Today, Intrigue is giving a big business presentation. We have a meeting with a potential client that we would really like to work with on an ongoing basis. Actually, we’ve already done a few small projects for this client before, but we’re interested in diversifying and increasing the work we do for them.
The basic premise of the presentation is to show the client what we at Intrigue do, and more importantly, CAN DO. Sometimes, even when a person knows you, it can be very beneficial to prepare a small presentation to package your services and talents. Our client allowed us the opportunity to come in and “show our stuff”. It was a very welcome moment as it would be wonderful to be working with this account on a regular basis.
However, the problem was that we had less than a week to prepare the presentation and a budget of ZERO. Well, ok then! We’re a creative group – this should be straightforward. All we needed was a plan. So the idea was to create a slideshow with some of our best work.
Well, the odds said the risk was low. Very low. Not quite zero, but certainly close to it. We had the AppleCare signup in our hands with days to go in the original iMac Warranty. And we chose to gamble and not sign up.
And we lost!
The Intel iMacs have gotten excellent reviews overall. People love using them and they have been overly reliable. Sure, the occasional problem has been reported, but usually those are exceptions and not the rule. We bought three in late 2007. During the first year of heavy use, we had no unusual problems. Typical maintenance issues – all fixable.
Piggybacking on the multi-color PDFs we were generating for our last Intrigue project, there was a new challenge awaiting. Our latest catalog has a specification for 2 extra “colors” as well – though they are not actually colors, rather they are extra “plates”.
There will be a spot varnish plate as well as a “glossy” plate. By printing with both varnish and glossy coatings, the product images will really pop out from the printed page. It creates a very high-end look and people see the extra quality immediately.
We were successful in generating proper (and standard compliant) PDFs for the previous book, this time around, we need to approach things a little differently. Because the varnish and gloss plates are not actual colors, it’s necessary to convince Quark and Photoshop that we will be using colors anyway.
Am I the only one? With all of the hype and hoopla surrounding the electronic gadget of the century (aka, Apple’s iPhone), you’d think that everyone in the world had one by now. Just not including me.
It’s been out a couple of years now and it seems like everywhere you go, somebody is using an iPhone. Sure, there have been popular gadgets that have come and gone over the years – the Sony Walkman being a perfect example.
I remember those days (back in the ’80s) very well. Being a gadget fanatic, I watched how this one little device changed how people listen to their music. But I didn’t jump on the bandwagon when it was catching on “fire”. No, I waited a bit – I just didn’t see the rush to be on the cutting edge.
As the “tech support guy” for Intrigue, I do a lot of maintenance on the workstations for the art department. By no means should this imply that we have considerable downtime. Rather it’s mostly proactive or preventative maintenance that is intended to PREVENT downtime.
My philosophy from a system support perspective is to stay on top of things BEFORE molehills turn into mountains. This applies to whatever brand or type of equipment that might be at hand. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a Windows box or the latest and greatest Mac. They will all develop issues over time that will need to be addressed and fixed. It’s like normal wear and tear that comes from driving a car. Over time, a car will get nicks, scratches and dings – that’s to be expected if it gets driven on a daily basis. Oil does need to be changed at regular intervals to prevent having the engine fry itself.
Same thing with computers. Just by running them on a daily basis for hours on end, they WILL develop a problem or two (or three) over time.
Just going to vent a little about a minor frustration regarding a feature of the new (to me) Leopard OS on the Mac. What’s bugging me is the fact that finding files is something that should be a “no brainer” for the ubiquitous application “Finder”, right? In the old days of the Macintosh, that was [...]
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