Adobe Photoshop vs. Macromedia Fireworks is a fairly obvious one. Photoshop is hugely popular, and much further along than Fireworks. The only thing that I can really think of is that Adobe should be able to grab a few nice features from Fireworks, especially for it’s ImageReady application. In fact, they could probably just get rid of ImageReady, and replace it entirely with Fireworks with just more of a Photoshop look and feel.

Adobe Illustrator vs. Macromedia Freehand is also a pretty easy one to call, Illustrator is as huge as Photoshop and is a much better program than Freehand. In fact, I can’t personally think of too many things that Adobe can really take from Freehand, as Adobe already does everything better in their own vector-based application. The best thing they can do is to integrate Flash into Illustrator, which is something I’m extremely excited about.

Adobe GoLive vs. Macromedia Dreamweaver is the one that worries me the most, and I think it’s also the toughest one to call. Adobe seems to be pretty proud of their GoLive application, they always have been, and no one knows why. Hopefully, Adobe will be smart and recognize the larger market share of Dreamweaver in addition to realizing how much more powerful a tool it is for Web developers.

Adobe After Effects vs. Macromedia Director is another one than concerns me, because I personally prefer Director over After Effects. However, I know that After Effects has more market share and they are more likely to dump Director. Hopefully they’ll combine some of my favorite functions or take some things from Director, so that the transition isn’t quite so hard on long-time Director fans like myself. Ultimately, I’m really going to hate to see Director go.

We all know Flash is going to stay, we’ll just have to get used to calling it “Adobe Flash.” So at least that one small part of Macromedia is sure to continue into the future. But I’m concerned about all the smaller Macromedia developments that have come up through the past couple years–Flex, Breeze, Contribute, FlashPaper, what’s going to happen to all these little gems?

Historically Adobe’s focus has been on graphic designers, and I have to wonder how good of a job Adobe will do in keeping Macromedia’s strong developer base. Graphic designers have a much different set of requirements than developers, and Macromedia has tried to capture more developers and has been successful. This is the one thing that Adobe can either help or ruin.

As I said before, it will be a shame to see less competition in the industry. The new Adobe will kill companies like Corel. If that happens, I’ll be really ticked, as Corel Draw 8 was the first graphics program I learned how to design on. It has sentimental value, I guess. On the bright side, the Adobe-Macromedia merging of software should really streamline things for those of us who have been using both Macromedia and Adobe products over the years. I’m sure there will be things we’ll all hate and have to learn to deal with, but there are going to be things that will be so cool that we’ll forget about all the stuff that we miss.

To be honest, I sort of wish that Adobe would have bought Quark instead, ending that dinosaur we all know and hate – QuarkXPress. Eh, QuarkXPress 6.5 isn’t so bad. It’s a little better. It’s still pretty tedious compared to InDesign. I suppose we’ll just have to wait for Adobe to kill off Quark the hard way. InDesign 2.0 and CS have made some huge blows to Quark so far. Will CS2 finish this fight off once and for all? You all know who I’m rooting for.

Personally not much is going on right now. I’ve had a really quiet weekend. Relaxing, but kind of boring. I’m taking Friday afternoon off this week to get my Minnesota Drivers License and register my car in Minnesota. Yeah, I’ve been kind of putting that off. My ND tabs expire at the end of the month, so I definitely need to get it done on Friday. And my auto insurance company is dropping me at the end of May. Apparently they aren’t licensed to insure in Minnesota. So I’m going to have to find a new insurance company, and the rates I’ve been finding so far haven’t been pretty. Good thing I got a raise last week.

Not much else going on in my world for now. May will be a good month. Big Cinco De Mayo party coming up, that should be fun. Oh, and next Sunday my favorite show, Family Guy, is making it’s big return from being cancelled for a couple years. And of course Episode III on the 19th is another long awaited premiere. Lots of big new music albums coming out, too. But for now I gotta get out of here and eat something, so I’ll see you next time.

The irony here is that my while my own web design skills had been long surpassed before I started, it’s also been surpassed on the backswing, and I am stuck doing the most rudimentary web design. The simplicity and sparseness of modern web site design can easily be compared to early websites. It’s funny how trends work.

Big news in the graphics world. I read that graphics software giant Adobe Systems has acquired web design software giant Macromedia. Allow me to steal a phrase from Keanu Reeves to express myself on this one: “Whoa.” Although I’m not a big fan of huge corporations taking control over an entire industry, I must say that I’m a big fan of both companies regardless of their crazy high prices. They both are the best in the business, and together are going to make my job a whole lot easier and more enjoyable, I’m sure.

Personally my mood has been kind of grim for most of the past week. Good news, bad news, an absence of news, there’s plenty of each. I guess it’s just that horrible feeling of utter ordinariness of a week, with it’s petty gripes and botherations. Overloaded at work, stressed out by cranky co-workers, stressed out by finances at home and the rest of the little quirks about this city that add up to a huge pain in the behind. I’m sure things will start to get more exciting, after all it is finally summertime. I’ve been waiting to say that for months!

Well, I suppose things already are looking up. Lizzie is starting a new job soon. Hooray! More pay, something she will enjoy doing more. She’ll be managing a small bakery, and I know she’ll be great at it and will love it.

Now I must go work on some extremely simple web page design. It’s just too simple, really. It’s a little aggravating not being challenged to my full potential and instead throwing something together to conform to silly trendiness. Oh well.

See you next time.