Flash Catalyst, a new application in Adobe CS5, bridges the gap between print designers and developers. If you’re interested in seeing how this exciting new software works, please join the fun Monday night!

For many of us, Photoshop is a lifestyle, not just a software application. Shockingly enough, Photoshop turns 20 this year making those memories of days without layers a far-off memory (or nightmare). Now in 27 languages, Adobe Photoshop touches the globe.

In 1987 Thomas and John Knoll started coding an application because his Mac Plus had a 1 bit b/w display and couldn’t display grayscale images. The early Adobe Photoshop (called Display) solved the problem and simulated a grayscale image.

In 1998, Thomas and his brother John, who worked at Industrial Light and Magic, began shopping it in Silicon Valley, where it didn’t receive a warm audience, since PixelPaint was already on the market. A company called BarneyScan decided to give it a very small chance, and bundle “Photoshop” with their scanners. Once September 1998 rolled around and the Knoll brothers showed Photoshop to Adobe, and thought it was an excellent companion to the new application “Illustrator.” Adobe had primarily been involved in the print industry until this point,

Photoshop Version 1.0 required a 8MHz Mac and at least 2 MB of RAM. The cost of the first Adobe Photoshop was $1,000. So thank you to Adobe and Russell Brown for having the vision to create a beautiful pixel based world!

Photoshop Version 1 Install Disk

Photoshop precursor .07. On the radio: George Michael - "Father Figure"

Photoshop .87. On the radio: Suzanne Vega - "Luka"

Photoshop v. 1.0.7 released 1990. On the radio: Janet Jackson - "Escapade"

Photoshop 2.0 Alt Screen

Photoshop 2.5 released 1992. On the radio: Whitney Houston-I Will Always Love You

Photoshop version 3.0 released 1993. On the radio: Stereo MC's - "Connected"

Photoshop 4.0 released 1996: On the radio: Los Del Rio - "Macarena"

Photoshop 5.0 released 1998. On the radio: Will Smith - "Gettin' Jiggy Wit It"

Photoshop 6.0 released 2000. On the radio: Train - "Meet Virginia"

Photoshop Version 7.0 released 2002. On the radio: Kylie Minogue - Can't Get You Out of My Head

Photoshop CS released 2003. On the radio: Fountains of Wayne - Stacy's Mom

Photoshop CS2 released 2005. On the radio: The Killers - Mr. Brightside

Photoshop CS3 released 2007. On the radio: Rihanna - Don't Stop the Music

Photoshop CS4 Alt Splash Page released 2007. On the radio: Kid Rock - "All Summer Long"

Photoshop CS4 released 2008. On the radio: Katy Perry - "Hot 'n Cold"

Photoshop CS5 Alt Splash Page released 2010. On the radio: Lady Gaga - "Alejandro"

Adobe’s Photoshop Mobile is limited, to be sure, but its basic uses are the same as those used by many Photoshop (regular?) users; as aforementioned you can crop, color, and resize, but you can also make specialized albums, apply certain filters, add nifty effects. Perhaps coolest of all, you can add vignettes and things like “Warm Vintage” to your photos (this makes them look a little like old photos scanned from your parents’ wedding albums, with lots of red and brown and even more contrast).

At my job, we were all wondering (with, I think, good reason) if the Mystery Tablet would run Adobe software–and it will, sort of. This type of mobile approach to high-powered, sophisticated applications is not new, but it does seem to be the trend; stripped-down mobile browsers, mini-players for all sorts of files, and games that run on the (comparatively) itty-bitty screens of mobile devices have become the norm. In the effort to make mobile phones and devices that can do anything a desktop or laptop can do has made it more of a priority than ever for companies like Adobe to go mobile. Photoshop Mobile (cruise over to photoshop.com to check that out, by the way) is a step in the right direction, but where’s my Illustrator Mobile and (dare I suggest it?) Flash Mobile? At Ascend, we’ll teach you how to program for your iPhone, and how to use Photoshop, but isn’t it time we could combine them?

We all wait with baited breath for when we’ll be able to get an email of user requirements, build and code a website with interactive content, and mock up some examples for the client, all on the train from our phones. ‘Till then.

-This Blog sent from my iPhone

Since Microsoft released Silverlight, (and by the way, watch what happens when you surf over there) their answer to Adobe Flash, in 2007, there’s been a (sort of) silent war going on behind the two software giants about who gets to play your movies.

When you go to a site like Youtube or Hulu to watch videos (and who among us does not, these days?), isn’t it awesome how fast it is? How clear? How the videos you watch don’t take up space on your hard disk or really even slow down what you’re doing in the background? That’s because when you go to those sites (and soon others like Vimeo and possibly Dailymotion), your browser loads a plugin to let you read the Flash Video that someone has posted and that the website has slightly reconfigured–and plays it right from the source, like you’re looking through your computer to where the video really is, somewhere else. This means that anyone, anywhere can see it, which is good news for video producers and marketers alike. Just as Mac OSX, Windows, and Linux can all (usually) read the same types of files, now we can all see almost any type of video–the trouble is that not everyone feels like they’re making enough money this way.

Any guesses who? (*coughSilverlightcough*)

Well, you’re mostly right, but it isn’t JUST Microsoft. There are plenty of people out to get Flash, now that it’s the standard for video playback on the web: Sun Microsystems (who makes Java), plenty of open-source proponents, and Apple have either resisted or worked around integrating Flash into their video products (iPhone, anyone?) but more than ever, Adobe is realizing that if they want their product to stay at the top, they’re going to have to get into some heretofore unexplored venues. To that end, the rumors are flying about new tools for developing iPhone apps using Flash, putative Flash support on the theoretical Apple Tablet (if it exists, right?), and more.

Microsoft is responding to this by leveraging their power toward pushing Flash out of certain areas; ever notice that the streaming function of Netflix is run on Silverlight instead of Flash?

So here’s the question: both Flash and Silverlight are proprietary software, and both are the big boys when it comes to video playback on the web–now whom would we prefer as the keeper of our vids? Because someones’s going to win this battle–and either way, it’s going to mean a lot about how we get (and what we can do with) our video.

What to do next with the coolest phone Ever?

So ok–it’s going to be a while until we get Flash for the iPhone, but I think we can all agree that it’s still pretty cool. The question is: now that you can do almost everything on the iPhone, like getting GPS Driving directions, reading e-books with the Kindle App, checking your email, stock quotes, and weather forecasts, and watching movies…what’s next for this niftiest of devices? I know! NEW APPS for it!

When the iPhone came out in 2007, most users were impressed and pleased with the number of cool applications you could get for it; in fact it’s this that makes the iPhone more of a palmtop computer than strictly a phone–you can load new software and get upgrades just like you can with your laptop or desktop. That said, the idea of WRITING software for the iPhone was, and still is for many, a black box. What’s involved in writing an app for the iPhone? Do you have to learn a new language? Does it mean you have to HAVE a Mac computer…or even own an iPhone?

With the meteoric takeoff of Apple’s App Store, it’s become clear even to the comparative luddite that someone is creating all these apps, and with the iPhone gaining (still!) in popularity, it seems likely that more and more people will learn how–but how?

Well, as far as that goes, there are a couple of ways to get going, but the best we can think of is a class on iPhone Application Development – how to use Objective-C, how to upload and test the apps, and how to get the most out of what you create.

Since the much-touted PastryKit is only a theory at this point, and since it’s gotten even easier to market new Apps with all the upgrades to the App Store, we think now is a fantastic time to start learning to program for what is STILL the coolest phone out there…and what can only be made cooler by a new app…by You!

Not many people got really excited about the Apple TV when it came out; for sure, not enough people bought it for it to come down in price along with the rest of Apple’s line. Among the issues it carried in the door were enormous updates to install right out of the box, incompatibilities with various TV sets, and wildly variable streaming speeds. Nevertheless, their sales since then increased exponentially, and now it’s not that hard to conceive of a widely-used, Apple-based system for watching TV the way we already do. We’ll be watching to see which, if any, of the big networks sign on to become part of the new Apple TV Paid subscription system–and who signs up.

For those who don’t know: the “Cloud” is the general name for the dynamic, functional space on the internet (so on servers all over the world) where data can be stored and accessed by anyone through the web. Think of your Gmail account; your messages live online somewhere, and when you log into Gmail to get them, you go out to the web instead of the messages coming to you. The same functionality can be applied anywhere, and we see it being used more all the time. Apple’s MobileMe (formerly .Mac) essentially rents subscribers a chunk of space on Apple’s servers to post photos, host a website, send and receive email, etc. Practically, the user doesn’t really do anything she or he didn’t already; you still put in a username and password and there’s your stuff, whatever it is–the difference is that all of that stuff used to have to be on a hard drive somewhere, and now it’s in the aether, floating around between computers, easy to access but impossible to locate-and for some, this is troubling.

But not everyone sees it that way; many respected institutions including universities, government agencies, and even corporations are beginning to see Cloud Computing as a way not just to maximize investment but a way to reach more people. In September of this year, the White House announced a multi-billion-dollar initiative aimed at streamlining the transition of much of its data into “cloud-accessible” form. Even NOAA (National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration) uses the Cloud, and in a way that would have been impossible without the architecture built by Google, IBM, Apple and others; Satellite data from multiple government agencies are aggregated together in “constellations”, or mini-clouds, so that anyone behind the firewall can see it all at once.

Speaking of making our jobs easier, I’d love to mention the success we’ve had at Ascend using Adobe’s Acrobat Connect, which in addition to being incredibly cool (think of a Wiki, only everyone can work on it at the same time), is incredibly useful. Ascend uses Acrobat Connect to hold online training sessions on Adobe’s own software–so now, thanks to the “Cloud” in which the class data and all the various users’ information can be temporarily housed, students in London can tune in and take a Photoshop class with students in Phoenix, which is good news, since most companies are going global faster than we can keep up.

Personally, I think the Cloud is awesome; I use MobileMe and Gmail for my email, PhotoBucket to share photos, and YouTube to express myself and get my daily dose of entertainment–but you know what? For the moment, I’m still making back-ups of it all on my external hard drive, and that sits on my desk…so I can keep an eye on it. Know what I mean?

For further reading:

White House unveils cloud computing initiative

Microsoft’s Azure