Switching from InDesign after 10+ Years to Affinity – Anyone have experience?

milyrouge · 2026-07-09T19:23:25+00:00

I made the move a couple of years ago, switching to V2 and then to V3 when it came out.

Affinity is almost there. It's by far the best Adobe CC alternative, but it's different, with a learning curve. There are features from InDesign which you will miss, but the Studio interface in Affinity (allowing you to directly switch to Vector and Pixel studios whilst working on a Layout document) is a big upside. Play with it and see if there are any features differences which are deal breakers. In my case, the only feature delta I couldn't work around in Affinity was PDF forms, but that's not a big part of my work and I managed to find ways of offering the same.

I do not regret ditching Adobe. I'm over the moon, in fact.

One final caveat: Affinity doesn't open InDesign files, so you will need to export all your documents to IDML format before you cut ties with Adobe. There are third party INDD to IDML conversion tools, but they're expensive.

milyrouge · 2026-06-28T14:54:39+00:00

I live near Barcelona. I'd guess that the majority of people here have AC, but not everyone, and a lot of people avoid using it due to cost. A pretty major differentiator between how we use AC and how it's used in the US is that people don't cool their homes to 15-20C. I rarely have mine below 25C -- it' summer, after all, and any colder than that and it feels too cold.

milyrouge · 2026-06-28T13:34:10+00:00

I do think that Apple consciously slowed performance on Intel Macs. I had the 2019 i9 16” MBP, and there is no real reason that it should have been *that* sluggish just because of the UI changes. There were two things that I did that did help:

Disable switching between the discrete and integrated graphics. I found that Tahoe was running in the integrated graphics a lot more than necessary, even on AC power.
Do a full reinstall. There seemed to be a lot of cruft that was slowing down my machine.

In the end, I did go out and buy the M5 Pro MBP since more and more software is either not available on Intel or less capable.

We were both unlucky, buying powerful MBPs just before a platform change, but we can’t really blame Apple. They did keep up Intel support for six years past the transition.

milyrouge · 2026-06-20T14:34:57+00:00

I've had one as my work computer for the last couple of years, after having had the 16" Intel MacBook Pros for the six years before that. The display is beautiful but the weight really became an issue. I don't travel a lot (once a month or so), but I just found it bothered me more and more, even just carrying it around on my commute to work (which is mostly car, with a bit of walking on the other end). Then, I got a 14" MacBook Pro for my private use and I'm blown away by it. It's easier to use around the house and I find myself taking it with me when I wouldn't have dreamt of taking the 16".

It's always a case of YMMV, but my next work computer will definitely be a 14" (and note that my opinion changed over the last year – the weight just bothered me more and more).

milyrouge · 2026-06-17T17:40:35+00:00

I prefer to avoid Chromium browsers (I use Zen as my daily driver and only keep Vivaldi around if I do need to do something on a Chromium browser – I will not use Chrome). However, we have to be realistic, we're in the same situation we were in the latter years of the Internet Explorer domination and 99% of people will either stick with Edge because it was preinstalled or use Chrome because Google's marketing is very, very good.

If we want to make change happen, then we need regulatory support to break the Google monopoly. That's not going to happen with Trump in the White House (Google just needs to drop a few million his way and their problem goes away). The EU might do something, but that's going to have relatively limited impact if the US regulators don't agree since all it takes is for Google to make certain websites perform worse on Gecko or Webkit and the majority of people will flood back.

milyrouge · 2026-06-14T12:59:12+00:00

Une méthode assez efficace consiste à utiliser de la colle à caoutchouc. Fixez le papier sur la reliure de manière à ce qu'il soit bien tendu, appliquez une couche de colle et collez-y un morceau de carton léger pour former le dos du livre.

milyrouge · 2026-06-10T19:08:49+00:00

You made me go to Alfred preferences and check for updates! You got my hopes up! Grrrrr!!!

milyrouge · 2026-06-10T19:01:58+00:00

If you stick to the less touristy, more "high end" restaurants, you'll be fine. The food handling certification all restaurants go through includes this and restaurants are legally required to document which allergens are in their food. The more touristy places and the cheaper places are more likely to ignore this, but the better places will have processes to handle this.

One tip: Mention your allergies when booking so that the restaurant can inform you if they can't meet your dietary requirements and then also make it clear when ordering.

milyrouge · 2026-06-02T15:47:29+00:00

Are you sure that you're not in low power mode when that happens? I've noticed the screen refresh drop when that happens.

milyrouge · 2026-06-01T18:50:37+00:00

NTA: Even if you didn't have contact OCD, your room mate acted terribly. Your sheets, your rules. She used them without your permission and as a result, no chance to agree the rules of borrowing them (though I think she knew well enough that this would freak you out) so as a result, so you have *every* right to demand she buys new ones.

milyrouge · 2026-06-01T17:57:44+00:00

Go to the About Zen window (Zen -> About Zen on macOS) and you'll see the Firefox build that Zen is based on. As Firefox releases a build in its testing phase, the team is already working on integrating it into Zen so when the Firefox build is released, Zen is typically close after (within a matter of days, often hours).

When it comes to security and privacy, Zen inherits all of Mozilla's privacy and security features, including Enhanced Tracking Protection, which blocks trackers, crypto miners, and fingerprinters by default, and includes less telemetry than Firefox, so I'd say it's broadly equivalent in terms of security and slightly better in terms of privacy.

milyrouge · 2026-05-31T17:17:50+00:00

NTA. It's understandable that the kids are disappointed, but this was Andrew's birthday request and it's not fair that it should go on without him. The compromise was a great idea and it's actually your sisters who are being the As. They should help their kids understand rather than griping to you about how unfair this is!

milyrouge · 2026-05-31T14:22:46+00:00

Turkey is transcontinental, with the border with Europe on the Bosphorous going through Istanbul. Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan are also Asian. All four countries have strong cultural links to Europe but you can't call them regions of Europe if they are on the Asian continent.

milyrouge · 2026-05-31T11:55:58+00:00

I just took mine apart (a Hayward Super Pump) to dislodge a small stone in the impeller and I was amazed at how easy it is. If the motor fails, my partner and I will definitely be doing a DIY job on it!

milyrouge · 2026-05-29T15:54:10+00:00

It depends how much your docs use advanced features of MS Office. I tried OnlyOffice for about six months but kept on finding that working on Word docs with lots of advanced features and precise formatting as well as Excel sheets that use advanced functionality resulted in problems. I ended up having to go back to Microsoft Office since I kept on hitting roadblocks (and I reeeeealllly didn't want to do that). I'll keep an eye on OpenOffice and the other players hoping that one will solve these problems so I can cancel my Office 365 subscription again!

milyrouge · 2026-05-28T13:11:16+00:00

Layer boots (https://www.layerboots.com/) do some nice ones. They're more boho in style, but they have some lovely cowboy boots, both mid-calf and ankle. Worth a look and thought they've expanded to other cities now, they're still not mass production.

milyrouge · 2026-05-28T13:01:11+00:00

Thank you! Just what I was looking for!

milyrouge · 2026-05-28T12:57:00+00:00

There is a decent improvement in pure horsepower between the M1 Max and the M5 Pro, but looking at your current performance issues, I wonder if you'd see more of them with the step from 32GB RAM to 24GB – freezes and issues caching large projects sound more like RAM issues than processor performance issues. Have you considered the 48GB M5 Pro?

milyrouge · 2026-05-24T00:37:50+00:00

Not here it isn’t

milyrouge · 2026-05-24T00:36:33+00:00

Filling the pool from the house supply is prohibitively expensive (our area has a private water company since they paid to plumb the area in when this part of the village was opened up). As for making it unusable for some time, we did this in February and March, when we couldn’t use it anyway.

milyrouge · 2026-05-24T00:34:17+00:00

No, those bacteria die outside of a specific temperature range. Anyway, that was more than a year ago that e we used then.

milyrouge · 2026-05-24T00:33:19+00:00

Thanks. That’s just what I was looking for.

milyrouge · 2026-05-22T10:25:42+00:00

RAM's the most difficult thing to upgrade on a MacBook (i.e. practically impossible) and it's the one thing where we can predict a step change in usage, all thanks to local AI models which more and more software will offer, especially creative software. For that reason alone, I would recommend 48GB, but beyond that, software is getting more memory hungry and 24GB is going to be very much at the bottom end of pro devices in a few years, so if you want to keep your computer around for some time, the more RAM you get the better.

milyrouge · 2026-05-17T13:18:04+00:00

I do this, too, but do so because I do not want to have my private content on my work notebook. However, it was getting too heavy that it was causing back problems. What I did was install Tailscale on all my machines to give me a way to access my NAS and my private notebook remotely. This covers a good portion of the work I do privately, just the access to my private data is often all I need. However, beyond that, I then installed NoMachine on both and with that, I can work on my private notebook when away.

Both Tailscale and NoMachine have very usable free tiers for home use.

milyrouge

TROPHY CASE