Better late than never . . .

I have been laying out a book in Arabic using Adobe InDesign CS2 Middle Eastern version (IDCS2 ME) which handles Arabic text and fonts from right to left. The upgrade for the Middle Eastern version costs between $600.00 and $800.00 but I was able to upgrade for $399.00 from Aramedia.com.

I am very pleased how more snappy and efficient IDCS2 is compared to IDCS1. I also like how it lets you create soft drop shadows as fat and as dark as Photoshop – something that IDCS1 could not do. I wish I purchased this upgrade a year ago but now my upgrade expense is going towards the higher purchase price of the Middle Eastern version which handles English/Roman text and fonts, from left to right, just fine. I also found out my free update (v3.1.4) for my installation of Font Reserve is compatible with IDSC2 and Mac OS X Tiger. Retrospect Network Client v.5.0.540 is compatible with Tiger so my move up to Tiger turned out to be less costly than I expected.

I am a "late-adopter" or a user of "trailing-edge" technology. After reading forums concerning Mac OS X Tiger this past year, it looks like this most recent OS optimizes everything from an old slot loading G3 iMac to any G4, or G5, substantially more than Panther as long as you have at least 1GB of RAM installed. So far I have installed Tiger on my Sawtooth G4 file server and my mobile Titanium G4. Both machines have a GB of RAM and it appears that Tiger is faster than Panther on these two older machines.