Photoshop 8.0 To Support Video

A recent article at ExtremeTech reports that Photoshop 8 will support NTSC and PAL video. Is this the beginning of the end for Adobe's video editing program Premiere?

Ergonomics for Computer Geeks

In spite of the fact that our jobs as developers involve a variety of tasks, most of us nonetheless spend a large part of our time sitting in front of a computer screen. In the midst of marathon work sessions, it is easy to overlook or ignore the warning signs of injury caused by things such as repetitive stress injury or a poorly constructed workstation.

If you experience eye strain or pain in any part of your body after working on the computer, the reason for your discomfort may be your workstation, body position or work habits. Here are some links to sites with info about workstation ergonomics:

• York University


• Wisconsin Indianhead Technical College


• UWSP Department of Environmental Health & Safety

And some suggestions for improving your computer work habits:

• look at something distant every 20 minutes


• take frequent short breaks


• blink your eyes occasionally when staring at the screen for long periods of time

It occurs to me that many back and leg injuries incurred by developers are the result of sitting for extended periods of time. Has anyone done research on the benefits of a standing computer workstation?

Popup Ads: 99% Bad

What's more annoying than a Website with popup windows? Web pages that have code which opens a new window when you leave the site or close the browser window...
Developers have been tweaking the popup window technique for quite some time, so that in addition to popups, Web surfers also encounter pop under windows and inline ads.

There are lots of sites which make available free JavaScript code which will do things like:

• open a window without a title bar (and thus without a close button, unless one is included via HTML/JavaScript on the page).


• open a window where you have to click the ad to close the window


• open a popup which flies across the screen (which is "perfect for getting the attention of your web site visitor" and has "many cool uses" according to the site where I found the code)
  
  A note to developers: just because you _can_ do certain things with code doesn't mean you _should_. [See Building Really Annoying Web Sites for more examples of things _not_ to do.]
  
  Is anyone really surprised by the fact that there are both products which help advertisers create popups and products which help users avoid popups? With Web surfers going to such extremes to avoid them, you'd think advertisers would get the hint that users don't like popup ads, nor their relatives pop under ads and inline ads.
  
  Perhaps our only consolation is the fact that popups will soon be abandoned by advertisers, who will change tactics and begin using the next technique which comes along and promises to give high click through rates.
  

What's Up With Director MX's Preferences?

Even though a big part of the marketing of the MX product line is the standardization of various panels and menu options in the various MX products, there are still things which operate very differently based on which MX product you're using. Take the Preferences, for example.

In Dreamweaver, clicking Edit-->Preferences (or typing Control +U) brings up a dialog box with 20 options listed vertically on the left side of the dialog box. Clicking any of the options changes the preference items shown on the right side of the dialog box.

In Flash and Fireworks, clicking Edit-->Preferences (or typing Control +U) brings up a dialog box with five tabs arranged horizontally across the top of the dialog box.

In Director, clicking Edit-->Preferences opens a submenu with eight options. [Clicking Control +U brings up the first submenu item (General).] Each submenu option opens a dialog box with options for the item selected.

In addition to not looking like the other MX product Preference dialog boxes, Director's Preferences don't behave the way those in the other MX products do. It is impossible to switch between the different Preference options in Director. Instead, the user has to hit OK or Cancel, then select Edit-->Preferences and choose another one of the eight submenu items.

Is this an example of something which should have been changed before the release of Director MX, but which for some reason was left unchanged? Can we expect the way Director's Preferences work to change when Director 10.0 comes out, or will the Preferences in Director always be different from those in other MX apps?

More Fun With Director MX

I never liked Director's HTML-based help, especially the annoying search popup window. For one thing, I always had to click "search" twice before the window would open and show up in front of the main help window. For another, I didn't seem to find what I was looking for as much as I did when searching in Director 7.

The good news is even though it is still HTML-based, Help is now once again integrated into the Director environment. My initial tests indicate that I can find the info I'm looking for faster and more easily with Director MX's Help than I could with Director 8. Cudos to the Director development team for bringing Help back into Director.