The best part of the Philippine Blog Awards 2007 was not the event itself, but what happened afterwards. And I’m not talking about the after-party.
The Adobe User Group Philippines (AUGPhil) had a local launch of the much-awaited Creative Suite 3 after the awards. It was also this month’s meetup for its members. The highlight of the meeting, though, was the raffling off of a CS3 bundle itself, worth $1,199.
Now I wasn’t planning on attending the meeting because even though I had been lurking in the mailing list for a while now, I knew I hadn’t signed up as a member of AUGPhil. Imagine my surprise when Regnard, the president, asked me to join the meeting and told me that I was actually a member. I forgot that I was a member—no, really, to this moment I can’t find anything in my brain nor in my inbox that could prove I was. But he told me he knew I was on the members list and that I should join them anyway.
The Meeting
We went through member introductions, project prospects, and other announcements until it was time for the giveaway portion. (Regnard had also offered free Starbucks coffee courtesy of Adobe but everybody declined.) We all got Adobe ballpens and Bob Reyes won the Adobe tumbler.
Finally, the big one. Regnard draws a piece of paper, walks a few steps to read the name, returns to sit down, and announces, “And the winner… is none other than the person who did not know she is a member.”
These things that test one’s “luck” never end up in favor of me—see, the Blog Awards gave away so many raffle prizes (like those Krispy Kreme boxes or that Nokia 3230), yet I did not win any of those. But this time, I finally won something. And it was a prize I really, really wanted.
The AUGPhil website has an entry about the meetup. Azrael has three videos on it.
Caveats
First, I haven’t brought home anything yet; Adobe CS3 will officially ship next month.
Second, I have to choose between the two standard editions of the suite: Design Standard and the Web Standard:
Adobe CS3 Design Standard
- Adobe InDesign CS3
- Adobe Photoshop CS3
- Adobe Illustrator CS3
- Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional
- Adobe Bridge CS3
- Adobe Version Cue CS3
- Adobe Device Central CS3
- Adobe Stock Photos
- Adobe Acrobat Connect
Adobe CS3 Web Standard
- Adobe Dreamweaver CS3
- Adobe Flash CS3 Professional
- Adobe Fireworks CS3
- Adobe Contribute CS3
- Adobe Bridge CS3
- Adobe Version Cue CS3
- Adobe Device Central CS3
- Adobe Stock Photos
- Adobe Acrobat Connect
They segregated the online and offline design tools! But the Design Standard edition seems more attractive because it contains the heart of Adobe’s product line: Photoshop and Illustrator. Add InDesign, successor of PageMaker and indispensable tool during my Parser newspaper publishing days, and I’ll feel invincible from then on.
Of course I can’t help noticing how different the look and feel of the Creative Suite packaging is compared to its blocky though equally colorful icons. I knew Adobe was a lot more artistic than that.
What About The Blog Awards?
I’ve been sick and disconnected the past few days; hence I have lost my momentum to list down all nits I picked during the awards. But I promised myself to write about the AUGPhil meeting. It’s more than gloating (ha!); I’m half-guilty about the whole thing (I said sorry to everyone I shook hands with when the meeting adjourned) but I also picked up some enthusiasm about helping the group. And this post is a start!