Do you know what hyperbole is?
Do you know who Kirk Montgomery is?
Do you know what you get when you mix the two?

I just heard an advertisement for the new Star Trek movie in which Mr. Montgomery is quoted as saying that the new Star Trek is “this generation’s Star Wars”. ORLY? I thought it was supposed to be this generation’s STAR TREK!!!!

Cretin.

::sigh::

Following this new variation on logic I can only surmise that:

• “House” must be this generation’s “Gone With The Wind”.
• The new Will Ferrell remake of “Land of the Lost” must be this generation’s “French Connection”.
• “Transformers 2″ must certainly be this generation’s “Citizen Kane”
• and who could deny that “Operation Runway” represents this generation’s “From Here to Eternity”??

Alls I know is that THIS generation have their heads up their collective asses and that Mr. Montgomery is leading the charge. Just like Humphrey Bogart in “Ironman 2″.

Now THERE was a classic.

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Oh Netflix, you sexy little minx, you conduit to all my guilty pleasures, you must be nearly as exhausted as I am… or maybe you kids started celebrating New Years a little early this year? All I know is that after 15 hours of slinging pixels I arrived home, ready to crank open a little bit of Yu-Gi-Oh style monster-dueling before hitting the sack and five seconds into the disc I realized that you didn’t sent me Volume 8 and 9 like I requested, you sent me Volumes 9 and 10, which might seem partly right to an optimist, but is in fact, mostly entirely wrong.

Wha Hoppen?

Netflix, are you trying to confuse me and my burgeoning duel monster skills? Stop it!

Just to make sure that the error wasn’t mine, I clicked over to view my Returned Rentals, and sure enough Volume 8 was listed as having been returned the day after it was shipped. Take a look:

Maybe I just forgot Episode 8? Nope, I went and found the synopsis for the entire series (an altogether humiliating task) and can tell you right now that no, I have NOT seen any of this particular bit of thrilling monster card fighting. To wrap things up, I took a quick peek at my emails, and sure enough, on Monday you sent me a note saying that you would be mailing me Volume 8 for arrival yesterday…. see??

Now how is this possible?

I mean, come on guys. Clearly, our mail lady did not pick the disc up from you, drive it to my house, sit with me and watch it, and then take it back the next day.

Everybody knows that she only does that with Bridget Jones.

Every Wednesday.

Whether we want her to or not.

So unless you can prove that you’re not in league with our voluptuous, restraining-order-encumbered mail woman, I want a written explanation of what’s going on down there at Netflix Central, and I want it now….. and…. if possible, I want in on the action.

You know, swag, and stuff.

Realizing that it might be a good idea let you know that my order was in wild disarray, I decided to “Report a Problem” on a disc that was clearly not next in my cue…

Evan Almighty

What the?? Steve Carrell, look buddy, love you and all, but you’ve got to learn to wait your turn in my queue.

Capiche?

So now, take a look at what I got when I went to try to explain this entire mess to the good (but hallucinogenically demented) people over at Netflix…..

Reveived? REVEIVED???

Dammit, Netflix.
You’re partying without me.
I guess this means we’re not BFF anymore?

Message Reveived, Netflix.
Message Reveived.

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Here’s the deal.

In 2003 I owned one of the hottest toys on the planet…. a sweet black and silver Sony Ericsson T-616 cellphone (part of their 610 series).

It had a real (albeit tiny) joystick, a sophisticated operating system and a full-color screen WAY bigger than any of my friends’ phones. This thing was so far ahead of the curve that only the dorkiest dorks in town owned one. Needless to say that no one in my circle of friends and work colleagues had a phone that could begin to match the things my phone could do.

I’m serious. This was a nifty bit of cellular overkill and I LOVED it.

The T-616 was a miniature computer. It had a camera and it used Bluetooth™ (the usefulness of which nobody seemed to comprehend regardless of how many hand gestures I used to explain the concept of controlling the refrigerator with my cellphone*). That little marvel could do SMS (simple text messages), MMS (styled text messages with images and video)… it was even capable of sending and receiving honest to goodness emails!!

This was back in 2003, people!!!
Back when Saddam was still in power, the Concorde was still in service, and New Hampshire’s Old Man of the Mountain wasn’t just on the quarter.

After playing around with the T-616 I was certain that “texting” would be my favorite feature, a certainty which lasted less than a month as that’s exactly how long it took me to realize that the rest of my friends’ phones were as useful as a duck on wheels and that frequent texting was as expensive as a trip to the Gold Room with a stripper, please, sir, don’t touch the boobs.

There I’d be, at a restaurant, on a date, waiting for the girl to return from the powder room. With a couple of glasses of wine in me and a mind for mischief I’d whip out my T-616 and type up a message to a couple of my friends and hit the “SEND” key.

The next day I would get an angry phone call or three.

Blisteringly livid complaints.

“Dude. Stop sending me those damned text message things. I can’t get them. My phone won’t do that. I have to call a special number and get a code from my carrier and then log into a website to see what you sent, and it costs me ten cents every time I have to do that… so stop it. I’m serious.”

(very nearly a direct quote*)

After an intense period of threats and imprecations from these same friends (you people) I stopped sending texts altogether and withdrew to the lowest depths of the Drewcave, where I installed a bunch of dumb games on the phone and started using those to entertain myself whenever I was bored… robbed of the thrill of text messaging by the sheer incompetence of everyone I knew, I allowed my interest to wither and fade.

But in 2005 the price of the Motorola RAZR suddenly dropped and over the course of the year a bunch of my friends (you people) began sending me text messages.

Finally, I had playmates!!
I especially wanted to text some of the girls I knew…but there was a problem.

It was impossible for these girls to carry on a conversation that was anywhere near as sexy and fluid as something you get in an instant message session, chiefly because their phones required them to learn how to use a 12-key number pad to type in words from a 26+ character alphabet.

If you’ve ever tried this you can attest to how indescribably difficult it can be to accomplish, even if your phone uses predictive text input (T-9). Plus, the more you’ve had to drink, the more likely your message ends up resembling a rotor selection code for the Third Reich’s Enigma Engine.

As cool as my T-616 was, it had a clumsy numeric keypad and less storage space than an Atari 800XL (the newer ones). So I kind of thought I was upgrading when I began using a Motorola PEBL a few years ago, but all too soon I realized that it wasn’t really any better.

But I learned it the hard way.

I’d be somewhere, maybe a concert or a hockey game, and in an intense moment of profound emotion I’d be moved to share a thought with one or more of you and would type out a message simmering with wit and verve, heart and soul, only to discover (later*) that you received:

“Hex h?m cr th keeha poemo 9ot fvep say!”

::sigh::

The truth is, I just can’t type on this damned thing.

Now you know the truth. I’m hardly ever drunk, my phone just sucks balls.

But it’s your fault, you know. You people.

If you’d only started texting with me back in 2003, when I was ready to begin, I’d have already migrated to a full QWERTY keyboard phone. I’d be master of a CrackBerry or an iPhone a G1 or a whatever. I’d have thumbs of STEEL.

I’d be a real boy.

It was you, all of you, who held me back.
That’s right, all of you are responsible for retarding my texting growth.

You’ve made me some sad Quasimodo of Texting and I hate you for it.

But there’s more!! My Hugo-esque tragedy has another chapter!!

Among the many assorted elements of texting etiquette (or “Textiquette”) of which I have been pitifully unaware is the fact that there are, in fact, Hours of Operation for text messages which are not, in further fact, the same as emails.

Did you know this?? Why didn’t you tell me? Do you HATE me??

This cardinal rule of text messaging was brought sharply into focus a few weeks ago by two tantalizingly hot, bright and friendly-as-a-puppy 20-somethings, who interpreted an 8am Sunday morning text message from me as the equivalent of a booty call… instead of the friendly (and almost entirely innocent*) salutation it was intended to be.

Imagine my confusion when I received a message which read:

“dude. texts are not accepted between the hours of 1am and 10am unless they are emergencies! but thanks ”

Please note that this was the exact moment at which I began to understand the profound difference between text messages and emails… I began to understand that text message are not the same as emails and that people who send text messages are expecting immediate replies.

Holy crap.
I had been the equivalent of the 1997 AOL user who typed all of his emails in UPPERCASE LETTERS.
I had pooped in the punchbowl of text messaging.
I was a pirate at a tea party with poop on my feet.
I was a n00b.

Oh the ignominy.
Oh the turmoil.
Oh the Passion, theSturm and Drang.
Oh the unexpected junior high school confrontations in darkened IM corridors.
And ultimately: the shunning, the shunning, the shunning.

All because of text messages.

And it’s all your fault, you bastards.
You’ve allowed me become this texty clown.
You juked me into living in the technological backwater of T-9 predictive input.
If you’d only switched over with me in 2003 but….

…look at you now,
with your fancy iPhones and BlackBerrys and Whatsits.

Sending each other texts.
Laughing at me.
Just, look at yourselves. I hope you’re happy with yourselves.
Where were you when I needed you??

Enjoy your newfound technological superiority while it lasts, because it’s about to end.

You’ve awakened a sleeping giant with a nimble set of thumbs.

I’m going to do what I set out to do in 2003 and this time you won’t stop me.

You can’t stop me.

I’ve started shopping for a new phone.
You heard me right. A new phone.
A hot phone, a sexy phone.
A phone with a full keyboard, for texting.

I’m going to learn to text good and proper this time.
I’ll memorize the polite hours of operation.
I’ll use apostrophes and umlauts, circumflexes and diacriticals.
I’ll spell things properly (and improperly per textiquette and cultural mores).

I’ll go slow, slow, quick, quick, slow.
I’ll be clever and glib, whipsmart beyond reason.
You’ll thrill to my every text and I’ll leave you wanting more.

Clever girls will sob at the complexity of my mind and dumb girls will send me pictures of their boobs and, best of all, my phone will have enough memory to actually be capable of opening the files!!

No more will you receive messages like:

“Basu 7ar ysu4″

or

“I#n hbving stbh a goof tine?”

or

“Haia 8ra naus akawiz yot qtsrz!”

No.
Soon, and very soon, I’ll be able to text with the best of you, and those booty calls?

They’ll be for real.
Oh yes, for real.

Unless of course I’ve had too much beer, in which case you won’t be able to read them.

And I won’t be able to Ya3A#9a???*

(* an early promise of Bluetooth technology)

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I always knew that stuff was bunk.

Sure, I still worry that there are a few holdouts in the education community who believe that artistic talent is an inherent ability that (when nurtured and encouraged) can produce sublime works able to touch the soul and elevate the human condition. But, with Adobe’s announcement of a free online version of Photoshop, I’m fairly positive that those old education crustaceans will be ferreted out of hiding soon enough, to be exposed to the heavy heel of Bauder College’s new catchphrase! Silly old sods, couldn’t they see this coming?

It’s past time that an accredited 4-year community college had the guts to step forward and lead the world into that bright, gauzy future where anyone can be anything they want to be, as long as they have the right software loaded on their computer (you know, like in that movie ‘The Matrix’?). Haven’t we learned by now that it’s “not what you know, it’s what your computer knows” that’s important?

I surely have.

The man who sold me my first Macintosh-style computer told me that it was “insanely great*” and that it would let me “create professional graphic design right out of the box”. Oh boy was that guy right! It took me awhile (probably ten years or more) but because of that software I can proudly say that I earn my living today as a Designer (with a capital ‘D’).

I love all the automatic things in today’s software, like Photoshop’s “make me look younger” button and Illustrator’s “make the chart look more professional” button and PowerPoint’s” can you please help me fix this slide because my team needs to walk out the door with this presentation in five minutes and I have no idea what I’m doing” button. These things make me look like a champ every time and I *love* it!! Oh… and where would I be without CSSEdit’s “figure out how the box model for IE works and make my site do it correctly because I have no idea how to do it” button?

I want to MARRY that button!!

But then I’m just a hopelessly lazy romantic.
Software buttons are amazing.

Truth be told, it’s entirely because of all the sophisticated software installed on my Macintosh-style computer that I’m as important as I am now… and I’m pretty sure that I might in fact be even more important…. if I can get the software.

I mean, come on!!
The software is out there, it’s just a matter of finding it and loading it onto my Macintosh-style computer.

Looking through all the available software makes me realize that my career options are boundless!!

Airline Pilot
While I’m pretty certain that I could become a darned good pilot with some flight sims I just don’t have the patience to sit through all that instrument crap. Pilots have a button for that stuff, right? I like the hours they work and all the stewardess sex they say they have, and even though they whine a lot, how bad could it be driving a bus through the sky to Paris? PARIS!! I hear that some airlines in the Midwest even let their pilots drink when they’re working… how cool would that be? You know, if someone would send me a Space Shuttle simulator that runs on my Macintosh-style computer I might even pursue my 6th grade dream of being an astronaut. I’m telling you I’d *love* wearing an astronaut jacket and pushing all those “space buttons” they have. If learning some software is the price I must pay to earn my flight wings then I’m up to the challenge… reporting for duty sir!

Billionaire Warlord
My growing familiarity with Microsoft Excel has already made me consider whether I might ought to put in a resume for Chairman of the Federal Reserve, though I feel that Donald Trump is truly looking for a trustworthy disciple to carry forth his good work. I feel that I must be able to work Excel better than The Donald, which really makes me feel that he should be replaced quickly, to protect the investors who back his endeavors. (Can anyone point me toward the “keep my hair from looking like a deceased (but randy) wombat” button in Excel??)

Legendary Director
By mid-summer I’m hoping to have signed a significant motion picture deal as my Macintosh-style computer has both iMovie and Final Cut Express installed on it. Some of you may already be fans of my films. Best of all is the “pull the clips into a final edit” button. It requires no understanding of storytelling whatsoever. See?

Writer
I think it’s pretty obvious that I’m already off to a great start in this world where software, not talent, is what counts. Consider this very WordPress blog (the one you’re reading right now) for instance. Its many features and user-definable options make writing effortless… for instance, at this very moment I’m down at the local pizza parlor drinking a beer, yet this article is indefinably compelling and vaguely humorous. Cool, huh? I’m pretty sure it’s from all the plug-ins I’ve installed.

So, in conclusion (my software is running out of wind), let me salute the leaders at Bauder College; a place of vision. A college whose leaders recognize that we live in new and exciting times where software does everything.

Where no one individual’s talents are encouraged or celebrated…. wish we’d had this stuff at my alma mater, Georgia Tech. Sheesh, that would’ve been awfully darn handy!

But THANKS Bauder.
Thanks for joining me to stand up with a little straight talk about the future.

I’ll certainly think of your television advertisement the next time one of your students sends me their resume!

Your pal,
Drew

* a favorite saying of a computer company guy named Steve Jobs, who (as I understand it) sells computers that already let you do foolproof graphic design

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But you came here for a way to fix your problem didn’t you?!

I’m going to give you a way to create a properly imposed PDF version of your InDesign document, without using anyone else’s plug-ins or scripts. It’s an entirely Adobe-based solution and while it doesn’t provide an editable InDesign imposition, it’s a very good solution that should benefit a good number of users. Are you ready?

Users of InDesign CS2 had an item in the File menu called “InBooklet SE…” located under the File menu. In the CS3 version of InDesign you’ll find an item named “Print Booklet…” in the same location. (see image below)

Now take a look at the dialog box from CS2 InBooklet SE:

and compare it to the dialog box from CS3’s new “Make Booklet” wizard:

Did you notice something missing?

That’s right, there’s no option to create a new document from the imposition.

Besides offering the designer the ability to print a properly imposed version of their document, InBooklet SE’s “killer feature” was that it provided the user with the ability to create a brand new InDesign document with the page order permanently rearranged for imposition. In my situation, I would use the new document to export a correctly imposed PDF for my admin staff so that they could print company documents on demand. This workflow eliminated the need for the company to purchase a second license for InDesign, protecting original documents from untrained users.

It was a shock to discover that InDesign CS3 had lost its ability to create new documents based on the new imposed page order and I spent some time searching the internet for a solution to this problem. The only solution I could find online to combat this missing feature is a script written by Stephen Carlsen (available for download from his website), which examines your document, determines the correct imposition order for the pages, “cooks” a PDF of each of the pages in the InDesign document, and reassembles those solitary PDF page snaps in sorted order into a new InDesign document.

It’s a nice little script and I give kudos to Stephen for tackling a way to work around Adobe’s infuriating gaffe, but it’s an extremely inelegant solution to the problem and it fails to generate correct output if you use section breaks… and honestly, who doesn’t use section breaks?

But there is a more elegant way to achieve the result you’re seeking and it’s easy to do, as long as you also own a licensed version of Adobe Acrobat Professional!!

While you have the “Make Booklet…” wizard open click the button which reads “Print Settings…”, located along the lower edge of the dialog box.

This will call up the traditional InDesign Print dialog box (see next image).

Click on the pop-up list of available printers, at the top of this dialog box.

Next, click the button labeled “Printer…” along the bottom edge and yet another dialog box will pop up, but this one should look familiar to regular users of InDesign as it’s the regular old printer dialog box you normally see when printing less complex documents.

Select either “Adobe PDF 8.0″ or “Adobe PDF 7.0″ from that list to use as a virtual printer (whether you have either of these options available to you depends entirely upon your installation of Acrobat).

Next, click “Print” and you’ll be asked to select a location on your computer where the Acrobat virtual printer can save the file you’re about to create…

after you select a location click the “Save” button in the lower right of that dialog box.

Now you’re back down to the InDesign Print dialog box and almost done…just click the “OK” button.

Finally, you’re returned to the original “Print Booklet” menu, and it’s time to actually CREATE your PDF document!

Just click the “Print” button in the “Print Booklet” menu and InDesign will spool the print file off to the Acrobat Distiller engine and in no time at all you’ll be awash in a sea of properly imposed PDFs!!

Ta Da!!! A properly imposed PDF file!!!
Now all you need to do is to print your document in “duplex” mode on your printer/copier, a process that varies between manufacturers and is far beyond my ability to lend assistance. However, I can do one thing for you, and that’s to remind you to tell your output device not to scale the artwork to fit your page in Adobe Acrobat. Need some help with doing that? Read my article on “How To Make Adobe Acrobat Stop Printing the Wrong Size“.

So…..
I hope all of this helps you!??

I wish that I’d been smart enough to figure this out long before now, back when I was using CS2, because there was really no need (in my particular situation) to create a new InDesign document with the pages rearranged for imposition. From now on I’ll only need to use one InDesign document.

Sure would be nice if Adobe would create a shortcut for this… hmmm, I wonder if you can make an action to do all of this for you?

Thanks for all the comments folks!

[tags]Adobe, InDesign, CS2, CS3, InBooklet, SE, Quark, imposition, rearrange, pages, create, new, document, plug-in, plugin, script, print, printing, solution, workaround[/tags]

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One of the specific aspects of The Planet that concerns me the most is its temperature. It keeps me up at night. No, really! It makes me wake up at 3:30am in pain and frustration…. mostly because I have a really nasty cold and can’t stop coughing because my room is too hot.

“Aha!” you cry, “then you belong to us, to our Society!”

“What society?” I stammer, unexpectedly caught in a first person narrative.

“Why, the Earth “Is Too” Getting Warmer Dammit Society,” you answer, hands on hips, caught between triumph and desperation.

Oh. Right. That Society.

Well sure… yes…. of course I do. But…. I’m not coming to your stupid meetings or wearing your gay T-shirts (gay in this context being the late 20th century slang for “stupid”, not the mid-20th century “homosexual” or the elder usage of the word meaning “giddily happy”, so pull your boxers out of your crack, Rosie).

I’m not singing in your hallelujah choir with your celebrity guest stars and your slideshow-toting Vice Presidents who, even if they do understand the complexity and uncertainty of the systems being studied by climatologists, seem to have prostituted themselves to the cult of celebrity instead of the order of Science.

Mostly it’s the feeling that I get that you’re all wearing Fashion Science, and that you’re already getting tired of how it fits you.

Not only do you guys seem to lack the necessary concept of Skepticism, you don’t even seem to be doing all the math on what’s really Green and what’s Popular. You’re letting the bloody Marketing Types tell you what to do to save the planet, instead of scientists.

“Buy this coffee for its immeasurable tiny contribution to preventing a hole in the ozone layer.”

“Drive this car for its reduced emissions, even if it requires more energy to produce it.”

“Believe this politician for his stance on Climate Change.”

“Admire this celebrity for her dedication to The Planet.”

The last time I checked, Marketing Types and Press Agents are the last people I want preaching to me about Science or leading witch hunts for those who don’t adopt their cause.

Do I want to join The Earth “Is Too” Getting Warmer Society? Maybe. Are there hot girls working the phones in the office?

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Within the first six months of Apple’s 2002 “Switchers” ad campaign we began seeing an increase in new members to Mac messageboards, many of whom were honest-to-goodness Switchers straight out of the ad campaigns. It was easy enough to spot them as they’d inevitably refer to their new computer as a “MAC”, in all caps. It was mildly annoying, but soon enough it became expected and someone would always quickly post an explanatioin that the computer’s name wasn’t an acronym (as PC is to “Personal Computer”) and that they could use their “inside voice” when referring to their machine. Soon enough many of these Mac-newbies would become active proselytizers of the platform, which was…. cute.

We remembered our own Angry Mac Adolescence….

Growing up Mac was very special. You were, without a doubt, a member of a minority group. A special tribe. You had your own inside language, your own jokes, your own overpoweringly strong ideas about the way that things should be done and you had a great deal of frustration, envy and crushing disappointment that your PC-using friends could be so incredibly ignorant about the fact that your Macintosh was as much a computer as theirs.

We became adamant, angry and ultimately gained a reputation for being snobby (by our PC-using, majority-belonging friends who were baffled at our passion for a stupid old computer). Then, a lot of us Mac-users who like using all sorts of computers just plain stopped caring about the Mac versus PC debates. We officially went off to drink beer and meet girls.

The debate? Who gave a fig? Nobody seemed to be winning anything useful out of the debate and we’d realized that we’d carved out our own world and were perfectly happy living in the shadow of our PC-using cousins. We just patiently followed Ghandi’s proverb:

And so it was that the new Switchers provided us with an amusing reflection of our former selves…. angry and confrontational and…. and that was fine. We figured they’d mellow out eventually, and besides, the world of technology was a-changing again…. the arrival of Web 2.0 meant that your computer’s platform didn’t matter as much as the modernity of your web browser… and then last year the biggest “dogs and cats sleeping together EVER” happened on the Mac: you could run Windows on your Macintosh.

Which brings me back around to the Resista-Switcher.

The newest, strangest flavor of Switcher I’ve seen in the last week are people who are eminently content with using Windows, but want to run it on a Mac… and I don’t mean that they want to run Windows alongside or on top of Apple’s “OS X”…. they want to run Windows exclusively on a Macintosh. In fact, they seem adamant that they do not wish to have OS X active on their new computer… which begs the question that a lot of Mac users are asking:

Why would you buy a Mac if you don’t intend to run its native operating system? Wouldn’t it be cheaper to buy a nice Dell (Toshiba, Panasonic, Sony, etc) machine and have done with it? And yet these people are, these Resista-Switchers, are popping up here and there.

This has naturally created a bit of confusion on the boards, forcing some of the more settled Mac users back up to their feet, rallying against the very (unholy) notion of using a Mac to run Windows all by its lonesome. The people who are considering making these moves are surprised at the unfriendly reaction of Mac users, unaware as they are of the history and culture of that tiny minority.

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This costs all of us about $92 Million per year to keep this service running, which I’m fine with because it helps those with hearing and speech disabilities to function in a world that is all about aural communication. It’s ears for the deaf, a voice for the mute. A wonder of the modern age.

Except that it’s being abused by crooks, scammers, killers and thieves, notably scammers in Nigeria.

Since the service is free and un-policed, these people can use it to relay anything from ID theft information to threats against people’s lives (one operator had to read something along the lines of “if you don’t do it I will kill your children” to someone).

They showed other examples of the wild abuses that the system is used for, from hate-filled Nazi rants to explicit sexual material, that operators have HAD to read (assuming they wanted to keep their jobs I suppose). You see, there’s a Catch-22 with the system that prevents operators from reporting suspicious activity because it’s an invasion of privacy to do report these conversations to security agencies.

From what they say it’s been happening for years and the FCC has done nothing to stop it. I’m sure that lawmakers are scratching their heads on how to structure the service to preserve its original intent without creating draconian controls for the law-abiding users of the service, but at this point in time it’s clearly broken and in need of immediate intervention.

If you have time to watch, the MSNBC website already has the video posted from this morning’s segment, follow this link.

[tags]Today Show, Today, Show, IP Relay, FCC, Carrier, Cost, Recovery, Fee, Carrier Cost Recovery, threats, scammers, thieves, Lisa, Meyers, deaf, operator, FBI, $92, million[/tags]

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