This year I spent all my wages on Christmas lights, putting them up in July
26 full days before Christmas Day and TTTP is rushing off to a sunnier climate; one filled with sun, sea, sand and a free bar. As a result this will be the final poll of the decade.
Before getting misty-eyed at the end of an era, we’ll cast an eye over last week’s poll.
Seeing as everyone else is already packed, in the airport departures lounge and quaffing copious amounts of Duty Free booze, it’s down to me to piece together the facts.
Not entirely surprising is that over 30 per cent of those that voted are doing everything. At a time when everyone is being expected to cover all jobs to keep costs low most of you are doing the whole shebang.
But as the sharper amongst you might have noticed, this prompted a little debate on the ‘Comments’ section about what’s available for the “Everyman”.
As our own Al Dean put it: “Composer and Inventor Publisher do a good job of handling the technical illustrations, but there’s sod all for the “everyman” that does both.
“Arbortext is an excellent system for managing massively complex tasks, with multi-language and all that type of thing, but its not affordable unless you have a serious bottlebeck.
“Yes, many of the existing customers do and they get a very quick return on investment for what they invest… Not everyone CAN afford that sort of roll-out, either in terms of cash or justification.”
Some words of wisdom were also dealt out by Kevin Quigley who agrees with the lack of affordable tools for the rising numbers of you producing technical documents.
“What we all want is simple. We want something like Google Layout. Import the 3D Model, directly interact with it in the page layout, set thick n thin lines/render styles, add your text and notes, done,” says Kevin, adding: “Layout is the only app I have come across so far that does most of this in the context of the finished page. Just think what Adobe could have done…”
In an area where only 7 per cent of you are smugly avoiding anything to do with this it would seem a cost-effective tool is needed.
This week’s poll is something less dramatic and a lot more festive – we want to know what hardware you’d magically like to see in your stocking on Christmas morning? Don’t just tick the box, leave us a comment and feel free to get specific: How monstrous do you need your workstation to be? How fast your graphics? Would you want an iPad or another of the growing number of tablets?
See you in the New Year!
