&Else... November 2002

01 Letterheads for the Fonts Festival

02 Cleaner, faster FLASH video encoding

03 The Media Bakery

04 LapCop: smarter than thieves

05 Spam sites' Pop-up Ads - dishonest

06 Speaking of honest advertising

07 Copyrights, Wrongs Get a Review

08 Apple's Stickiest Marketing Ploy

09 Super Maps - Forget about Map Quest

10 Automatic CD jackets and labels?

11 Do you keep the books?

 

Letterheads for the Fonts Festival

Our good friend Chuck Davis has sent a slew of exciting new fonts for our review in this year's 'Fall Fonts Festival' like the John Studden Collection with 10 unique typefaces designed by the sign artist . The Collection includes Fairground, Havana, Hertford, Bulldog, Shopfront, Aristocrat, Big Top, Classic Caps, Burbank, and Classic Roman. PC and Mac formats. Each font is reminiscent of styles used for shopfronts around England during the early 1900's. Very unique.
http://www.letterheadfonts.com/contributors/johnstudden/index.shtml
      We particularly like the old fashioned scripts from Tom Kennedy -- "Ephemera" and "Pilsner Script". These old fashioned styles were inspired by old letterheads and brewery advertising. Each comes with additional swashes to add onto the ends of the letters. Beautiful!
http://www.letterheadfonts.com/contributors/tomkennedy/pilsner.shtml
http://www.letterheadfonts.com/contributors/tomkennedy/ephemera.shtml
      You can try out any of the fonts using the Letterhead's new "Font Tester" where you type it in and see it in your selection of fonts.
chuck@letterheadfonts.comChuck Davis the big cheese at Letterheads for sending this in for our Fonts Festival! Get all the details at: http://www.letterheadfonts.com/   [top]

Cleaner, faster FLASH video encoding

Wildform has released Flix Pro 3.1, an important upgrade of the Flix Flash video encoder. A central feature of the upgrade is a significant improvement in the quality of all Flix output. This improvement primarily affects Flix's MX and FLV Flash 6 output (both 1-pass and 2-pass VBR), but it also improves Flix's Flash 3-6 output that plays in any Flash Player version 3-6, and the vector video output. Additionally, Wildform has added image filters to Flix Pro that further enhance the video quality. Flix Pro now features deinterlacing, noise reduction and controls for brightness, contrast, hue and saturation. The Flix Pro 3.1 upgrade is free for Flix Pro 3 license holders.
Special thanks to Colby Devitt of Flix Pro for sending this one in. For more info, slip on over to http://www.wildform.com/   [top]

The Media Bakery

I guess they'll think of everything, but the "Media Bakery" seems like a fitting name for a firm that brokers media. Mike has been after me to give them a little plug, so, after checking them out it looks like they've got a pretty nice thing going. Media Bakery represents Eyewire, Stockbyte, Brand X Pictures, and they're adding publishers every day. They have a line of Royalty Free Flash Templates, Elements, Background, Rollovers, Customizable Games and Vector Based imagery. They want to become the hub of Copyright Free media for all publishing professionals. A tough order, but they've got a good start. You can search, see, purchase and download from thousands of titles right there online -- rather than having to scrounge dozens upon dozens of online sites or printed catalogs. If you use a lot of 'stock' media, you might want to give them a shout.
Contact Mike Calcagno at the media bakery, over at: http://www.mediabakery.com/   [top]

LapCop: smarter than thieves

LapCop is a new and innovative stealth software application. In case your Mac gets stolen, LapCop secretly transmits an electronic beacon to an e-mail address of your choice. This stealth e-mail, containing the internet route to your Mac, together with information about its network settings, provides enough information to accurately track your Mac geographically.
      Laptop theft has reached epidemic proportions worldwide: there were 591,000 laptops stolen in the USA in the year 2001 and according to a recent FBI report, 97% of all stolen computers are never recovered. That's why programs similar to LapCop have seen a heavy demand on other platforms during the past months. LapCop is available now for only $15. You can download LapCop for free from the SweetCocoa website. However, for safety reasons, LapCop will only start monitoring your Mac after registration.
http://homepage.mac.com/sweetcocoa   [top]

Spam sites' Pop-up Ads - dishonest

A popular new trend is to make spam pop-up ads look like Windows Admin Alerts. Spammers, on the other hand, say the tactic works. Unfortunately a large portion of the population uses Windows and doesn't know the difference between an alert and a pop-up ad.
A good one from Brian McWilliams at Hotwired Magazine Hotwired.com technology   [top]

Speaking of honest advertising

After being stung by Apple's 'Switch' ad campaign, Microsoft decided to copy the campaign as they usually do for any good idea they run across. Last week the nets were all abuzz with chatter that the ad was a fake when a sharp-eyed web user noticed the photo they used was from a stock photography house. This article in Wired is probably the most fun reading.
Hotwired.com business   [top]

Copyrights, Wrongs Get a Review

Last week Brad King posted the list of what's legal under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. It's sure to get a public working over. But critics say Congress has more power to change the law for the better.
from Brad King, Wired News Hotwired.com news   [top]

Apple's Stickiest Marketing Ploy

One of Apple's greatest -- and no doubt cheapest -- marketing coups is handing out decals of the company's logo, which proud users slap on everything from cars to skateboards to Windows computers.
from Leander Kahney from Wired News Hotwired.com news, mac   [top]

Super Maps - Forget about Map Quest

I was talking to a designer the other day who was lamenting about taking so long to modify a MapQuest map for use in a publication. (Duh!) Too bad he didn't know about Map Resources and their fabulous, multi-layered maps in Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator layered format. These maps features, boundaries, cities, rivers and lakes -- and all manner of features all arranged in separate layers that can be turned off or on, depending on the needs of the design project. They also include a separate layer with high resolution terrain (300 dpi CMYK). All political details such as boundaries and roads are fully updated. The first release of Photoshop format maps includes world maps, world regions, globes, and the USA. Additional maps will be released in January 2003.
      Best of all? You can download a free sample...
Sent in by Barbara Fordyce Check out Map Resources at: http://www.mapresources.com/photoshop_maps/   [top]

Automatic CD jackets and labels?

Here's a cool one from Bynasoft -- their MP3 Printer learns information about a collection of MP3 files (from a CD or hard disk) and prints a summary of this information on a single page in one of several formats including CD jewel box inserts, booklets and full page.
      MP3 Printer automatically finds the optimal font size so that information fits into selected format on a single page. MP3 Printer retains natural track order and optionally adds album and track numbers to assist with track navigation when use a portable MP3 player.
      Platform = PC: Windows all versions.
      Download it at: http://www.bynasoft.com/Mp3PrinterSetup.exe
Thanks to Zvi Dershowitz, BynaSoft for adding this to the Multimedia Music: capture, edit, author, record department. Check them out at: http://www.bynasoft.com/   [top]

Do you keep the books?

One thing creative people are NOT known for -- their ability to keep up with costs, billable hours, rates and charges. Perhaps there's hope yet. Here's a system for keeping the countable books, allowing inflation adjustment and multiple periods tracking. Very useful for accounting profesionals and small companies.
Platform = PC: Windows all versions
Sent in by Jose Torres of LOGOSoft to file under: Business Helpers, accounting, billing, client tracking, etc. Take a peek at: http://sistemas.org/   [top]

...have fun
Fred Showker

&Else!   is a department of DT&G: The Electronic Journal of Design, Typography & Graphics   -- Contents Copyright (c) 2002, Reproduction or reuse of parts or all of this manuscript without prior written permission is expressly forbidden. The Design & Publishing Center   is part of the Graphic Design Network at http://www.graphic-design.net -- DT&G   is the original ezine, in continuous publication online since 1990, by Showker Graphic Arts & Design, a Virginia based design, consulting and training facility since 1972.   News bursts seen in &Else!   are provided by: The News Serve Network part of The Graphic Design Network   For copyright and trademark information see our Legal Disclaimer page   To contact the Design & Publishing Center Editorial, Advertising or New Products departments, use our Contact page.