Premedia Trends

November 21, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

I have owned a GretagMacbeth SpectroScan for ten years. It was, and is, a very handy tool for measuring color targets to make ICC profiles.

I also own an X-Rite DTP-41, which is another handy instrument for the same purpose. And, I have an iOne Pro, and a Monaco Profiler instrument.


My university recently acquired an iOne Isis spectrophotometer made by X-Rite. This one changes the rules of the ga...Read More
Industries: New Products, Premedia

November 19, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (2)

I ride my bicycle from home to school, and then I park it in my “private parking space” which is the basement storage area of the Graphic Arts Building, right behind the Shakespeare Press Museum. In that space are such treasures as stacks of old forklift batteries, rows and rows of old computers, CRT monitors, skids of paper, rolls of pressure-sensitive adhesive material, etc., etc.

And an occasional treasure!

On a shelf down there the other day I found a box of stripping tools. This is a blast from the past! It’s a snapshot of how film assembly was done a couple of decades back. That small box bears the name Mergenthaler Linotype Company. That box itself is an antique, as it once held a roll of photographic paper for the Linofilm SuperQuick phototypesetter. Linotype was in Plainview, N.Y. then, and had not moved to Hauppauge where the com...Read More
Industries: New Products, Premedia

November 19, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (4)

Many people tout the success of Vista Print and their “free” business card printing program. And many printers envy the obvious success of Vista Print’s extensive marketing program. But, when marketing crosses the line and becomes spam, then it’s time to say “Enough already!”

VistaPrint offers free business cards to anyone who is willing to have the VistaPrint logo printed on the reverse of their cards. They will also print a host of commercial printing from online orders for pay. Their prices are very low, and they have an impressive web site offering all kinds of printed products.

The problem is that they also offer “partnership opportunities” to individuals who co-market VistaPrint’s services. This is not unlike various pyramid marketing methods used by cosmetics companies over the last two decades. ...Read More

November 11, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (1)

Once in a while I encounter a situation that really needs attention. Years ago, when I signed up for Internet service with a local supplier, I discovered that they had not restricted my access to other people’s accounts.

I typed .. (two periods in a row) one day in the directory, and was suddenly at the root of their server. I had access, seemingly, to everyone’s accounts.

I sent a note to the account administrator, who fired back a note saying that what I had done was impossible. So, I sent a note to the owner of the business, who also responded that it was impossible.

Knowing that doing this was illegal and unethical, (but concerned that if I could access all of the accounts, that someone else in their server could access mine) I went into the accounts again, opened the owner’s e-mail folder, opened one ...Read More
Industries: New Products, Premedia

November 8, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (2)

I’ve been carrying a Macintosh PowerBook since the early 1990s when they became available. I used them primarily for making presentations to audiences around the world.

My first was a PowerBook 170. It was a black and white machine with a track ball and a mouse-clicker on the front edge. It was well-made, fast enough to use on the road, and a pretty good computer for staying in touch with the world while traveling. Over the years I upgraded to the PowerBook 3400,* a machine that could present in color, and then, when they became available, a Macintosh PowerBook G4 12-inch laptop computer with the aluminum shell. I have had that one since the first few months they had been available. That was almost six years ago.

My affair with the 12-inch machine was enduring. It is small and light. I always argued that it was the size and weight of – a book. I...Read More
Industries: New Products, Premedia