Another Thanksgiving

We'll, another Thanksgiving has passed. This year went better than prior years. That can be directly attributed to my very supporting and understanding wife and having my boys with me.

iPod Touch

Hey, these things are pretty damed cool except for the damed keyboard...

Dear Facebook

My friend Gretchen Peck wrote this open letter to Facebook regarding their new terms and conditions.

Dear Facebook,

Like so many former lovers who let me down over the years, you have followed suit. Oh, I did love you. I was vested in our relationship, unlike you—you, who continually changed the rules of the game on me. First there was the whole “that was the old me; this is the new me” identity crisis you went through. And yet, I stayed with you. I embraced the new you, as challenging as that transition may have been for us.

Then you let me down by promising a new and improved you. You gave me chat capabilities, but I quickly realized that your version of chat wasn’t all that great. For no reason at all, you boot me offline, go frigid and freeze up on me. Maybe that was when my love for you really started to wane.

Oh, it wasn’t all doom and gloom. We had our good times, too. Like when you helped me reconnect with some great friends with whom I’d sadly lost touch with over the years since high school and college. And you made me feel special, like I had real flair. And you even listened to me when I complained that my online world was becoming so complicated, with the convergence of friends and business associates—and you gave me the ability to speak directly to each of those communities individually.

You were always non-judgmental when I’d go on a rant and write for days about whatever happened to be irritating me in that moment. And you didn’t mind when I cyber-stalked a few ex-boyfriends. Yes, we’ve had some good times.

But then you betrayed me, yet again. And this time, I may be at my breaking point. For you changed your terms and conditions. Now, I’m not naïve, dear Facebook. I know that the cyber world is a cruel one, that nothing is ever really private in the online world. Publish at your own risk. I get that. I knew that all those secrets and memories I’ve shared here were fair game, on public display, and subject to cyber pirates at any time. But I always had the opportunity to walk away, to say to you, I don’t want to be in this relationship anymore, and we had an agreement that you wouldn’t use what I’ve told you against me. It was a code of conduct we shared.

But you’ve gone back on your word. It’s as though you’ve said to me, “You can leave me, but I’m going to sell your story to the tabloids.” I cancel my account with you, and yet you still retain the rights to any and all of the content I’ve shared with you during our tumultuous relationship?” Just what are you going to do with my story? Sell it? Repackage it? Make money from it? Blackmail me with it? It’s cheap, a low blow, and for this, I may never forgive you.

Sincerely, Gretchen

The tongue is mightier than the pen

Whomever said that the pen is mightier than the sword obviously had not been privileged enough to be on the receiving end of a verbal assault. Nothing cuts deeper than words said in anger and spite by the ones we love. Such battles should not be fought with or against children.

Time may heal all wounds but the scars never go away. I only hope that the innocent victims heal sooner rather than later and that they regain their innocence. It is the duty of us bystanders to protect the innocent and help them to heal.

Artwork-Systems User Group

I was watching a thread on a forum where people were talking about creating a Artwork-Systems user group. I asked if people would join if I created one. They said yes. And then there was.

Now the user group that I started is not an officially sanctioned user group. It's one of those grass roots efforts. I'm hoping that it will become a sanctioned user group. I get the impression that the community at large would like to have one.

Being unofficial means that Artwork-Systems may not be too happy with it. I can understand that. I do have a few basic rules for it. No bashing vendors or users. We're all adults here. I don't take it from my two sons so why would I take it from adults? Topics need to stay focused on the topic at hand. If you want to kick back and relax there is a cafe section where you can do just that with your favorite java or a Stella Artois. Anyone is free to sign up but account activation is a manual process. I verify all account applications. So fill out those profiles so I can approve the application in a timely manner.

Check here for a bit information: http://artworksusergroup.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1&Itemid=1

If you want to sign up for the forums visit http://www.artworksusergroup.com / forums/

I hope to see you there!

PDF is for you

Well I've gone and done it again...

I have started to compile information, useful and practical, information on PDF and what it means to you on my newest website. "You" being those concerned with creating and sending PDFs for various needs such as basic communications, PDF/A for archiving, PDF/E for engineering, PDF/H for health care and PDF/X for graphic arts. I hope to have a wiki going soon with the help of the PDF community. I would love to have your participation. I would also love to see a vendor or two get behind this and help with supplying content. The ultimate goal is to consolidate as much of the PDF, PDF/A,E,H & X information floating around the internet into one focused spot. If you would like to volunteer your time and assistance I would love to hear from you. I promise to keep the site advertising free as long as I can afford to.

New printing forums

Well I've gone and done it. I went and built my own bulletin board finally. I really hadn't planned on doing it any time soon. But since my sites were deleted from their then host, by accident, I figured now or never. So I invite you all to come by and join. I'm happy to make vendor specific forums, topic specific or group specific (including private) forums.

I'm not looking to steal users from Printplanet, Prepressforums.com or the plethora of vendor run lists/boards. Just an another place to discuss things. Being a family and business friendly site, my two sons have their own private boards here, I ask that the content be kept professional and PG rated. I don't need anyone getting in trouble with corporate content filters or with moms and dads.

But do make sure that you visit printplanet and prepressforums.com and sign up. They're great places to get information.

Traveling about and other ramblings from a sleepy traveler

So here I am, it's 2:43 in the morning body time and I'm on way way home
from a customer site. I'm not quite sure where I am right now. Probably
somewhere over western Montana. Which just happens to be where I am supposed
to be leaving for in about thirty six hours. I'll be lucky to see my kids
for twenty four of those thirty six hours (ten of which I'll be sleeping)
and my girlfriend for just a couple of hours at best. I almost feel like a
golf ball being blasted from one end of the course, the country in this
case, to the other and then half way across and back again for good measure.
Where's the sleeping pill when you need it? Maybe I need a good belt of some
fine whiskey like Makers Mark to knock me out. Of course all I an ever find
on a plane when I need to sleep is that crummy Jack Daniels. But I digress

Last Sunday I left to come to a customers site in Virginia for a
installation and training. We were putting in a workflow to automate the
receiving of art, customer email notification, automated file processing of
PDF's and other art. It was a tough week. It wasn't that the work was
"hard", it's never "easy", but it was just a long week of sleeping in
hotels. I had been working with this customer for several months and it was
nice to finally meet him. He's a very hospitable host. Tough and demanding
but a good guy with a tough job.

This Sunday I'll be heading off to another trip to Montana, different city
and client though. I'm very excited by the possibilities here. This company
is *very* well run, a high volume operation, and a already efficient
operation. So this should prove to be very interesting. I had a interesting
occurrence on the plane while we sat at the gate for an hour waiting for our
food to arrive. You ever notice how everything at O'Hare is slow when it
comes to the ground crews? Makes one wonder if the tail is wagging the dog
or what. One of the gentlemen that I am sitting next to got to talking about
our difficult day of traveling. Both gentlemen began their trips very early
in the morning back in eastern Europe. One of them is an engineer and we got
to talking about what each of us do. He works on power plants, I work with
PDF's. So we got to talking a bit about that and how publishers like to use
it. Like the airline magazine we were looking at. And then it struck me,
there's an ad for the client I'm visiting next week. I was thinking to
myself "Where in the heck *don't* these people advertise?". I'm hoping to
get some free time so I can go see Yellowstone. I guess I will be quite
close.

A couple of words of advice on travel here real quick. Always make sure you
check in 24 hours ahead of time and print two copies of your ticket. When
ever you can get "Economy-Plus" on United, take it! It was a real life save
on this trip. It is definitely worth the extra money for the leg room. I'm
short guy, only 5'7, but the extra five inches was so nice. The porters and
gate agents can be a real good friend too. I tipped the porter a bit "extra"
in Seattle to get a first class boarding jacket so I could bypass a very
long security line and get to the front of it. The gate agents in Dulles and
Chicago were real good to me with a little bit of patience and gratitude.
Not only did they get me off standby and on the plane but they got me the
Economy Plus seat I had paid for on the initial flight. Long story here...
Suffice it to say I missed my non stop flight and had to take to hops to get
home. I was really worried that I'd get stuck in cattle-car seating back by
the bathroom again. So a little kindness and patience will go far with
people who don't normally get treated well. I found out first hand that
being a smart ass to a gate agent is a sure way to get on the plane last. If
the woman had just bit her tongue and not been a smart ass there might not
have been a "glitch" with her ticket when trying to board. I'm not sure if
it was a computer error or operator error. But the wink I got as I walked
passed her leads me to believe it was the latter rather then the former.

So I'm looking for a server based product (hopefully hot folder driven) to
convert Word, Publisher, Excel and PowerPoint files to PDF. I'm not quite
sure where to turn. It has been an interesting research project. I don't
need anything "fancy". Just a decent PDF with fonts embedded, color (RGB is
just dandy) and one that won't down sample images too low. Windows based is
preferable. But a Mac program would be dandy too!~

A couple of weeks ago I was responding to a email post about how to merge
pre-separated PostScript or PDF. I suggested a program called PStill from
Andrew Stone and Frank Siegert ( http://www.stone.com/pstill/ ). I forwarded
the message to Andrew as a courtesy. I was surprised by his response. It's
not that I am surprised that he responded. More so it is the way that he
responded. He not only explained how to do such a thing with his software,
several different ways, but also gave out a free one week demo key for the
software. Now isn't that cool? I don't know, maybe it's just me. But I think
it was.

Okay, well I'm less than one hundred miles from home and it's almost time to
wake up for my body. God I hate these transnational flights. Especially
being an insomniac...

"Do the wont not..."