I’ve been using Adobe Illustrator almost every day for years now, so I’m always surprised when I discover something new by chance.

For instance, I constantly use the cmd-space and cmd-opt-space shortcuts to zoom in and out while working, usually by drawing a marquee around the area I want to zoom to. What I just found [...]

Steven Jay Cohen has released a new version of Iridium, my favourite theme for Mac OS X.

Iridium gives all application windows a smooth, uniform theme. I combine this with a 50% grey desktop background to give me a subtle interface that stays out of the way and doesn’t interfere with my colour perception while I’m [...]

I have just created my first application for Mac OS X. It is a simple AppleScript application that creates a Growl notification every 15 minutes to remind you to save your progress while working.

Find out more about OughtoSave.

I love the Smart Guides in Adobe Illustrator. They makes life much easier when selecting and constructing artwork. But they can be a real pain when trying to make small edits using the pen tool, as the handles and anchors can keep snapping to the Smart Guide constraints instead of where I actually want them [...]

Terry at To The Point Software has released an update to his excellent font browser The Fontz. I recently created a new icon for The Fontz, and I am far too excited at seeing my name mentioned in the release notes:

v4.3.3

new program icon by Richard Smith fixed bug that occurred when trashing an uninstalled font some toolbar [...]

Adobe have released the first update for Illustrator CS 2, taking it to version 12.0.1. The release notes are a little sketchy to say the least, but report improvements to Tiger compatibility. I can’t say I’ve had many problems with Illustrator stability myself, but the update ran smoothly and Illustrator is working as well as [...]

Somehow, I managed to overlook the fact that Wacom have released a new driver for older Intuos tablets like mine. I’m pleased to see that they have finally ditched the clunky old OS 9 style control panel for a swanky Aqua Preference Pane (about time too). The release notes (PDF) list several other changes to [...]

Yesterday I had confirmation from Adobe that my copy of Creative Suite 2 is now on it’s way via UPS.

For some reason though, Adobe sent the confirmation e-mail in PDF format, with no clickable links for the order tracking or support page URL’s. So I had to open up the PDF in Preview, then copy [...]

Woot! I’ve had my dispatch notification from Apple. Tiger is on it’s way! With a major OS release like this, I have a tried and tested strategy for upgrading:

I maintain two partitions on my “main” hard-drive (I have another physical hard-drive that I use for all my work files). One partition (called “Boot”) holds the [...]

Mac pundit John Gruber makes some very disparaging comments about Adobe on his Daring Fireball site, in an article titled The Fish Rots From the Head. In it he condemns what he sees as Adobes recent focus on sales, rather than on creating great and innovative software:

Rather than expand into untapped creative markets, [...]