What a plonker!

Talk about shooting yourself in the foot! Try this for bureaucracy gone barmy.

I got an email today from the Supplies Manager of an NHS Trust. We supply them poster frames. The sender had copied in all 678 of his other suppliers so there, for my edification, were the email addresses of all their suppliers. Interesting, but not especially discreet.

So what was the email about? He was writing to stress the high importance the authority attaches to Data Protection and the meticulous standards all suppliers are required to observe at all times - with the threat of contract termination to any offenders.

In my day (oh here he goes again), before email was ever conceived, people knew what a blind carbon copy was. Today few people seem to be aware what Bcc means in Outlook.

Now ... what shall I send to my newly aquired mailing list? Umm? A little spam maybe? Or will I receive all the other guys' spam first, because they've all got my email address too!

The Beast has been Released

Unfortunately I have had complaints. Apparently it's not just the fridge that stinks - now it's the whole kitchen.

It seems my smelly cheese is to blame. Monsieur Fromage, who awaits my lunchtime pleasure, is a ripe little Frenchman and the noses of my work colleagues are evidently, as the French would say, 'sensible'. (Interesting that the French word for sensitive is 'sensible' - a source of many a mis-translation.)

Tupperware (or whatever it's called now) to the rescue. Popped the smelly French cheese into the box and sealed the lid - et voila, le pong est disparu! The morning passes peacefully without an odorous complaint; the aroma safely contained. But then it's time for lunch: so bread at the ready I open the box. Out pops this nasal assault upon my workmates to cries of The Beast has been Released. Never mind, I enjoyed it anyway and I don't mind eating alone.

This tale reminds me of a conversation I had recently with a Chinese associate who told me that while he studied in France the one thing he could never get used to was the stink of their cheese. It seems that Chinese sensibilities (aah there you see the English link to the French word for sensitive, nothing to do with sensible) find well matured dairy products rather unpleasant to say the least. I'm guessing that Camembert exports to the People's Republic of China are not a high volume line.

Sorry if you thought the mouse in the picture was The Beast. I just thought he was rather cute. And no, it's not French cheese in the picture, so don't be picky. And now I need to get in my plug ..

Click here if you need a sign holder for a delicatessen or cheese counter.

Trick of the Eye

Square B is a different shade to A and C?

Wrong! All three are exactly the same shade. (Open the image in photo editing software and check with the eyedropper sampling tool if you don't believe me!)

That's an example of your eye deceiving you; which is relevant to colour management when producing prints off your computer.

I'm just off to demonstrate large Epson printers to retailers who want to print banners and POS. Some will be bothered about accurate colour matching while others don't care too much about colour management as long as the banner or sign is eye-catching. We tailor the solution to suit their individual needs and budget. But one sure thing is that exact colour matching by eye is tricky.

Everything is green today.

Your eyes are green

My envy's green

It's quite obscene

This luscious green

A poem by

Hyam C Nile

Computer Frustration ... misaligned mouse!

Don't you hate it when the computer doesn't do what it should? Which bit exactly is not working! That happened to me today but thanks to searching on Google I found a forum (which for once I could understand) that has solved my frustration - what a relief!

I use Corel Draw a lot - I'm not a real expert but neither am I a virgin. I started out many years ago with CorelDraw 3 which was brilliant - but it's got so much cleverer since then. I use Corel Draw to demonstrate the capabilities of Epson large format printers. Corel Draw is also the tool I use to design our catalogue for printing and to make PDF's to view our Sign Holders catalogue online.

So I've loaded Corel Draw on my new Dell computer at home (I've had several Dells over the years) only to find that my mouse pointer is misaligned with the objects it's meant to click on. For precision graphics a pointer which is not aligned is a hopelessly frustrating situation. Anyway, after hunting around for my setup 'mistake' I tried doing a Google search.

It turns out that there are other guys out there who've had exactly the same problem and eventually somebody has posted a fix. Apparently the problem stems from a graphics card (which only applies to the upgrade card for which Dell charge extra). Having now downloaded a new driver - which seemed to be a very big file (you wonder what else you're downloading) - phew it actually works correctly.

Don't print this! Save the planet!

I hate those emails that try to look very eco-friendly by including a little green tree symbol at the end and condescendingly instructing you not to print it in order to save trees. But maybe it's one of those you need to print, so racked with guilt you click on the print icon.

What happens next is the short email spills over onto two sheets of paper. Why? Because the sender followed their little tree message with two or three paragraphs of self important waffle about how confidential their email is and what steps you should take immediately if you're are not the intended recipient. Without all that garbage it would have fitted nicely onto a sheet of A4 paper.

It gets worse when you bounce emails back and forth a few times to companies who add these verbose disclaimers each time they reply - so end up with a single page of condensed email text and about four pages of stuff saying you're not allowed to rely on the information provided.

If you think Standard Disclaimer clauses have a tendency towards absurdity you may like this one.

Welcome old farts!

Hyam C Nile - that's me!
Otherwise known as the Green Magician on account of a strange spell cast upon me during one of my adventures to darkest Egypt. A tricky business, an enigma indeed ... but more of that anon.

Now, if you are a young reader the content of this blog may not quite suit. Old farts and codgers will however feel at home. You may find some wisdom, or you may find little more than rubbish. We shall see.

Be prepared to look for signs - they are all around - but you may not spot them without some friendly assistance. Come back for some magic - some green magic!