software – Tiana Feng

For the first time in 10 years, I bought a legitimate and updated copy of Adobe Photoshop. In the past, I’ve always had either versions that came with cameras or less than reliable versions I’ve downloaded from the internet. I decided to subscribe to the photography package that includes Adobe Photshop CC and Lightroom 5 for $10/month.

Even though people criticized Adobe’s move to the Cloud I found many advantages:

$10 month is affordable. In the past, each iteration of Photoshop would cost like $500. Even previous copies of Lightroom costed around $200 on it’s own. At $10 a month, this would only be $120 year. I feel that the only people who complain about this pricing are people who’ve probably never bought it in the past.

It will always be the most updated copy. For $120 year you can always have the most updated version instead of forking up more money to own a piece of software. People need to let go of the idea of ownership in software.

There are some awesome upgrades from CS6. Camera shake reduction, smart sharpen, perspective changing are some unique advantages to the Creative Cloud software.

The option to save things on the cloud. Each subscription comes with 20GB in Adobe’s Cloud so you can always have your projects on hand. There are also mobile apps that allow you to continue working on your devices.

It can be installed on two computers. When you buy a Creative Cloud license you can have it installed on two computers regardless of operating system, so you don’t need to worry about buying the right discs.

It’s convenient and safe. No more disabling updates or using dodgy practises to change a computer’s registry which can affect the longevity of a computer.

For the price of one less burger a month, I can have the best photo editing software out there in my arsenal.

I bit the bullet and upgraded my Windows 7 laptop to Windows 8. It is the first operating system I have ever purchased. In the past they usually just came pre-installed on my computer or from other people’s borrowed CD-R disks.

I have been using it for a couple of days now and I have to wonder why people are so frightened by Windows 8. The colour screen with the updating tiles can be thought of as a glorified smartbar with apps. Otherwise, it is a noticeably faster and smoother running version of Windows 7 with some new features. People are weird, they criticize Microsoft for not doing anything innovative to Windows and when they finally do something that looks different from Windows 95, it is the end of the world.

What I really like about it is that you can replace the Desktop versions of software with the app versions that use less CPU. The app versions also “snap” nicely to the side of the screen so you can chat while working without the window disappearing.

As an avid Windows user all my life, there was a bit of a learning curve. The first few minutes on the system I did have my panic attack moments. HOW THE HELL DO I CLOSE THIS APP?! and WHERE THE HELL IS MY PROGRAMS? were among the many questions I asked myself.

However, through experimenting and looking up a dummy sheet on the internet I am quite integrated with the new system. I actually found myself quite productive on what is supposedly Blue Monday morning. So far, I love the new Windows 8 system.