Welcome back to the D Revolution blog after a Christmas hiatus. Sorry for the nerdy nature of the post – it’s often the underlying technology that propels computing forward. Ten’s Compliment have a File System plugin for Mac OS X that allows the use of ZFS instead of the standard ... Read more
What to do if your hacked and how do you know Last Friday started out like any other day – until I received an email from Facebook telling me I had associated my account with a new email address. Alarm bells rang straight away. I tried to login to FaceBook ... Read more
Firstly – apologies for having been offline the last fortnight. Simply a case of have too much work and nowhere near enough time! iPad Software Pick of the Week. Release Me – a simple model release app for photographers. See a good review here Whilst the software is expensive, it ... Read more
View image | gettyimages.com The largest crowd-sourced design website – 99designs.com is heading back to it’s roots in Australia. Started in Melbourne in 2008, the website hosts “design contests”. Companies create the contests and specify the price and often the concept. Designers then submit designs hoping to win the contest. ... Read more
I am now on holidays – a week in (hopefully) sunny Fiji. Whilst I will be able to schedule some remote support, in my absence, I have 2 trusted colleagues to take care of any emergencies. If you have Apple related issues in need of urgent attention, please call Geoff ... Read more
After jumping the gun in late June with a Lion compatible firmware (which was later withdrawn) Netgear have a new Lion compatible firmware. I will be testing it soon – contact us if you have a ReadyNAS and need Lion workstations to connect… Older ReadyNAS users with NV, NV+ and ... Read more
The high cost of out of warranty repairs Should you buy AppleCare? In years gone by, the answer was a resounding NO! It was always pushed heavily by resellers as it increased their “attach rate”. A higher attach rate meant a cheaper buy price for the reseller. Previously, I was ... Read more
Bula – D Revolution is taking a short holiday! After a year of being “overworked and undercaffeinated”, “burning the midnight oil”, “burning the candle from both ends“, insert witty saying here – D Revolution is taking a short holiday. From Thursday 15 September to Friday 23 September I will be ... Read more
When testing ADSL internet issues there are a few tried and tested options. 1. Call the ISP and find out the line length – that is the length of cabling from the local Telstra exchange to your premises MDF (Main Distribution Frame). If your distance is 1km or less – ... Read more
Linotype updates FontExplorer. It is now compatible with Mac OS X 10.7 and CS5.5 It is good to see some competition is the font management market. Whilst I personally prefer and recommend FontExplorer, this time round, Extensis were much quicker releasing an update for Creative 5.5 as well as Lion. ... Read more
Using a CDN to increase website speed D Revolution has hosted it’s own website with CMS, DAM, GTD and HelpDesk for 2 years now off a single ADSL connection – first with TPG and now with iiNet. Advantages are total control and really fast website updates. Downside are the speed ... Read more
Our most visited and searched for blog post of all time is the one from November 2009 on Print Standards and Colour Management. Since that time, new software has come out and standards have progressed. It’s time for a revisit. Below is a basic guide to implementing colour management for ... Read more
Quark obituary and a personal perspective/retrospective If you have background in publishing that spans more than a few years, you would have used or seen QuarkXpress. Quark – the maker of QuarkXpress has been around since the early 80’s. I started using QuarkXpress at version 3 in 1993 whilst working ... Read more
Here are the official responses from AdStream regarding QuickCut and Linotype regarding FontExplorer X Pro. AdStream Support – Jamie Davidson (Head of Print and Online) I’m happy to advise that at this stage adstream have had no reports from our customers of compatibility issues with OSX10.7 and our Quickcut product ... Read more
If you design for a living, here what works and what breaks. Adobe Creative Suite – range of issues, some cosmetic, some workflow breaking. QuarkXpress 9 – update due late August. Looks it will be the first layout tool to go full screen! Extensis Suitcase Fusion – Lion update released ... Read more
Lion was released late last week, and whilst this is NOT a review, it is some observations on the upgrade so far. The Good The upgrade was smooth and quick – a download from the “App Store”. The new overall interface is more subdued. Personally, it makes the task or ... Read more
Saas and Freemium – great options, beware of the pitfalls. It’s all the rage at the moment to sign up to all the free services on offer. FaceBook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Apps, EverNote, etc… Like everything in this world – there is ALWAYS a cost. These days, it usually involves ... Read more
Cloud Based services – what are they good for? What is a cloud? Simply put, a cloud is a service delivered over the internet using an often vast grid of computers. Pure clouds are often though of as only accessible through a browser. Often though, you use locally installed software ... Read more
The right tool for the right job What is the best tool for layout? – InDesign. What is the best tool for photo manipulation? – Photoshop. If you are a professional designer who needs to work with other companies and commercial printers the above answers are true. Today there are ... Read more
OS X Lion, the Apple Mac App Store, virtualisation and terminal services Mac OS X 10.7 A.K.A Lion will ship later this month and there are few interesting things. Lion will only be available as a download from the Apple Mac App Store. That brings up a few interesting points. ... Read more
DRevolution is having an End of Financial Year Sale. Sign up for bulk billing and get over 37% off the standard support rate! Simply pay for 20 or more hours of pre-paid support before June 30 and pay only $120 per hour. Bulk Billing credits never expire and can be ... Read more
What would happen if you lost all your data? Recently, a client called me in because their computer was running slow. Ended up that their hard disk was failing with bad blocks – parts of the disk that become unreadable. The disk was becoming more unusable by the minute, so ... Read more
Every week I get asked – “When do I get a new machine” Much to the dismay of the resellers I use, I recommend holding off this year till July 1. As of July 1, small businesses will be able to instant write-off any computer purchases under $5000. That means ... Read more
Apple Introduced the latest version of OS X 10.7, iOS 5 and a mobileme replacement – iCloud. Whilst a lot has been said on the blogosphere that does not need repeating, there a few interesting nuggets to take away from the Apple announcement. New version of the operating system that ... Read more
Proton Digital is no longer selling Apple, so I am now dealing with Stuart Hill from the Apple Store for Business. If you need to purchase a new or refurbished Apple equipment, from computers, to iPads and iPhones, I can now source these at discount direct from Apple. Contact us ... Read more
Cebit has come and gone again. Here are the highlights. If you have ever attended CeBIT, it is an odd mix of companies. From Chinese suppliers trying to strike up import deals for fans, LED’s, IC’s (integrated circuits), to computer manufacturers, merchandise manufacturers, data centre cabinet/aircon/power suppliers. Firstly what WASN’T ... Read more
This week I removed my second malware from a mac – the end is nigh. The malware was the much publicised MacDefender – it took more time to setup the remote session then it did to quit the Malware, trash it and delete the login item. As a bit of ... Read more
Welcome to the latest update of the D Revolution newsletter. We have finally launched our new website – only took since August last year!! The development is done in RapidWeaver with a few choice plugins and an iOS/HTML 5 friendly theme from NimbleHost. Javascript is used to detect the browser ... Read more
Welcome to the latest update of the D Revolution newsletter. Holiday notice. D Revolution is taking a short holiday from Monday 14th September and returning on Wednesday 22 September. I have a wedding to attend in Queensland, but will be available for phone support or after hours remote support. If ... Read more
Welcome to the latest update of the D Revolution newsletter. Site update coming soon… D Revolution will soon be deploying a new website with iPhone/iPad support. This entails custom CSS as well as Javascript detection for iOS device (iPhone/iPad) If you are interested in adding support for mobile devices to ... Read more
Welcome to the April update of the D Revolution newsletter. D Revolution Joins Google Apps Authorized Reseller Program We are pleased to announce that we have become an authorised reseller of the Google Apps™ suite of communication and collaboration tools. Since moving our mail system to Google Apps in July ... Read more
News from the IT and publishing industries Adobe Creative Suite 5. Adobe will most likely announce Creative Suite 5 next month – Every previous Creative Suite launch was 18 months apart. If you are looking at new machines, or needing to upgrade from CS2 or CS3, I recommend holding off ... Read more
Welcome to the last newsletter for the year. It’s assumed nobody will read an email between Christmas and New Years! Holiday Notice Before delving into new publishing workflows, first a note on D Revolution’s holiday plans. D Revolution will be on holidays from Thursday 3rd of December and will return ... Read more
Print Standards and Colour Management. The next 3 issues of the D Revolution e-news will be chock full of useful information relating to the printing industry. Everything from the new Australian Standard for offset printing (AS/ISO 12647-2) to colour management to best practice for pre-flighting and PDF Creation. If you ... Read more
News from the IT and publishing industries as well as a round of compatibility updates… Services D Revolution provide support and training for people involved in the publishing/creative industries. If you need equipment, training, support, workflow support we can organise it! Our preferred supplier Proton Digital, has spawned a new ... Read more
Updates on Services and news from the IT and publishing industries Services Just a reminder, D Revolution has rolled out several new services over the course the last 9 months. We now offer the following; cPanel and Plesk webhost administration Migration services to Google Apps iPhone setup, integration and training ... Read more
Introducing several new D Revolution technological solutions. Xero online accounting to replace MYOB AccountEdge. After a trial and conversations with the developer D Revolution has ditched MYOB and taken up residence on the Cloud. We are now using xero for our accounting. For our clients, this means faster billing and reporting as ... Read more
D Revolution has expanded. After 10 years we are branching out! We can now offer professional Windows support along side our current offerings. If you need help integrating mac’s into PC environments or PC’s into mac environments, we can help. We are also working on integrating Entourage 2008 and Exchange ... Read more
Introducing the new D Revolution Help Desk D Revolution is proud to introduce a new web based Help Desk system. All clients will be able to log in, submit a support request and track it’s progress via the website and email. This new system will allow companies to track how ... Read more
