MagCloud Update

August 8, 2011 By 2 Comments

A while back I wrote a two-part article (Part 1, Part 2) about a recommended workflow for publishing with MagCloud which has received favorable feedback from both MagCloud and other readers. In those posts I mentioned that MagCloud used two different profiles for saddle-stitched and perfect-bound magazines and suggested that I would most likely stick with the perfect-bound option. I have been recently informed that MagCloud now uses a unified profile for both binding options which should make life a lot easier for all the publishers using their services.

The new soft-proofing profile is available for download. After downloading it, you should go back to the original articles and replace the references to the profiles with this one. The earlier articles did not include links to any profile but MagCloud had allowed me to share them with anyone who wanted to use them. This should make the series of articles on this subject more complete and useful.

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Free Cloud Storage

May 28, 2011 By 1 Comment

The cloud storage, files stored somewhere on the Internet, has become popular and easy to use. In the old days this kind of storage would require FTP upload and download of files without any other functionality. Nowadays it is hard to choose which service to use as many companies offer similar services; some are free, others for a nominal fee.

For totally mindless cloud storage, synchronized among several computers, with deleted file recovery my choice is DropBox. It is drop-dead simple, install once and forget about it type of service. Visit DropBox, start an account, download its software and install it. You are done! Anything you save in your local DropBox folder automatically gets copied to DropBox cloud and you can access your files from any computer using any browser. Additionally, you can download and install the same DropBox software on your other computers and all will have fully synchronized DropBox folders, so the files you use often will be available on any of your computers. A bonus feature is the file availability on your Android, iPhone, iPad, platforms. I have been using it for about 4 years now without a hitch, and a few times I was able to recover a file that I accidentally deleted since DropBox has several versions of all the files backed up. I highly recommend it. The down side is it is limited to 2GB of free storage which gets bumped up any time you refer a friend and that friend goes through the process. It will give you up to 8 GB of storage, I am already there. You can purchase additional storage if you like, but read the next service before dropping money in the box. [Read more...]

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Browser Add-ons

April 23, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Web browsers have become indispensable tools in our daily lives. We use them for work, entertainment, shopping, reference, etc. My choice for browsers has been Firefox for quite a few years now, mainly due to its rich collection of add-on or plugin support. I have come to rely on them so much that I will not even contemplate switching from it to something else.

Many of the add-on software I have added to Firefox are useful if you do Web development and design, so I will spare them from this post. However, there are some that I find very useful for any user and I would like to highlight them here. Read the description and then decide if you want to add a particular one or not. Of course, if you are not a Firefox user these will not mean much to you unless they offer similar plugins for Internet Explorer, Chrome, or Safari. I will not go into the installation process of add-ons to Firefox though. [Read more...]

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Smart Publishing with MagCloud Part 1

February 24, 2011 By 2 Comments

This is going to be a two-part series. Before getting into the second part, I strongly recommend that you read and study my Printing Workflow presentation as it details how to accomplish some of the steps in reasonable detail. Although there are a couple of PDF documents for printing, they do not show some of the slides as they are not visible outside the presentation flow. Make sure to watch the slide presentation.

See the updated soft-proof profile post before proceeding. (8/8/2001)

I have been using MagCloud on-demand publishing since last year. I had two academic projects that benefited from the technology and my exhibits and publishing as well. Along with two students, in collaboration with the members of the Photographic Society of Rhode Island, PSRI, we published PSReye Focus in December 2009. This past fall semester MagCloud was an important tool in another course where students worked on a project titled Vision of Hope in collaboration with the Gloria Gemma Breast Cancer Resource Foundation. Since May 2010, I have used MagCloud services for three exhibits, an expanded exhibit catalog, and more recently a free-standing publication called IR Earthscapes.

In all projects, the proofing turned out to be the most challenging step, partly due to time constraints resulting from poor time management, and partly due to the way we have handled the proofs. Since my last project IR Earthscapes, I have come to the conclusion that there has to be a smarter way of proofing to save time and to save money while getting as much information as possible from the proof. [Read more...]

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Proshow Producer Demo 2

October 14, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Being on the beta testing team of a software product focuses attention in a particular direction; Proshow Producer is no exception. I am posting another demo that I created to experiment with different features that are already available in the public release. So, I am not divulging any secrets. My purpose is to see how far I can push the wizards based creation of shows. Again, in this show the bulk of the work is done by the wizard interface and I tweaked it a little to fit my sensibilities. The adjustments have been minor.

Here is the new demo: (slide shows are identical use either one that works on your system)

Floral Tango!

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