Photoshop is the backbone of the Adobe Creative Suite. What about the other programs… In this segment we take a look at “Acrobat”.

1.What does Acrobat do?

a.Vector graphics
b.Can contain raster graphics
c.Can contain multimedia, sound and movies
d.Can be used for presentations

2.Do I need it?
3.Output can be very compact
4.Everyone can read it with free Acrobat Reader (Mac, Windows, Linux)
5.Output will be PDF.
6.Works best with a RIP if you print.

This segment is a review of the Valley Christian Radio Station 101.1FM Web site (http://valleychristianradio.ca/). The main points to critique are:
1.Inline frames
2.Page size
3.Text size

Valley Christian Radio’s Web site is clearly a labor of love by an amateur designer who is learning. Here are a few tips for anyone starting out.

Avoid inline frames, and frames in general. They make sites hard to bookmark, but even worse, they break the expected behaviour of a Web page and confuse the site visitor. On this site, the inline frame requires both horizontal and vertical scrolling, rendering any convenience created null.
It is important to design for the right page size and monitor resolution. Today the bulk of users are using 1024×768, but a not insignificant number of people still run their monitors at 800×600 pixels. Resolution is basically the number of pixels, a tiny unit of measurement, that can be viewed on the screen, so it effectively limits the size of the window or Web page that can be displayed. This site is designed to fit well for 800×600, but with lots of room to spare. I recommend taking that extra room for the layout so that the inline frame doesn’t need to scroll horizontally. (Or can even be eliminated.)
Small fonts are hard on the eyes, particularly for older audiences, and especially on textured backgrounds with low contrast. The black text on the dark green textured background of this site is really tough to read. Look, for example, at how much easier white text is to read on this same background!

RELATED WEBSITE LINKS
Browser Stats Month by Month
www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp
Check out what the dominant browser and screen resolutions are this month.

PRODUCTS SHOWN
Reglo from Basta Computing
www.basta.com/ProdReglo.htm
An on-screen ruler and window resizing tool. (Windows only)

Keeping your data secure isn’t simply a matter of making sure you back up — if you’re working with private company data, you can’t just back it up to any old USB key or hard drive — you want one with some form of protection onboard. We got our hands on a small quality assortment of portable storage with hardware-based security.

Apricorn Aegis Bio
www.apricorn.com
$179 - 379
The art of security via fingerprints — aka biometrics — has been available in the consumer market for a few years now, though largely the technology has been used simply for logging into a computer. The Apricorn Aegis Bio integrates a fingerprint scanner into a portable hard drive, to protect the data on the drive from unauthorized access. There’s hardware-level encryption inside too, so even if you yank the drive out of the case it’ll still be secured. The Aegis Bio also comes with internal shock protection…it makes it a bit bulkier than you’d expect but the drive inside should be able to survive a bit of a drop. The Aegis Bio comes in 80, 120, 160 and 250 GB capacities.

Corsair Flash Padlock 2GB
www.corsair.com
$40
You may be familiar with Corsair as a maker of RAM for inside the computer, but the company makes mobile memory too — and this one comes with its own digital padlock. Each Flash Padlock comes with a soft-button keypad that allows users to set their own combination (up to 10 digits), which they can use to lock and unlock the data on the drive. The drive is a bit large, which means it may block other USB ports when it’s in use, but it does comes with a USB extender cable that should play nice with other USB ports. The biggest problem with this products will undoubtedly be the soft buttons on the outside — it may not stand up to the abuse meted out by keys and other things that are typically found in your pocket…you’ll want to keep it in a safer place. The one gigabyte version of the Flash Padlock is $30.

Ironkey 4GB
www.ironkey.com
$149
If you’re looking for security, it’s hard not to get more secure than the Ironkey — not only is all of the data on the key protected by military-grade hardware encryption, but it also features a tamper-proof design that will cause the key to self-destruct if it’s physically opened up or if the wrong password is entered ten times in a row…in other words, it’s resistant to brute-force attacks, as well. Add shock resistance and water resistance, and you have a key that will stand up to the elements and the conditions in your pocket, as well as to those who want to grab your data. The one gig version is $79, and the two gig version of the Ironkey is $109; all three models come with one year’s worth of online protection against data loss.