So what's the deal with the everett COOL 15? Well... every once in a while we list 15 cool things we found.
Today's entry...
15 COOL websites that you will find useful.
Here they are (enjoy!)
01. screenr.com : record movies of your desktop and send them straight to YouTube.
02. bounceapp.com : for capturing full length screenshots of web pages.
03. goo.gl : shorten long URLs and convert URLs into QR codes.
04. untiny.me : find the original URLs that's hiding behind a short URLs.
05. localti.me : know more than just the local time of a city
06. copypastecharacter.com : copy special characters that aren't on your keyboard.
07. topsy.com : a better search engine for twitter.
08. fb.me/AppStore : search iOS app without launching iTunes.
09. iconfinder.com : the best place to find icons of all sizes.
10. office.com : download templates, clipart and images for your Office documents.
11. woorank.com : everything you wanted to know about a website.
12. virustotal.com : scan any suspicious file or email attachment for viruses.
13. wolframalpha.com : gets answers directly without searching - see more wolfram tips.
14. printwhatyoulike.com : print web pages without the clutter.
15. joliprint.com : reformats news articles and blog content as a newspaper.
He revolutionized a lot of things, to be sure. One of them, not mentioned to my knowledge is our specific industry. The PC was a wonderful tool. But the Mac made graphics. Now, certainly,the PC and the Mac are pretty close in capabilities today but visit any design studio, any agency, any printing company and they're inevitably inextricably interconnected with Apple products. Steve Jobs targeted the graphics industry and created this particular revolution.
Back in the late 1980s we were all downplaying the effects of the computer in our industry. Photography was a film-based and photo-paper print-based business. Typography was an art delivered by specific technology that was far too complex for a desktop computer.
Slides were on Kodak Ektachrome film in Wess mounts projected by Kodak Carousel projectors, sometimes controlled by very particular and specific computers that could be programmed to time the slides from multiple projectors to simulate a really rather rudimentary sort of animation.
Print ads and brochures were done by making what were called 'mechanicals' and then they were sent to printers who made what were called 'separations' which were turned into 4 color 'plates' which were attached to the printing presses and the artwork was transformed to printed materials through a miraculous affixing of tiny little dots of ink that, when combined according to the instructions of the mechanical and then the separation and then the plate and then the press, made stuff that looked like... ads and brochures! Video was a series of cameras that recorded images onto tape, 2 inch, then 1 inch, then 3/4 inch then 1/2 inch and 8mm and 1/4 inch and whatever amount of inches, it was all bound up in rolls and required an editing suite of serious electronic equipment to convert what you taped into what you wanted.
All of it was a nightmare. My brother Mark, once, in the midst of the transition to today's technology, when we still had to have all the old stuff and all the new stuff because the new ways were not quite robust or reliable, even if they were quicker and more efficient and promised even more efficiency and speed, said, famously, "What was so wrong about the old way?" We all laughed, agreed, knew he was right and terribly wrong. Today the old way seems like Hieroglyphics. The new way is so entrenched it only seems like the new way to people who knew the old way. It is, let's face it, the only way.
A Mac with the tools to create art of one sort or another is a magical box. Capable of graphics for print, web, video, presentation graphics, whatever you want. And better than anything before it. Capable of so much so fast so well, it's a sort of miracle. What was so wrong about the old way was that there was a need for a very specific piece of technology and an expert for almost everything you wanted to do. A typographer was a pretty valuable person. A photographer was an artist. A designer was usually a pretty talented and creative person in the form of a pretty cantankerous package. Cantankerous because good designers had way too much to do with rather limited tools, and no time to do it.
The industry has changed. People with some skills can pull some magic off the screen. Kids can create their own graphics effortlessly. One person can do five tasks. More. With the help of a fairly intuitive computer and some pretty capable software.
Steve Jobs had more to do with this than anyone. His company took direct aim at our various industries and reinvented all of them. All while he reinvented the telephone and the PC and animated films and the music business... and a few more, too.
Good thing the recession is over. Now we just have to worry about the summer slow-down. Used to be people worked all year long. All. Year. Long. It was exhausting. And so American. We had that 'hustle'. Now no one works between Christmas and New Years, holiday weekends really extend throughout the shortened week, and just forget about the summer. No one works all summer long. We've all become... schoolteachers!
Well, here's a bit of nostalgia for you: we're still here, still at it, still cranking out great marketing materials and great promotional materials and great events and great presentations and great videos and great web sites and greatgodalmighty, pretty soon September will be here. But look out for Labor Day. It's a short week and we might just take that Monday off... being 'labor' day and all.
We've been in business since 1961. It's a pretty long run. We're starting to think about legacies and track records and long term whatever... 50 years is like forever these days. Historic and antiquated and, well, to tell you the truth it just seems like yesterday, too. We've survived with a few lucky breaks. One is good people. We've always had them here. Good, nice, smart, solid people.
We're not the fanciest or the trendiest. We're solid, reliable, dependable. I'll take that. Sure, sometimes it's nice to be out there somewhere. We're much more about being right here somewhere. Another of our lucky breaks is great clients. Long term relationships with people who've become our friends. The folks at IBM, the people at Pepsi, the kids (listen to me!) at Heineken. And then we've been lucky to be in Westchester, where stuff happens. Business goes on. People move in. It's a place we sometimes take for granted, but lately we've come to see it as a fantastic place. Stuck between the Hudson and Long Island Sound, at the edge of New England and minutes from New York City, enough to do in the cities and towns, plenty to do outdoors as well.
It's a great place to be in business and a lucky place for us to have been these 49+ years.
OK, OK, so now we face the future. To tell you the truth (again) we look to the future with a little anxiety and a lot of excitement, both. The anxiety comes from the pressures of business. Today, more than ever we face challenges well beyond what we can control. The recession is still here for a lot of businesses and families and communities. It's not easy any more, if it ever was. Money is, what's the word for it... tight. On the other hand, the world continues to change and from change comes opportunity. Still, it must be noted, some of the change we face, a lot of it, is not good. Some is. Technology is amazing, for instance. My wife complains her cell phone drops calls from time to time. I tell her to stand at the corner of the gas station and use their pay phone (their pee phone, really) and tell me a dropped call isn't more than acceptable. The iPad is unbelievable. The thought some years ago was that we'd need one device for everything. That was the holy grail. But our cars have computers and our toasters have them and our cell phones are computers and the laptop for work and the desktop at home... we're all connected in countless ways. But that iPad might just do just about everything right. I'm gonna get me one.
But not just yet. 1. I hate standing on lines and 2. it needs to do what I said, which is to do everything. It's close.
Where was I? Oh, yes. Closing in on 50. We've managed to survive and might just for another 50, with that same degree of luck and hope and compassion and capability we've managed to convey for these last 50.
And the funny thing is... I'll still be here. Damn it.
