Antiquated

Antiquated. A word that describes the machinery I have to use at work. Now, I know there are employers out there in blipland. I am writing from an employee point of view. Please don't be offended.

It has been busy at work recently. In the past two and a half years the company I work for seems to have gone from a client base that consists of professionals to a base that is either print brokers or print broker of print brokers or designers that really need a few software lessons. The real deal are few and far between. If you read between the lines then you will realise where the company I work for is fitting in the printing industry food chain. Nuff said about that. I hope my boss doesn't read this. The truth would hurt. Plus there are still some very good people working there.

The point I am gettng to is this: To make money in the printing industry, if there is still money to be made, then you need to invest in new technology. Well, I am using the same G4 Macs I have been using since I started. They were antiquated then and they as positively ancient now. There is nothing wrong with a G4 Mac. In its day it was a ripper. What we are asking these poor machines to do now is just beyond their capability though. Here is how it went today:

Client supplies 500mb PDF. (Go figure...)

Open PDF to fix in Pitstop (Genius program that adds onto Acrobat)

Crash.

Change machine.

Open PDF...Crash.

Try pasting into InDesign.

Crash.

Try Pitstop again but very slowly.

Crash.

Illustrator maybe?

Crash.

Try again in Pitstop...a lot more slowly on a different machine.

Slowly...

Slowly...

OK each alteration is taking around a minute to compute but the G4 isn't crashing the software... I am saving as I go....which takes time too. There are 56 alterations to make. This is when I took this sequence of photos. I decided to pose with my VIZ comic to make up the numbers. You understand...

Net result. Yes, the job gets done...eventually. Labour is time as well. I shouldn't get stressed but I do. My goal has always been to work with professionals who have the equipment to back them up. I think for the most part that I work with professionals. The equipment is failing badly though.

16 months...

16 months...

16 months....

There is so much more to tell but why would I bore you even more?