I was slightly entertained by this, so I thought I had better share. It’s a good example of how a central data store shared by a number of third party services can be effected by one small mistake.
And if this kind of screw up can have a wide-reaching effect on cataloguing CDs, just think on the kind of effect an incorrect piece of data on a government controlled database could have.
Trucking Hell is the second book by “Bowen T Hunter” and has had something of a turbulent history, not unlike the author himself. The book was scheduled to be published through a real bona-fide publisher and everything. Unfortunately due to one thing and another it didn’t happen, so Hunter was poked until he released it on Lulu.
Due to the rather odd nature of the Lulu system, the book went up for sale before Hunter had finished finalising the design and the proofs. I was a little keen off the mark and so am the proud owner of what can be described as a “proof” copy, with little highlight mark in and a few spelling mistakes. This review is based upon this version of the book, there may be some discrepancies between this and the final one.
The curse of a digital workflow is getting things to play nicely from end to end. If I decide I’m processing a photo on the Mac, then I need to scan the negative, edit the photograph and print it back out at a quality that isn’t going to make me wince every time I look at it.
This is harder than it looks for B&W, but so far we’re having success with the combination of an Epson Perfection V700 scanner, Vuescan, Photoshop Elements 6 and the Epson R1900 printer. The pigment inks of the R1900 are a vast improvement on the dye inks of previous generations, and B&W prints look almost passable.
The downside was that all devices required me to be rooted in a single place. Photography is my hobby, and since my home office is also my day work space I don’t relish the thought of being stuck in there every evening waiting for scans to finish (no matter which way you try it, you always end up scanning frame by frame) or waiting for A4/A3 prints to complete (which do take rather a long time). I wanted to be in a position where I could load the scanner with two sets of 120 and sit comfortably in front of the fire, controlling my scanning and other functions from there.
We tried popping the R1900 onto the print server, only to find that we appeared to lose control is sending colour configuration and other settings to the network printer. It was ok, but not great for producing high quality, high accuracy output. As to the scanner, all the solutions we could find (USB over network client/software) were starting at £100, which felt too much to spend on a “convenience”.
I fielded my needs to GeekUp, and Tim Nash replied with the suggestion of a Belkin USB Network Hub. I must admit to being pleasantly surprised.
Kian Ryan is a .NET and Android coder, runs Orange Tentacle and tends to get involved with community stuff.
When not doing all that, he gets time dress up in leather and get people to hit him with metal sticks, goes climbing up bits of rock and plays guitar (badly).
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