I use Creative Cloud for book layouts and graphics design for my company, Energion Publications. I have done layout with Scribus, and I intend to post on some of the differences now that I’m using InDesign. Creative Cloud made use of Adobe’s products practical for my small company.

I use a laptop computer most of the time. I’ve been using InDesign, Photoshop, and occasionally other products from the suite for several months on the laptop. I do use an external mouse, but otherwise I’ve found that they work wonderfully well on that system. On my desktop, however, I run Ubuntu Linux, and so I don’t have the option of using Creative Suite applications.

Enter Virtual Box. You can install it from the Ubuntu Software Center, and setting up a usable computer in the box is not too difficult. I had an unused Windows XP Professional install, and so I’m working with that operating system. I’ve been thinking about upgrading that to Windows 7 or even trying Windows 8 in that box, but thus far have resisted the temptation to experiment.

While I do most of my work from my laptop, occasionally, especially when I’m entering corrections into the final stages of a manuscript, I find myself wishing for my larger monitor, actually two monitors, my larger physical desktop (the real desk, not the computer desktop), and various other conveniences.

Creative Cloud allows installation on two computers, provided they are not used simultaneously, so I went ahead and did the installation on the Virtual Box computer. I’ve found that while the installation was slower than on my laptop, the programs run just fine. I haven’t really stressed Photoshop yet, but I’ve done the basic kinds of work I need to do.

So the Virtual Box environment is doing well!

I will write later comparing work on GIMP and Photoshop, both of which I continue to use, and Scribus to InDesign.

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At first I thought Google+ was just a somewhat less useful Facebook imitator. That is starting to change. The new navigation helps, I think, though many will be sorry to see change. Integration is getting easier. I think the main problem remaining is that Google continues to try to lock people into their empire of products. I will not be changing to Blogger, not now, not ever. I hope that the API will allow good integration with other services.

In the meantime, I am contacting more people through Google+, though there is still a large overlap between my Facebook friends and those in my Google+ circles. It will be interesting to watch developments.

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But none of these items was actually malware. They don’t install themselves. They don’t do anything dangerous to your computer. By themselves, that is.

Any time you have more than one toolbar on your browser, however, you’re asking for trouble. The more programs are monitoring your browsing and providing you with suggestions, the slower things get. Many utilities must be started when your computer is started, and this makes your computer take longer to get going.

The main source of these utilities is the add on installations offered by some popular, and often necessary, programs. Frequently updates to Adobe Flash Player will offer to install a toolbar or the Chrome browser. Now the Chrome browser is a great thing. I have no problem with it. But you don’t need to install it unless you’re going to use it. At least it doesn’t slow anything down. But that toolbar you install because it’s pre-checked to “also install” along with that utility–it’s going to slow your browsing down.

Two points:

1. Always read each window of data when installing software. You’ve already given the installation program permission to install things. You need to make sure to uncheck anything you didn’t plan to install.

2. Don’t install anything that is an add-on or any piece of free software unless you know you want it and are going to use it. If you’re unsure, search the web for reviews and other information. Try to find reviews from well-known sources. If you’re one of my customers in the Pensacola area, pick up the phone and ask me. I don’t charge for such short phone calls for established customers.

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So it doesn’t all go one way. In fact, I’ve found that the vast majority of problems in providing telephone support involve different vocabulary and a different way of looking at the situation. One very common source of confusion is the meaning of “CPU.” To me, that’s a chip on the motherboard that does the processing, i.e. central processing unit. To most of my clients, it’s the whole tower.

But it can get much worse than that. For example, one customer called me and when I asked what the problem was, he told me that he couldn’t get on the internet. So I started to ask him questions related to the browser, cables, lights, and so forth. The problem was that the computer wouldn’t turn on.

Well, that was the problem as I saw it. For him, the primary use for the computer was to get on the internet, and his problem was that he couldn’t do that. We very quickly solved our communication problem, because he was a smart guy and I like to think I’m pretty swift myself.

Now that one could be called a stupid user story. The average support tech would think that was a pretty silly way to look at it. But it could equally well be a stupid support tech story. I, the support tech failed to bridge the gap to my client’s situation. If one is trying to provide support and getting money for doing so, one needs to actually listen to and comprehend what the client is saying.

We don’t think of it as translation when we’re dealing with the same language. We were both speaking English, weren’t we? Well, not precisely. Besides dialects, we have specialized vocabulary in different fields and we also have our own way of looking at problems. I’ve learned a great deal from helping my wife do things with her computer.

Jody is a very intelligent woman and she is also systematic. It’s difficult to help someone who actually can’t follow directions, but she can. (Note that I don’t mean someone who misunderstands directions; I mean someone who doesn’t follow them.) When I was helping her yesterday in working with an image in GIMP, involving some work with layers, it quickly became clear.

To me, each of these processes is a series of steps. To her, they are combined goals. At the same time (almost perversely) to me some of those steps are so automatic that I don’t really think about them, and might forget to mention them. I often have to go back and add a step that I’d forgotten to mention. One thing that would catch me regularly was stating the location of a particular command. I have clearly in mind which GIMP commands are done from the menu and which from the toolbars. This is complicated by the fact that many might be done either way, but I have deeply ingrained habits as to which way I do them. Then I forget to actually state these things.

The only solution I know to these things is to learn how to listen and how to see what the other person wants to accomplish and how they view their work and their computer. In general, you’ll find that they are quite skilled in their area, and that the only thing that needs to be bridged is that communication gap.

That leaves those people who really are stupid, or the small number who will lie to you about what they’ve done or not done, and I don’t know what to do about them, but they are actually mercifully small in number.

Português: Ícone do Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I recommend Malwarebytes Anti-Malware regularly. I like to call it the “biggest broom” for sweeping out a computer that has been infected.

I want to alert you to a new tool from the same company, Malwarebytes Anti-Rootkit (HT: TechRepublic). It’s still in Beta, but is quite well along in that testing. Be sure to read both of the linked articles and also the readme.rtf file (mentioned in those documents).

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One problem with Facebook pages is that you can change your identity. You can post on your page as the page, which means using your business (or public figure) identity. You can also post on the page as yourself (as an individual). This is particularly important when a page has multiple administrators. When you’re administering the page, you’re speaking for the company or organization that sponsors it.

Facebook has tried to make this easier using the “Voice” feature, which shows you which voice you’re using at the moment. The problem now is to pay attention to the information.

There’s an excellent article on SmallBiz Technology, Be Careful What You Click – It May Impact Your Online Reputation. Read it for more information on handling your page and your reputation.

Most people probably don’t. Claire Evans on ScienceBlogs gives an overview with a look at how most of us relate to technology.

I often wonder whether technology can continue to progress at its current pace if less and less of us understand it. But perhaps it only requires a few … I don’t know!

Image via Wikipedia

This is probably an exceptionally rare cause for this problem, and once spotted, it’s incredibly obvious, but since it took me about a half an hour to find it, I thought I’d post a note. It might just save someone some time.

I found that suddenly I had no content in the RSS feed for one of my WordPress based sites. The feed had been working but suddenly stopped. I searched for various causes of this problem and even uploaded my WordPress files (other than wp-content).

It turned out to be incredibly simple. I’d created a directory “feeds” which, of course, overrode whatever WordPress wanted to provide using that permalink.

I would imagine that I intended the “feeds” directory for one of the other sites on the same account, but the why is less important than the solution – delete the offending directory!