Just a rant about Dreamhost.com

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

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.

Virtual Proofing - Oh Boy!

Published
by
Jim Raffel
on April 17, 2008
in blogging, calibration, color, inkjet, measurement, monitors and proofing
. 1 Comment

I believe virtual proofing is at the same cross roads ink jet proofing was around 2001.  I am both hearing and observing information that provides growing support in my own mind for this position.  First, I am not going to name any names in this post.  Why?  Because gut feelings and intuition are not fact.

Think back to 2001 and earlier as it relates to ink jet proofing.  For a frame of reference think Print ‘01 in Chicago, just try not to remember that 9/11 fell right in the middle of the show :(   We finally had a good stable pigment based printer.  We had a few good RIPs emerging from the pack, but you still really needed 3rd party color management software to make the whole thing work.  Of course there was the nightmare of the day which was trying to find a suitable media for Graphic Arts proofing purposes.

The reality was if you understood all the steps involved (or hired a good color management consultant) you could make decent ink jet proofs that rivaled the standard analog and digital proofs of the day.

Now think about virtual proofing today.  While I believe there are at least two (and quite likely more) solid products capable of producing virtual proofs rivaling the ink jet proofs now carrying the standards flag; getting even those two systems to work in multiple locations can and does prove tricky at best.  This is no knock on the virtual proofing software vendors, but instead really an issue of hardware.

Putting together a solid ink jet proofing system requires an end-user to source a printer, media, a RIP, a computer to run the RIP, and probably a good color management consultant as well.  Putting together a solid virtual proofing system requires sourcing a display…let’s stop right there.  There is more to it, but the display is proving (at least my gut tells me this) to be a huge thorn in the side of virtual proofing working in multiple locations.

I am hearing some crazy numbers like less than 1 in 10 “qualified” displays can be used in a 2 or more location virtual proofing set-up.  If this is true (and I am starting to think it is), than it is no wonder virtual proofing is being used more and more for intermediate color (as I predicted in a previous post) and good old reliable ink jet proofs are still being produced as a final contract proof.

I still believe virtual proofing will continue to make gains over hard copy proofing.  I just think it may be a little slower than we thought until this display issues gets worked out.  Part of the problem is that measuring displays is not the easiest thing in the world to do….but that could be a whole post or even a complete white paper.

IGI Names Dahl as Executive Director

Published
by
Jim Raffel
on April 16, 2008
in blogging and education
. 1 Comment

Pewaukee, WI - The Institute for Graphics and Imaging has chosen as its new director Ron Dahl.  I am sure an official press release from the IGI is not far behind this post and will contain complete biographic information about Mr. Dahl.  I sat down with Ron late yesterday afternoon (his first official day on the job), and got some insight into his plans for bringing the world class IGI facility to full utilization quickly.

He has some exciting plans that may include a resumption of the ColorMetrix User’s Group Meeting sometime in August after a three year hiatus.  As for the rest of his plans I believe it would be prudent to let Ron and the IGI make those  announcements.

Here in southeastern Wisconsin there is a whole lot of support directed at getting this vastly under utilized world class facility up to speed.  It goes all the way to the top of state government as Governor Jim Doyle make provisions for a $250,000 state grant that will help companies reduce the cost of training their employees at IGI over the next two years.

I believe I can safely speak for the southeastern Wisconsin Graphic Arts community when I say Welcome, and we stand ready to assist you in our combined efforts to make IGI the great success it can be.

kuler - Another Big Company Reinvents Spelling

Published
by
Jim Raffel
on April 15, 2008
in blogging and color
. 2 Comments

A while ago I ran across a cool Adobe Labs web application called kuler. I guess it is geared more to the design community, but if you love color (note C O L O R not k u l e r) like I do you will have fun playing around with it. (Oh, I suppose colour would be OK as well.) If you have never looked around at Adobe Labs, I would suggest you take a few minutes (or hours as I did) to look at the kind of projects they are working on.

Today I would also like to mention a web-site I ran across called Prepress Pilgrim authored by DJ Dunkerley. I did not so much run across DJ’s site as he did mine. One of the neat things about WordPress is I get an alert when someone else links to one of my posts. Thanks for the cross-link DJ.

So, what is with X-Rite spelling MONKEY munki and Adobe spelling COLOR kuler? Does that mean would should have named ProofPass.com PruufPass.com? Oh wait, I need to go register that domain before I publish this post….I’m kidding really I am!

…I’m back…so if X-Rite and Adobe merged would it become the kulermunki?