Published February 7, 2013
Stockton Sentinel
Stockton, Kansas
We
have told you (and warned you) that here at the Sentinel, we are in the process of updating the way we put out the
newspaper. We have several new computers, and they are running new software
that brings the Sentinel into the
21st Century as far as print material layout is concerned. Prior to the
upgrade, our paper was laid out in PageMaker, the original desktop publishing
software of choice, which was introduced in the 1980s by Adobe. In 2002,
PageMaker began to be phased out and retired in the publishing industry – and
now also at the Sentinel – in favor
of InDesign, which is also a product of Adobe.
There
have been many tense moments, long hours, and stressed nerves within these
walls since mid-December when the changeover began. But by this week’s issue,
all pages of the Sentinel are now
laid out in InDesign, and that is a major accomplishment that could not have
happened were it not for a few very capable, extremely patient people who work
for The Hays Daily News. There are
still kinks to work out, templates to be made, and processes to be refined; but
for the most part, the Stockton Sentinel
has now come of age and stepped up to the plate with the big boys.
From
my files of important stuff, I ran across the following rhyme, written in the
style of Dr. Seuss. It fairly well describes some of the goings-on around here
in the months (okay, years) leading up to the new computers and new software.
You really would have had to be here to truly appreciate it, but suffice it to
say, that if we had put a dollar in a tin can every time Bart or Bob said, “My
computer’s froze up again” or “$#!&, I’m locked up again,” the new system
would have paid for itself. Finally, it came down to this: there was no alternative other than to
upgrade.
This
poem tells it better:
“If
a packet hits a pocket on a socket on a port, and the bus is interrupted at a
very last resort, and the access of the memory makes your floppy disk abort,
then the socket packet pocket has an error to report.
“If
your cursor finds a menu item followed by a dash, and the double-clicking icon
puts your window in the trash, and your data is corrupted cause the index
doesn’t hash, then your situation’s hopeless, and your system’s gonna crash!
“If
the label on the cable on the table at your house says the network is connected
to the button on your mouse, but your packets want to tunnel to another
protocol, that’s repeatedly rejected by the printer down the hall…
“And
your screen is all distorted by the side effects of gauss, so your icons in the
window are as wavy as a souse, then you may as well reboot and go out with a
bang, ‘cuz sure as I’m a poet, the sucker’s gonna hang.
“When
the copy on your floppy’s getting sloppy in the disk, and the macro code
instruction is causing unnecessary risk, then you’ll have to flash the memory
and you’ll want to RAM your ROM, and then shut down the computer, and be sure
to tell your mom!”
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