On December 17th Terry took us through Adobe's newest technology. We took a look at several apps designed to run natively on both PowerPC and Intel based Macs. Terry started off with the recently released Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional. Acrobat is the standard when it comes to creating and working with PDF files. Then he showed a live demo/example of a new technology called Acrobat Connect. Acrobat Connect is designed to allow you to host your own online meetings. It comes in two flavors: Acrobat Connect and Acrobat Connect Professional. You can "Start a Meeting" directly from within Acrobat. Although this service can be launched from within Acrobat 8 Professional, there is an additional cost to have your own account. This is a hosted service that runs from Adobe's servers. You can signup for a 30 day FREE trial whether you have Acrobat or not. Once you have your account setup you can have an unlimited number of meetings of up to 15 people per meeting with your own teleconference number. You can share your desktop so that the meeting participants can see what you're doing on your computer. We also plan to bring in some guest speakers to our meetings in 2007 using this technology.

Terry then launched a NEW product from Adobe called SoundBooth. Adobe SoundBooth is designed for multimedia artists that need to fix/repair audio in their projects with having to have knowledge in audio production. The app also allows you to create audio intros for your movies and animations. SoundBooth is an Beta and can be downloaded and tested freely.

Next it was time for the digital photographers. Terry started out with a sneak peek at some of the New Adobe Photoshop Lightroom features. Lightroom is an app aimed at digital photographers who need to import, sort, arrange, narrow down to the best, and show their photos. It has amazing Camera RAW capabilities and works extremely well with JPEGs too. Lightroom is also in public beta and availble for download and testing.

Lastly Terry showed the just released public beta of Adobe Photoshop CS3. Adobe really surprised the world by releasing a public beta of it's upcoming update to Photoshop. This gives Mac users not only a chance to play with the new features, but also to run it natively on both PowerPC and Intel based Macs. It offers significant speed increases across the board.

Q&A from the Meeting

Q. You mentioned a universal power supply for iBooks and PowerBooks. Who makes that?
A. The company is iGo and they make a GREAT universal power adaptable with various tips availble for not only your iBook/PowerBook but also must of your handheld electronics too.

Q. If an app is "Universal" does that mean I can run it in Windows too?
A. There seemed to be a lot of confusion about this at the meeting. Universal Binary means that the app literally has two binaries in it so that it can run natively on both PowerPC and intel based Macs at full speed. However, this has nothing to do with Windows. Although intel based Macs can run Windows operating systems, you would still need to buy Windows based versions of your apps. Universal Binary is for the Mac OS only.

Q. Are all of the Adobe apps that were shown Universal Binary?
A. All but one! Acrobat 8 Professional, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, Adobe Photoshop CS3 and the DNG Converter are all Universal Binaries that work "natively" both on PowerPC and Intel based Macs. Adobe Soundbooth is Intel ONLY. So that means that the Mac version will only work on an Intel Based Mac. Yes, it comes in a Windows version too (see the answer to the first question).

Q. When will CS3 ship?
A. Spring 2007

Q. Will I be able to upgrade to CS3?
A. There will be several upgrade programs in place.

Q. How much will Lightroom cost and when will it ship?
A. The price hasn't been announced yet, but it will be very attractive! Lightroom will ship very soon in 2007.

Q. Can I use Lightroom and Photoshop together?
A. Absolutely! Lightroom's corrections are limited to mostly tonal corrections, cropping and straightening. When you need more than that, Photoshop is still going to be the answer. When you click on an image in Lightroom you can choose "Edit in Photoshop." Lightroom will offer a choice of editing the original (if it's not a RAW file) or automatically making a duplicate. Once it makes the duplicate it will automatically open it in Photoshop and you can do whatever you want to it in Photoshop. Once you save it, the new edited version will also appear in Lightroom.

Q. I noticed you had a problem/crash with Acrobat 8. What happened?
A. I absolutely hate it when a demo that I'm doing doesn't go smoothly. When I attempted to do a "Package" in Acrobat 8 Professional I included an InDesign document. This is a new feature and usually no big deal and I've done it many times before. However, having recently uninstalled some other beta apps, I inadvertently removed some fonts that InDesign depended upon. So when InDesign attempted to launch to convert the InDesign document into a PDF, it was hanging there with an error message (see below) that I couldn't see/get to. So everything came to a screeching halt because Acrobat didn't know what to do either. I discovered this problem the next day when I went to launch InDesign to work on a flyer. That's why it worked fine during the demo the second time when I didn't include the InDesign file. I was able to fix the problem by simply copying the missing Adobe Fonts folder from another Mac.

Q. Where can I see more on Photoshop CS3?
A. There are several great resources on learning more about Photoshop CS3. The first that I'll direct you to is my Bonus Episode on my Adobe Creative Suite Video Podcast. I will have ongoing coverage in upcoming episode of CS3 tips and tricks. The next one is the NAPP Photoshop CS3 Learning Center. Lastly, I'll direct you to Adobe Photoshop Product Manager John Nack's Blog.

Q. What do I need to get the Photoshop CS3 public beta?
A. The Photoshop CS3 Public Beta is available to any current owner of Photoshop CS2. Once you download the Photoshop CS3 Public Beta you will use your Photoshop CS2 (or Creative Suite) serial number on the website to generate a NEW serial number that will be used to activate your Photoshop CS3 beta.

Our Door Prize Winners

Prize	Ticket #	Winner
Adobe CD/DVD Case	7697252	Jim
Creative Suite T-Shirt	7697290	Bruce
$20 iTunes Gift Certificate	7697418	Harry
The iPod Book by Scott Kelby	7697312	Joe
Adobe Leather Portfolio	7697226	Charlotte
Micro Center 1GB Thumb Drive	7697284	Barbara
Adobe Backpack Laptop Case	7697383	Greg
Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional	7697401	Dave
Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional	7697108	Mary Jo
Adobe Creative Suite 2 Premium	7697321	Joe

Thanks Bruce Mandel of Mandel Video for Recording Our Event

The Afterglow

The Afterglow took place at Bellacino's. We had quite a group and a good meal. There were also a few guests that wanted to check out the way we socialize. Hopefully they'll join us!

Special Thanks

I would like to thank the meeting volunteers that helped out at our last meeting. Especially Jack Beckman for the wonderful TicketDrum app, Calvin Carson, the Grey's and the Stones for working the registration table as well as Loretta. Also the Genius Table folks: Bill, Phyllis, Yvonne, Chita and Jack. Shirley Kussner for videotaping. Lastly Joseph Grey for taking photos and all the members who offered a helping hand.

Watch the last meeting via QuickTime Streaming

If you missed this meeting you can watch it here via QuickTime streaming:

Order our meetings on

Next Meeting January 21, 2007 - Main Meeting: Back to the Basics - We will go back to the basics and cover some Mac OS X essentials. If you're new to the Mac or an experienced user, there will be something in this meeting for you. Practical techniques to make your Mac sing as well as killer tips to make you more productive. Also we'll review news and announcements from Macworld Expo.