CreativeTechs

Need Help?

206-682-4315

CreativeTechs
CreativeTechs
CreativeTechs

The 10 Most Popular Tech Tips So Far.

Tech01.gifTech02.gifTech03.gifTech04.gifTech05.gif
Tech06.gifTech07.gifTech08.gifTech09.gifTech10.gif

Each week we bring you a pair of creative and tech tips drawn directly from our real-world experience supporting hundreds of Mac-based creative teams across the greater Seattle area. Take a moment to peruse the most visited tech tips over the last year.

Tech #1: Change Microsoft Office’s serial number, Easy!

Tech #2: Avoid serial number headaches with CS3!

Tech #3: Set default applications in Mac OS X.

Tech #4: My Mac Won’t Start! A Tiny Guide.

Tech #5: Six free Internet speed test sites.

Tech #6: Mac OS X Shortcuts! A Tiny Guide.

Tech #7: What is a good microphone for podcasting?

Tech #8: Garbled Fonts Troubleshooting Guide.

Tech #9: Reset a lost Mac OS X password.

Tech #10: Fold your own iPhone today.

Read More
May 19, 2008
0

Marketing with Email Newsletters. A Seattle Workshop.

Interested in learning more about using email newsletters as a marketing tool for your clients, or your own studio? We are offering a special Seattle workshop on May 28th: Marketing with HTML Email Newsletters. There are only a few slots left, so if you are interested in attending, sign up today. REGISTER

Read More
May 18, 2008
0

Build an Acrobat PDF Slideshow.

Say you must produce a looping slideshow of images for a client’s tradeshow booth — but you don’t have many technical details. You know the images will be displayed on a HDTV connected to a Windows laptop. You don’t know what software will be installed, or what image formats that laptop might support. Luckily, you […]
Read More
May 12, 2008
0

Should You Host Your Own Email Server?

Email-Hosting.png

Ten years ago, we were installing a lot of mail servers for design firms and advertising agencies across the greater Seattle area. Today, however, we rarely recommend our clients host their own mail servers.

Why the change? Email has become the key tool for conducting business. Creative teams are accessing email away from the office with laptops, webmail, and (increasingly) iPhones. And most significantly, fighting spam has become a full-time job.

In short, if you own an independent creative studio, there is one good reason to have your email handled by a dedicated hosting company: They’ll probably do a better job than you.

Read More
May 12, 2008
0

Leopard vs. InDesign: Crashes on Open, Import, Export, Save and Print.

One of the more frustrating Leopard-vs-InDesign issues we’re seeing at clients is a bug that causes frequent crashing when using InDesign CS3’s Open, Place, Import, Export, or Save dialog boxes. Designers may also experience these particular symptoms while re-linking graphics as well as printing files. Until Adobe or Apple fixes this issue, we have an […]
Read More
May 5, 2008
0

Leopard vs. InDesign: Can’t Hide InDesign.

A common Leopard-vs-InDesign complaint we hear from designers is not being able to hide InDesign, either from the InDesign menu or by pressing Command-H. And worse, if you can get InDesign to hide, you can’t get it back. Happily this problem can usually be fixed by deleting the InDesign preference file.
Read More
May 5, 2008
0

Proof your email designs in different email clients.

Seasoned graphic designers wouldn’t dream of sending a print project to press without first approving an accurate proof. Your client’s email marketing campaign should be no different. You need to be sure you know what your design looks like on the different email clients your readers might be using. Unless you have a studio filled […]
Read More
April 28, 2008
0

Save Word 2008 files as DOC instead of DOCX.

If you’ve updated to the new Mac version of Microsoft Office 2008, you may have noticed Word now saves files in Microsoft’s new DOCX format. The problem is, just as Windows users found, not everyone can open this new file format yet. The easy way to prevent compatibility problems with colleagues and co-workers is to […]
Read More
April 28, 2008
0

Ted Padova’s 101 PDF Forms Tips.

We’ve been mining for Acrobat tips in preparation for Jason Hoppe’s upcoming workshop on Building PDF Forms. This week, we’d like to link to the mother lode of PDF Forms tips: 101 PDF Forms Tips.pdf Ted Padova, author of the Acrobat Bible, has created this free 55-page document that covers some of his most frequent […]
Read More
April 21, 2008
0

Change your Adobe CS3 serial number.

CS3-SerialNumber-Erase.gif

Managing serial numbers is a headache in almost every creative studio. If you have more than 3 designers on a network, someone has to take responsibility for keeping track of which serial numbers belong on which computers.

Creativetechs recommends that creative teams stop buying single-user copies of CS3. For the same cost, your studio can get a site license with a single serial number for your entire team. Here’s our tip from last year:

Transactional Licensing: Avoid serial number headaches with CS3!

But back to today’s tip: What if you are using a single-user copy of CS3, and you need to change which serial number is installed on a particular computer? It turns out Adobe makes changing the serial number easy as can be. No need to uninstall and reinstall software if you know where this “Erase my serial number” checkbox is located.

Read More
April 21, 2008
0

© 2025 The Mac Men LLC, DBA CreativeTechs Support.