full color printing, or multicolor printing?
i suspect that this printer is multicolor. and i call bullshit
color printing(ink on paper) has been around for centuries, but was a selective process, applying color to discreet areas(initial caps, image insert pages). and it was a costly and time consuming process. true full color printing which was reporoducable at scale was when chromolithography and color separation process was refined. it was the advances of the halftone screening process that really propelled color printing to enter the mainstream.
3d printing is more complex the its flatland brother, since halftone color process might not be a viable solution to rendering color hues(maybe with multiple hotends). 3d printing is also complicated by the fact that your printing substrate is the "ink" you are using. i've been mulling over 3d printing in color, and my opinion is 6-7 colored filaments, not 5. CMYK+white for color spectrum mixing, grey(cause it's cheaper and faster than mixing expensive pigments) to also be used for infill, and a brittle rafting material.
i know this might be a cross-grain recommendation on/., but many of the the edutainment apps for ios are great. i purchased a couple of apps by peapod labs for my 4 year old daughter, and she can go for over an hour at a time exploring, reading singing and spelling with these apps. there are other good apps out there, try avoid the in-app purchase apps as they tend to be more entertainment and less education.
aside from tuxpaint, IMHO the best cross platform releases i've seen are the various humble bundle releases( goo, braid, etc). some of these title might be a bit mature for game playing for a 3/4 year old, but it might be a toddler and parent bonding experience smearing baddies on the screen together.
we also balance computer/tablet time with meatspace activities: reading, playing, cooking,.chores(ok cooking and chores are a bit challenging, but we try to gamify them for higher acceptance).
i live in chicago and have been bike commuting on and off for over 15 years, and i've notice the number of bike commuters increase dramatically in the last 2 years. most of the riders i see wear helmets, even the hipster fixies from wicker park and logan square.
unless you're riding on the lake front path for leisure, commuters riding on the streets should consider wearing helmets to protect themselves from head-and-vehicle or head-and-pavement impacts.
I second the "Little Brother" recommendation. I'd also suggest: Cory Doctorow's "For the Win" John Connolly's "The Gates" Jim Butcher's Dresden series the Danny Dunn series While not tech/scifi genre related, the "Great Brain" series from John Fitzgerald is also a great read for younger readers.
kodak has been riding on it's own coattails for years, in both consumer and industrial products. remember the disc camera? remember the kodak instant camera? both were crappy products and were only reactions to others who innovated in those respective markets.
i was sad to see scitex and creo(venerable names in retouching and printing) eventually absorbed into kodak to be used as a mean of driving their consumable business: film, chemistry, plates, and inks. kodak never improved or innovated industrial graphic arts production, unless it was thru acquisition.
kodak didn't innovate in the industrial or consumer markets, and as a result are left in the dust by their competition. most printing presses are direct to plate, with no intermediate film or plate making process. most contract proofs(color and content fidelity proof prior to press) these days are inkjet or pdf files displayed on color accurate(gracol or fogra certified) displays. kodak never had offerings in database/dynamic page publishing.
i'm sure kodak had innovated quite a bit in it's day, and those patents are proof of it. but to use a patent against a partner feels a little dirty. the original apple quicktake camera was a kodak manufactured/apple branded device.
this is the best advise i've seen so far... the best camera to start out with is one that will always be with you. WTF moderators, why did this get a low score?
OP, unless you're dedicated to becoming a photographer and don't mind carrying around a DSLR all the time, you'd be better off carrying a small compact point-and-shoot camera. get something in the $200 range(8-12MP, 3x optical zoom) they're all pretty comparable, but i've always been partial to the canon xilim or canon powershot series. my criteria was a camera OS that was usable as well as quick and responsive. i've spent time in several stores testing various brands for what i felt were important features: power on to shutter ready; switching capture modes; the ability to turn off startup sounds/animations; size or a pack of cigarettes; sd card. once you've got narrowed you choices down to a couple/three cameras, go to http://www.steves-digicams.com/ and compare your impressions against someone whose tested many evices.
IMHO, if you want to learn how to take photos, you do it by taking pictures. don't get an DSLR. don't get a micro 4/3. you can graduate to these later, when your comfortable taking pictures. don't buy a camera that you haven't actually touched and toyed with.
1) carry a camera with you all the time. 2) take lots of pictures. if you get a one good picture out of 20-36 exposures, you're doing well. 3) not every picture is sacred. capturing the moment with all it's flaws is better than to miss the moment. 4) keep taking lots of pictures 5) don't be afraid to edit out crap images 6) learn the various functions of your camera(night shot, red eye/no red eye, flash/no flash, etc)
i take between 6000-10000 pictures a year(the camera is with me all the time). i replace my camera every year or so(depends on how beat up it gets). and i get surprisingly good images from a stupid little canon powershot. i have a lot of reject images, but i also more than my fair share of keepers. eventually i'll get a fancier camera, but in the meantime i'm looking at a new refresh(canon s100 is looking sweet) for my daily shooter.
it is a concept after all, so some of it's shortcomings might be obvious to apiarist that aren't to the industrial designer who came up with the concept.
from a non-beekeeper perspective, some things seem lacking: ingress/egress opening looks too small for proper venting... don't drones need larger openings in the summer to fan cooler air into the hive? mechanism for extracting honey probably is destroying cells to release honey... wouldn't the bees build around this mechanism after a few uses? i thought queens needed a special chamber
but i expect that you've inspired enough people to think differently, that you'll at least live on thru the memories and actions of an entire generation.
HP designjet z2100 or epson stylus 4880/4900. these printers don't come cheap, but over the lifespan of the printer, i'f your printing 100's or 1000's of prints RIO will be better than paying snapfish. they are favorite entry level printers in the graphic arts and prepress market due to the fact that: 1) they can produce contone images at resolutions that make dithering imperceptable to the naked eye 2) color fast inks that can be archival for 150-200 years 3) wide color gamut using multiple inksets 4) FOGRA/GRACoL certifiably using approved rip software many pro photographers are ditching the darkroom in favor of the class of professional inkjet printers for reproducing their images.
two weeks away, and you still haven't spec'ed all your hardware? c'mon, this is a put on! if you're getting this monster installation, you would have spec'ed all aspects of the hardware, including 10gb and gpu's and OS months ago.
slightly off topic, but so long as we're discussing edison recording cylinders, i remember watching this poor guy crush an historic, irreplaceable cylinder record on tv. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqZWsJ2oO_E
even if it is an article regarding the evolution of the windows gui, truncating the gui history from engelbart and parc to the original mac os, and then switching to the history of the windows gui is pure horseshit.
windows is what it is today due to the development across many windowing and gui efforts. microsoft has (often blatantly) borrowed gui metaphors from many of its contemporaries thru several iterations of windows including: motif(cde) - expand/minimize/destroy window openlook - WIMP metaphor aqua - transparency effects, alpha blending compiz - compositing so on and so forth...
i'm not criticizing microsoft's efforts, but the skew of the article give the impression that windows 8 is where it's to due the sole development efforts microsoft, disregarding other community efforts. the author get's an "F" for failing to perform minor research on wikipedia for a history of gui's: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUI
i doubt that my company's customers data will ever move to the cloud... some data and/or customer data might move to the cloud, but not all of it. it's not about arrogantly proclaiming something wouldn't work, it has more to do with contracts and agreements that prohibits our customer data to be moved beyond our data center.
i've experienced over the years that toshiba has some of the best laptops around. thinkpads were great when IBM was manufacturing them, lenova QC is getting better, but not as good as IBM was back in the day. whitebooks/barebooks from sager/ocz whitebooks are great, but fit and finish are not as good as they could be...
go to best buy/microcenter/fry's/tiger and kick around a few laptops. take a look at satellites and tecra models. wipe the HDD and install just the OS(unless the recover disc restores OS+bloat, then get OEM XP or 7), drivers, and the software your wife needs.
what does intel delaying their release of USB have anything to do with video production?
because it[Premiere] costs a third to operate over FC at this point - this includes the video department company where I work).
That's another alienated group of classic Apple users who are moving away from the platform.
really?
i believe the cost of video production that a post-house would be worried about is the actual production time, i.e. rendering of the final video and time that an artist/production personnel aren't billing, not the cost of the software that functions as the A-B decks. let's also not forget the cost of the SANs necessary to store the digital (HD) assets in both pre and post rendered form, which cost a butt-load. so saving a few dollars on software and hardware, while important, is trivial compared to other costs related to video production.
but chris taylors' thesis is something i give to unix neophytes who might be interested in learning more about unix and vi. it either scares them away, or draws them in, but that's up to them to figure that out, evangelism will eventually just wear you out. IMHO taylors' writing style is amusing and might keep a reader engaged. even though it is unix agnostic i think the ability to speak to the uninitiated and offer them a quick stepping stone document without being overly cryptic or aloof is more helpful then sudden immersion into uber geekdom.
Currently, if our CFO's dell computer died, we would need to retrieve his computer, recover his files, image a new computer (providing a suitable computer was in stock), install any custom applications he requires, and finally place his data back where it belongs (providing whatever died is not in stock to replace). Ideally all of his data would have been backed up on the network, but being a typically user he probably saved to other locations as well (And being someone like a CFO, you can't give him the usual 'you should have done it like we told you' speech). If the thin client dies, it is literally just a walk to his office and a swap of the device. If he can't wait that long he could just go to any other thin client and log in to get his desktop...
that's only if you can tie your CFO to his desktop system... like a lot of companies out there, i'm sure that most C-level personnel have received laptops(that they have admin rights to) and smartphones, and most likely have non-standard diskimages. asking a C-level to sign in via VPN to his VDI so he can twiddle some excel spreadsheet over the late night/weekend/holiday/vacation is going to have low traction.
since you're a school, maybe focus VDI deploys in the admin/bursar/registration departments where security of personnel and student records(grades, addresses, SSN, etc) have a greater need for security.
blender has a very steep learning curve, similar to it's commercial counterparts like maya, modo, lightwave, to name a few. yes the UI has some failings, but if you've seen the UI for other 3D apps, it's not too far from the competition... eventually you'll get the hang of where most of what you needs is located, you can always refer to a book such as this as a desk reference. as an aside, i think that several 3d apps have a tendency to violate current UI conventions due to their lineage in X11 unix apps when UI standardization was in it's infancy... this includes blender(NaN), maya(alias) and lightwave(toast). the question is could 3d modelling/rendering/composition apps really follow current UI standards?
i sympathize with you, when i started using blender, i found it confusing and frustrating as a modeling tool, so i switched to wings3d, which seemed more intuitive. once i felt more comfortable with modelling in wings, i started importing my models into blender and working with the blender tools for tweaking/refining and final image composition. i became comfortable and competent with the tools in blender, but still prefer wings for modelling.
there's nothing wrong with using multiple tools to accomplish a job. 2d print artists use multiple apps all the time (photoshop, illustrator, indesign), no single app can offer all the necessary tools. similarly, 3d artists might prefer to use multiple tools to modelling, composition, and rendering(wings,blender, yafray perhaps)...
as far as undo/redo, these are prolly the first keyboard shortcuts you should be learning.
and another thing... before anyone spouts off about how you can do anything in inkscape/scribus/gimp that you can in creative suite... you can't. not if your doing any serious advertising/marketing work.
these programs are a good start, but they are a ways off from competing with adobes creative suite. maybe in a couple of years, but not today.
i've worked in the graphic art/advertising IT for the last 15 years, and i've seen my share of unnecessary attempts to eliminate a particular platform that always seem to bite people in the ass...
eliminating the mac for windows seems to be a favorite cost reduction exercise, but this usually ends up failing due several reasons: 1) fonts - font name mapping for postscript type 1&3 and truetype fonts have always been different between windows and mac. many creative departments collect hundreds(adobe font collection alone around 3000) means extra work to rework creative files created on a windows version of adobe illustrator/indesign for output. this can equate to additional charges spent at the printer/color separator/publication. opentype should eliminate this issue, but in the meantime, there are thousands of legacy fonts that designer will be reticent to stop using...
2) initial cost - macs have always had a higher initial cost, but over a three year life span, i've seen fewer macs replaced in the same time period than windows systems(system boards, PS, pci cards, etc). and if you stage your system refreshes(refresh 33% you your systems every year) older macs get rolled down from the heaviest power users(retouchers, motion graphics, 3d) to layout artists, and eventually to utility systems. you'll be migrating systems more frequently, but using a software deploy system like casper or filewave can simplify this tremendously.
3) talent - creative talent prefer working on macs, and more importantly the talented ones are very efficient on the mac platform. consistency of keyboard shortcuts between various applications and OS, interapplication communication to allow intelligent drag-and-drop between apps, the mac is still better at this than windows, and hence, mac artists tend to be more efficient then their windows counterparts. i've never been in a creative/studio/production environment(save for 3d) where the bulk of the work isn't done on the mac. for these folks, it a punishment when they "have" to work in windows.
don't fuck with the creative/mac department.
sales will always be kings when it comes to having their way (with management) about staying with the windows platform in order to use the latest and greatest new sales forecasting tools, performance analysis, PIM's etc. don't even bother fighting this battle, you'll lose and make enemies. if you take away their toys, they'll probably buy their own replacements(laptops, software,whatever) and end up expensing it somehow.
don't fuck with the sales department.
basically, don't fuck with anyone who is in any revenue stream role. non-revenue generating IT guys will typically lose these battles.
focus on areas that you have control without affecting end user productivity. you don't want to manage an exchange server? there are hosted exchange services that could do it cheaper than you could. have you considered a hosted sharepoint service for document sharing and collaborative work?... all without purchasing hardware and software(and hiring dedicated personnel). trying to reduce purchases of hardware and software? work with your vendors to get favorable pricing by making them a partner. good vendors are more likely to offer better pricing to return customers, versus non-repeat i'm-looking-for-the-cheapest-price customers. i've also found in the past that when working with a CFO whose interest was to keep capex spending at a minimum, leasing equipment with a dollar buyout agreement at lease termination always won out over outright purchasing, even though the end result was the same. and when it comes time to get rid of old equipment, donate it to a charity, and get a tax break by keeping track of its book value and letting the accountant work their magic.
as the article states, the company that is using the IQ test is using it as a primary screening test before moving to other test which include skill tests. unfortunately IQ test results doesn't measure intelligence as much as it does measure the ability to take/pass a test. true intelligence, creative problem solving, innovative solutions, and the ability to work under stress can't be measured in a test, it can only be determined in the field over a period of time.
outsourcing IT to china is attractive because of the high number of motivated chinese competing for a small pool of jobs means the ability to pick the cream of the crop(and pay low wages), however chinese culture does not necessarily stimulate those things that are important to develop innovative mental growth: individuality, self importance, creativity expression... these are very western ideals, and it's very likely that the hiring of US workers by an IT offshore company is multi-faceted: native english speaker for call escalation, cultural and language exchange for chinese workers, and the access to out of the box thinking(culturally a very american thing).
Slashdot Mirror
3D reconstruction can be generated from 2d images: http://cvl-demos.cs.nott.ac.uk...
color printing(ink on paper) has been around for centuries, but was a selective process, applying color to discreet areas(initial caps, image insert pages). and it was a costly and time consuming process. true full color printing which was reporoducable at scale was when chromolithography and color separation process was refined. it was the advances of the halftone screening process that really propelled color printing to enter the mainstream.
3d printing is more complex the its flatland brother, since halftone color process might not be a viable solution to rendering color hues(maybe with multiple hotends). 3d printing is also complicated by the fact that your printing substrate is the "ink" you are using. i've been mulling over 3d printing in color, and my opinion is 6-7 colored filaments, not 5. CMYK+white for color spectrum mixing, grey(cause it's cheaper and faster than mixing expensive pigments) to also be used for infill, and a brittle rafting material.
i know this might be a cross-grain recommendation on /., but many of the the edutainment apps for ios are great.
i purchased a couple of apps by peapod labs for my 4 year old daughter, and she can go for over an hour at a time exploring, reading singing and spelling with these apps. there are other good apps out there, try avoid the in-app purchase apps as they tend to be more entertainment and less education.
aside from tuxpaint, IMHO the best cross platform releases i've seen are the various humble bundle releases( goo, braid, etc). some of these title might be a bit mature for game playing for a 3/4 year old, but it might be a toddler and parent bonding experience smearing baddies on the screen together.
we also balance computer/tablet time with meatspace activities: reading, playing, cooking,.chores(ok cooking and chores are a bit challenging, but we try to gamify them for higher acceptance).
i live in chicago and have been bike commuting on and off for over 15 years, and i've notice the number of bike commuters increase dramatically in the last 2 years. most of the riders i see wear helmets, even the hipster fixies from wicker park and logan square.
unless you're riding on the lake front path for leisure, commuters riding on the streets should consider wearing helmets to protect themselves from head-and-vehicle or head-and-pavement impacts.
I second the "Little Brother" recommendation. I'd also suggest:
Cory Doctorow's "For the Win"
John Connolly's "The Gates"
Jim Butcher's Dresden series
the Danny Dunn series
While not tech/scifi genre related, the "Great Brain" series from John Fitzgerald is also a great read for younger readers.
kodak has been riding on it's own coattails for years, in both consumer and industrial products.
remember the disc camera?
remember the kodak instant camera?
both were crappy products and were only reactions to others who innovated in those respective markets.
i was sad to see scitex and creo(venerable names in retouching and printing) eventually absorbed into kodak to be used as a mean of driving their consumable business: film, chemistry, plates, and inks. kodak never improved or innovated industrial graphic arts production, unless it was thru acquisition.
kodak didn't innovate in the industrial or consumer markets, and as a result are left in the dust by their competition.
most printing presses are direct to plate, with no intermediate film or plate making process.
most contract proofs(color and content fidelity proof prior to press) these days are inkjet or pdf files displayed on color accurate(gracol or fogra certified) displays.
kodak never had offerings in database/dynamic page publishing.
i'm sure kodak had innovated quite a bit in it's day, and those patents are proof of it. but to use a patent against a partner feels a little dirty.
the original apple quicktake camera was a kodak manufactured/apple branded device.
this is the best advise i've seen so far... the best camera to start out with is one that will always be with you.
WTF moderators, why did this get a low score?
OP, unless you're dedicated to becoming a photographer and don't mind carrying around a DSLR all the time, you'd be better off carrying a small compact point-and-shoot camera. get something in the $200 range(8-12MP, 3x optical zoom) they're all pretty comparable, but i've always been partial to the canon xilim or canon powershot series. my criteria was a camera OS that was usable as well as quick and responsive. i've spent time in several stores testing various brands for what i felt were important features: power on to shutter ready; switching capture modes; the ability to turn off startup sounds/animations; size or a pack of cigarettes; sd card. once you've got narrowed you choices down to a couple/three cameras, go to http://www.steves-digicams.com/ and compare your impressions against someone whose tested many evices.
IMHO, if you want to learn how to take photos, you do it by taking pictures. don't get an DSLR. don't get a micro 4/3. you can graduate to these later, when your comfortable taking pictures. don't buy a camera that you haven't actually touched and toyed with.
1) carry a camera with you all the time.
2) take lots of pictures. if you get a one good picture out of 20-36 exposures, you're doing well.
3) not every picture is sacred. capturing the moment with all it's flaws is better than to miss the moment.
4) keep taking lots of pictures
5) don't be afraid to edit out crap images
6) learn the various functions of your camera(night shot, red eye/no red eye, flash/no flash, etc)
i take between 6000-10000 pictures a year(the camera is with me all the time). i replace my camera every year or so(depends on how beat up it gets).
and i get surprisingly good images from a stupid little canon powershot. i have a lot of reject images, but i also more than my fair share of keepers. eventually i'll get a fancier camera, but in the meantime i'm looking at a new refresh(canon s100 is looking sweet) for my daily shooter.
it is a concept after all, so some of it's shortcomings might be obvious to apiarist that aren't to the industrial designer who came up with the concept.
from a non-beekeeper perspective, some things seem lacking:
ingress/egress opening looks too small for proper venting... don't drones need larger openings in the summer to fan cooler air into the hive?
mechanism for extracting honey probably is destroying cells to release honey... wouldn't the bees build around this mechanism after a few uses?
i thought queens needed a special chamber
but i expect that you've inspired enough people to think differently, that you'll at least live on thru the memories and actions of an entire generation.
go analog for longest life span.
HP designjet z2100 or epson stylus 4880/4900.
these printers don't come cheap, but over the lifespan of the printer, i'f your printing 100's or 1000's of prints RIO will be better than paying snapfish.
they are favorite entry level printers in the graphic arts and prepress market due to the fact that:
1) they can produce contone images at resolutions that make dithering imperceptable to the naked eye
2) color fast inks that can be archival for 150-200 years
3) wide color gamut using multiple inksets
4) FOGRA/GRACoL certifiably using approved rip software
many pro photographers are ditching the darkroom in favor of the class of professional inkjet printers for reproducing their images.
two weeks away, and you still haven't spec'ed all your hardware?
c'mon, this is a put on!
if you're getting this monster installation, you would have spec'ed all aspects of the hardware, including 10gb and gpu's and OS months ago.
slightly off topic, but so long as we're discussing edison recording cylinders, i remember watching this poor guy crush an historic, irreplaceable cylinder record on tv. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqZWsJ2oO_E
even if it is an article regarding the evolution of the windows gui, truncating the gui history from engelbart and parc to the original mac os, and then switching to the history of the windows gui is pure horseshit.
windows is what it is today due to the development across many windowing and gui efforts.
microsoft has (often blatantly) borrowed gui metaphors from many of its contemporaries thru several iterations of windows including:
motif(cde) - expand/minimize/destroy window
openlook - WIMP metaphor
aqua - transparency effects, alpha blending
compiz - compositing
so on and so forth...
i'm not criticizing microsoft's efforts, but the skew of the article give the impression that windows 8 is where it's to due the sole development efforts microsoft, disregarding other community efforts. the author get's an "F" for failing to perform minor research on wikipedia for a history of gui's:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUI
i doubt that my company's customers data will ever move to the cloud... some data and/or customer data might move to the cloud, but not all of it. it's not about arrogantly proclaiming something wouldn't work, it has more to do with contracts and agreements that prohibits our customer data to be moved beyond our data center.
i've experienced over the years that toshiba has some of the best laptops around.
thinkpads were great when IBM was manufacturing them, lenova QC is getting better, but not as good as IBM was back in the day.
whitebooks/barebooks from sager/ocz whitebooks are great, but fit and finish are not as good as they could be...
go to best buy/microcenter/fry's/tiger and kick around a few laptops.
take a look at satellites and tecra models.
wipe the HDD and install just the OS(unless the recover disc restores OS+bloat, then get OEM XP or 7), drivers, and the software your wife needs.
what does intel delaying their release of USB have anything to do with video production?
because it[Premiere] costs a third to operate over FC at this point - this includes the video department company where I work).
That's another alienated group of classic Apple users who are moving away from the platform.
really?
i believe the cost of video production that a post-house would be worried about is the actual production time, i.e. rendering of the final video and time that an artist/production personnel aren't billing, not the cost of the software that functions as the A-B decks. let's also not forget the cost of the SANs necessary to store the digital (HD) assets in both pre and post rendered form, which cost a butt-load. so saving a few dollars on software and hardware, while important, is trivial compared to other costs related to video production.
i favor the clean look, but i'm actually not a big fan of san serif type, especially for extended reading.
but chris taylors' thesis is something i give to unix neophytes who might be interested in learning more about unix and vi.
it either scares them away, or draws them in, but that's up to them to figure that out, evangelism will eventually just wear you out.
IMHO taylors' writing style is amusing and might keep a reader engaged. even though it is unix agnostic i think the ability to speak to the uninitiated and offer them a quick stepping stone document without being overly cryptic or aloof is more helpful then sudden immersion into uber geekdom.
you want to scare a neophyte away, try encouraging them to read unix koans of master foo
Currently, if our CFO's dell computer died, we would need to retrieve his computer, recover his files, image a new computer (providing a suitable computer was in stock), install any custom applications he requires, and finally place his data back where it belongs (providing whatever died is not in stock to replace). Ideally all of his data would have been backed up on the network, but being a typically user he probably saved to other locations as well (And being someone like a CFO, you can't give him the usual 'you should have done it like we told you' speech). If the thin client dies, it is literally just a walk to his office and a swap of the device. If he can't wait that long he could just go to any other thin client and log in to get his desktop...
that's only if you can tie your CFO to his desktop system... like a lot of companies out there, i'm sure that most C-level personnel have received laptops(that they have admin rights to) and smartphones, and most likely have non-standard diskimages. asking a C-level to sign in via VPN to his VDI so he can twiddle some excel spreadsheet over the late night/weekend/holiday/vacation is going to have low traction.
since you're a school, maybe focus VDI deploys in the admin/bursar/registration departments where security of personnel and student records(grades, addresses, SSN, etc) have a greater need for security.
blender has a very steep learning curve, similar to it's commercial counterparts like maya, modo, lightwave, to name a few. yes the UI has some failings, but if you've seen the UI for other 3D apps, it's not too far from the competition... eventually you'll get the hang of where most of what you needs is located, you can always refer to a book such as this as a desk reference. as an aside, i think that several 3d apps have a tendency to violate current UI conventions due to their lineage in X11 unix apps when UI standardization was in it's infancy... this includes blender(NaN), maya(alias) and lightwave(toast). the question is could 3d modelling/rendering/composition apps really follow current UI standards?
i sympathize with you, when i started using blender, i found it confusing and frustrating as a modeling tool, so i switched to wings3d, which seemed more intuitive. once i felt more comfortable with modelling in wings, i started importing my models into blender and working with the blender tools for tweaking/refining and final image composition. i became comfortable and competent with the tools in blender, but still prefer wings for modelling.
there's nothing wrong with using multiple tools to accomplish a job.
2d print artists use multiple apps all the time (photoshop, illustrator, indesign), no single app can offer all the necessary tools.
similarly, 3d artists might prefer to use multiple tools to modelling, composition, and rendering(wings,blender, yafray perhaps)...
as far as undo/redo, these are prolly the first keyboard shortcuts you should be learning.
and another thing...
before anyone spouts off about how you can do anything in inkscape/scribus/gimp that you can in creative suite...
you can't.
not if your doing any serious advertising/marketing work.
these programs are a good start, but they are a ways off from competing with adobes creative suite.
maybe in a couple of years, but not today.
i've worked in the graphic art/advertising IT for the last 15 years, and i've seen my share of unnecessary attempts to eliminate a particular platform that always seem to bite people in the ass...
eliminating the mac for windows seems to be a favorite cost reduction exercise, but this usually ends up failing due several reasons:
1) fonts - font name mapping for postscript type 1&3 and truetype fonts have always been different between windows and mac. many creative departments collect hundreds(adobe font collection alone around 3000) means extra work to rework creative files created on a windows version of adobe illustrator/indesign for output. this can equate to additional charges spent at the printer/color separator/publication. opentype should eliminate this issue, but in the meantime, there are thousands of legacy fonts that designer will be reticent to stop using...
2) initial cost - macs have always had a higher initial cost, but over a three year life span, i've seen fewer macs replaced in the same time period than windows systems(system boards, PS, pci cards, etc). and if you stage your system refreshes(refresh 33% you your systems every year) older macs get rolled down from the heaviest power users(retouchers, motion graphics, 3d) to layout artists, and eventually to utility systems. you'll be migrating systems more frequently, but using a software deploy system like casper or filewave can simplify this tremendously.
3) talent - creative talent prefer working on macs, and more importantly the talented ones are very efficient on the mac platform. consistency of keyboard shortcuts between various applications and OS, interapplication communication to allow intelligent drag-and-drop between apps, the mac is still better at this than windows, and hence, mac artists tend to be more efficient then their windows counterparts. i've never been in a creative/studio/production environment(save for 3d) where the bulk of the work isn't done on the mac. for these folks, it a punishment when they "have" to work in windows.
don't fuck with the creative/mac department.
sales will always be kings when it comes to having their way (with management) about staying with the windows platform in order to use the latest and greatest new sales forecasting tools, performance analysis, PIM's etc. don't even bother fighting this battle, you'll lose and make enemies. if you take away their toys, they'll probably buy their own replacements(laptops, software ,whatever) and end up expensing it somehow.
don't fuck with the sales department.
basically, don't fuck with anyone who is in any revenue stream role. non-revenue generating IT guys will typically lose these battles.
focus on areas that you have control without affecting end user productivity. you don't want to manage an exchange server? there are hosted exchange services that could do it cheaper than you could. have you considered a hosted sharepoint service for document sharing and collaborative work? ... all without purchasing hardware and software(and hiring dedicated personnel). trying to reduce purchases of hardware and software? work with your vendors to get favorable pricing by making them a partner. good vendors are more likely to offer better pricing to return customers, versus non-repeat i'm-looking-for-the-cheapest-price customers. i've also found in the past that when working with a CFO whose interest was to keep capex spending at a minimum, leasing equipment with a dollar buyout agreement at lease termination always won out over outright purchasing, even though the end result was the same. and when it comes time to get rid of old equipment, donate it to a charity, and get a tax break by keeping track of its book value and letting the accountant work their magic.
this is first question that i've seen that is on the right track!
as the article states, the company that is using the IQ test is using it as a primary screening test before moving to other test which include skill tests. unfortunately IQ test results doesn't measure intelligence as much as it does measure the ability to take/pass a test. true intelligence, creative problem solving, innovative solutions, and the ability to work under stress can't be measured in a test, it can only be determined in the field over a period of time.
outsourcing IT to china is attractive because of the high number of motivated chinese competing for a small pool of jobs means the ability to pick the cream of the crop(and pay low wages), however chinese culture does not necessarily stimulate those things that are important to develop innovative mental growth: individuality, self importance, creativity expression... these are very western ideals, and it's very likely that the hiring of US workers by an IT offshore company is multi-faceted: native english speaker for call escalation, cultural and language exchange for chinese workers, and the access to out of the box thinking(culturally a very american thing).
i second the suggestion to use anything that uses/manipulates XMP, but would also suggest broadening the scope to include IPTC, DC, and EXIF.
a simple search for xmp on google should yield plenty of hits for commercial, freeware/shareware and OSS to suite your needs.