GoLive is no more

Posted by on Apr 28, 2008 in News | Comments Off

CyberStudio was the original name of this WYSIWYG web editor by German software company GoLive Systems. In 1999 Adobe bought GoLive Systems and relaunched the web editor under the name GoLive. As you know, Adobe bought Macromedia in 2005 and thus also added Dreamweaver to its portfolio. Today we announced that we are discontinuing the development and sales of GoLive.

I have to be honest and tell you that I’ve never been a big fan of GoLive (I’ve been a Dreamweaver user since day 1) but I know GoLive has a pretty strong userbase. If you are one of them, I’m sure/I hope you’ll appreciate the links I gathered below. These link to helpful information to make the switch from GoLive to Dreamweaver as smooth as possible. And I’m sure you’ll love Dreamweaver just as much. Most of the workflows are more or less the same and as an added bonus, Dreamweaver also has everything on board to make AIR applications right out of the box.

Update: My evangelist friend and colleague Greg Rewis was part of the company that originally built GoLive and talks about the history of the product and the company behind it.

To make the transition from GoLive to Dreamweaver as smooth as possible, there’s also a special US$199 upgrade offer — a $200 savings off the suggested retail price. Adobe GoLive 6, CS, and CS2 users can purchase this upgrade directly from Adobe or from any Adobe Authorized Reseller. GoLive 5 and 9 customers should contact Adobe Customer Support in their region for assistance with this upgrade.

Buy any CS3 Premium and win CS3 Master Collection!

Posted by on Apr 28, 2008 in News, Sweepstakes | 2 comments

If you’re living in Denmark, Finland, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland, or the United Kingdom and you haven’t upgraded to CS3 yet? This may be a good excuse to do so.

If you purchase either Adobe® Creative Suite® Design Premium, Adobe Creative Suite Web Premium, Adobe Creative Suite Production Premium, or Adobe Master Collection directly from Adobe between April 21, 2008 and May 26, 2008, you will be automatically entered for a chance to win one (1) copy (100 copies available) of Adobe Master Collection software!

CS3 Master Collection is the choice for the multi-disciplinary agency. It holds everything you need for video-editing, image manipulation, print design and web design. The coolest thing about CS3 Master Collection must be the fact that it all uses one installer and one serial!

What are you waiting for? Order your CS3 now. [Official rules]

Sowing more seeds in Cairo, Egypt

Posted by on Apr 23, 2008 in Events | 2 comments


Last week, I had the chance to visit Egypt by invitation from our new “Adobe User Experience User Group” there. I have to be honest… there could not have been a greater contrast between Dubai and Cairo. Especially traffic in Cairo is well… euhm… very interesting. It’s extremely chaotic. Imagine a 2 lane road. In Cairo, there would be 5 cars next to each other on those 2 lanes. It’s insane! You do not want to drive here as a tourist. Even crossing the street is a challenge.

I had never been to Cairo so I had no idea what to expect. There is a big difference between being there as a tourist and being there for business. Let me explain. As a tourist, you are really treated as such. Prepare to pay a premium for just about everything. A taxi-ride that would normally cost €5 will cost you up to three times as much! On the other side, when being there for business, the people you work with treat you like royalty. Egypt is a country of contrasts.

But like I said, the people you work with really treat you like royalty and so I really need to thank Mohamed Moussa for putting together this event and for inviting me and also everyone at Link.Development for supporting it. This new usergroup has a massive potential and I would be more than happy to go back and speak for them.

Sadly, because of a massive headache the last night I was there, I could not meet with our other usergroup manager in Egypt, Rafiq Elmansy (Sorry again Rafiq). But I’m sure that I will get the chance some day.

Sowing the seeds of AIR in Dubai

Posted by on Apr 12, 2008 in Events | 4 comments


So right after the onAIR train tour I got on a plane to Dubai. I had absolutely no idea on what to expect from Dubai but I gotta tell you… Dubai is totally overwhelming! The architecture in Dubai is amazing and the people are extremely kind. I travel a lot these days and I have to say that I’m bumping Dubai high up on my list of favorite places to go to. Business wise, I think there’s still a lot of work Adobe can do here, which is a good thing since we haven’t been doing that much in the region yet but I’m pretty sure that will change soon. Especially with the upcoming release of Flash Player 10 which will have built in support for RTL-languages (right-to-left) like Arab and Hebrew. So you no longer have to come up with a hack for RTL-languages, it will just (finally) be built right in to the Flash Player.

The event itself was really wel organized. Kudos to Adobe’s MEA team Rianette, Andrew, Jacob (and his lovely wife) and Mohammed. The speakers were really pampered before, during and after this event! Excellent job guys. I’ll come back next week if you want me to!

My presentation was on Flash, Flex and AIR. Even though it was more a designer-crowd, judging by the amount of questions I got afterwards, people are really warming up to AIR and Flash here. Especially after I told/showed them that Flash Player 10 (and thus also AIR) would support RTL-languages. This is going to be huge here.


Highlight of the day (besides my own presentation off course :D) was Scott Kelby‘s presentation. I have to be honest, I could learn a thing or two from the way Scott presents. He really is an amazing presenter who can captivate an audience with the snap of his finger (Ok Scott, you owe me big time for writing this :D). But really, if you haven’t had a chance to see him speak somewhere, make sure you catch his session at an event even if you’re not in to Photoshop.

Next stop on my little trip to the Middle East is Egypt for UX-Guru‘s. If you’re in the neighbourhood, come and say hi!

Oh… Did I already tell you I really really love my job?! :D

The pictures above I took with Scott’s camera. This picture below is shot with my modest Canon 20D.

Flash Player 9 update + FMS3 + H.264/MP4

Posted by on Apr 9, 2008 in Flash, How-to, Video | 3 comments

Some people may have gotten an automatic update for the Flash Player (9.0.124.0) today or you may have already downloaded and installed it yourself. If you’re one of them, you may have also encountered problems when trying to watch a streaming MP4/H.264 file streamed through Flash Media Server 3. The solution for this problem is actually very simple, just make sure that the FMS is running on the latest 3.0.1 update (download link). It’s that easy ;-)