PluggedIn
Plugged In is a blog by industry veteran, Stephen Beals, ofering his take on the latest developments in print production technologies shedding some perspective on the future of print.
Printers on Twitter
Here is the first of a two-part blog on printers who are on Twitter. These are all folks who have publicly invited people to follow their tweets, and many of them post some very interesting stuff. At the bottom of the list is a link to a twitter list for these folks. Feel free to add your own Twitter link in the comments area. Printers on Twitter Printoolz This is my own Twitter site, which gets a ...... Read More
Comments (0)That Disconnected Feeling
One of the biggest downsides of the Internet revolution and ePublishing hit home to me this week. Forget the arguments over whether reading a book on screen is hard on the eyes, especially if the screen is tiny. There is still the fundamental problem of actually grabbing the data out of cyberspace. I have been spending the week in Orlando with a perfectly horrible WI-FI connection and virtua ...... Read More
Comments (0)Macmillan and Amazon: Signs of the Future of Print
The recent sparring between Macmillan Publishing and Amazon indicates many of the issues with ePublishing have yet to be resolved. It is interesting to note that it was not long ago that the term “electronic publishing” referred to the digitizing of print production through “desktop publishing.” With the advent of the Internet on the heels of the development of the fir ...... Read More
Comments (1)Just Imagine Textbooks in 2020
It may not be a totally good thing, but it will certainly be different. A recent experiment in Arizona schools gives some insight into the schools of tomorrow, and they will be very different. In some ways it will be better, in others…well maybe not so much. The specific article I’m alluding to is the report of the installation of WIFI on school buses in Vail, AZ. While you ...... Read More
Comments (0)Apple and Adobe Will "Get Over It"
The recent minor storm over the lack of Flash capability on the iPhone and iPad may generate something more useful than rants over Apple putting out a weak product and Adobe being lazy.There is some truth to the fact that the iPad is not yet a finished product, but looking at the phenomenal sales and the huge number of applications available for the iPhone (all of which work on the iPad), it seems ...... Read More
Comments (0)Flash: The iPhone will Fail
Don’t I mean to say the iPad will fail, not the iPhone? No. What I mean is that the naysayers are as wrong about the iPad as they were about the iPhone. Apple’s stock took a tumble after the release of the iPad. It is not surprising. It’s the most overhyped release since…well, the iPhone. Pundits had cautioned that Apple fanatics should “prepare to be disappointe ...... Read More
Comments (0)Enfocus Ousts Van Driessche…Again
David van Driessche has once more been ousted from his senior position with Artwork Systems, which owns both Enfocus and Gradual. van Driessche made this post on Facebook Wednesday Morning: “I’ve just been fired by Enfocus – which is becoming a tradition. If someone knows about a nice new challenge, I’m totally free! Though I think I need some vacation first.“ v ...... Read More
Comments (0)Do Sales of Free Books Count?
Soon after Christmas, Amazon announced they had sold more Kindle versions of books on their web site that print-on-paper editions. This is a rather remarkable figure, and one that does not bode well for the printing industry even though we are only specifically talking about one small segment of that industry. The fear is that digital forms of communication will largely replace print-on-paper (or ...... Read More
Comments (1)Poll Yields Interesting Results
A couple of weeks ago I posted a poll on several LinkedIN groups. It’s not exactly scientific, but the results may be of interest.The question was to what degree will the electronic delivery of information replace print-on-paper information delivery over the next decade. It is not a huge surprise that 89% of the respondents thought print-on-paper would lose at least 10% of market share, wit ...... Read More
Comments (0)Packaging not Immune
I’m all for the survival of print and understand the argument that paper is a renewable resource unlike the the fossil fuels that power the Google sites. I know that Google’s servers use more power than many small cities and they can’t get any of it back once they’ve used it. I get all that. But when I hear that the packaging sector is one that will be exempt from losin ...... Read More
Comments (1)The Decade of Mobile Publishing
Whether it will be the Apple Kindle killer or someone else’s tablet computer, mobile publishing will have a huge impact in the next decade with serious consequences for the print industry. Printers who choose to disregard this phenomenon will do so at their own peril. Print production will rapidly become a subset of multimedia production. Folks with knowledge of print production will retain ...... Read More
Comments (0)Free Training Offered for Adobe CS4
Printoolz is offering a free “mini-course” In Adobe Creative Suite 4. The class will include two modules from each of the four courses developed by the training staff at the IPA covering InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator and Acrobat 9 Pro. This mini course will provide even the seasoned veteran designer or pre-press technician with new insights on the programs. The modules included ar ...... Read More
Comments (1)
