Bill Napier Design

Both of the machines I work on are still PowerPCs. The newest being a G5, 2.3 GHZ which I got last year.

However, like everything else, I will need to upgrade. To what? Possibly a MacBook Pro. At least that is where I’m leaning most.

But a nagging question to me has been, “Will an Intel machine run Mac OS Classic?” After all, I really don’t want to give up my Classic apps.

Why? Because I can basically do all the stuff I do now with Adobe Photoshop 6, Quark 4.1, Illustrator 8, Adobe Dimensions 2, Flash 5, Dreamweaver UltraDev 4, Fireworks, etc.

Why haven’t I moved on? I have. Most of the apps I just listed I have upgraded to the latest version.

But my point is, that those old pieces of software took less Ram and still got the job done. That’s all that anyone really needs after all.

So when I get the MacBook Pro I can’t fire up Classic, eh?

Well, think again. Enter SheepShaver SheepShaver runs PowerPC emulation software with Mac OS 7.5.2 - 9.0.4 on Linux, Mac OS X (Universal Binary) and Windows NT.

Haven’t tried it yet but its nice to know its a possibility.

Last week, I purchased an additional Seagate ATA hard drive. I had a hard drive scare back in August which forced me to get an external Western Digital drive. Until last week, the Western Digital drive had served as a backup to my one internal drive.

But I knew I only had a matter of time before that drive failed.

When I purchased the drive I realized what I was up against. I needed not only to make sure everything was backed up to the external drive but was also copied, as is, onto the new internal drive.

During a Google search I stumbled across Carbon Copy Cloner by Mike Bombich. Carbon Copy Cloner is an excellent little piece of software which is capable of cloning Mac OS 10.1 - 10.4 systems.

It works great. Simply download the software. Select a source and a target drive after running Disk Utility to clear up any boot errors. Then, let Carbon Copy Cloner run (you must have be connected to a Fire Wire or ATA/internal drive.) Depending on the number of files you clone, it could take a while to process. However, once its complete, you have a totally bootable drive with all your applications and files ready to go. You don’t have to spend hours reinstalling Applications and resetting Preferences.

Not only should everyone with a Mac use this software, you should also make a contribution to Mike Bombich for its use. (A drop down menu indicates he’ll take as little as $5. That’s a bargin!)

Adobe revealed their Creative Suite 3 software icons at the end of December. Their have been a lot of comments made concerning their design. Some people (myself included) feel that they resemble the symbols used by the periodic table of elements.

But even though that is the case it doesn’t mean that its a bad thing. For users of Flash, Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat, etc. the most important thing is to be able to distinguish application from application. And because most software is updated on a frequent basis (every year or so) each version should have a new visual look. Its important for the end user to be able to tell at a glance that the software is new and updated.

As a Flash user I want to be able to tell immediately if the icon in my dock on my desktop represents Flash MX or Flash 9. And with the new look I can do that.

See the new Adobe CS3 icons in a Flash carousel at the Flash blog.

Or read more comments concerning the icons from this blog which was one of the first to deal with this issue.