Would you pay monthly for Photoshop or Microsoft Office?

Up to now, customers had perpetual access by paying a single fee for Adobe's Creative Suite. From next month, continuing access to the programs, either individually or as a whole, will demand a monthly fee. Standalone versions will still be available but will not be upgraded. The change was announced at Adobe's annual Max conference, at which it details the latest updates to its products.

At Max, Adobe said the standalone version of its Creative Suite, which bundles together 16 programs, including Photoshop, Illustrator, Audition, Dreamweaver and Premiere, would be frozen at version 6. Bug fixes would be made available for this version but new features and enhancements would not. Currently, the standalone version of Creative Suite 6 costs about £1,800 from Adobe.

Those who want to keep up with upgrades and changes to Creative Suite would have to take out a subscription to Adobe's Creative Cloud - a web-based system through which customers can manage what they do with the different tools. In return, customers get access to the software as well as an online storage system and project management tools.

In the UK, access to all programs in the Creative Cloud costs £47 a month provided customers agree to pay for at least a year. If customers opt to pay month-to-month the cost is £70. Access to individual applications costs just under £18 a month if customers sign up for a year.

The move to a subscription model is the culmination of a long experiment by Adobe to see if customers would pay monthly for access. Adobe said it now had 500,000 subscribers for Creative Cloud after running a pilot programme for a year.

The move to subscriptions marks a big change for Adobe

Adobe is the latest in a number of large software firms that have moved to a cloud-based or subscription model. Microsoft has also introduced Office 365, a subscription version of its set of office productivity programs.

This raises questions with me because having an online based web application is fine if you have good internet and broadband connection. But what if you are in an area that you don't have good internet or broadband connection or if you are using a Wi-Fi hot-spot? I am sure that you will start to run into problems. Like it running slow or it wouldn't even open because of 'insufficient bandwith'.

The internet is getting faster and faster and for the normal person using the web, we are able to do more online. But we are starting to find that there are more and more things that are put on the world wide web and companies are starting that they are able to take even more money from the customers by using what is called 'cloud storage'.

These companies will have more control over who and how people use their application. It will restrict the customer to be online constantly 24/7 (which is not possible because their will always be a time or place that you will get no internet connection).

Another problem with having web applications and having everything in the 'cloud' is, what if you do not have internet or broadband? What would these customers do if they want to use there product?

Or is it that I am old fashioned and I need to update my thinking.

Train firm forced to buy staff bras because new uniforms are so flimsy

See-through: Virgin Trains has offered staff new
bras because the latest uniforms are so flimsy.

Here is a news story that would make some men smile or even make you laugh.

Virgin Trains must shell out for bras for their female staff because the new uniforms are so flimsy. Workers say the new red blouses are too short and the thin material means passengers will be able to see their bras if they are a dark colour. Now Virgin’s business support department is giving them a £20 voucher for new underwear after delaying the uniform for three weeks.

Business support director, Andy Cross, said: 'It’s important that our people feel comfortable and so we will be issuing vouchers in the next few days for ladies to buy undergarments to wear under their blouses. 'Female employees concerned about the new blouse will be offered a £20 voucher to buy suitable undergarments.

'We always envisaged that we would need to review the situation once people started wearing their new uniform and accept this as an important part of the uniform trial.' But one worker was not happy with the compromise and told the 'We want them withdrawn – £20 is hardly enough for a decent bra.' And rail union TSSA has rejected the voucher offer as 'too little, too late' and says its members shouldn’t need new underwear.

17 Useful Pub Quiz Facts

Here are 17 facts that may come in handy in a pub quiz but useless in real life.

1. Los Angeles' full name is "El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula"

2. The winter of 1932 was so cold that Niagara Falls froze completely solid...I'm not making this up, look it up.

3. If the population of China walked past you in a single file line, the line would never end because of the rate of reproduction.

4. The sentence "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" uses every letter of the alphabet.

5. 12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents daily, on average!

6. The name Wendy was made up for the book Peter Pan. There was never a recorded Wendy before.

7. A female ferret will die if it goes into heat and cannot find a mate.

8. If you pour a tiny amount of liquor on a scorpion, it will instantly go mad and sting itself to death.

9. The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.

10. Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite.

11. Mr. Rogers was an ordained minister.

12. Leonardo Da Vinci invented the scissors.

13. If you are an average American, in your whole life, you will spend an average of 6 months waiting at a red light.

14. All 50 states are listed across the top of the Lincoln Memorial on the back of the $5 bill.

15. A dime has 118 ridges around the edge.

16. The first CD pressed in the US was Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA."

17. Your stomach has to produce a new layer of mucus every two weeks or it will digest itself.

HMV is finally out of administration

I have reacently receaved an e-mail informing customers that HMV is officialy out of administration. The in the email it says:

"As you are no doubt aware, HMV went into administration on 15 January 2013, however we are pleased to inform you that the company is officially out of administration and we're moving forward with the business."

This email was sent to me on 13 April 2013

Original e-mail

In total there was 141 stores in the UK that was saved and here is the full list of stores that was saved.

1. Aberdeen
2. Ayr
3. Banbury
4. Bangor (Wales)
5. Basingstoke
6. Basildon
7. Bath
8. Belfast Donegall Arcade
9. Birmingham Bullring
10. Blackpool
11. Bluewater
12. Bournemouth
13. Bradford
14. Brighton
15. Bristol Broadmead
16. Bristol Cribbs Causeway
17. Bromley
18. Bury
19. Bury St Edmunds
20. Cambridge
21. Canary Wharf
22. Canterbury
23. Cardiff
24. Carlisle
25. Chelmsford
26. Cheltenham
27. Chester
28. Chichester
29. Colchester
30. Coventry
31. Crawley
32. Cwmbran
33. Darlington
34. Derby
35. Doncaster
36. Dudley Merry Hill Centre
37. Dundee
38. Eastbourne
39. East Kilbride
40. Edinburgh Fort
41. Edinburgh Ocean Terminal
42. Edinburgh Princes Street
43. Exeter
44. Gateshead
45. Glasgow Argyle Street
46. Glasgow Buchanan Street
47. Glasgow Fort
48. Gloucester
49. Grimsby
50. Guernsey (St.Peter Port)
51. Guildford
52. Hanley (Stoke-on-Trent)
53. Harlow
54. Harrogate
55. Hastings
56. Hatfield
57. Hereford
58. High Wycombe
59. Horsham
60. Hull
61. Inverness
62. Ipswich
63. Islington
64. Isle of Man (Douglas)
65. Isle of Wight (Newport)
66. Jersey (St.Helier)
67. Kettering
68. King's Lynn
69. Kingston-Upon-Thames
70. Leamington Spa
71. Leeds Headrow
72. Leeds White Rose
73. Leicester
74. Lincoln
75. Liverpool Liverpool One
76. Livingston
77. Llandudno
78. Maidstone
79. Manchester 90 Market Street
80. Manchester Trafford Centre
81. Mansfield
82. Middlesbrough
83. Milton Keynes
84. Newcastle
85. Newport (Wales)
86. Northampton
87. Norwich Chapelfield
88. Norwich Gentlemen's Walk
89. Nottingham Victoria Centre
90. Nuneaton
91. Oxford
92. Oxford Circus 150 Oxford Street, London W1
93. Peterborough
94. Poole
95. Portsmouth Commercial Road
96. Portsmouth Gun Wharf
97. Preston
98. Plymouth
99. Reading Oracle Centre
100. Romford
101. Selfridges Oxford Street, London W1
102. Sheffield High Street
103. Sheffield Meadowhall
104. Shrewsbury
105. Solihull
106. Southampton
107. Southend
108. Southport
109. Speke Park (Liverpool)
110. Staines
111. Stevenage
112. Stirling
113. Stockport
114. Stratford-Upon-Avon
115. Sunderland
116. Sutton
117. Swansea
118. Taunton
119. Thanet
120. Thurrock
121. Truro
122. Tunbridge Wells
123. Uxbridge
124. Westfield London Stratford City
125. Westfield London W12
126. Wimbledon (hmvcurzon)
127. Winchester
128. Wolverhampton
129. Worcester
130. Worthing
131. Yeovil
132. York

Fopp Stores

1. Bristol
2. Cambridge
3. Edinburgh
4. Glasgow, Byres Road
5. Glasgow, Union Street
6. London - Covent Garden
7. London - Gower Street
8. Manchester
9. Nottingham

UK childeren do not know there veg

Copyrighted www.psychologies.co.uk

Half of children cannot distinguish between a cucumber and a courgette, research has found, in the Daily Mail.

First of all who has says that half the UK kids cannot tell the difference between a courgettes and a cucumber? Did they even think that there was a possibility that they do look alike. I even sometimes muddle the two.

Secondly, who cares?

This is another scaremongering article from the Daily Mail to make middle class parents more worried about there child's development.

The article carries on by saying,

"In tests, one in four failed to identify an aubergine, while 7 per cent mistook spinach for lettuce. Further, only 10 per cent could recognise a leek, and just one in five knew what an avocado looked like."

Dose this newspaper think that we are so narrow minded that we think that children dose not have an imagination or that they might of looked like something else. These are kids for goodness sake. All that they really need to know is what is good for them and what is not so good for them. Also to know what is a healthy amount. We don't need to worry if the kids knows the names of the fruit and vegetables.

We are already trying to shovel information into there minds by the bucket full. With trying to teach them sex education at primary school, teaching them a foreign language from the moment they are born and emotional and behavioural management from the moment they step into school.

It finally says,

“It’s vital we equip future generations with the skills and knowledge to make good nutritional choices and this begins with getting them cooking.”

So this company (what ever it might be) thinks that being able to name fruit and vegetables will equip children in making better choices in the future. To be honest, I don't want to bore you any more with my ranting and moaning with the amount of rubbish in this article. I shall leave you to make up your own mind.

The article is titled,

The youngsters who mix up their veg: Half cannot distinguish between a cucumber and a courgette, in the Daily Mail.