Archive for the 'blogging' Category

September Baseball

Published
by
Jim Raffel
on September 26, 2008
in blogging
. 1 Comment

Warning: This post has nothing to do with printing or the graphic arts industry.

Yesterday at around 3:00pm I received an email from a friend who works in the Brewer’s organization.  The email contained a press release explaining that at 3:30pm 5000 tickets purchased by relief pitcher Eric Gagne would be given away at Brewers.com.   The tickets “sold out” in less than twenty minutes.  I was fortunate enough to get in right at 3:30pm and picked up four seats in section 210 row 14.  Thank you Eric Gagne for giving back to a community that has sometimes not been as supportive of your work on the mound as we should be.

We quickly confirmed that our good friends Dawn and Rick would be happy to join us for the game.  Traffic was crazy and getting in the parking lots even worse.  We missed the first inning, but that turned out to not mater.  Watching the scoreboard to see the sCrUBS lose to the Mets in the bottom of the 9th was not pleasant, but then our game entered extra innings.  This was now a must win game.

I have been fortunate enough to attend six or seven other games this season and have only see the Brewers lose once (to the Mets), I was confident and the atmosphere was electric.  We entered the bottom of the 10th with almost every fan on their feet waving their Brewer’s towels.  The bases ended up loaded and Ryan Braun came to the plate with 2 outs.  The count went to 2-2 and then it happened….GRAND SLAM HOME RUN into the left field bleachers above TGIFriday’s.  Braun had been struggling at the plate for the last month since his rib injury and many wondered if he would hit another home run this season having been stuck at 35 for a month or more. Well wonder no more, this morning he stands at 36 and at this moment number 36 was the most important Brewer home run of the season. It is also the Brewers only grand slam of the season so far and with only 3 games to go very likely will remain the only one.

Fans kept cheering and chanting down the ramps and into the parking lots.  While it was not technically a playoff game we saw last night, it was played like one.  I missed the 82 World Series in Milwaukee because I was away at RIT (oh there’s a printing reference for you regular readers) so I can’t speak to that post season experience.  I can tell you that in all my years of Brewer’s baseball I have never felt that much excitement in the park.  That includes the inaugural game of Miller Park in 2001 when George Bush threw out the first pitch.

It was an awesome night I will now be able to remember forever by coming back and reading this post.  I hope you have enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it and sharing the amazing evening.

EXTREME Color Management Conference Update

Published
by
Jim Raffel
on September 17, 2008
in GRACoL, L*a*b*, blogging, color and conferences
. 0 Comments

It has really been too busy to write something each day.  I do have some topics rolling around in my head and will write more when I get back to the office.  So far it has been a good conference with many excellent speakers.

During lunches and other networking opportunities I did pick up a bit of frustration on the part of Ink Vendors and users of G7 related to repeatability of ink trap from press run to press run.  Achieving the ISO spec for the individual Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black is no problem but getting repeatable trapping (measured with L*a*b* of course) is often times very difficult.

The panel I was part of focused on press room process control.  I bring this up because part of the answer to the ink trapping problem is better utilization of process control techniques by printers.  I presented two case studies of printers who have successfully utilized our ProofPass.com product to see significant improvements in press room quality and consistency.

I will focus on these two topics and more when I have more time to write.

EXTREME Color Management Conference

Published
by
Jim Raffel
on September 14, 2008
in blogging, color and conferences
. 0 Comments

New Orleans, LA - As part of ColorMetrix’ sponsorship of the EXTREME Color Management Conference I will be in New Orleans the rest of this week (9/14-9/18). The week is actually comprised of 3 conferences; starting with a G7 Summit all day Monday; then a day and half of EXTREME the second day of which overlaps with the first day of IDEAlliance Spectrum360.

This promises to be a very exciting week. We all started arriving last nigh and the gang is here (well the Color Management gang so far).  It was decided that what happens on Boubon Street stays on Bourbon Street!  So, no stories from last night.

 My goal is to kick start my JimRaffel.com activity with daily posts from the conferences this week. There I go setting myself up for success by putting my goals out there where all of you can read it. Tomorrow look for my thoughts (OK, my sometimes strong opions) about the G7 Sumitt.  Because I need to get a tabletop display set-up and man that table during breaks I will not actually be attending the sessions, but I am sure the comments made during breaks and meals will be quite interesting.

Thanks to the New Orleans Marriott staff.These folks have only been home about a week since the Hurricane evacuation.  They have done a fantastic job getting the hotel back up and running and making us all feel welcome.

Just a rant about Dreamhost.com

Published
by
Jim Raffel
on July 22, 2008
in blogging
. 0 Comments

I still host a couple web-sites at dreamhost.com for projects not directly related to my primary business. So, while the sites are not really critical to me they are critical to the businesses they support. It looks like the two sites will be down for the better part of two days. All I can think is pretty much unreal!

If you are thinking about hosting with them because they talk about being a ‘democratic workplace’ and being all happy and ‘green’ I would strongly suggest you look elsewhere. This is not the first time these sites have been down for an extended period of time and it’s why ColorMetrix.com, JimRaffel.com and ProofPass.com now all reside with a real hosting company.

So, for this current outage I guess the super geeks at dreamhost need to run extended hardware tests on file servers that my hosting plan depends upon. OK, makes sense….switch over to redundant hardware and restore from backups! Oh, that would require you to be a real hosting company and worry more about continuous service than how green or democratic your workplace is.

As you may have guessed, when my schedule allows these last two sites will move from dreamhost and I will be a happy man again. :)

If I save one person the frustration of dealing with dream(nightmares are a kind of dream)host.com this post will have been worthwhile.

Where in the World is Jim Raffel?

Published
by
Jim Raffel
on July 1, 2008
in blogging
. 0 Comments

As I have traveled and worked the phones this Summer, many of my regular readers have asked why I have not been posting here.  The answer is pretty simple, here at ColorMetrix in spite of all the gloom and doom reporting in the news media about our economy being so bad we are awfully darn busy.  Like many organizations in the printing industry these days, ColorMetrix has become a  leaner and more focused company over the last 12-18 months.  This means that my business partner, Michael Litscher, and a I both keep pretty busy doing more with less, and growing the company at the same time.  It has been a fun and challenging year getting ColorMetrix from where it was 12 months ago to where it is today (in great shape by all business measurement metrics I am aware of).

So, I have a couple Golden Nugget topics in the works (really just raw thoughts on paper and in my head right now); I was able to attend the IRgA conference several weeks ago, and have some interesting perspectives I have been meaning to share with you; and our ProofPass.com [Virtual] module has a multi-location monitor verification and control story worth sharing.

As for thoughts and commentary about DRUPA, I chose not to go this time around so there will be no commentary.  We are very focused on our GraphExpo(look for booth 5418) presence across the aisle from our friends at X-Rite.

Until I have more time to write, I wish everyone a happy and safe Summer.  I know I will be spending more time with family and friends while we have warm sunny weather here in the Midwest.

Microsoft Outlook Datafile Repair

Published
by
Jim Raffel
on May 13, 2008
in blogging
. 0 Comments

So, I know my normal readers do not come here looking for technology tips.  I am really sharing this one so I can look back in a year or two when this problem hits me again.

I am out on the road visiting customers this week and attending an industry conference.  Yesterday I plug my trusty Treo into my computer while sitting at a Starbucks between appointments and decide to check email.  I start Outlook up and Bam!  it crashes (not a real surprise to you Outlook users out there).  So, I start it up again and Bam! it crashes. Uh-Oh.

For the short-term I decide to you my Treo’s email capabilities which are fairly substantial with the addition of a cool little program called Agendus Mail SSL.  We also host our mail with Google, so I have a great web interface with which to access my email.  Outlook serves some other pretty important functions for me so I would have to get it back up and running in the long run.

Yesterday being a typical day on the road I got back to my hotel room about 10:30pm after 15 hours out and about with customers and fell dead to the world upon contact with my pillow.  Subconscious thought is perhaps the most amazing gift God has graced us with.  I awoke with the answer.

I remembered 10-12 years ago when ColorMetrix was in it’s formative years that I had acted as the virtual IT department for a printing company located not to far from my home.  Back then Outlooked sucked even more than it does now.  It crashed all the time when email archives became quite large.

The answer is a little utility that is actually installed on your computer called scanpst.exe.  It is all explained by Microsoft right here.  Basically, you run this little utility and pray that your datafile is not too messed up to fix.  (I also have a pretty solid backup stored up on Amazon S3 which could be a entire additional post for fellow propeller heads in my audience).

Tuesday Tidbits

Published
by
Jim Raffel
on April 29, 2008
in blogging
. 0 Comments

More problems at X-Rite: As a person who makes a living in the color measurement side of our industry I read the following with a bit of distress this morning….X-Rite shares plummet on loan defaults from MLive.com.  According to the article X-Rite is now in default on two of the loan agreements tied to the acquisitions of Gretagmacbeth and Pantone and investors are concerned bankruptcy could be considered as an option.

State of Wisconsin grant cuts training cost by half:  Wisconsin employers can send employees to training sessions like the GATF Sheetfed Offset Press Operating Workshop at Institute for Graphics and Imaging (IGI).  This four day hands on workshop has a normal cost of $1,595 but is cut to $800 thanks to a very generous grand from Wisconsin.

Make sure you have control of you keywords:  As web-to-print grows and the importance of your web-site along with it, make sure you have control of you brand and your keywords.  If you don’t you might end up in court like these two Florida mortgage companies did.  While you may think you have the rights to your company name, your competitor with a similar name may not agree.  I think the world 0f web-to-print makes these types of disputes in the printing industry very likely.  (Oh boy, I just found more work for the lawyers….)

Kuler is not cooler - by Michael Jahn

Published
by
Jim Raffel
on April 28, 2008
in L*a*b*, blogging, calibration, color, gray balance and web-to-print
. 0 Comments

Michael Jahn, a JimRaffel.com reader replied to me via email about a previous post and I found his comments enlightening about how scary the world of color has become for those of us in the graphic arts that have to actually print this stuff.

So, for the first time ever (I think) a guest contributor at JimRaffel.com….

Hi Jim,

Read you blog about Kuler;

As I suggest in my subject like, I do not think Kuler is cooler.

Okay, I will give you it has a sweet looking thing to look at, but so was that Brazilian chick I dated.

example - go to Kuler - in the search tool, enter “swop”

notkloseinkuler.jpg

See attached (this is made from several screen captures - Kuler runs in a browser, so that is RGB - I did my screen captures in Photoshop building while in CMYK, profile was SWOP version 2 - not wanting to debate the fine points, as Kuler seems to have no real notion of CMYK that one wonders why they offer it at all…

So, my gripe is that if one were specifying in CMYK

– 50k should look fairly close to 50c, 38m, 38 y, 0k - in Kuler (TOP) they don’t, and in Photoshop, (BOTTOM) they do

and 50c, 50m, 50y 0k should look a bit warmish brownish, in Kuler it is neutral (incorrect) and in Photoshop it is a bit warmish brownish (correct)

I have no explanation as to why 19c, 0m, 0y, 38k should look like 50c, 38m, 38 y, 0k - in Kuler, or anything that might create, display, report proof, print or plate.

Clearly - This is not ready for prime time for color specifying in the world of print

–
Michael Jahn
Jahn & Associates
PDF Color Conversion Specialist

I’m Busy Darnit!

Published
by
Jim Raffel
on April 22, 2008
in blogging
. 2 Comments

I am really busy all of a sudden but I made a commitment to myself to provide more valuable content on this blog almost every day.  So, here are some links to start your Tuesday morning off right.

1. Scott Sheppard of Inside Digital Photo Radio who some of my readers may remember from the short lived Inside Print Radio Program (I was a guest once), has posted a little video clip with Vincent Versace sharing his thoughts on the X-Rite colormunki.  I am not sure if they intended it to be as funny as it is, but they made my kulermunki joke a few posts ago seem tame.

2.  Not to overplay my colormunki coverage, but it looks like it is shipping.  At least it looks like it is shipping in the UK.  If it is shipping here I just did not know.  The last press release I read indicated it was not shipping until June.

3.  OK, no link here because ColorMetrix and JimRaffel.com are “Going Green” and in order to save energy we don’t want you computer to have to underline another link in blue.  (The previous sentence was Jim’s weak attempt at sarcastic humor.)  Actually, our friends over at What They Think have some great Going Green coverage this week.

Wednesday  I hope to have a guest post by a industry veteran with lots of PDF and color knowledge.  I am just waiting for him to approve my use of a great email he sent me.

I Still Love Print

Published
by
Jim Raffel
on April 21, 2008
in blogging
. 1 Comment

Yesterday we unveiled the blurb.com book to my father.  While I am a big fan of digital photography and all the new media, there is just something about a printed book.  In this case a picture really is worth a thousand words….well two pictures.

blurb-outside.jpg

blurb-inside.jpg

Yes, I am proud to say that is my Mom and Dad.