Monthly Archives: February 2007
Pfeiffer Consulting review of Microsoft Vista in creative environment
February 28th, 2007 by Jim Kidwell
The IT Enquirer recently reported on a Pfeiffer Consulting study of Microsoft Vista when installed for use by creative teams. The report measured everything from how precise the mouse was, to how long it takes for OS menues to display. It’s an interesting exercise. Does this affect a choice when deciding which creative operating system you will use? I seriously doubt it. For the most part, I’m willing to bet that creative departments have standardized on one platform or another and are sticking with it. In my opintion, this should only be one of many factors that new creative users consider when choosing a platform.
In our case, pretty much everyone has both a Mac and a PC under their desk. And when it comes down to it, it’s not really the tools that you use to create, but the final output that matters. If you’re settled in a Windows environment, you’ll likely be migrating to Vista whether you like it or not. Same goes for Mac OS X when Leopard is released later this year. I seem to remember similar groanings when the first versions of Mac OS X were released. If it were me making the decision, I’d wait for the first service pack to clear up most of the issues found by early adopters.
20 questions with James Grace
February 28th, 2007 by Jim Kidwell
- What’s your job title?
My business card says, “Systems Engineer”. - How long have you been with Extensis?
Approximately 2 years. - Where is your cog in the Extensis machine?
Right behind the big box of rags in the janitor’s closet… - What is your favorite Extensis product?
Portfolio, or course! - If you were a font, which font would you be?
Cooper Black! - What’s at the top of your iPod playlist?
iTunes tells me that I’ve played “Fell on Black Days” by Soundgarden no less than 29 times! That’s over 2 hours and 15 minutes of my life! - When were you most happy?
Right now! - What is your greatest accomplishment?
Six years in the U.S. Army and no tattoos. - What is your biggest regret?
That I couldn’t stay in college FOREVER! - What is your biggest passion?
Right now, it’s trying to beat the bad guys in “Black” for Playstation 2. - What do you like to read?
Good comics books (“DMZ” and “the Exterminators”). - What is your most treasured possession?
My son, Calvin the Calvinator. - What food can you not live without?
Skor candy bars. - How are you a weekend warrior?
I’m a slalom skateboarder. On Friday nights — weather permitting — I set up the slalom cones for the weekly “Friday Night Rip” in Prospect Park Brooklyn, NY. I used to bodyboard and surf a lot in New Jersey, but that got to be too much work. — especially after I moved to New York City. - What’s the strangest thing on your desk?
Paper… - What is one thing that people don’t generally know about you?
I’ve been an expert marksman ever since high school. I was one of the top marksmen in J.R.O.T.C. in high school -and- was an also an expert marksmen in the U.S. Army on both the M16A1/A2 and M60 Machine Gun. After I got out of the Army, I decided that it would be best if I didn’t own any firearms. - Which website do you visit daily?
http://news.google.com - In another life you were…?
A PARTY ANIMAL !!! - What’s your ultimate destination?
My wife — Sunny, warm water, no sharks, nice waves, smiling people, good cheap food, and a hobby that pays the bills… - What do you want your dying words to be?
See you soon…
Extensis Launches Lounge 2.0 – foosball and darts yeeehaw!
February 27th, 2007 by Kelly Guimont
For Immediate Distribution
Extensis Launches Lounge 2.0 for Hard-Working Employees
Extensis improves its Employee Lounge and adds compatibility for beer-drinking, foosball-playing, dart-throwing, music-loving, video-gaming types.
PORTLAND, Ore. – February 23, 2007 – Extensis, a division of Celartem, Inc., today launched Lounge 2.0 for its hard working employees. Answering the need for stress relief and a place to socialize after hours, Extensis has added new functionality and compatibility to its heralded Lounge product.
“We heeded the words of our General Manager, Brian Berson, to get back to a ‘dotcom era-style’ of enthusiasm and to embrace a work hard/play hard mentality,” said Daryl Vogel, co-engineer of the project. “Prior to becoming feature complete, we had a positive response to our employee beta which encouraged us to double our efforts. By updating our lounge with some new features and enhancements, we’ve created not just a place to bond with co-workers but an improved, more user-friendly interface that enriches the experience for all.”
Answering concerns of potential abuse, Paul Krummenacker, co-engineer, had this to say: “We don’t see this as an issue. We believe our user base recognizes the privilege of having products like Lounge 2.0 and the importance of keeping the area clean and restricting use to breaks and after hours in order to ensure continued enjoyment by all.”
Special thanks to Greg for his help with the TV monitor.
About Lounge 2.0
Pool table
Foosball table
Pub-style dartboard and darts
Playstation 2 game console w/ games
Music
Pricing and Availability
Lounge 2.0 is free to all Extensis employees and available during breaks and after hours.
About Extensis
Extensis is a really cool place to work with talented, hard working individuals committed to making award winning products. Extensis is devoted to creating extraordinary experiences for its customers and recognizes that employees with an enthusiastic, emotional attachment to their work translates to customers with an enthusiastic, emotional attachment to our products and services. Yeah, that’s how we roll.
Disclaimer
Tongue planted firmly in cheek here.
Photos of our fab space
Weiden & Kennedy are bloggers too!
February 27th, 2007 by Kelly Guimont
Well, maybe not all of them, they don’t really say who authors the posts, but you can read more about W&K at the Weiden & Kennedy Studio blog.
Good Lord.
Now don’t get me wrong, I love working at Extensis. We have a fantastic group of people and we do cool things and so forth. But unless you ACTUALLY work at WK, you HAVE to be a little jealous after reading just their front page!! We got a Wii, Pete Yorn was here, Fab 5 Freddy was at a movie screening…
I’m a little jealous. Only a little! But I’m still jealous. Not as jealous as I would be if I were the London office and looking at that blog, but then the London office has it’s own share of neat stuff on their blog too, including their own YouTube Channel.
I did think it was interesting to see a little insight into the work they’re doing, and that’s always cool to me as someone who is reasonably creative, but not necessarily a “creative” type. With InDesign I maybe can do something non-hideous, but give me some yarn and some specs and I’ll definitely hook you up with something awesome.
I’m going to go back to being a teeny bit jealous now. (Only because they have a Wii.)
Extensis to present at Miami Creative Suite Conference
February 27th, 2007 by Jim Kidwell
On Friday, March 2nd, one of the Extensis product marketing managers, Halstead York will be presenting at the Creative Suite Conference in Miami, FL.
Halstead will discuss the best practices for taking control of your fonts in Mac OS X. The session will examine the unique requirements of a creative typography workflow, and how effective font management can help make this workflow more manageable.
The conference is presented by Barrycon events. For more information, see the Barrycon site.
Extensis named one of the top 100 companies
February 27th, 2007 by Jim Kidwell
The publication KMWorld has given us the honor of including us in their lits of “100 Companies that Matter in Knowledge Management.” How cool is that? KMWorld covers the knowledge, document and content management systems market.
The complete list of honorees is published in the March 2007 edition of KMWorld Magazine, and is also available online at www.kmworld.com.
UPDATE: the full list of 100 companies that matter can be found here.
Publishing Executive & Book Business Conference & Expo
February 26th, 2007 by Jim Kidwell
From March 5th through the 7th we’ll be attending a combined event focused on the book publishing business. The Publishing Executive Conference and Expo as well as the Book Business Conference and Expo. They’re two separate conferences, each with unique conference sessions, yet sharing an Expo hall.
Recently I talked about how much I admire the art of book cover design. For this show, we’ll be focusing on how Portfolio can help those creative users (who just might be pulling together images from their recent Thomas Pynchon photo shoot) get organized and save time in their busy schedules.
So, if you’re in NYC, swing by the Mariott Marquis and share some of those images of Pynchon with us.
What does Marsellus Wallace look like?
February 23rd, 2007 by Jim Kidwell
OK, so I wasn’t sure if I’d post this here or not. The language is from Pulp Fiction, and of course it’s more than a bit blue (so if you watch it in the office, it’s wise to use your headphones). Besides that, the use of type is pure genius.
Tip-o-the-hat to the How Design blog for this one.
Pete’s whiteboard art – take 3
February 23rd, 2007 by Jim Kidwell
Here’s the latest installment from our resident illustrator and technical support representative Pet Soloway.
One of these days I’ll learn to diffuse the flash from our ancient digital camera (yet, maybe it’s time for an upgrade – hint, hint)
For previous art installations, see this post, or this post.
Adobe product support for Windows Vista
February 23rd, 2007 by Jim Kidwell
Since we just released our newest version of Suitcase for Windows that is compatible with Windows Vista, you might be asking yourself, “What about my Adobe applications?” Well, Adobe has released a document (PDF) detailing the level of support of their products under Vista.
The two Adobe applications for which we have created font auto-activation plug-ins seem to run well under Vista – InDesign and Illustrator. They are not officially supported by Adobe to run under Vista, and each has a few known issues. Adobe recommends that you search their support knowledge base to locate any specific issues before installing them in a Microsoft Vista environment.
