by [TC]²
A monthly column of technology rambling, rumination and reality
By: Jud Early, Corporate Vice President & CTO, [TC]²
November 2004
Give thanks
Many of our readers live in other countries. As we here in the United States celebrate a national holiday known as Thanksgiving Day, I encourage everyone everywhere to pause for a moment to reflect on the things that are important to you, and to offer your thanks for the things that we often take for granted. You may or may not believe in a higher power, but gratitude should be felt and shared.
The Browser Scene
A couple of months ago, I encouraged you to download the Firefox browser and evaluate it as a replacement for your current browser. At that time I had used it for about two months in beta, and was very pleased with its speed, stability and rejection of less desirable pop-ups and adware. I am still very pleased with it, and have installed it in machines that comprise my home network, and have made it my default browser at the office. Now, the first release version is out, and I again encourage you to give it a try. You can download it, try it for as long as you feel is necessary, and still keep your current browser. After you have determined that it will be your browser of choice, bookmarks or favorites can be imported from the old, and can be made your default browser. This link will take you to the site where you can learn more: www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/
Virus alert
A new virus is making the rounds.
The worm Sober.j is an e-mail virus spreading rapidly, mostly in Europe , that attempts to install a backdoor Trojan horse. Sober.j (w32.sober.j@mm.com, also known as Sober.i) arrives as an e-mail from someone you might know. The attached file is either an exe or zip-compressed file. The e-mail has various subject lines and body texts, so it's best to simply avoid opening attached files unless you are certain of its content. Sober.j does not affect users of Mac OS, Linux, or any other operating systems. Because Sober.j spreads via e-mail, this worm has been rated a 6 on the CNET virus meter. Symantec and McAfee rate the threat as medium.
I received two instances of this worm overnight, and fortunately, my virus definitions had been updated automatically, so the offending code was stripped and quarantined by my anti-virus application. I have a number of European e-mail correspondents, so am in multiple e-mail address books. With the spread of this in Europe it only takes seconds to jump to other countries. If you are not up to date with virus definition files, I strongly urge you to do so at once.
Digital Printing Conference
The column last month was published the week of October 25. From October 26 through 28, the First Digital Printing Conference for Textiles, sponsored jointly by [TC]² and AATCC, the American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists, took place at [TC]². The event was well attended, with registrants from Turkey , Holland , Korea , Italy , Australia , Belgium , and the United States . A well attended event, lots of technical topics presented, as well as business success stories from several practitioners. If you attended, you know that the networking opportunities alone were worth the time and cost, and the information gained will help many. Another conference is planned for 2005, with venue to be New York City . If you are involved in digital printing for textiles, new product development, or are a technologist developing solutions, be sure to watch this column and our web site for the announcement.
I will not try to relate all the technical content in this column, but comments from some who attended, and are regarded as being on the leading edge, stated that they enjoyed content that was new to them, and found the trip from half way around the world to be very valuable.
Andy Graven of Zenith Engraving spoke about a business that is experiencing its ups and downs. Business generated from their web site comes from many points around the world. A traditional engraver, Zenith added digital printing to their offerings about five years ago. Many of the customers who want digital printing also want secondary operations such as sewing. This presents a dilemma, inasmuch as sewing is not a normal part of the business. Sounds like an opportunity for collaboration. Anyone listening?
Jorg van der Meij from Stork in the Netherlands told of how Stork provides contract printing from a service bureau in Bangkok , Thailand , serving clients all over the world, and offering guaranteed color match to those who use the Stork U See technology. A network of design studios connect via internet to the printing plant in Thailand, allowing designs to be done remotely, fabric printed and delivered to a cut and sew plant elsewhere, and with monitoring at point of sale, very low inventories are in the pipeline. In response to higher sell-through than was expected, production can shift from one style to another in minutes. Some twenty-five printing machines are now in this factory, and more are planned.
Bill Grier, a long-time veteran of the digital printing business, told of how his company, BetaColor, prints approximately 120,000 garments a month, along with advertising banners and dealership signage and promotional materials for all Lexus dealers in the US . Working with ad agency Saachi & Saachi, promotional materials are ordered and printed for hundreds of dealerships, requiring thousands of large scale prints. In a seeming paradox, Bill told the attendees, that in his business, smaller images make more money for the printer. Printing for a high-end outdoor apparel company, the entire width of the part is colored, along with smaller regions of digitally produced images. This continuous process is done through sublimation of synthetic fabrics, and is not yet applicable to natural fibers. (In a side note, research is now being done to allow sublimation of natural fibers. When this is accomplished, the landscape can change for this type of print). To further explain, the graphic images are printed and are placed on the garment before the body of the garment is colored. So, in contrast to printers who sell printing by the square meter, BetaColor charges per unit. The more units that are possible from a given printed area, the greater will be the profitability for the printer.
Although not a presenter, Longina Phillips of Australia told of how her business has thrived. A native of Poland , Longina is an energetic entrepreneur who has found the right formula to run a profitable business in digital printing for textiles. Beginning eight years ago, she now has ten full time designers, seven freelance designers, one bookkeeper, one IT person. Equipment includes NedGraphics and Sophis CAD, Photoshop on both Mac and PC, as well as asset management software to catalog and manage the designs for clients. Works include Sampling, short run production, and artwork on canvas. With all this design capability, designs can now be delivered on fabric for Apparel, swimwear, sleepwear, and home furnishings. Printing on natural fibers as well as synthetic, a full range of services and products is provided.
Barry Meyers, President of Digital Printing Systems Inc. another attendee, related that the Reggiani digital printer they installed in a customer's location has performed well, and will pay for itself in less than one year. This machine, introduced last year is already installed in fourteen locations around the world with several more slated for delivery by year end.
Michael Compton, DuPont Ink Jet Regional Sales Manager, Textiles, spoke on market trends, the shift to Asia for manufacturing, labor costs, ink chemistry and detailed several success stories of customers using the Artistri 2020 machine.
Su Jin Moon, of Yuhan-Kimberly came from Seoul Korea to present the research that they are doing in textile ink chemistry. For those of you who attended, Su Jin revealed an early glimpse at some new concepts in colorants. We were treated to a DVD video showing some of the uses, markets, and exciting chemistry that is being developed under her leadership of the Yuhan-Kimberly scientific team.
Many other presentations provided education, updates, and new product information. According to attendees, the conference provided a good mix of technical and business cases as told by practitioners, providers, and scientists from around the world.
The link above serves also as the subject line. I just wanted to update you on a couple of changes. The migration of the site from two hosts to one is now complete. In the process, we were forced to do some updating. Please click on the link above and test drive our new search tool. For those who have had the Buyer's Directory pages bookmarked, it may seem that you are at the wrong page. The old familiar search system where selections had to be made from multiple drop-down lists, is now gone. In its place is a new search system that allows searching for a term or combination of terms and having a list of all the suppliers who have that term in their product summary come up on a search results page.
Those who have come to use Google for searching will be at home with this tool. In each category, the default topic is shown, and will return vendor or service provider information only. If you wish to broaden your search to include library articles, and news postings, by clicking in the selection window, a drop-down will ask if you want to search the entire site. If you select this, every instance where your term appears will be listed.
And, finally, last month I posed a question regarding your thoughts on whether 2D CAD had reached the end of its development life. I was underwhelmed by the responses. Here is the tally: zip, zero, nada, nothing, zilch. Not one soul sent an e-mail with an opinion. Either I failed to ask the question in an understandable way, or your interests are not in this area. Or I could choose to believe that you are just too busy to write. This question actually had less to do with 2D or 3D technology, but was intended to test the willingness of our readers to take the time to express an opinion. We are considering changes to the TechTalk Forum, and I wanted to see if you folks would spend a few moments to write. Oh well, no response is feedback too!
Until next month,
Jud