Art of noise?

Tenuous, to put it mildly:) Just a short note to say that we have some Mike Cairncross pieces in our new Cotton St. studio if anyone wants to have a gander. Mike is the sculptor and artist known for the Leddach Chair, and the steel sharks. (big things:)

another day older....

Sitting here working on a Friday night, I thought to myself.... sad git. Way too much work, not enough time. We've launched 6 websites this month including 3 CMS's and 1 database. Time doesn't stand still etc.

So that's me off to the flicks.... tata!

Well I never ....

So the Fiery thing went well, but we still don't have our big printers down here. The large format ones are still to come in. We were amazed to see the delivery of the new Aficio 4500 machine and finisher though. Ever seen one of those stair crawlers? Quarter of a ton of machine lifted by one man, up a corner set of stairs. Amazing bits of kit!

We're looking at one of the medium level OCE machines to add to our existing digital printers. Might well go for it!

Sarah (ex-accountant) was saying she's bored with the new job. Can we hope she ends up in Aberdeen? Her and Maaj would make a formidable organizational team. Especially when combined with the new work-flow software system that we are having commissioned. Meeting after meeting for the sole pupose of getting down on paper what we want it to do. Ah well..... give it time...

Very Fiery .....

So we finally did it. On top of our set of new G5 servers running Linux (Har de Har), we have also just taken delivery of our brand-new super-duper EFI (Canon) RIP and print server. For such a beast of a thing, it's tiny..... you feel you could put it in a pocket :) Ok, not quite!

It's a bit of a step away from our existing Best RIP technology, even though we recently spent a bomb in upgrading to the very latest version (they're not scared to charge, these big software companies). We thought it was time to go the hardware route as it's more stable and doesn't cost £600 a time when we need a colour profile.

Watch this space for progress reports....

Sea change .....

I was going to be sarky with that title, but changed my mind. We had another staff night out on Saturday, but this time it was to say goodbye to Sarah our accountant. She's off to work with the hush-hush men in gaberdines in the South-East. She's going to be sorely missed around here, both as a colleague, and as a friend. We wish her the absolute best in her new job. (but hope she changes her mind and comes back):)

Starting in Soul for food, we progressed through the city becoming ever more erratic until we were horizontal in The Wild Boar, where we met up with Lauren, who was out celebrating her birthday (forgot to say Happy Birthday, Lauren). Good night out, with photos (hopefully) to follow.

Maaj, our new accountant, starts later this week at our new studios at Cotton Street. Hopefully we won't scare her too much :)

BT or not BT? ...........

Well, I had heard the rumours about how difficult BT are to deal with. ...and yes, it's true. Moving into our new premises has ground to a halt. Having been scheduled for this week, the move has had to be put off till next month, due to BT's inability to take a simple instruction. So for the moment, we have 4 main lines. Interesting huh? Still best to call on the 63 and 64 numbers though, for the next month, especially as half the team are on their hols.

However, on a better note, new director Matt has been down in London and has spotted a possible site for our new office. With an eye for a bargain, he hunted down a 2 story office space in the City, just yards from Liverpool St. Will it be ours? Time will tell.

another night out....

It started innocently enough. A few of us were attending the launch of the Red Bus Art Co., one of our clients, and it was a couple of glasses of champagne....... (that's Karla tucking in to the champagne ... she's always the first to suss out where the booze is). Then we ended up back in the city, and it was all downhill from there....... Here's the image of a couple of drunken reprobates leaning to support each other outside the pub... (one doesn't want to be identified)

the saga continues ......

That's almost 3 months since we decided to bite the bullet with the new premises. Finally we have a date for moving ..... and it's going to be soon.

Has this stopped Ian on his quest for his perfect screen? of course not ... the latest one is an HP 24" with HDMI and all the rest. This is saving on bulbs in the studio, illuminating every corner

I have to say I'm not jealous (:), so the next aquisition is a Lacie monitor with BlueEye for me to match the new workstation on order. BUT delivered to the new place , along with the new desks, chairs, gear etc .... It's going to be fun!

a bit of fun .........

We've had our eyes opened at the number of people who read our blogs.....
It started off as a bit of getting it of our chests, and has turned into a really busy point of contact. Now we're wondering how busy.

So for the next month, if you're ordering print, we're going to give you a 10% discount on your order if you say the words "show me the discount" when you phone or email us.

Only for July though, so don't try it on August the 1st (well we might give in).

hardy har .....

Sound like a pirate, methinks! We've started the programme to replace all our servers with Linux Ubuntu running Apache, Samba etc. The first one is in but it's a sharp learning curve for me... I'm the one actually doing it. So in addition to Windows Xp, Server 2003, Mac OS 9 and 10, I'm also learning about Linux, oh so fast. Server 1 has just been swapped out, and 2,3 & 4 will be replaced in the next couple of months.

Don't worry though! The client-side uploading etc, won't be affected. Tons of testing will happen before we swap that out.

need an 18 foot ladder?......

The story of the move goes on..... and on..... Amazing the things you don't think about e.g. the 18 foot ladder that our decorator has left sitting in our entrance hall. We've phoned and texted leaving messages to say that we need this thing gone before the move of the big gear. Can we get a response? Yeah, right......

Reminds me of someone that I used to work with who was always saying 'I'm on it' and took years to finish every project, if he did. Me? I prefer to get stuff out of the way asap. Makes me sound like Mr Perfect, doesn't it? Wish I was.....

a little celebration ......

we decided to go for a night out ... everyone apart from lauren who was working at a theatre thing. So Blackfriars for food (and drink), Five, Siberia, Stadia, and many others.....they gave up at 3.30 in the morning, I had given up hours before... this a shot of Keiran, Karla and Sarah P., and one each of Sarah R and Ian ...I'm not in there ..I'm not stupid :) Several sore heads were reported this morning ..mine being one of them. I really shouldn't drink shots..

changed my mind .......

We've decided to hold off the e-commerce on the site till we're settled in to the new place, (waaayyy too busy even without this) plus we're seriously thinking about keeping on the exisitng studio purely to deal with the fine art printing.....

So the Castlegate Studio will be open for a few more months to see how it goes, plus that will take the pressure off of the move of some of the big gear to Cotton Street.... well that's the theory .....

what do you think? ......

We're currently looking at buying a new Fuji flatbed vacuum printer with RIP. Loadsamoney, but supposed to be one of the best. Any artists / designers out there, what's your thoughts? Feedback would be hugely appreciated on this one..... contact me on dave@paradoxsolved.com ..... thanks!

thanks for the response....

Many thanks to everyone who responded to the post about Sarah leaving. We will be in touch with everyone who applied for the job.

eh? what's that?

You know how it is - more haste, less speed - I stepped out of the shower this morning in a rush to get to my first meeting, had some water in my ear, so decided to remove it with a Q-tip ...... you guessed it! The Q-tip stayed inside the ear!

So off to A & E I went to get it removed, feeling like a small child who's stuck a bead up his nose. There the confused triage nurse thought I was saying I had a cue tip in my ear (a la snooker) and was busy trying to convince me my ear was too small and that it was all in my head .... which of course it was.....

If you're phoning in the next day or two, and you get myself (Dave) apologies in advance if I appear a bit deaf ....

Anyway, I'm not too deaf to hear what the clients wanted today. So another three websites are now in the pipeline, along with a pile more folders...What's happening with these? are people eating them? We've printed 1,000's of different folders recently. Must be our special prices for bespoke printing :)

it's all change ....

Sarah, our accountant and company secretary, has been lured to the deep south with a the offer of a most 'hush-hush' job. It will take the men in trenchcoats a few months to check her out. In the meantime, we have the less than easy job of finding a replacement for this invaluable member of staff, and colleague.

We need someone who can fill her shoes, and who can take the pace without too much hassle.

Interested? Email myself or Ian on info@rocket-print.co.uk to enquire more about this. We are willing to accept someone who can only work odd hours, or has small humans to pick up or whatever, providing you can have a laugh and fit in with the rest of the team.....

communications breakdown ......

We work in a communications industry ...or do we? Genius here just heard our designer Karla answer the phone and say that our new developer Keiran didn't work here..... Why? The genius had forgotten to inform anyone else on the staff that someone new had started ..... so whoever phoned up ...go on...phone back, but on another day, as it's a local holiday here ........ duh!

welcome to .....

Kieran - our new database developer. He doesn't know what he's let himself in for .....

we're moving ......

So it's finally pinned down. We're moving into the art gallery on Cotton Street in Aberdeen at the end of May. Tons to do, including getting the place wired up, and a full network installed. Also happening then is the move over to ecommerce on the sites, and the start of another new designer.

Add to this the fun of doing a large multi-media and content management project for Empire HR ( I think that's the month for 11,000 cds being delivered and handled by our new content and digital management company, and it will be a bit mad.

it's not rocket science ........

Due to the unexpected number of readers of my own blog, we've decided to make this one purely about Rocket-Print. Anyone who still wants to access my one can do it by clicking on paradoxsolved.

Well, what's new? Apart from our new content management service aimed, mainly, at the professional market, we've also started using only Fuji and Hahnemuhle papers for our large format service. So aprt from being one of the cheapest large format services in the UK, we are also unique (we think) in using heavyweight photo paper for ALL of our posters.

Apart from that, our online payment and upload is coming soon.