What's with this oversimplification of user interface in apps? I want progress info!

I really do not like that some Apple Apps do no display progress. New to the list, the App Store now does not show any progress when installing/updating.

Here is the App Store, I'm updating FCPX and it shows no progress whatsoever,  NOTHING.

Meanwhile, Launchpad displays Progress nicely. The slider, and "Downloading, 88MB of 150MB." Great!

Is this too much to ask? 

What is off limits to commercial photography? A lot! - An Adobe Stock list

Adobe Stock has a great list of restricted subjects. Ouch, it's a long list! And it's a sea of NO.

https://helpx.adobe.com/stock/contributor/legal/known-image-restrictions.html

Media files disappearing from Adobe Premiere Pro 2017.1 - Fixed in v. 11.1.1

Update:
Adobe has addressed the bug and fixed it in v. 11.1.1 of the software. So update!

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I haven't experience this bug, thank you very much, but be warned!

Click these links below and read on and act appropriately in order not to loose them precious files. Hopefully Adobe will discover the problem and issue a fix soon.

This news come at a time when I have been thinking of storing all apps caches onto a separate SSD to speed up things. Well, good thing I haven't implemented that plan yet.

Another reminder to always have a backup up-to-date.

Be wary of the Media Cache!

http://www.newsshooter.com/2017/05/10/adobe-premiere-pro-version-2017-1-users-reporting-media-files-completely-disappearing/

https://forums.adobe.com/message/9503050#9503050

How to mark all messages in a Gmail mailbox as read

Gmail allows you to mark emails as read only on one page worth at a time. Infuriating if you have a backlog of unread messages in your mailbox - as I do.

How to mark ALL messages in the mailbox as read at once?

Easy:

Select All or Unread messages on the page, at which point you will see a little message at the top of the list: "All XX conversations on this page are selected. Select all YYY conversations in "MailBox"

Click on this "link": Select all YYY conversations in "MailBox"

At that point you will see the message: All YYY conversations in "MailBox" are selected. Clear selection

Now that all messages are selected, click on More/Mark As Read.

Confirm the bulk action...

Done.

How to Copy and Paste keyframes from Object to Group in Apple Motion

You might think that's not possible to copy keyframes from an object to another object or a Group in Motion, but it is totally doable.

The trick is to first Select the Object in the Keyframe editor. By default it is not selected and the Paste function does not work.

Keyframes added on the Circle Object

Select all (Command A) and Copy (Command C)

Trying to Paste to a different Group or Object (Command V), nothing happens :((, no Keyframes added. That's because you must first select the Group or Object.

First Select the Group, then Paste, Boom! Keyframes added.

First Select the Rectangle Object, then Paste... Wham! Keyframes added!

How to Fade in/out completely with Ramp Behavior applied to a Bezier Shape in Motion 5.3.2

If you've applied a Fade in/out to an Bezier Shape that also has a Ramp Behavior you will notice that the Fade does not start at 0 and does not end at 0. In other words, the Bezier Shape is still visible on the first and last frame.

See below, I have a Bezier Shape with a Ramp and a Fade in/out applied to it.

Without a Ramp Offset, the Fade does not start at 0 = my Shape (Arrow in the Viewer) is still visible on the first frame

In order to start with the Shape completely invisible on the first frame and disappear entirely on the last frame you must adjust the Ramp Behavior by adding one frame at the Start Offset and End Offset.

With a Ramp Offset of 1, the Fade starts at 0 = my Shape is invisible on the first frame in the Viewer.

Detail of the Start and End Offsets for the Ramp Properties.

Why is Vimeo Player so sluggish and unresponsive???

Vimeo, please address your Player sluggish behavior ASAP. It's unbelievable how slow and unresponsive the Vimeo Player is right now.

Often one wants to pause and back a little to replay something that one didn't catch right away. IMPOSSIBLE at the moment, as Vimeo player gets stuck into limbo. The smallest click backward will freeze the whole thing.

It's incredible frustrating, we shouldn't have to buffer the entire video to be able to swing forward and backward with ease, its 2017. Please make it better, please!

How to upgrade to Avid Media Composer 8.8.2 - Part4

Allright, then onto Canon for updated AMA plug-ins.

Of course I am not able to download anything from the Canon USA page that Avid links to ...

The drop down menu on the right is not operative for me. What? Is it my browser?

OK fine, direction: Canon Europe.  What?!... Five software available...

1) AMA Raw

2) Mac OS X Raw

3) Canon LUTs

4) XF Plug-in for FCPX

5) XF Utility for MacOS X.

Alright grabbing the whole lot, but I will refrain from installing anything at this point.

Next step is loading my collection of camera footage to see what works and what doesn't. Until next time.

How to upgrade to Avid Media Composer 8.8.2 - Part3

Finally, I am able to launch AMC, and what's that? The Sony AMA plug-ins need an update. Alright.

"The AMA plug-ins that provide support for Sony XDCAM, XAVC, HDCAM-SR and SonyRAW are now being developed by nablet. Please uninstall the Sony AMA plug-ins and download/install the tablet AMA plug-ins from Avid.com/ama"

Recap of my installed AMA plug-ins in the console window:

OK then, FYI the AMA plug-ins live here:
MacHD/Library/Application Support/Avid/AVX_2Plug-ins/AMA

I'm moving the SonyXDCAM.avx and MVP_SonyXDCAMEX.avx to my "Old & Obsolete AMA Plug-ins" folder.

Then go to: http://avid.force.com/pkb/articles/en_US/Download/en394827 to download the new plug-ins.

Oh boy!

Landing page on nablet.com. Three plug-ins to choose from: XAVC-XDCAM, the one I'm interested in, also HDCAM-SSR and Sony RAW.

(Note to self: another possible point of failure?... Or an improvement? Time will tell.)

OK, downloading the goodies, and installing.

Four new plug-ins added.

And there you go, nablet AMA plug-ins for Sony.

How to upgrade to Avid Media Composer 8.8.2 - Part2

Allright, so the installation finally went through, firing up the software... And here we go again with the stupid "This software was released past your contract expiration date (12/1/2016) Please go to Avid Support Website for more details".

The lovely message, thanks Avid.

Just like a year and a half ago... I have a PERPETUAL plan, my contract expires on 12/1/2017. I don't know what to say.

So I'm signing out, restarting. Waiting for the Application Manager to do its thing... Be patient.

Alright, now deactivating and reactivating... Be patient.

Signing-in again, waiting for the account to synchronize... Be patient.

Firing-up the App, and... SUCCESS!!!

How to upgrade to Avid Media Composer 8.8.2 - Part1

Avid has a new look for the Application Manager (v. 17.4.0):

New look for AAM

I had problems before with AAM and had to download the installers from my Avid Master Account instead. See this post.

This time however, the installer takes forever to verify, showing no progress it seems that it is stuck. I'm not sure why.

Installer downloaded from Avid Master Account stuck there for over a minute. Be patient it will open eventually.

Anyway, not a big deal, I believe it should just work fine if you use AAM to download and install the update.

One thing that I do not like with using AAM is that Avid is hiding the actual installers from you, and after installation it deletes the installer automatically from your drive without asking for permission. Tss, tss.

So FYI Avid downloads the installers in: MacHD/Library/Caches/Avid/Downloads

Avid is hiding the installer files in here.

Before you hit the "Install" or "Update" button though, copy the installer to another location on your drive, this way you will still have a copy after installation is completed.

One thing I always do is to Uninstall AMC before installing a new version:

Run Uninstall first, then run Install.

Here we go again with another verifying window that seem to be stuck, showing no progress. Again be patient, it takes a couple minutes.

Why you need to be patient when updating to Adobe Premiere Pro 2017.1

After finally updading the Adobe App Manager, I updated Premiere - now at v. 2017.1

It's all good for me, old projects (v. 2017) need to be converted and saved for the new version:

I still have this "Audio Filter Obsolete" recurrent message from previous PP version as I started this particular project with PP 2015, but the EQ still works, so I won't bother with it at this point:

It took several minutes to load all the media for this project, (approximately 5000 items, mix of video, sound, still images, and graphics; 250GB worth.) Premiere displays progression stats at the bottom of the screen. Until all media is loaded, you might experience the "Media Offline" on-screen message, so be patient.