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401

General Software Discussion / Re: how they create such beautiful graphics?

« Last post by steeladept on June 21, 2010, 06:48 PM »

Dude! What do you guys get paid for?   

...But please tell me you're (at least) checking for color and QC-ing for things like picking and ghosting? Or if not, then please say you're a part of some in-house print operation  and not out there charging somebody for a schlock copy print job.

Pretty please?

-40hz (June 21, 2010, 06:09 PM)

LOL...

Okay, to put your mind at ease, I will answer backwards...

1)  Yes, I do work for an internal print operation.  I am a one man shop and do everything from design (abit unofficially), setup, print, QC, package, and ship.

2)  No I don't do any color checking or any of that kind of QC.  I basically make sure it looks like the original and (maybe, if I catch it, I look at dates, names, that kind of thing - but that is outside the scope of my job and is more of a "value add" that I provide for customer service)

3)  What I get paid for is my IT skills and experience.  I was thrown in there because they they laid off all contractors and basically backfilled all empty positions with anyone that they deemed extra, which is to say if bare mimimum manning was 5 people and they had 6 or 7 (to cover vacations, busy times, etc), they cut it to 5 and used the extra 2 people to backfill.  I was one of those "extras" that was thrown into the printroom to man the printing.

3a)  That said, what most printers that I deal with (we have a lot of overflow print jobs that get outsourced so I deal with many print houses in my area) pay for is a designer that can, to a lesser extent run the printers.  They *MAY* have a specialist that schedules and runs print jobs sent to the printer, but generally the person who does the QC and finishing is also the designer who sets up the job. 

3b)  The bad news is that is not ALWAYS the case.  Where a traditional offset printing press goes digital, they often retrain the pressman to be that specialist, which means they usually end up just filling paper, scheduling and printing the jobs and handing it back to the designer.  It is a deadend job, but it does keep the outdated skilled laborer employed until retirement if they are too old to make it worth training them or just unable to grasp design.  In either case, it is cheaper than paying the unemployment and retaining, and at the same time makes for good employee relations.

Hope that puts much of your fears to rest so there are not bad nightmares. 

402

General Software Discussion / Re: AVI + SRT =>> burn a regular DVD, how to? Urgent as heck.

« Last post by steeladept on June 21, 2010, 06:20 PM »

etc., but playing the vob files in software players no subtitles are shown. Playing the folder contents as if it were the video_ts folder of a DVD, no subtitles. (in Zoom Player and in KM Player).

-tranglos (June 21, 2010, 05:48 PM)

Have you tried it in a hardware player like you want?  It may be something with the way Zoom Player and KM are working.  Just a thought before continuing...

403

General Software Discussion / Re: how they create such beautiful graphics?

« Last post by steeladept on June 21, 2010, 04:39 PM »

Inconsistent text styling. Arggghhhhh!!!!

I wish I had a nickle for the number of times I've seen that mistake slip through multiple stages of proofing.

Any good platemaker should have spotted it even if the designers didn't. And an experienced pressman should have also caught it after he pulled his first few sets of proof sheets.

-40hz (June 21, 2010, 02:48 PM)

Being thrown into the "pressman" position at work a little over a year ago now, I can say 1) very few places even have platemakers anymore because it is all digital presses, and 2) most times, by the time it gets to the press, the pressman is told it was approved, just box it and send it (in the digital press world, the designer sends it directly to the printer without anyone else's intervention.  The "pressman's" job is to ensure the printer is full of paper and the paper comes off the printer in good shape - not to proof or otherwise judge content).

That said, I can also say most designers in a printshop are also the printer as well and, well, there is a reason you have others proof your own work....

404

Living Room / Re: Only take a NO from someone who can say YES

« Last post by steeladept on June 21, 2010, 12:45 PM »

And it is my own...

-40hz (June 21, 2010, 12:37 PM)

So therefore it has got to be great, right 

405

N.A.N.Y. 2010 / Re: NANY 2010 Pre-Release: Multiboot ISO Maker Alpha 7

« Last post by steeladept on June 21, 2010, 12:35 PM »

viziare -

It is already there under screencast in the application information above.  I have never used, nor had a use for, this software, so I can't help more than that; but hopefully those screencasts will help.

406

General Software Discussion / Re: If you think OpenOffice is a competitor to MS Office 2010, think again

« Last post by steeladept on June 21, 2010, 11:31 AM »

Nice visual....

407

Living Room / Re: Only take a NO from someone who can say YES

« Last post by steeladept on June 21, 2010, 11:27 AM »

Sounds like you work for a great company that many should learn from. 

408

Living Room / Re: Only take a NO from someone who can say YES

« Last post by steeladept on June 21, 2010, 09:57 AM »

Ah yes.  That is the best outcome to be sure.  Unfortunately, that isn't the way it works often times.  I did read into your statements and consider selling the entire process whereas you were speaking strictly of the sales pitch, presumably after all the marketing and buy-in have occurred.  There is, indeed, a difference between the two. 

In my company, and I would presume in many older companies as well as egotistically run younger companies, the top often gets taken in by the fawning over them at the ego stroking that is often accompanied with sales.  They feel because they have the authority, they also have the knowledge and, therefore, don't get others involved.  Now this is often not the case as well, don't think I am overgeneralizing here, but there is a great deal of ego-stroking that tends to go into a sales process - and many manager's egos confuse authority with knowledge.  I think most salesmen know this, and many, if not most, will use this if and when they see it.  As I said, I have seen many products purchased because it is a great idea from the marketer to solve an issue the manager identifies, but that was never run past the workers to determine suitability and then ends up shelved or making issues much worse than they were without the product. 

If you don't work from the bottom up, how will you be able to identify the issues and target your products?  If you don't get the buy-in from the bottom, who will champion the product internally?  And getting back to the point, if they say No, and you don't accept it, how can you expect to have a champion or get buy-in by going through with the sales process?

With your separation of definition, I can sort of see where you are coming from; but once the No is stated, even in your definition of sale, you are in most cases alienating those very same stakeholders. The ONLY situation I can see where you are not is when the purchasing department (Money only, no authority or desire) says No, but the manager has the authority to override them and say yes.

409

Living Room / Re: (Old) Creativity is not Design - Taking the Andy Rutledge Test

« Last post by steeladept on June 21, 2010, 09:00 AM »

Without seeing the video (why does EVERYTHING seemingly have to be on YouTube anyway), I would say the premise is true.  More importantly, the inverse is true.  You can be a decent designer without any creativity whatsoever.  Usually these people are called copycats, but that doesn't change their ability to design.  Unfortunately, designers that are not creative as well are relegated to other fields as their lack of creativity is seen as a weakness and inability to design; and I don't see this as a negative because most people want original designs which necessitates creativity.  Moreover, in this sue-happy world we currently live in, lack of creativity may well mean financial disaster for any design studios that would employ these designers.  Therefore, though the premise may be true, does it really matter?  Design is often a natural talent for creative people, and can be taught for those it isn't, but how do you teach creativity?

410

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for Foldable Disposable Notepad

« Last post by steeladept on June 21, 2010, 08:50 AM »

Is this anything like the "Track Changes" feature in Word?  From your description it, sounds equivalent in effect, but implemented very differently.  In Word, they just take the original and cross out deletions and change the color of additions (edits are just a deletion and addition at the same time and are displayed as such).  In this way you can see all the changes that occur.  Each user (session) is a different color, and if you so choose, you can accept changes and make them permanent.

If this is essentially what you are looking for and want all the functionality of Word, you could essentially make your document with Track changes on.  Make changes as needed.  When you are ready to publish, or whatever, you can accept changes if you wish.  What is nice about this option is you can print the document as is (without changes showing), with changes showing, or you can accept certain changes and deny other ones and print the revised copy (though I should say you may want to save a duplicate copy first so changes denied don't get lost).

If this is not what you are looking for at all, well, sorry - I tried 

411

General Software Discussion / Re: Should we merge the complaints and compliments section into other section?

« Last post by steeladept on June 21, 2010, 07:15 AM »

Personally, I don't care either way. I generally read by looking at the new posts regardless of where it is on the forum. It is only when I start a new post, from scratch, that I even look at the categories. I wouldn't be surprised if that is the way most people view this forum. Because of this, I don't know that it will achieve your purposes of reducing "liability" as it were, but it would make the category harder to find for the casual complainer.

412

Living Room / Re: install win7 32 or 64 bit on a 4 gig ram machine - opinions, please.

« Last post by steeladept on June 21, 2010, 06:16 AM »

Probably needs a bios update, yes.
I'm not confident to do it though.
The chances of turning it into a door stop.

-cmpm (June 21, 2010, 04:59 AM)

I have done hundreds of these now and never once turned one into a door stop.  IF you follow the directions they are actually easier to upgrade than most software.

what does this mean?

In particular make sure your memory settings are conservative.

-cmpm (June 21, 2010, 04:59 AM)

It means go into your current BIOS and reset to factory default before upgrading the BIOS.  This limits the exposure to corruption because of settings in the old BIOS being outside the parameters accepted by the new BIOS (which assumes bad hardware if it is outside the parameters - read doorstop).

413

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: WinSent - instant LAN messenger

« Last post by steeladept on June 21, 2010, 06:03 AM »

This sounds great.  My wife has been bugging me to setup Net Send at home for quite some time. She loved it in college, but I always found it more of a bother than a help. Perhaps this would work out to be a happy medium - assuming it isn't too expensive. (Can't view the website behind the firewall, so I have to wait until I get home to check out your site and offerings).

414

Living Room / Re: Only take a NO from someone who can say YES

« Last post by steeladept on June 19, 2010, 12:33 PM »

The only caveat to that is that often, the person who has the M&A are far, sometimes very far, removed from those who have the D.  Moreover, the person(s) who have the D may not like what you are pushing down their throat by woeing the person who has the money and authority.  This happens at my company all the time.  To avoid the people who don't have the money and or authority, the saleforces usually go to the top and work down.  They woe the CIO or General Manager who dictates that we make it work in our system which, by design, won't.  Granted, this doesn't affect the salesman directly who made the sale to the stupid CIO who was too important to ask his "underlings" if it will work, if it will help, and if it will be cost effective; but it leaves a very bad taste in everyone's mouth for that company even if they do have good offerings.

The end result from a successful sale is (from good to bad):

1)  You have a good win-win relationship that works for everybody (what you want)
2)  You have a sale that is passable and *May* fix a percieved problem, but causes more problems.
3)  You have a sale that is subsequently unusable and does not get used leaving a bad taste in the company's mouth about your company (even if you do have a moneyback guarantee).

The end result could be even worse on an unsuccessful sale:

1)  You could have a great product that never gets a champion (usually the end user) because they don't know it exists and/or that it is possible they could get it.  By the time they do hear about it, the decision is made and the person with authority denys any possibility of getting it because the decision was already made.

415

General Software Discussion / Re: Do you know a free HTML editor with real time preview in adjacent pane?

« Last post by steeladept on June 19, 2010, 11:14 AM »

what I meant by automatically insert HTML codes is that I'm used to an HTML editor (the old Windows version of Arachnophilia, which is truly superb) where you can customize the right-click menu such that you can, for example:

highlight text and change its size, color, make it a link, etc.

or click on a blank area and insert text or links or graphics, etc.

-HankFriedman (June 18, 2010, 11:33 PM)

Ah, thank you. Now I know what you are talking about, but I don't know of any currently developed editor that does that.  Sorry.  I just knew from your original post and some of the followon posts that VisualWebDeveloper met all those stated desires.  If Arachnophilia is not still available, I don't know that there will be any free (or even paid) version that will do everything the same as that, but I know some (VWD included) will come close.

416

DC Gamer Club / Re: Lord of the Rings Online going free..

« Last post by steeladept on June 18, 2010, 02:31 PM »

Nice to see I am not the only one who likes co-op play.  I have never been much of a PvP player online or off.  Maybe occasionally with friends, but not in general. 

417

Living Room / Re: Why do we always wait for apple's stuff before making a i[blank]-killer??

« Last post by steeladept on June 18, 2010, 12:03 PM »

The appeal of the I-Pad is primarily in the concept. The user interface helps but it is hardly made up for by what the I-Pad actually is to consumers. Something new. Something cool. Something revolutionary.

Similarly, the I-Pod is not heralded as a popular mp3 player because people primarily oogled at the interface. They oogled at the scroll wheel more. They oogled at the culture who is so in love with the I-Pod.

Even the Iphone if you took away the availability of the app store, it was oogled not because of it's interface which isn't really that perfect but because of it's touch screen capability mixed with a modern look that many phone companies at the time just weren't focusing on.

-Paul Keith (June 08, 2010, 12:26 PM)

I find it interesting that you don't consider the scroll wheel or the touch-screen interfaces.  These are, indeed, a significant - perhaps the single most significant - factors that made these devices so popular as you pointed out, but if you note, these are the "User Interface", aka. UI, elements that SB was talking about for their respective devices.  You can say it is a concept if you like, but the concept is that of a better UI, not of some amorphic "feeling" you get because you have this feature.

418

Living Room / Re: Why do we always wait for apple's stuff before making a i[blank]-killer??

« Last post by steeladept on June 18, 2010, 11:52 AM »

...I'm saying, why don't other companies try to ramp up their effort in providing a pleasant customer experience?  I still hate that Apple has dictator control on all their stuff, so that's why I'll never willingly get one, but I'm not going to deny that their UI is brilliant.

-superboyac (June 06, 2010, 11:51 PM)

Wow.  That sums up my feelings about Apple (as well as their competitors) exactly!  Nice SB.

419

General Software Discussion / Re: Do you know a free HTML editor with real time preview in adjacent pane?

« Last post by steeladept on June 18, 2010, 10:38 AM »

The Express version (supposed to be free) is clearly labeled "For Evaluation Purposes only" -- not my favorite ambiguity...

-HankFriedman (June 12, 2010, 09:32 PM)

Just found what you meant.  Here is the relevant passage resolving your concerns:

Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2010 Express requires that you register
your evaluation copy within 30 days of installation. Once you've
entered your Registration Key, the product is free.

-Microsoft

It is permanently free for anyone to use (even for commercial use from what I read in the license itself, though I don't recall the specifics).  However, once installed, you do have 30 days to register it to make it a non-evaluation copy.  Not unlike many other free software.  Another nice thing about this page http://www.microsoft.com/express/Downloads/ is they brought back the ability to download the ISO for later installation.  It is much faster and smoother that way, IMO, but I couldn't find it for a long time even for VS Express 2008.  I strongly suggest downloading and keeping the ISO if you think you will ever reinstall it.

420

General Software Discussion / Re: Do you know a free HTML editor with real time preview in adjacent pane?

« Last post by steeladept on June 18, 2010, 10:28 AM »

The Express version (supposed to be free) is clearly labeled "For Evaluation Purposes only" -- not my favorite ambiguity...

-HankFriedman (June 12, 2010, 09:32 PM)

Huh.  Don't remember seeing this caveat ever. Anywhere. I am going back to look again now. You are certainly right about one thing though...the installation SUCKS big time.  It isn't difficult, but it is convoluted and, IMO, cumbersome and slow.  That said, you do get a lot of functionality for free, so I deal with it without complaint (well major complaint anyway )

and then after loading an HTML file, I get the message: some bytes have been replaced with the Unicode substitution character while loading filename with US-ASCII encoding. Saving the file will not preserve the original file contents.

Not sure if this will mess up my HTML files or not.

-HankFriedman (June 12, 2010, 09:32 PM)

If I recall my encoding mappings correctly, it shouldn't. It looks like it is trying to change it TO Unicode, which is not altogether a bad idea assuming nothing else changes.  The ease test is to copy the page, open the copy and see if there are any changes.  Behind the scenes, it all gets converted to Unicode, which shares the ASCII mappings to prevent things from getting hosed, and everything then ends up looking the same (size on disk would change a little though because Unicode is larger by 1 bit/character IIRC).

but on the negative side, it doesn't have any way to automatically insert HTML codes, e.g. I cannot select a few words and change their color, size, etc.

-HankFriedman (June 12, 2010, 09:32 PM)

I am not exactly sure what you mean here.  Do you mean like code snippets or something else? 

421

General Software Discussion / Re: any free (or cheap) utilities to export outlook pst files to HTML or XML?

« Last post by steeladept on June 18, 2010, 10:09 AM »

daddydave
Apologies - I did not make it clear. I cannot archive from Outlook in my company because, for some mad reason, the feature is disabled.

-avevers (June 18, 2010, 07:42 AM)

It isn't mad when you realize the reasons.  It is a legality issue.  Anything that can be discovered in a lawsuit is required to be discovered within 48 hours (typically).  If it surfaces after that, then the company is fined heavily for each intervening day and can be sued separately for obstruction of justice (U.S. Law only - other countries may or may not have similar legislation).  By you taking it home, it is covered by this law and can subject the company to these penalties.  If you email them to yourself, however, that is beyond the company's control and no longer subject to legal scrutiny.  Therefore, they prevent archiving to make discovery manageable - and in many cases possible.  Further, the quota's are to prevent people from keeping everything forever.  Many, dare I say most, business email should have a lifespan and be deleted thereafter.  Most people do not do this, however, and open the company to further liabilities.  If there are true needs for these archives, the Exchange Administrator can archive the needed emails, enlarge your inbox, or one of several other things.  Just be certain you are ready to prove the need for them and that you are not saving them simply for attachments which can be saved to the hard drive thereby making your inbox drastically smaller without loosing anything.

I don't use Outlook at home so I would prefer a format that I can read, such as nsf (I do have Notes installed at home)/txt/HTML. I don't mind losing the "richness" of the content.

-avevers (June 18, 2010, 07:42 AM)

Best reason I have ever heard for using it. 

steeladept
I have never had a single corruption problem with nsf, having used it for 10 years+, which is why I personally am a big fan of the format (a dying breed from what I read!)

-avevers (June 18, 2010, 07:42 AM)

Me either.  My corruption issues were with .pst files only.  That may be because I never deal with them much, though, other than what my company put together by default.  I do not like the .nsf files, however, because they are just as difficult to work with when you do have to do something with them - at least that was my experience.  Getting anything to read them other than Lotus Notes is an experience in futility (try finding a converter that works - at a reasonable price anyway) and getting Lotus Notes to read them if they are imported is a dreadful 15-step process (only slightly exaggerated) that may or may not work.

422

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: DAEMON Tools Pro Standard at GAOTD (June 17, 2010)

« Last post by steeladept on June 18, 2010, 07:41 AM »

Deo is right about depending on the app.  I have some I downloaded and saved keys (and in some cases installers) that work great, some not so well.  But remember, GAOTD's business proposition is an advertisement for the software - we (the software developer) give you an unlimited trial time (usually without feature restrictions, though I have seen this abused), but if you want to upgrade or reinstall, you must buy the software.

423

General Software Discussion / Re: If you think OpenOffice is a competitor to MS Office 2010, think again

« Last post by steeladept on June 18, 2010, 07:35 AM »

The best approach for that would be to sell a turnkey hardware/software combo

-40hz (June 17, 2010, 08:53 PM)

I really don't think so. Dedicated hardware for servers is on the way out, except for very specialized applications like super DB servers. These days, everything is about virtualization.

-CWuestefeld (June 17, 2010, 09:08 PM)

Ah, but that is the beauty of the idea. You sell the turnkey combo as a computer/server specialized with Hyper-V already setup (this is Microsoft we are talking about after all) and this virtual appliance already installed.  If you already have the server and virtualization in your organization, you just buy the virtual appliance.  Kill two birds with one stone and make money both ways.  I'm with you 40k.  When do we start  

424

General Software Discussion / Re: any free (or cheap) utilities to export outlook pst files to HTML or XML?

« Last post by steeladept on June 18, 2010, 07:25 AM »

DaddyDave, you are not the only one surprised by this.  I know I am no fan of the .PST file mostly because it is practically impossible to use outside of Outlook and corrupts easily, but that doesn't change for the .nsf files.  My main gripe against .PST files is how easily they end up corrupted, but .nsf files are no better (that is what we use at work and it is just as bad).  Personally, I would like to see an email archiver that basically preserves the current email format in a more generic format (ideally non-proprietary, perhaps .xml?) and archives them in .zip, .7z, or other general archive format. I realize this is unlikely at best to ever happen (why buy Outlook if you can archive and maintain your Outlook files in Thunderbird et.al.), but it would be nice.

425

Living Room / Re: Looking for a Decent Contacts Manager

« Last post by steeladept on June 17, 2010, 10:04 AM »

If synch with handhelds is a must, how about ListPro?

-rjbull (June 16, 2010, 03:07 PM)

Maybe I just didn't see it, but this looks to be just a list manager rather than a PIM (contact manager & calendar are missing from what I see).  Also, I don't see it syncing with blackberries or now the iPhone (not that I will get an iPhone, but still).  Actually, ideally it would not even need to be a smartphone - but the phones that can sync with a computer decrease dramatically, mostly because the sync software isn't there.

Vista Home Premium comes with Windows Calendar, that looks (from memory) much like the calendar component of Outlook, also Contacts.

-rjbull (June 16, 2010, 03:17 PM)

Fortunately, I don't suffer from Vista.  I am still on XP - though I am looking into upgrading to Win7.  I will check that out on Win7 as well.