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When it comes to new media, many talented people, top-notch agencies, and renowned print service companies are finding themselves on the outside looking in. Art directors, mechanical artists, pre-press specialists, media buyers, press-operators, etc. are being forced to reckon with the web. Suddenly, they’re being faced with projects that

Clients are demanding it. They aren’t getting more marketing dollars to spend, especially considering the current economic landscape. When reality hits home, that those dollars are better spent online, print-centricity is left twiddling its thumbs.

There is a huge, HUGE opportunity for the dinosaurs, and it all comes down to the solid relationships that have formed over the last few decades. Clients love their agencies. Agencies love their printers. One only has to look at the incredible work produced within the constraints of this relationship to grasp the potential this has once it harnesses new media.

But getting there requires an infrastructure overhaul. Pre-press specialists and mechanical artists need to learn html, css, and cutup. Art directors need to talk wordpress, jquery and ruby. Account executives need to become SEO jedis. Media buyers and copywriters need to get on facebook, twitter, and youtube so they  can understand the mindsets of the new demographic.

And if I owned a printing company, I’d launch an online services department. I’d  go out and hire the best PHP/MySQL web development expert, and the best IT/networking/server master I could find. Pay them well. I’d buy a big, fat reseller account with a top-notch hosting company. I’d promote the heck out of it via, what else, lots of print ads in local magazines and newspapers. Pretty soon, I’d have tons of agency client sites running under my company. I’d be reaping setup and hosting fees. My php dude/tte would be enabling all the crazy web 2.0 stuff that only agencies and clients can dream of. My network dude/tte would be setting things proper on-location. In no time, the new department would be generating revenues far beyond what I’d be getting from print.

It will take lots of time and money, but this is an issue of survival. It’s time for people to dive in.

she got braces and read her book to the class. She got no feedback. One book was depressing… Fred has problems.

I’m at the ft Erie town meeting and 2 hours into it were hearing the same pro-condo heads go on and on. Were all in agreement on this point- the town needs more people, more business.
The people you’re gonna get are not what you want. You want people to fix the cottages and build new ones. Most are gonna be summer residents. Sorry, anyone who thinks CB is gonna turn into year round destination is nuts. We need to maximize what we have.

Made this last night, easy and quick, mmm. This is a great way to cook shrimp as it’s hard to overcook them, and they absorb all the flavors of the rice. I call it “Dirty” rice because this batch ended up with a nice grey-brown color, but YMMV…

Ingredients:

• 1 bag frozen, EZ-Peel shrimp, 24-30 count (preferable western hemisphere like Belize)
• 1 cup rice (I used Jasmine, anything should work)
• 2 cups chicken stock
• 2 tbsp white wine
• 1 peeled carrot
• 1/2 peeled red onion
• 3-4 cloves peeled garlic
• 1 stalk celery
• 1 Jalapeño pepper
•  2 tsp. black peppercorns
• 1 tsp.  caraway seeds
• 1 tsp. sea salt
• 1 tsp. ground cayenne pepper
• 2 tbsp. oil of your choice

Rinse the shrimp briefly under cold water and allow to thaw. The bag says run continuously under cold water until thaw. Great advice;  way to conserve water. When they’re ready, peel off and chuck the skins.

Dice the veggies into small pieces.

Mortar/pestle the spices into a coarse mixture.

Heat up the oil in a heavy pot on medium-low heat. Let the oil get really hot, then throw in the veggies. Stir them until they caramelize.

Pour in white wine to de-glaze. Add rice and continue stirring until wine is absorbed and stuff starts to sizzle again.

Pour the chicken broth slowly, a little at a time, stirring continuously, over a 15-18 minute period. Test the rice occasionally, it should get tender yet firm, creamy and maybe a little crunchy.

Turn heat on low, toss in the shrimp, and cover for 5 minutes.

Serves 4.

Here’s two versions of the WordPress home icon that you see in the dashboard. Click here for demo

This is so simple, and doable

• You control a node
• You can move that node around in a fixed 2d space
• If you collide with another node, you fight by clicking as fast as you can
• If you click faster than that node, you grow
• Clickrate is modified by your size
• The bigger you are, the slower you have to click to win the fight
• goal: destroy/absorb every other node