays targeted at everything from home entertainment to digital signage. In the latter category, HP introduced the current state-of-the-art with its third-generation widescreen digital signage display – the 42-inch LD4200TM. This gargantuan creature grabs attention even before you turn it on, and is an absolute people magnet for exhibit booths, breakout sessions or other sorts of presentation uses. Now, CRE offers touchscreen monitor rentals.

Extra dose of inventiveness

A capacitive touch screen at this size would have been extremely costly, so HP engineers added an extra dose of inventiveness to the LD4200TM’s digital DNA. The device has a unique way of delivering multi-touch capabilities with an “array of infrared (IR) light-emitting diodes (LEDs), along with photo sensors.” With a native resolution of 1920×1080, you’ve got full HD for lifelike color and clarity, ably assisted by a superior brightness rating and a 1000:1 contrast ratio (with 3000:1 dynamic contrast ratio). It adds up to jaw-dropping graphics and video, and incredibly sharp text, in bright lighting or dim. CRE has LCD monitor rentals and plasmas, too, for all kinds of display purposes, but we’ve added this great touch screen model because of its power, presence and aforementioned people-magnet potential.

As an attention-getter in exhibit booths the LD4200TM excels with an ultra-wide 178 x 178 degree viewing angle providing clean, bright views. As opposed to TV screens, the LD4200TM can run day and night with low power usage and still enjoy a long, useful life due to its high-quality components. HP sees businesses large and small using the unit for “quick and easy onscreen interactivity” in a variety of settings – retail, point of sale, digital signage, malls, hotel lobbies, airline and other terminals, entertainment venues, colleges, hospitals – and it is bound to show up at conferences, conventions and corporate meetings worldwide.

Wide range of applications

Interactive kiosk rentals can do yeoman’s duty collecting contact information and making small-screen presentations wherever you place them, but for attracting visitors to your booth in an exhibit hall – and thoroughly engaging them – there’s nothing quite like this new HP display. For meetings, corporate presentations and high-end brainstorming, the LD4200TM is also perfectly suited, and teamed with one of CRE’s Audience Response System rentals it could be the star of many productive polling sessions, marketing focus groups and product demonstrations.

The LD4200TM’s hardware supports multi-touch gestures, and after the software driver was WHQL certified a slew of applications started to support their use with this big boy. To make its “magic” happen, you will connect the display to your computer via USB (for control and gestures) and send images via an HDMI connection. It can also take VGA (for tiling, too), component video, composite video and S-video signals. The range of its connectivity makes the LD4200TM extremely flexible for a broad array of duties. You can opt for the rear-facing audio amplifier and speakers from HP that give you 20 watts (10w x 2) of sound.

Whatever you need to spread your marketing message or capture attention in a sea of exhibits, CRE has it, from this great new HP display to all manner of convention rentals. We are also your productivity partners, with the potent Mac Pro rentals and newly-upgraded iMacs to help you finish that post-production, animation or design work and hit your deadline. Contact a seasoned Account Executive today, or fill out the Quick Rental Quote form right now, and let us know just where you need to go – we’ll help you get there, guaranteed.

New Mac Pro: Apple’s Fastest Computer Ever

July 29th, 2010

Apple may have dropped “Computer” from its corporate name – ostensibly to emphasize its “i” strengths, as in iTunes, iPods, iPads and iPhones – but the biggest news lately is all about their desktops and laptops. With new and scary-fast offerings in the Mac Pro, iMac and MacBook Pro lines, plus a new desktop Magic Trackpad and some iPhone happenings, there’s a lot to report. We’ll start today with the Mac Pro and work through the rest of the Apple crate in subsequent blogs.

The tremendous punch packed by the new Mac Pro makes it, once again, the fastest Mac available, after losing its top ranking some time back to a Core i7-equipped iMac. The new tower Mac can access up to 12 processing cores for 50% more performance, now fueled by up to 32GB of RAM. This makes the Mac Pro the prohibitive favorite for audio, video, animation and post-production, and will bring a new rush to working with HD or SD in Final Cut Pro when paired with CRE’s AJA Io HD rentals. Digital artists and content creators will feel like their spaceship got a new rocket or two whichever CPUs they choose – Intel’s quad- and six-core Xeon processors, the quad-core Xeon Nehalem or the Xeon Westmere with four or six cores. Apple claims buyers can choose from “1.3 billion possible configurations of the Mac Pro” when ordering, and it feels like about half of the options involve processors!

Dual displays? Nope – six!

The new Mac Pro maxes out, as stated above, at 12 cores with two six-core Intel Xeon Westmeres running at 2.93 GHz. (Other CPUs may have faster clock speeds, up to 3.33 GHz, but the Westmeres are the most efficient, effective workers.) Apple has left NVIDIA behind, now offering the ATI Radeon HD 5770 or 5870 graphics card. Each has 1 GB of GDDR5 memory (fast!) and get this – support for as many as six simultaneous displays. Get one or two Xserve RAID rentals, some LCD monitor rentals and send for lots of take-out, because with this kind of setup you will get a whole lot done, and you’ll have so much fun you just might want to keep going.

The new Mac Pro also has a dual 16-lane PCI Express 2.0 slot, for expansion purposes, and can be configured with up to 8 TB of internal hard disk and SSD (Solid State Drive) storage, the latter offering a first for the Cupertino firm. The new models should hit the retail channel sometime in August, meaning CRE will soon offer the latest, greatest Mac Pro computer rental.

Apple’s been busy!

Apple has also revamped its standalone Cinema Display line (one model now, 27-inch), juiced up the surprising iMacs (available for rent), upgraded its MacBook Pro line and released a desktop Magic Trackpad. The company is also in the news with its iPhone, as the government has decreed that consumers can now “jailbreak” the device. All of this news and more will be in forthcoming blogs, so check out our new posts every Tuesday and Thursday.

Don’t forget that we’re here every other workday, too, with not just the best and newest computer rentals but everything you need to attend, produce or exhibit at a conference or convention, from Audience Response System rentals to plasma panels. Call or e-mail an expert Account Executive, or fill out our Quick Rental Quote form that’s just a quick click away. We’re here with solutions, so just let us know what you need to solve!

PowerPoint Presentation in Your Pocket

July 22nd, 2010

Our recent gadget blog mentioned a potent hard-drive-based media player that could connect with CRE plasma rentals to create a low-cost, high-impact presentation system. For all of you who use PowerPoint, we’re going to share some creative and cost-effective ways of bringing a presentation to your seminar or breakout session.

You could present the PowerPoint show from your connected laptop – or from a CD or DVD containing the presentation and the standalone PowerPoint Viewer application – but PowerPoint is notorious for its propensity to stutter and crash. The most dependable playback format is a universally supported video format like AVI, where you will have a smooth, flawless presentation with no glitches. With an AVI file of your presentation, you can then leverage the power of a neat piece of equipment we found in a rather unexpected place.

Convert PowerPoint presentation to video

Literally scores of applications, from freeware and shareware to commercial packages, can convert PowerPoint presentations to AVI. Most allow a trial period before buying, although they might watermark your video, so find out about that. PowerVideoMaker Professional, for example, converts PowerPoint files to AVI , MPEG or WMV formats, while PPT To Video Scout will convert to AVI and over half a dozen other formats. There are plenty of converters to choose from, and several Web-based conversion sites, as well.

Mention “karaoke” and most people think of rolling carts full of audio equipment. You can still have a big rack of karaoke gear if you want, but the high-powered, handheld Acesonic PK-6000 Pocket Karaoke Entertainment System can replace all of it. If it didn’t have “Pocket Karaoke” stamped on it, it could just as easily be called the “Presentation Player with Voice-Over.” The PK-6000, an iPod-ish media player with a 2.8-inch color LCD screen, stores 2GB of MP3 and MP3+G files in internal memory (plus up to 16GB more on a MicroSD card). It also has native support for AVI video files – and fits in your pocket.

Flexible power with AVI movie

Convert your PowerPoint file into an AVI movie and load it on the PK-6000 via USB. A touchscreen with great navigation tools offers intuitive control, and the PK’s mini-gooseneck microphone lets you speak over the program material as it runs. The device has a built-in FM transmitter so you can use it as a PA, but you won’t need to if you connect it via the included RCA cable to one of CRE’s LCD monitor rentals or other big displays. In addition to its presentation chops, the PK has a digital mixer for tweaking mic volume, echo level and tone settings.

You can make an honest case that the Acesonic Pocket Karaoke was made for presenters as well as singers. There’s nothing in the manual that says you can’t talk instead of sing, or play business presentations instead of Toy Story. At CRE, we don’t let any obstacles get in the way of working smarter as well as harder, and can offer you creative solutions to even the most daunting audio, video and post-production challenges. If you need meeting rentals, simply fill out the Quick Rental Quote form, and we will get you what you need to capture the meeting presentation on video.

Hello, Solid State Drive (SSD); Bye-Bye, Hard Drive

July 6th, 2010

About the slowest thing your computer has to contend with is the hard drive. While CPUs are in the nanosecond range, hard drive access is measured in thousandths of a second, quite slow in the world of light-speed processors. On top of that, most computers crash because of hard drive problems, as they are extremely complicated eletromechanical beasts. Want to work faster? Want to say goodbye to hard drive crashes? You will, with Solid State Drives (SSDs), which represent the next step in storage evolution.

The future has already started, and CRE is on the leading edge once again with MacBook Pro rentals equipped with this superfast memory. It will take some time for the prices to come down to “old-fashioned” hard drive levels, but now that SSDs are being mass-manufactured it is happening just like it did before. More and more computer makers are offering them as options. But the really astonishing thing is this: SSDs address just about every weakness of standard hard drives, and will completely replace them in the future. SSDs really are amazing, which is why they are taking over, and soon!

How Solid State Drives work

Solid State Drive (SSD) As opposed to those older hard drives, SSDs are simply gargantuan versions of NAND flash memory like the SecureDigital card that goes in your camera, the USB thumb drive you use for your sneakernet, and the memory in cell phones and iPod nanos. When enough chips are packed together you get enough storage volume for today’s use, from 8 to 64GB for iPhones and iPads, 32-64GB and up for netbooks, laptops and desktops. For computers, the SSDs are even built to existing form factors (2.5-inch laptop and 3.5-inch desktop sizes) so they are easily installed into existing devices. They use the same SATA connectors as most current hard drives, too.

Their advantages are many and dramatic – no moving parts, no noise, less heat and zero vibration. Because there are no spinning platters and moving read/write heads, there are no crashes due to hardware malfunctions. They draw less power, as well. All of this means tremendous reliability, over a million hours MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure) and incredible speed. A fast 7200rpm hard drive has an access time of between 5 and 10ms, while the SSD clocks in at a staggering 0.1ms. Yes, one-tenth of a millisecond. Clearly, this is the future of data storage, at least for work in progress. It may or may not be the best long-term archiving solution, which is why other media (hard drives, optical media, tape) will remain in use.

Benefits of SSDs

As previously noted, CRE now has MacBook Pro rentals with superfast SSDs. You may not notice that the laptop is a bit lighter, but you will definitely notice that it is quieter, cooler and faster. SSDs can also withstand drops and impacts that would send read/write heads scraping across your regular hard drive’s disc platters, obliterating data on their way. You would have to physically crush or smash an SSD with a crowbar to experience that kind of data loss.

Whether you need the swift SSD-equipped MacBook Pros, the potent Mac Pro rentals, other computer rentals, or A/V and convention-related technology, CRE is your one-stop shop for all of it. We have the expertise, the equipment and the experienced Account Executives to help you find the right solution for your particular challenge. Give us a call, send an e-mail or fill out the Quick Rental Quote form. We will put together a quote right away so that you get the laptop rental with SSD or other rental equipment when you need it – guaranteed!

Apple’s new big bad Mac mini

June 18th, 2010

The Apple Macintosh mini, the computer so small it doesn’t even get a capital letter for its name, is the latest Mac to get a facelift and refreshing. (“Facelift” refers to cosmetic changes, while “refreshing” means operating hardware has been upgraded.) Base unit drive sizes are 320 and 500GB.

Of course, some real goodies are still standard in all models – Airport Extreme, Bluetooth, gigabit Ethernet, upgraded NVIDIA GeForce 3200M graphics, a FireWire 800 port, four USB 2.0 ports, SD card slot, Mini DisplayPort for external monitors, an HDMI port and both optical digital and analog audio ins and outs. This is not your father’s (well, older brother’s) Mac mini by any means. Not only are the Core 2 Duo CPUs ugraded to 2.4 and 2.66GHz, the base models come with 2 and 4GB of DDR3 RAM, respectively, and both now accommodate a max of 8GB.

The mini bundle is brawny

A tad wider than the original, the mini has a new, unibody aluminum case like CRE’s MacBook Pro rentals, and it’s only 1.4 inches tall. The external power supply has been miniaturized and installed in the case. All of the first hands-on reviewers (from Computerworld to MacWorld) have raved about the small size, great design and energy-stinginess (it draws just 10 watts at idle, a 25% reduction over previous models). The mini is the most energy-efficient desktop computer you can get.

Along with Mac OS X Snow Leopard (now at 10.6.x), the mini can be outfitted with an easy-to-configure copy of OS X Server, while every model in the line gets the usual laundry list of solid Mac programs – iTunes for your media, Time Machine for backups and other essentials like Spaces, Quick Look, Spotlight, Dashboard, Address Book, QuickTime, DVD Player, Photo Booth, Front Row and Xcode Developer Tools. For productivity, you have Mail, iChat, the Safari browser, iCal and the fabulous iLife bundle (iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, iWeb and GarageBand).

CRE carries wide array of Macintosh models, from the potent Mac Pro rentals to the best laptop for creatives on the go, the MacBook Pro. In addition, the phenomenal new 21.5- and 27-inch iMac rentals are in stock (as are the 20- and 24-inch models) and ready to help you push on through another deadline or another last-minute job. We are your Mac-at-work specialists so when you are ready to rent the new Mac mini, just give us a call or use our Quick Rental Quote form, and we will get you fully equipped in no time.

Unique Input Devices for Animation & Design

May 20th, 2010

Artists working in the digital domain often feel frustrated by the limits of their keyboards. Over the years, alternative input devices like graphics tablets have helped in many ways. Graphic Tablet Different kinds of tablets (Wacom is a leading model) are used every day in compositing, design, animation and post-production, and there are doubtless many of them plugged into CRE computer rentals right now. The freedom to use your hand drawing skills brings another dimension to your work, and fabulous results are possible.

Overlay keyboards

Another way for artists to streamline and accelerate their workflow is by using overlay keyboards, which date back to the first days of computer use. Typically, the overlay keyboard is a flat grid of buttons, usually unmarked, that is programmed with special software that accompanies the product. After this, a sheet (the overlay) is placed over the keys to identify their functions. The future for these alternative input devices will include touch-screen technology, which is a hot field for R&D right now.

Artists using Maya or Pro Tools on CRE Mac Pro rentals can automate entire workflows without writing complex scripts and save valuable time by programming the special keyboards. For example, the Enterpad reduces repetitive keystrokes and automates common tasks, reducing the time, effort and cost of the work. It is plugged in like any other keyboard and plays nice with all your programs. The Enterpad uses no proprietary drivers or special interface, not even when used with DOS.

The XKeys unit is a fully programmable key pad that will program shortcuts and record your typing so you can use a single keystroke to generate boilerplate messages, e-mails or correspondence. Digital artists can also customize the XKeys pad to perform elaborate tasks of all kinds, whether they’re using one of CRE’s iMac Rentals or a PC. The time you save using a special keyboard depends on many variables, but there is no question that they aid in efficiency and throughput.

On the ‘inputing” horizon

In the future, we will be inputting information into our computers with our bodies – eye movements, head positions and the kind of hand and body input already seen in the Wii and other game systems. These are the next devices we will see in computing because of the head start gained in the game industry. The technology is just starting to take off.

Voice input is already available, but the technology is limited to taking dictation. True control of the computer will require that voice commands be understood at sentence length, like post-production managers telling their computer rentals to “copy the files, render the cartoon and upload it all to the main server.” The problem is “speaker independent continuous voice recognition.” Even the best software used today, which some say is Dragon Naturally Speaking, still needs to be trained to a particular speaker’s voice, intonation and cadence. When everyone can use the software out of the box, a new age will dawn in human-computer interaction.

CRE follows the technology trends so that we can help you be prepared for whatever comes your way. Need mac rentals or render farm for upcoming project? Simply fill out the Quick Rental Quote form and we’ll be on it right away. There’s no time to spare, the future is coming fast!

Is Adobe Creative Suite 5 a “No-Brainer” Upgrade?

May 6th, 2010

Adobe Creative Suite 5 - CRE Rentals Reviews With Adobe Creative Suite 5, Adobe has taken functionality and user experience another great leap forward. This new version adds 64-bit compatibility to the Macintosh version and incorporates scores of requests from users around the world. While CS5 includes Illustrator CS5, InDesign CS5, Acrobat 9 Pro and other programs depending on the version purchased, it is Photoshop CS5 that is getting all the coverage right now. This makes sense, since it is the most revised and upgraded element of the package.

Photoshop heaven

In the new Photoshop, you can now drag and drop files from the desktop to an open Photoshop window, where they create a new layer, as well as save customized layer styles as defaults, change multiple layers’ opacity/fill simultaneously and lots more. More Adobe magic is on display with the Content-Aware Fill option, which helps you remove unwanted areas or objects quickly. The brush palette got its first overhaul in many moons, and now features realistic tips in addition to a Mixer Brush that turns photos into paintings without filters. None of these upgrades will overwork any modern Mac CPU, but CS5 will only run under Mac OS X 10.6 on an Intel model. That said, it will happily cruise along on a Mac mini and CRE’s iMac rentals, too (until you bog down in 3D work; see below).

Other top new tools include a revised Refine Edge function, whose Smart Radius tool makes selecting fur and other ephemera quick and easy, and a Lens Correction filter that uses camera profiles you create or download. The list goes on – and on. This is a massive upgrade, for sure, and Photoshop Extended users even get the new Repoussé (“Rep-oo-say”) tool, which makes 3D versions of paths, text, selections and masks on a special layer where all the program’s 3D tools can be used.

Power vacuum in 3D

Even on powerful Mac Pro rentals, working in 3D is not a particularly swift process, as there are huge amounts of CPU power needed for the extrusion process. Speaking of 3D, there are other multidimensional features like the new Ground Plane Shadow Catcher, which makes creating realistic cast shadows a snap. A faster 3D Ray Tracer allows pauses in rendering to change quality, and there are tons of new light sources, overlays and new material types in addition to the option to change depth of fields, adjust preferences and more, even as you work. Powerful software, yes – but for this you need hardware power, too, as much as you can get. Adobe even specifies minimum requirements for graphics cards with CS5. Don’t buy without checking this out!

Adobe updates appear every year and a half or two, and in a recessionary economy justifying the cost (especially a first purchase) is tough. Numerous reviewers have called the buy a “no-brainer” but this is really true only if you passed on CS4 and are two versions behind. If you don’t work in 3D, but need the rest of the new stuff, stick with the standard version.

Which Creative Suite for you?

Now there are five different bundles starting with the Design Standard version — standard Photoshop CS5, Illustrator CS5, InDesign CS5, Acrobat 9 Pro, as well as Bridge CS5 and Device Central CS5 — to the top-of-line Master Collection. This bundles Adobe’s best, including Photoshop Extended CS5 with the advanced 3-D capabilities, with the other tools you need to make content (and apps!) for the upcoming Flash Player 10.1.

Our Account Executives can give you more information on the hardware you need to run Adobe’s powerful new software. Call, send an e-mail or fill out our Quick Rental Quote form online and we’ll get you set up, promptly and properly, with the solutions you need for the work you do.

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