General Computer Thread

[Marc]

Oh yeah, been using their Photography Suite, ie Photoshop & Lightroom and got that email as I apparently didn't upgrade them soon enough. What's particularly perturbing, is the fact that they don't tell you anywhere in the actual creative cloud app that what you're using shouldn't be used anymore. Rather, they send you an alarming email that makes it sound like you did something very wrong

What's worse is that in certain cases, there might be several versions available. Lightroom for example has both Lightroom Classic and Lightroom available if that's on your plan, but no notice of what is particularly safe. I just updated my version of Lightroom to the latest version of Lightroom Classic, yet I still don't know if that's what they want, or if they want me to just update to Lightroom. The notice is very vague and confusingly worded, and the version numbers don't accurately correspond to the product names. This is why it's very confusing to have both internal names w/ version numbers and generalized product names. I think they could have done a much more effective way of communicating this while limiting panic.

I'd add a pop-up message to the app that says the versions one is using are no longer supported and that you're now being updated to the latest versions.

Normally litigation of this sort of hits future sales of products going forward rather than versions that have already been sold though it might cost the company because they'd have to pay royalties/penalties to cover the units that have already been sold that breached patents or whatever.

Unless it's a subscription system? I don't see how people who've already purchased the product can affected.

If Adobe isn't offering the upgrades for free, one could almost wonder if they're trying to scare people into upgrading and boasting the revenue.

 

[Owain Taggart]

Yep, the Creative Cloud is their subscription system. You pay monthly or yearly for what otherwise would be software at $1000, which makes it much more affordable to a wider range of people, so in this case, $15 a month for me with the Photography plan. They're likely just covering their asses, but it still stinks the way they've decided to deal with it, putting the onus on the customer for their mistake.

As for the upgrades, I'm not entirely sure what the article was talking about. In the app, you only have those apps available to you, unless you sign up with another plan to open up the options. And again, depending on the that plan, you may have older versions of the software along with the latest, giving you an option to go with either. The app never says anything about the newer versions costing more. Being that it's on a subscription system, it wouldn't particularly make much sense either. You have access to what you paid for. Next to those apps, you have buttons that say 'Install' or 'Upgrade' depending on the version already installed. Seeing as I had an older Lightroom Classic installed, the next Classic version was essentially a brand new installation. Photoshop however required me that it would upgrade to the latest available version in the Cloud service and that one counted as a version upgrade under the same installation.

 

[Random_Spock]

Normally litigation of this sort of hits future sales of products going forward rather than versions that have already been sold though it might cost the company because they'd have to pay royalties/penalties to cover the units that have already been sold that breached patents or whatever.

Unless it's a subscription system? I don't see how people who've already purchased the product can affected.

If Adobe isn't offering the upgrades for free, one could almost wonder if they're trying to scare people into upgrading and boasting the revenue.

Exactly. It makes no sense.

I'm thinking the latter myself. And so far their scare tactic is blowing up in their face big time. People are very upset with them. And considering that they paid a pretty penny for the older programs and still wanted to use them, I certainly don't blame them.

Yep, the Creative Cloud is their subscription system. You pay monthly or yearly for what otherwise would be software at $1000, which makes it much more affordable to a wider range of people, so in this case, $15 a month for me with the Photography plan. They're likely just covering their asses, but it still stinks the way they've decided to deal with it, putting the onus on the customer for their mistake.

As for the upgrades, I'm not entirely sure what the article was talking about. In the app, you only have those apps available to you, unless you sign up with another plan to open up the options. And again, depending on the that plan, you may have older versions of the software along with the latest, giving you an option to go with either. The app never says anything about the newer versions costing more. Being that it's on a subscription system, it wouldn't particularly make much sense either. You have access to what you paid for. Next to those apps, you have buttons that say 'Install' or 'Upgrade' depending on the version already installed. Seeing as I had an older Lightroom Classic installed, the next Classic version was essentially a brand new installation. Photoshop however required me that it would upgrade to the latest available version in the Cloud service and that one counted as a version upgrade under the same installation.

What's affordable to some, isn't to others. A lot of people are quitting due to this, since they've already paid for Photoshop and have no interest in upgrading to something that would force them to pay for things yet again.

They probably are trying to cover their asses as well. And it sure as heck isn't a good business tactic to blame the customers for their mistake. That's one way to drive people away.

I'm thinking it has to do with them wanting people to buy into the Creative Cloud. They don't want people to use their older programs, which weren't part of said Cloud. Like CS2, etc.

 

[Santaman]

Avoid the cloud like the plague, they'll come crashing down one day and they'll take your stuff with them, personally I would go open source, Gimp might be a tad troublesome but it gets improved and updated and has come a long way, since I've abandoned Windows I had to get used to the Gimp and nowadays I can work with it pretty well.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Things like this is why I use Openoffice and Libreoffice on my desktop and laptop. Open source and easy to install and gets updates, no cloud needed.

 

[Owain Taggart]

What's affordable to some, isn't to others. A lot of people are quitting due to this, since they've already paid for Photoshop and have no interest in upgrading to something that would force them to pay for things yet again.

Obviously, I mean I wouldn't pay for something again either But I still don't see where the uprade is extra. If that's really the case, they really need to make that clearer based on what's available to the user's plan. Because again, that could come back to bite them based on unclear language. Again, I get buttons labeled "Install", "Update" and Upgrade" depending on the versions available as part of the plan. If they the fact that an "Upgrade" such as this would cost more money, then that's sneaky. Something tells me we're talking about two different types of upgrades though.

The weird thing is, the versions I was using were part of the cloud. They offered them, at one point or another. If the fact that they can no longer support those older versions, they should say something to that effect on the app. It's not as if I had an older version they weren't still selling.

I did hear about a possible price hike to the subscription. I wonder if that's related.

 

[Random_Spock]

Obviously, I mean I wouldn't pay for something again either But I still don't see where the uprade is extra. If that's really the case, they really need to make that clearer based on what's available to the user's plan. Because again, that could come back to bite them based on unclear language. Again, I get buttons labeled "Install", "Update" and Upgrade" depending on the versions available as part of the plan. If they the fact that an "Upgrade" such as this would cost more money, then that's sneaky. Something tells me we're talking about two different types of upgrades though.

The weird thing is, the versions I was using were part of the cloud. They offered them, at one point or another. If the fact that they can no longer support those older versions, they should say something to that effect on the app. It's not as if I had an older version they weren't still selling.

I did hear about a possible price hike to the subscription. I wonder if that's related.

Definitely.

Yep.

Could be. Honestly though, with this baloney, I'd never get a subscription to the Cloud.

 

[Owain Taggart]

Oh and another thing is, in the app in the list of available programs, next to those programs if you click "manage versions" you have a whole variety of older versions from which to install. It's kind of impressive in what's available, but I could see this changing after this. Hilariously enough, if I do that with Lightroom Classic, I see that the very version they told me I couldn't use anymore (CC 2015/6.0) is still available to install. So, this isn't just an end-user problem. It's a problem they need to fix on their end as well to prevent users from effing up. Otherwise it's a slippery slope.

 

[Marc]

Obviously, I mean I wouldn't pay for something again either But I still don't see where the uprade is extra. If that's really the case, they really need to make that clearer based on what's available to the user's plan. Because again, that could come back to bite them based on unclear language. Again, I get buttons labeled "Install", "Update" and Upgrade" depending on the versions available as part of the plan. If they the fact that an "Upgrade" such as this would cost more money, then that's sneaky. Something tells me we're talking about two different types of upgrades though.

The weird thing is, the versions I was using were part of the cloud. They offered them, at one point or another. If the fact that they can no longer support those older versions, they should say something to that effect on the app. It's not as if I had an older version they weren't still selling.

I did hear about a possible price hike to the subscription. I wonder if that's related.

Adobe should simply offer a free upgrade to the latest version that's not infringing on some-one else's IP and stock dicking the customers around.

But we're talking about adobe here.

Up there with hp and oracle when it comes to dickheadedness.

 

[Santaman]

Upgraded my Am1 machine to a Ryzen 2200G which is a LOT faster, price wise about the same as the Am1 when I bought it a few years ago.
Specs:
Asus B450 mainboard, Ryzen 2200G 3.5/3.7Ghz stock cooler because it is working well, 8 Gb RAM, still the same Asus OEM casing, Antec 350 watt PSU, 1 Tb HDD and the other stuff that makes up a computer.
Put Linux Mint 19.1 on it, at first it didn't want to work, seems the kernel Mint comes with (4.15.0.xxx) can't handle Ryzen CPU's etc so at the moment it is using 5.0.0.xx
To get it working, boot from CD/USB using the compatibility mode, install, reboot press F8, select recovery mode, it will boot without drivers, you can go to the update manager and install the 5.0.0.xxx kernel, reboot normally, the thing should boot, update, install your stuff and it should work out fine that way.

Luckily the board isn't all too flashy, just one amber LED strips and one amber LED both fade in and out, randomly nothing else, I can see it because the casing has an airvent in the side panel.
Is there much difference between the Am1 Athlon 5350 and the Ryzen 2200G? Yeah.. speed wise the 2200G is much faster, also the various components are much better, the USB 3(.xx) speed is a lot better, got it up to 48+mb/sec on the Am1, the Ryzen I've seen at 74+Mb/sec with the same external drive.
Think this one will last me a few years.

 

[Marc]

Mother-in-law recently got a new computer (a Dell). Thought she was going to go with the laptop that had the Ryzen7 and 512GB SSD (which admittedly is probably overkill for her) but she went for a cheaper model that had 1 TB HDD (difference is about $CA150).

FMD that drive is sooo slooowww and the machine took for ever to bring Windows 10 up to date.

Was so much quicker when I did my wife's a couple of months back (nice little Asus Vivo Book with 256GB SDD and 15.6" IPS display).

Next on the agenda is a heart transplant for my server. Going from a Xeon E3-1230v2 with 16GB to a pair of Xeon E5-2650vs2 with 40GB (to be expanded at later date) and looking for move from Hyper-V to ESXI for my hyper-visor.

 

[Santaman]

I still mainly use HDD's most of my machines are quite old and a few are used as backup machine so only switched on once in a while.
As for servers, if I had to build one now then it would not have an Intel chip...

 

[Marc]

As for servers, if I had to build one now then it would not have an Intel chip...

unfortunately dropping a couple of grand on an epyc board and processor (not to mention DD4 ram) and a new case was out of the budget and not passing the WAF.

 

[Santaman]

Budget.. yeah, that always messes up things.. the next generation of AMD's stuff seems to be great, also because older stuff will become cheaper then...

 

[Marc]

Budget.. yeah, that always messes up things.. the next generation of AMD's stuff seems to be great, also because older stuff will become cheaper then...

yeah the epyc stuff should be nice and cheap next time I do server upgrade.

Though they are just starting to release server grade AM4 socketed boards for the Ryzen processors (ECC support, IPMI/OOB management etc). Nothing for Threadripper though

 

[Santaman]

I have a funny feeling that the Ryzen 9 3000 series will take the spot of some Threadrippers since they're 16 core 32 threads but then using AM4, could be that some EPYC's will fill in top down for the 32core/64thread models to be used in HEDT uses but who knows, that we haven't heard about Threadripper yet might be because AMD is cooking up stuff regarding those.

 

[Marc]

I have a funny feeling that the Ryzen 9 3000 series will take the spot of some Threadrippers since they're 16 core 32 threads but then using AM4, could be that some EPYC's will fill in top down for the 32core/64thread models to be used in HEDT uses but who knows, that we haven't heard about Threadripper yet might be because AMD is cooking up stuff regarding those.

the 16 core Ryzen 9 hasn't been official announced - the speculation is it's being kept in reserve to count anything new at the top end that intel might care to announce.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/1440...-cores-for-499-up-to-46-ghz-pcie-40-coming-77

 

[Santaman]

Yeah, I read about it today, they're impressive CPU's though I must say.

 

[Jim Klag]

My laptop had become something of a cludge lately, so I had it professionally swept, cleaned, sanitized and pasteurized with a new firewall and all the necessaries installed. I have to say the money was well-spent. This baby now rocks! Faster than when it was new. I also know just a little bit more about computers than I knew at 0900 today. Could be dangerous - a hot box and just enough knowledge to cause all sorts of bat crap crazy shit to happen. Makes me proud to be an American.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

My laptop had become something of a cludge lately, so I had it professionally swept, cleaned, sanitized and pasteurized with a new firewall and all the necessaries installed. I have to say the money was well-spent. This baby now rocks! Faster than when it was new. I also know just a little bit more about computers than I knew at 0900 today. Could be dangerous - a hot box and just enough knowledge to cause all sorts of bat crap crazy shit to happen. Makes me proud to be an American.

But did you find out why it had clogged up? Could have been as simple as removing some software that was demanding resources, or such.