Patrick Stuart Website and Blog

Opening day at GUA 2009 in Orlando Florida.  For those that don’t know, GUA stands for Graphics Users Association and is the annual North American conference.  This years conference is taking place during one of the toughest times printers have face in modern history.  The 180 or so attendees are a testament to the strength and power those in the printing industry willingness to grow and improve their services and capabilities to survive and succeed in spite of the economic environment

Tom Clifford, GUA President, kicked off the morning with a quick presentation talking about focusing on the good and not the bad.  Not the 8.4% unemployment but the 91.6% employed people.  He emphasized that the GUA is about its members and their input.

Michelle Laird-Williams, executive director for GUA took care of some logistics and thanked her team for a wonderful job of preparing the event.  They all did a great job in getting things ready.  Hat’s off to her team for getting a complex event like this done and making it look seamless.

Dave Wigfield, Worldwide Sales and Operation Director Business Solutions and Services Group - Eastman Kodak took the stage and talked about the changing printer and their split into two distinct groups. Those that make the move upstream and become marketing service providers or those that focus on cost, efficiency and become the best supplier of print within the supply chain.

Andy Popparrozi VP and Chief Economist NAPL then took the stage to deliver his keynote on the state of the printing business.  He talked about the last quarter being one of the worst NAPL has surveyed but April showed promise.  Talked about sharing success and communication.  In fact, he used something I’ve been saying for years, printers are in a communications business.  Share your successes with the world, no matter how small.  Visit http://www.napl.org for more information.

Great morning at GUA 2009, now time for some breakout sessions and lab time.

It is with a sad heart I celebrate today’s Mother’s day.  One year ago today, my mom past away from her 3 year battle with cancer.  It is very hard to put into words how much moms matter in this world.  So, with that, celebrate your mom, the mom of your kids, grandkids, grandmother, great grandmother or any mom you know.

Being a mom is a tough thing, I watch my wife do it as a full time job for our 2 daughters, and it amazes me the patience, determination, willingness, thoughtfulness and much more it takes to be a mom.  There is no training manual, just instinct and a memory of how you’d do things differently as a parent.

So to all the mom’s out there, Happy Mother’s Day!  Enjoy it and for all those that have a mom, clean up your room, make your bed, brush your teeth, and clear your plate.

Personal moms

Well, I broke down and bought an ASUS 1000HE for work and I have to say, I love it.  I have a normal laptop, Lenovo W500 which I do all my programming and web work on.  So why did I need this netbook?

Well, for one, I love the size, it is only 1024x600 native LCD, but it is perfect for watching video tutorials or testing or reading PDFs.

The other main reason was that the 1000HE brags about 9.5 hours of battery.  I figured if I could get half this, I’d be happy.  I can say that under normal usage, you can easily get 6-8 hours.  I haven’t loaded any movies on it yet to find out how it performs under movie watching conditions.

I did do two upgrades to it, I added a 2 gig ram stick I had from another laptop, but found out I should have spent the 22 bucks to get a faster stick to overclock with.  I ordered one and should be here later this week.

Second upgrade I did was to throw a 200gig 7200rpm hdd into it.  I didn’t spend enough time with the 160gig 5400rpm it came with, so can’t tell you if its faster.

Lastly, I decided this will be my test laptop, so I threw Windows 7 RC1 on it and got most of the drivers worked out.  Everything works, I really like the size and weight of it, and you can’t beat the battery life.  It could never be my primary computer, but for the “around the house” or second laptop, it is amazing, especially if you travel.

Raves, Tech windows, eeepc, asus, netbook

Is blogging dying?  Dead?  For me the answer is pretty simple.  Most likely.  With Twitter and Facebook, most people are using those social networking sites far more then a blog.

What is the answer?  Should blogging be expanded, encouraged?  Should it be eligible for some sort of government bailout :)

At the end of the day, it comes down to time.  Facebook and Twitter are easy to use, and users will always gravitate to what is easiest.

So I haven't given up on blogging, just haven't had a lot to say lately.  At least not anything I want to say publicly :)

Rants blogging

Simple question.  What is the McDonalds policy for telling someone at the drive through to pull ahead and wait?

This morning I ordered breakfast (my turn to cook) and with only one car behind me, who order basically the same thing as me, I was told to pull forward and wait.

A minute later the manager came out and brought the food, no one else was in the drive through.

I asked him why I was asked to pull ahead and why the person behind me got their food before me.  He just stood there, no answer.

I am guessing McDonalds has a policy to move cars through the drive through at a specific rate.  Moving a car ahead doesn't count as a wait at the window.  So he pushed me through, gave parts of my order to the car behind me and met his quota (or at least caught up).

Moral of the story, don't ignore your customers and treat them equal. It's McDonalds, and he probably isn't making a lot, but still he shouldn't cheat the numbers at the expense of the customer.

Oh well, I'd love to find out what McDonalds policy is for moving a car to the waiting area.  Anyone ever say no?

Rants mcdonalds, customers