Ron Lindeboom
2
COW Coins
Forum Replies Created
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[Tess Spaulding] “I even got to meet Ron L at Cinegear this year! :)”
Hi Tess,
It is always an honor and a lot of fun to meet the people that come here and make this a community. Thank you for stopping by the booth and visiting with Tim Matteson and me.
But don’t let anyone know that Tim Matteson is a heck of a lot better looking than me, okay?
Best always,
Ron Lindeboom
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Yeah, now that you mention it, I recall running into that setting years ago. But I guess it never really bothered me working the way I do and I have so many programs to use that I can’t possibly master them all. So, for me, being able to use them to communicate my ideas is good enough, and as the magazine continues to grow and is successful, I guess my use of the monitor settings I use doesn’t seem to bother my audience. ;o)
Thanks for the reminder, I think that I’ll try it again and see if my eyes appreciate it better today, as my glasses become ever stronger prescriptions and my monitors become bigger and bigger.
Welcome to the COW, Carin.
Ron Lindeboom
creativecow.net -
[Vic Noseworthy] “…some companies sell it for around $550.”
Yes, and I have seen some that will sell it to you for $20. Of course, it won’t come with a serial number and the DVD-Rs will all be handwritten with a magic marker, but hey, what’s a few viruses between friends?
;o)
As Richard warns: don’t let those selling upgrade software confuse you with advertising upgrade pricing — if you don’t have the legal preceding version, the upgrade will do you no good.
Also, I can’t tell you the number of people over the years that have bought software on eBay, for example, only to find it was an illegal version and they were left high and dry because the company closed their account and moved on before they could get their money back.
My dear ole sainted Dad used to tell me that if it looks too good to be true, it probably is. And as always, Dad was right.
Best regards,
Ron Lindeboom
creativecow.net -
Hello Carin,
The reason this happens is because your computer’s monitor is defaulted to 72dpi in RGB color space. Nearly everyone’s is. In fact, 300dpi monitors are something that I have never seen in my production career. Maybe someone else uses them, like most when I work on magazines, etc., that are 300dpi CMYK projects, I am looking at them at 72dpi on an RGB screen that is calibrated to give me a very close onscreen example to what I am going to get when it prints. (The new issue of Creative COW Magazine is spot on and the printer handed me magazines that are nearly identical to what I see on my screen in InDesign.)
So, basically the issue of the 300-to-72 translation means that it is not a 1-to-1 pixel ratio and so you will not see your 100% setting return a correct “ruler size” when you look at it on the screen. It will be roughly 4-times or so the size you expect to see.
We all get that. It’s a pain but you get used to it.
If someone has a solution I am all ears, oh except for all my other organs and extremities, etc.
Best regards,
Ron Lindeboom
Creativity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.
Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
– Antoine de Saint Exupéry -
Hi Will,
I missed your post on the demo reels forum when you put it up but I just bumped into it and have moved it to this forum where it really belongs.
The answer to your question is in this thread…
https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/17/865315Please feel free to start a new thread if you need more information after reading it — that way, your question won’t be lost in a thread that is days old.
Best regards,
Ron Lindeboom
Creativity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.
Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
– Antoine de Saint Exupéry -
If you need any help understanding the process, please feel free to ask Abraham Chaffin in our Web Design forum.
He can explain it far better than me. ;o)
Best regards,
Ron Lindeboom
Creativity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.
Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
– Antoine de Saint Exupéry -
[Doug Collins] “11. Clients will try to use you as a bank.”
My recommendation is that when they do, remind them that you have called in their line of credit and that only if they can prove that they have absolutely no need whatsoever for the money, will you even consider advancing funds to their credit — “…in accordance with bank policy,” you can say with a smile. Oh, and hand them a free pen.
[Doug Collins] “16. Bob Zelin says it with love.”
Yes, but watch out when he smiles longingly at you and his lips begin to pucker — “…er, um, sorry Bob, I have an appointment to go teach my client’s nephew how to do what I do for 1/10th the money. I’ve decided to become a consultant, too.”
[Doug Collins] “8. There is such a thing as a Cowdog.”
Yes, but he too needs to be avoided when that longing look is in his eye and his kissing — especially after he has just eaten a bowl of kibble and beer or he has chewed his rumpular flanks — is to be avoided at all costs.
[Doug Collins] “1. No one can tell you how much you should charge for your services but yourself.”
Yes, but your former client’s nephew can give you a good look at new ways of considering your price point. “Hey dude, whoa! I’m an editor too, man. Check out the awesome transitions that came with my box of Premiere. Cool, huh?” Let them inspire you.
Best regards,
Ron Lindeboom
Creativity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.
Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
– Antoine de Saint Exupéry -
EMAIL PROBLEMS: I tried the “dump it all and the important ones will get through” approach a while back. In my case, it didn’t work at all. Everyday I get new mail from people writing with ideas, feedback and opportunities that they want to run past me — and no, I am not talking about Solassi Mokumbah (the son of the former warlord of Lower Solumbakhtuu who needs help moving money from their account to a safer haven in the United States).
My ron@creativecow.net account is now over 8 years old and every spammer on the planet has it and passes it around. I tried a new address but I have hundreds of key contacts that I do business with regularly and many were slow to adopt the new address and many more just ignored and didn’t update their address books.
I even had to resort to calling many of them and soon figured out that any time I’d save with the new address would be lost if I had to keep calling people to explain “I really AM changing my email address, please use the new one.”
OUR SOLUTION: One of the ways that we fought back was by augmenting our all-Linux server backbone with an Apple Xserve server running Leopard OS and acting as our mail server. When we looked into a Barracuda spam firewall, it was about $17,000 at the time, plus a monthly subscription fee for their updates that they send. But the Apple server cost us the base price of the coupla grand or so for the server and OS and Apple handles the filtering. No monthly subscriptions, it is just built into the OS and new rules and exceptions come out with the updates.
How well does it work? Far from perfect but we went from thousands of spam mails a day to a manageable less-than-a-hundred a day by making the move.
Would I use an Apple server for anything else in a major traffic site like the COW? Well, let’s be nice and say it this way: There ain’t no way in hell, baby. No way. Nada. Never. Nine. Gimme Linux any day of the week.
But when it comes to handling email in a company setting, throw a Mac server into the mix. Let Apple handle the filtering and just forget the problem.
That was our solution.
…oh, and Abraham the Boy Wonder™.
Best regards,
Ron Lindeboom
Creativity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.
Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
– Antoine de Saint Exupéry -
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[Tim Frechette] “I know the client is always right…”
I have no idea who originally said that, but they must have been the client.
I know that JCPenny Company took the idea and came up with the full money-back guarantee idea that companies like Nordstroms and Wal-Mart have also done.
BUT…
What works in a retail situation is NOT always a good yardstick to use as your mental compass and business barometer in a service industry like ours.
You learn quickly in this industry — or if you don’t, you become one of the casualties — that you have to set a value for your services and keep the client from never-ending scenarios that turn into The Job That Would Not Die (in 3D, by the way).
We have a customer is always right attitude here and we always do whatever we can to make the customer happy. But there are certain customers that we have walked over the years and have angered some of them by doing so. Why did we cut a few of them off? Easy, they were idiots for one reason or another. Some wanted The Job That Would Not Die. Some lied outright and you could not count on their word. Some were slow-pays that took forever to pay — and a select less than a handful never did pay.
Is the customer always right? No. But then, neither am I. So, somewhere in the balance is a workable professionalism that allows for an equitable working solution that gives the client what they want while allowing me to make a living.
The Customer Is Always Right works in situations where a customer picks up something, walks it to a register, buys it and later decides that they got the wrong thing or don’t like it. They come back and they get something else or they get their money back. It is a relationship of moments, not hours, days or more. In a relationship of hours or days or weeks or months, the rules change and expectations become more pronounced from both sides. Successful businesses find the balance. Good clients let them. Crappy clients make it all about them. I don’t work for them, I let them go work with my competitors. I don’t want every customer. I especially do not want the ones that think they are always right.
Best regards,
Ron Lindeboom
Creativity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.
Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
– Antoine de Saint Exupéry