- CS – Released in October 2003.
- CS2 – Released in April 2005 (18 months after CS).
- CS3 – Released April 2007 (24 months after CS2).
- CS4 – October 2008 (18 months after CS3).
- CS5 – Released April 2010 (18 months after CS4).
- CS6 – If history is showing us a pattern….October 2011?
There is bad news for those still using CS3. Adobe has said that CS3 will not be upgradable to CS6. So if you are still using CS3, keep in mind that you will end up paying full price for CS6 whenever Adobe plans to release it.
*Ascend Training has no knowledge of any Adobe release dates.
Join Ascend Training for fabulous upcoming winter events:
Camera RAW with Photoshop CS5 Free Seminar, February 10th at 5:30pm.
Interactive InDesign CS5 Free Seminar, March 1st, 5:30-6:30.
HTML5 Free Seminar, March 16, 6-7pm.
These complimentary events are at our downtown Chicago training facility at 410 South Michigan Avenue, Suite 433.
HP released a tablet at the end of last year called the HP Slate 500 Tablet PC. Do not get it confused with the HP TouchSmart. This new tablet is HP’s answer to Apple’s iPad and is being heavily advertised to business professionals. The screen is slightly smaller than the iPad and has a shorter battery life but offers some unique features that may make the Slate more popular than the iPad.
The Slate offers the multi-touch display in which the level of interactivity is enhanced with the use of the stylus pen (included). It allows the user to convert their handwriting to text or keep handwritten notes utilizing the must-have program OneNote. In addition, the USB port allows for connectivity of an external monitor, hard drive, or even keyboard.
Most importantly for all you mobile application developers out there, the Slate operates on Windows 7, which supports Adobe Flash, unlike its Apple counterpart. Since the industry standard is starting to move toward creating operating systems that support Flash, i.e. Android, this may be one of the biggest reasons the Slate may gain popularity.
Check out our Flash for Android class! However, we do not discriminate against Apple here so we also offer an iPhone, iPod, iPad Application Development course.
Join us this Monday to see the latest and greatest Flash projects in the works!
12/20/2010: Whether you want to come and show off your latest Flash project, or just see what kind of things others are developing, join the Chicago AUG group for a holiday get-together combined with sharing and seeing amazing Flash projects! December 20th, 6-8:30pm at our Chicago facility.
Adobe MAX was two weeks ago, but it has been a busy two weeks since. So, finally, you will get a glimpse of all that I saw at the MAX conference.
To start, aside from the Jobs bashing and many discussions on the Flash vs. HTML5 situation, a major topic of discussion at MAX was multiplatform development. Adobe AIR has made it easier to deploy to different platforms like iPhone, Android, and Google tv.
I saw, first hand, how easy it was to create applications for Android using Actionscript 3.0 with both Flex and Flash. A few new additions to the API and some sleek new features soon to come to the masses in upcoming updates to Flash Builder and Flash Professional.
As for HTML5 vs. Flash, Adobe made it clear that the two were not interchangeable, but also that there is no reason that the two could not be use to supplement each other. They even showed off a tool that was being worked on that essentially took Flash animations and translated them to HTML5 as CANVAS.
Now for some neat sneaks:
-Dreamweaver is going mobile with some upcoming mobile site templates. Adobe is working with the guys from jQuery to get jQuery mobile fully operational.
-A really cool mobile media player with a working title of video tapestry was very cool and could potentially reinvent media playback on mobile devices
-3D animation in Flash with a new API built on top of mole hill
I’m sure there is more that I am just forgetting about but I’ll update the post with anything else I remember.
With scads of new technology that CS5 has introduced and enabled, Ascend Training has expanded it’s class offerings with three new additions to our regular schedule!
Adobe InDesign CS5 Interactive Level 1: InDesign Documents for Web and Distribution–This 2 day class is geared towards current InDesign users who are looking to make the leap from print to interactivity. Learn how InDesign has evolved and can now create many interactive functions previously exclusive to Flash. You’ll also learn how InDesign and Flash can work hand in hand through new export functions in CS5.
Adobe Flash CS5 for Android: Building and Deploying Android Apps–Want to take your ActionScript skills to the next level? The newest update for Flash CS5 will allow users to develop Droid Apps. If you want to learn more about this exciting new technology and the potential it holds, check out this 5-day class! Also, take a peek at this related class topic: Adobe AIR.
HTML 5: Designing Websites with HTML 5–After 10 long years of waiting for a major HTML release, here it is, HTML 5. In this 2-day class students will be introduced to the newest HTML tags and image controls. Be on the forefront of this cutting edge technology that incorporates CSS3, CANVAS, and JavaScript.
Ascend Training has teamed up with Mogo Media for this year’s InDesign Conference November 2nd-4th. We are both excited to bring participants the opportunity to get a sneak peek into next fall’s Creative Suite Conference. The last day of the InDesign Conference, we will be offering a Sneak Peek Track where attendees will gain exposure to a variety of topics: Dreamweaver, Flash, Photoshop, and HTML 5 to name a few. Those not signed up can still participate and purchase a 1-day pass for $99. For more information, please click on the link below!
If you have a Flash or InDesign project that you are putting time into both at work and at home or just have files that you access and edit frequently from multiple machines, then Dropbox is a tool that you should look into. Dropbox is available for essentially all platforms, mobile, Mac, Windows, and even Linux. Once you have installed Dropbox and logged into your account, it creates a Dropbox folder in your home directory. Anything you put in that folder from then on is synchronized over the internet to any other devices on which you have Dropbox installed. For mobile devices you merely open the Dropbox app and you then have access to these files as well. Bear in mind that Dropbox is completely free for up to 2GB of storage, not a bad deal at all!
Now if you are feeling saucy and really want to take full advantage of this great tool, you can further its usefulness by using symbolic links or “symlinks”. What these symlinks do is to redirect anything you put into a folder into another folder. For example, if I created a symlink between my Documents folder and a folder on my Dropbox, then anything I put into my Documents folder will go right into my Dropbox. Pretty slick. Just know that it will remove the original folder from your system. In the case of our example, my Documents folder would disappear unless I removed the symlink. So be sure to back up. (It wouldn’t be a bad idea to know how to remove this symlink either.) Are any other ActionScript 3.0 developers salivating over this besides me? What this means is that you can have all your 3rd party or home brew libraries and classes stored in the ‘clouds’ and any updates you make on one machine goes to all. Now that’s better living through technology.
Need help with this symlink business? Here’s a link:
Symlink Tutorial
Technology by .
Time is quickly running out for Ascend Training’s regularly scheduled CS4 classes. Our last CS4 hands-on training will be:
Dreamweaver CS4 Level 1, Chicago, Aug 30 – Sep 1, Deerfield, Oct 11 – 13
Ascend Training is happy to put CS4 classes on our regular schedule for groups of 3 or more people. We will also be happy to provide our CS4 curriculum for our on-site training. Any of our students taking CS4 classes are still eligible for 8 months worth of free retakes in the CS5 version of the class. Those retaking a class in CS5 who have originally taken CS4 classes will also have the option of buying the book used in the new class.
Ascend Training is happy to announce the return of our iPhone Application Development class! iPhone, iPod, iPad Application Development (5 days, $2490) has just been added to our catalog of classes. Ascend Training is proud to have Gene Backlin, author of Professional iOS 4 Application Development: Building Applications for the iPhone and iPad, teaching this exciting new topic. The class will be exclusively taught at our Chicago location (410 S. Michigan Ave., Suite 433) on the following dates: November 29-December 3 and February 7-11.
Please contact our IT Administrator, Jeremy Chambers, about prerequisites for the class.