Archive for the 'Tips and tricks' Category

Solving Adobe CS3 install problem on Windows Vista

Published
by
Paul
on October 30, 2008
in Adobe and Tips and tricks
. 0 Comments

Finally, after some searching on the internet I found the solution to my problem with installing Adobe CS3 Design Premium on my new Windows Vista workstation. My problem was that when I started the installation a progress window appeared and then within a second disappeared, resulting in a failed installation. No error messages or anything!

I found the solution at the Adobe forums in this thread, and here are the helping steps (thanks to Phil Sadler):

Manually register the jscript.dll file.

On Windows Vista32:

1. Choose Start > All Programs > Accessories.
2. Right-click the Command icon, choose Run As Administrator, and authenticate.
3. Navigate to Windows\System32.
4. At the prompt, type regsvr32 jscript.dll and press Enter.
5. When a dialog box with the message “DllRegisterServer in jscript.dll succeeded” appears, click OK.

On Windows Vista64:

1. Choose Start > All Programs > Accessories.
2. Right-click the Command icon, choose Run As Administrator, and authenticate.
3. Navigate to Windows\SysWow64.
4. At the prompt, type regsvr32 jscript.dll and press Enter.
5. When a dialog box with the message “DllRegisterServer in jscript.dll succeeded” appears, click OK.

Note! I was trying to install the CS3 package on a Vista64 system, and of course I didn’t read the instruction well enough the first time. The thing is that there is a system32 folder in Vista64 as well, and did the Vista32 steps instead of going to the SysWow64 folder. Well, of course it didn’t do the trick and got me a bit frustrated, until I re-read the solutions (I found similar solutions on other places) and noticed the SysWow64 thing.

Also, just to be on the safe side I copied the installation folder from the DVD to my harddrive and did the following steps:

1. Copy the “Adobe CS3″ folder from the installation CD to your harddrive.

2. From the harddrive copy, open the folder “resources\common\scripts”.

3. Right-click on the file “ContainerProxy.js”, click “Open With…”, and select Notepad.

4. With the file open in Notepad, click Edit (from the top menu), then “Go To…”.

5. In the “Line Number” box, type 1102, and press Enter. This will take you to line #1102.

6. Locate the “SetSessionInitialized” variable as follows.

7. Look on the screen for the line “jsonObj = _jsonToObject(window.external.SetSessionInitialized(initValue));”.

8. Delete “window.external.”, i.e. the line becomes “jsonObj = _jsonToObject(SetSessionInitialized(initValue));”.

9. Save the file.

10. Go back to the harddrive parent folder “Adobe CS3″ and run the Setup.exe.

After this the installation went fine. In cases like this I cannot help wondering who to blame: The first part with jscript.dll points at Microsoft, but on the other hand it is something Adobe should be aware of (they do test their product before shipping, don’t they?)!

The 30 Day Challenge 2008

Published
by
Paul
on May 21, 2008
in 30DC, The Thirty Day Challenge, Tips and tricks and Useful things
. 0 Comments
The fun is about to start again, the annual Thirty Day Challenge! So what is the thirty day challenge (30DC), you may ask? Well, in nutshell it is about making $10 online. For a full 30 days Ed Dale and Dan Raine are going to show exactly how to start your own internet business and generate your first income online without spending any money.
I see myself as an illustrator and cartoonist, and marketing is sometimes a very difficult part for me. I joined the challenge last year and didn’t really make it ($10) within the 30 day time frame, but I learned tons about marketing techniques - how to optimize your web pages, to study the competition, using free but effective tools and a lot more! So the 30DC is not merely for experienced internet marketers but for every newbie out there who sees the internet as another channel and possibility to sell his or hers stuff (or others for that matter).
The last years material is probably out there still, but I suspect it will be replaced with new material when the pre-season starts June 1st, so you better hurry over to the 30DC site and sign up to get the old stuff for free, and get ready for this years challenge.

PS. Yes, I eventually made $10! Actually I made even more (no, not any “six figure sales” as you often read about in spam and sales letters, but barely a three figure total - but enough to show that the techniques work) during six months.

Book cover makeover

Published
by
Paul
on February 15, 2008
in Tips and tricks and Xara Xtreme
. 1 Comment

A couple of years ago I designed the year book cover for GSCE. The old look is dated and a new one is required.

Book covers

Here is how I designed the new cover… Continue reading ‘Book cover makeover’

Xara Xtreme Halftone Effect

Published
by
Paul
on January 22, 2008
in Tips and tricks and Xara Xtreme
. 0 Comments

In this tutorial we learn how to create a halftone effect in my favorite graphics software Xara Xtreme.

halftone teaser

Continue reading ‘Xara Xtreme Halftone Effect’

Fixing broken windows in Adobe Acrobat 8

Published
by
Paul
on January 22, 2008
in Acrobat and Tips and tricks
. 0 Comments

Today when I wanted to check if an ad was print ready, the PDF/X window in Adobe Acrobat 8 looked like this:

acrobat pdf problem 1

No, I haven’t cropped the screen shot! The only thing showing up was the title bar! And when I tried to resize the “window” I ended up with this:

acrobat pdf problem 2

Well, I tried Google for a solution (no solution found), then Adobe’s Knowledge Base (no solution found), and finally Adobe’s Support Forum (no solution found). I had to fix it myself.

Continue reading ‘Fixing broken windows in Adobe Acrobat 8′

How to create your own clip art

Published
by
Paul
on January 13, 2008
in Tips and tricks
. 0 Comments

Here is one of my techniques to create clip art using my favorite vector graphics software Xara Xtreme Pro. This is a guest tutorial at XaraXone. Read more

How to use Gnurf clip art in MS Office 2003

Published
by
Paul
on January 13, 2008
in Tips and tricks
. 0 Comments

In this tutorial I will show you a simple way to place my clip art in a MS Word document. Start with opening the clip art page (http://www.gnurf.net/v3/topics/clip-art/) and look for a suitable image.

Clip art web page

When you find the clip art you need, click on the thumbnail to open a larger version.

Copy clip art image

Right-click on the image and select Copy from the context menu.

Lorem ipsum MS Word document

Create or open a document in MS Word.

Clip art image inserted

Click where you want the image and insert it by pressing Ctrl-V (Paste).

Order image to in front of text

As you see, the image will “push away” the text. Select the image by clicking on it. On the Picture Object toolbar, select Wrap and first we can try the In front of text alternative. Note: I did not have an English MS Office version when I put together this tutorial so the actual command may differ from my translation. Feel free to send me a correction if you please.

Clip art in front of text

Now we have the clip art placed on top of the text. This trick can be useful if you want to have a background image or pattern. As you see, the image you copied from my web page do have a transparent background. This is because all my clip art images are saved in the PNG bitmap format which allows transparency AND true color (compared to GIF files which only allows 256 indexed colours).

change order to wrap through

But if we have text in the background it is not very reader friendly if a part of it is covered by the image. This we change by selecting Through from the Wrap menu in the Picture Object toolbar, and voilà, the text flows neatly around the clip art.

Text wrapped around clip art

You can further move around, rotate and flip the image. You can download my example file to play around with.

Final notes: The PNG files have a resolution of 96 dpi and are actually meant to be used for the screen like Powerpoint slides and web pages. If you want to print the PNG files in your designs then resize the images to about 50% of the original size.