A newsbasket is on-line Internet publication containing comprehensive aggregated collections of information.


Friday, July 27, 2007

Trade schools on the border

Trade schools on the border. My solution to needed skilled workers

John M. Henry
July 27th, 2007

The printer industry in the USA needs trained press operators and bindery workers. Many other trades are having the same issues. The government so far has been only been in a political fight, not solving this issue. Forget training more designers, you can find one working at every coffee shop, they are like actors.

I have one solution that will take the whole issue one step forward. It is time to start building trade schools on the southern border. Fill them up, document them and send them to us…These trade schools would be like a dorm or as my college was a like, a low security jail :-) Workers would stay and train in for 3-9 months as they are processed through and learn skills. If they do not have the IQ, fail out, criminal records, drug issues or cannot find and hold a job ship them back. After 3 years with a good work history and clean records, put them on the path to citizenship. I believe people who have the drive to walk and risk their life to get here, would have the drive to be good press or bindery worker.

I also have no problem saying if you have no needed skills, do not work hard or have a criminal record, you have no place in the USA. Of course political persecution and other aspects will allow you in the USA by other means. My solution is only for filling needed workers with needed skills. The way many illegal workers are taken advantage of by business today is unethical and criminal. We need to provide ways for the workers our industry needs, to come and work here. Away that will also be legal and not allow the workers to be abused. The current methods of doing this are far to limited, costly and time consuming. So we need to build trade schools on the border.

Monday, July 16, 2007

"New Periodicals Rates Go into Effect July 15 – What’s a Printer or Publisher to Do?

WhatTheyThink.com - Print's Home Page:

By Gail Nickel-Kailing, Senior WTT Editor

July 16, 2007 -- The new postage rates are clearly “top of mind” for printers, publishers, and mailers. The WhatTheyThink Postal Rates and Reform Webinar broadcast on May 15 drew more than 506 registrants seeking more information to help them offset or avoid new postage rates"

{excerpts from article} http://members.whattheythink.com/specialreports/070716gail.cfm

{Members get to read the full article, plus a free trial membership is provided so anyone can read the articles.}

Rate and Preparation Changes
The PRC recommendation for Periodicals included many changes that reflect cost-based rating. The biggest change in the rate design is moving from the traditional pound and piece rates to bundle and container rates.

  • Pound Advertising and Editorial Rates - The pound rates were reduced for both advertising and editorial rates. Editorial pound rates offer reductions for varying destination entry levels in order to promote drop-shipment of lower advertising content publications.
  • Piece Rates - Piece rates include new machineable and non-machineable rates for flats. Also, the basic rate category was replaced with MxADC and ADC rate categories, similar to Standard Mail.
  • Piece Discounts - With the exception of the non-advertising piece discount, the piece discounts for destination entry, all pallets and co-palletized products were eliminated.
  • Container Rate - Container rates were established to replace flat rate for all pallets and sacks. The rate is based on a combination of the container type (pallet or sack), container sort level and containers point of entry.
  • Bundle Rates - Bundle rates are going into effect based on the presort level of each mailing bundle.

Opportunities to Avoid Postal Increases
There are several ways publishers can mitigate – or even avoid completely – the upcoming rate increases. By participating in a number of “work share” programs, publishers can prepare mail to qualify for additional discounts and cost savings. Let’s take a look at a few terms that describe various cost-avoidance programs.

Co-binding or online co-mailing - a printer binds a publication or catalog in the same bindery line at the same time as another company’s and combines their two mailings into one. This process requires that the publications be essentially the same size and have the block for addressing in the same place.

Co-mailing or offline co-mailing - the process of merging finished publications and/or catalogs that have already been bound into one mail stream. The co-mailing process combines address files for all participants into a single mail file that is presorted before the addresses are inkjetted on the covers. Then individual finished pieces are sorted into presorted bundles for which they would not have qualified in the past. Presorted bundles receive greater USPS discounts than unsorted bundles.

Commingling – a term that also refers to the process of merging multiple strings of mail into a single mail stream. Commingling is often used to refer to letter-sized mailings while co-mailing is used for periodical or catalog mailings.

Co-palletization - consolidates the physical bundles of mail, which have already been addressed and presorted, onto pallets. Mail that has been bundled onto pallets prior to its entry into the USPS system is discounted. Mailers qualify for greater postage discounts based on both the number of pieces that previously would NOT have been on pallets and in the number of pieces that move from sacks to pallets.

Drop-shipping - saves money on postal rates by moving the mail closer to its final destination before it is deposited with the USPS. Mailers can save additional postage costs avoiding the USPS zoned structure and taking advantage of destination entry discounts; the savings more than offsets the shipping costs.

Who Can Help?
Major printers such as RR Donnelley, Quad/Graphics, Quebecor World, Banta, Fry Communications, and others offer co-mailing services to their own printing customers and will take finished periodicals from smaller printers to add to their distribution pools.

For the first time, there is now a third-party distribution company serving small to medium printers that produce short run and small circulation magazines and catalogs. This year, Print and Mailing Solutions, LLC, a division of ALG WorldWide Logistics launched an independent co-mailing service.

{content snipped}
Ms. Nickel-Kailing is also an author, journalist, and nationally recognized speaker regarding printing and mailing, including web-to-print, variable data printing, and direct mail. She is a magna cum laude graduate of the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire WI. She can be reached at gail@business-strategies-etc.com.

Thursday, July 12, 2007

Welcome to DimBulb!

Welcome to DimBulb!

Blog address:

http://dimbulbs.blogspot.com/

Endless Loop Archival Hardware

Endless Loop Archival Hardware: "With OctaTrak Tape Technology, one tape can last FOREVER!!


Bet you thought you'd heard the last of 8-track tapes when you pulled that 750 feet of Steppenwolf out of your Chevy van in 1970! But now it's back, and it's not just a blast from the past, it's the Wave of the Future!


Just slip in one of our patented OctaTrak tapes, and you're good for all the revision cycles you can stand! And with our optional DualAction AudioGraphics Tape Unit, when you're sick of softening wrinkles around Liz Taylor's eyes or making that sky 'just a little bluer' when it's already 100% cyan, just slip in your old Iron Butterfly tape, and it's In-a-Gadda-da-Vida as loud as you can stand it!"

ThinkPlate Specs

ThinkPlate Specs: "ThinkPlate employs a daring new technology perfected by Russian psionic researchers. A harmonic charge generated by an artist's visual cortex is used to create a matrix capable of exposing any digital-ready plate. Our competitor uses an inferior 'stream-of-consciousness' approach with a narrow serial bandwidth that fails under the load of complex conceptual graphics. And with upcoming improvements like our MindWander Buffer, it's only going to get better!"

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

words / myth / ampers & virgule: News flash: widows are older than orphans

words / myth / ampers & virgule:

News flash: widows are older than orphans
: "But the more interesting question that arose is this: When did the term orphan first enter typsetting argot? A few of us have been looking, and so far, we’ve found widow defined in references from before 1980, but we’ve found no references to orphan that old. In theory, those of us involved in this discussion are old enough to remember when we first heard the term, but we’re also old enough to imagine we heard it many years earlier than we actually heard it.

Further, looking at examples of fine printing from before 1970, pages may be devoid of widows but there seems to have been no effort to eliminate orphans, suggesting that nobody gave the notion much thought before the advent of computerized page makeup.

So here’s your challenge: If you can find a printed definition of or reference to orphans in a typographic context from before 1990, respond in the comments with the citation. There are at least three people who are wasting time on this question, and we’d all like to be doing something more productive. Earliest citation wins a lifetime half-price subscription to this blog. (That’s lifetime of the blog, just to be clear.)"

posted by Dick Margulis at 6:34 PM 2007/07/ to his blog: http://ampersandvirgule.blogspot.com/