adobe

Highly Efficient Rosetta or Darn Slow Photoshop?

When Apple introduced Intel-based Macs, a year ago, it provided comprehensive migration support, as well. Free compiler (program "translating" human-readable source code of programs into "machine code") shipping with OS X is able to produce so-called Universal Binary - code that both old and new processors can understand. So, for many software vendors migration was just a matter of recompiling their source code. Unfortunately, it was more complicated and time-consuming for vendors of large systems where recompilation is not as trivial. Several large software vendors were not able to have their code recompiled and debugged, yet.

To support those more inert, Apple developed technology called Rosetta. Rosetta is a virtualization engine that allows programs, written for old, G# processors to run on Intel-based Macs without changing single line of code. Microsoft Office for Mac, still runs on top of Rosetta, with no plans to recompile it into Universal Binary. Adobe, also, did not have universal binary version of its graphical applications, until recently. In Adobe's case they were very eager to complete the migration, though, as virtualization is a performance hit and performance is important for a graphical information processing software like that from Adobe.

The highlight of and the biggest advancement in the recently released Adobe Creative Suite 3 is the fact that it is compiled in universal binary - with full support of Intel processors and avoiding Rosetta. Adobe is very excited about it and has been honking all over the press how much better/faster the new version is.

Is it really?

Microsoft Silverlight, pet-named "Flash killer" by the Web 2.0 community, replicates many of the features of Macromedia Flash technology. Silverlight was first unveiled at the NAB Show, in early 2006, but it is only recently that it has gotten increasing spotlight from the industry. Somewhat intriguing, yet quite telling was that Microsoft featured Silverlight at the recently held Java One 2007, a major, traditionally M$-unfriendly annual conference of Java developers and vendors. Less surprisingly, it was the center point of the Microsoft's own Mix 2007, annual conference of web developers. Even though Silverlight is still left behind by Paris Hilton, it surely bypassed Britney in making headlines, at least - in the geek world. Judging by the enormous marketing blast, it is obvious that when it comes to Silverlight, Microsoft makes no jokes.

Why is Silverlight so important?

The new web, the so-called Web 2.0, is a two-headed phenomena. On one side it is a culture, a web-philosophy with the notions of the power of social unity, global outreach, two-way communication and extreme personalization at its foundation. On another side, it is a breakthrough in user-experience technology - Ajax being the most famous example. Ajax is great for responsive, ergonomic interfaces, the kinds you find in Gmail, Google Maps, Flickr, Meebo and every other Web 2.0 site, but it is not the only important technology driving the web revolution. New web is heavy on rich media and until recently Flash was the dominant technology for multimedia delivery on the web. YouTube would not exist without the Flash Streaming technology and Flash Video format. Many audio podcast websites have flash audio players. Fancy image galleries are driven by Flash technology enabling greater interactivity. And the list goes on...