Freedom from (activation) Tyranny

A few months ago, I attended a journalist's training session at Adobe's San Jose, California, headquarters.

During that three-day event, at which Adobe covered airfare, hotel, and other expenses, a constant litany of positive comments about the Adobe Creative Cloud was met with skepticism and "what if?" questions, especially regarding activation and ongoing "check-in" status by each Creative Suite program.

Adobe representatives assured the most vocal of us, myself included, that our worries' about readers' potential activation issues when abroad or off-line were either unfounded or--at least--too much worry about scenarios that would never arise.

When I posited about an issue of going offline for a month, as was similar to a trip I took to Africa in late 2011, I was told the Internet connectivity requirement would only be an issue at the initial use of product. adobe stated that a seven-day grace period would ensue, after initial activation, and that it would be thirty days AFTER activation before another check occurred.

I was skeptical then, even after two separate in-depth discussions, because it's too much to expect that the team creating the "piracy abatement" solution of applications "phoning home" every 30 days could think of every use case.

Today, I got bit, hard, by the very issue I raised.

After downloading and activating on a Mac Mini before leaving the US on June 25, I launched Photoshop while online to confirm it would work. It did.

I then disconnected the machine and hand-carried it to Ossenzijl, a small town on the Friesland province border in the northeastern Netherlands. No Internet connection at the rental house, in fact no open network anywhere within a three-mile radius, and that connection is on a street corner across from the only grocery store.

Opened Photoshop yesterday and it worked with fine. No warnings or errors.
Opened it today and was met with this message: cannot activate, you need an Internet connection to activate.

Seriously, Adobe, what are you thinking?! Three weeks of work opportunity shot to hell because of a draconian policy. Give me the real applications, not this Creative Cloud bait-and-switch crap.

Guess it's time to go back to iPhoto and iMovie.

Tim