Back in the last century, I designed the look and feel of a new American magazine called ‘Electronics Cooling’. It comes as no surprise to know that it’s title discloses its contents. No matter that I wasn’t told of its destination until the magazine had been completed and signed-off by the editor, resulting in a frantic and not entirely happy reshuffling to change its page size. Only after it had been printed did the American buyer see the English spelling throughout and especially on it’s cover. There in large 32 point Franklin Gothic Demi was ‘Characterisation’ using an ‘S’ instead of a ‘Z’. Oh well, I didn’t supply the copy!

Things used to be a lot quieter in those days. Desktop computers ran 32-bit chips at speeds measured in the tens of megahertz if you were lucky to have one so fast. On-board cooling was barely necessary, with one fan usually attached to the power supply unit and often sucking air in through the hole in the casing shared with the floppy disk drive aperture. Opening the case usually revealed a thick layer of fluff covering the whole motherboard.

Fat chance of this nowadays, it would all be burned off in no time, emulating a Sony laptop battery’s volatile nature. There is no doubt that the IBM Power 4 derived chips in my current machine run exceedingly hot. During the excesses of summer’s weather, even moving the mouse seemed to generate a speed-up of the internal cooling fans, almost like sitting on an electric motor bike and revving it up at the traffic lights. This first generation computer is only cooled by air, with 5 internal fans, whereas my wife’s later and faster version uses a combined liquid and air cooling, running a lot quieter as a result. When it first arrived I gave it a whole load of hard to do things to do and pressed my ear to the case to hear if it gurgled – it didn’t. Even so, if we start either computer in basic mode before the software controlling the fans is loaded, they soon spin up to maximum, emulating Concorde on full afterburner.

It is with some relief that chip and computer manufacturers seem to have grasped the cooling problem and are coming up with new answers other than bigger and loader fans. In the case of my chosen manufacturer, changing to a different chip supplier means losing a lot of heat even if they are running faster. The current Power 4’s are designed for servers, after all, in high throughput multi-tasking environments rather than sitting on a desktop a metre or so from your ear. As it is, even with all the best tricks computer manufacturers pull, underclocking the chips. liquid cooling, heat pipes and the rest, it seems that we will eventually have to have some form of phase change cooling installed as CPU’s get ever more hot.

This could have some interesting benefits. Phase change cooling involves literally changing the nature of one thing to another and in the process moving heat from one place to another. In its simplest form it is a miniature refrigeration unit sitting under the computer, that compresses a gas into a liquid which is pumped to the processor. Here, the heat makes the liquid evaporate, so absorbing the heat which is then pumped back to the compressor to be reconverted to gas and releasing the heat at the same time. Depending on the size of the compressor, the amount of cooling can be well below zero degrees centigrade which in turn means larger and faster CPUs can be used. Or for something else to be cooled.

Apple Computer have already linked up with Coca Cola and iTunes so could we be on the verge of a Mac with a built in ice dispenser? The excess heat could be diverted to keep coffee warm in winter. The Apple Maquatosh?

Like an old car, it seems that as we get older, bits of us pack up, slow down or need a de-coke. Or more likely and legally, a de-wine, or insert favourite over-indulgence here. Get to 30 and your looks start fading. By 40 teeth need regular attention. When 50 comes around, eyesight decreases and 7 point text might as well be on the moon. Something the Dennis Publishing designers could take notice of.

In some respects, reading on-screen helps. Not only are things a comfortable distance away, screen contrast and brilliance can be adjusted and things resized to make reading more comfortable. Then only two problems remain; one is wearing vari-focus spectacles that never seem to have the right part in the right place to make the screen in focus. The second is using a monitor that is just not big enough. It doesn’t help having to design A3-landscape pages on a 17″ monitor, either.

If too many windows, pallets and dialogue boxes are getting in the way, it is worth balancing the cost of a new screen against using software solutions such as a virtual desktop manager to help take the strain. The latter have been around for years since their introduction as Amiga OS scrolling desktops in 1985. Unix and Linux have had virtual desktops since the dawn of time, Windows XP has them but Microsoft’s own Power Tools only works with US regional settings and is unsupported. The Mac world saw the world’s first commercial desktop manager, Stepping Out, in 1986 and currently there are at least three contenders, two of which are free. These are most likely doomed to the dustbin when the next version of Mac OS X is released with Apple’s Spaces desktop manager built in.

VirtueDesktops was chosen to test the theory – a simple matter of double clicking to run the program. As a free piece of software, VirtueDesktops does exactly what it says it should. Just about everything can be set to personal preferences, each desktop can have its own pattern and applications can be ’stuck’ to a certain desktop. The transition effects are neat too.

After a day of complete confusion, losing track of what application was open in which desktop, virtual desktops gave me brain strain and didn’t really help anyway. They are more for people who like to have ‘environments’. Where, for example: one desktop can be set aside for programming and coding, with all the paraphernalia it involves. Another can be used for different browsers and web creation tools; a third desktop for whatever else you want open, and so on. Most Mac design software is well integrated so that clicking on a graphic in a page layout program results in Photoshop or Illustrator automatically coming to the fore to edit it. The other built-in tools of the Mac’s operating system cope with screen clutter created by multiple applications open at the same time.

For me, the only solution is to buy a new monitor. Not a second one to run side by side, as used in the early 1990’s, along with another Mac to drive it. The screen needs to be a 23″ or larger and will come complete with a price tag that increases exponentially with size and quality. On the other hand, just a couple of years ago their price would have bought a pretty decent family car. Even now for their present price I bought a reliable Toyota pick-up last year, when renovating my house.

What a dilemma! How does one decide between an Apple 23″ display, Eizo 24″, NEC 21″ or a diesel Toyota Hiace?

Mid-August in England. Days of decisions and dichotomy with the most likely, is it going to rain or not? On such a hot, wet day recently I was at a pick your own farm deciding whether to get vegetables or salads. In the end sneaking into the middle of the sweet corn to munch on an illicit cob, it’s sweet, white milky juices trickling down my chin. By far the best way to eat corn on the cob.

If only design software was such an easy choice. In years gone by it was simple – QuarkXPress or nothing but the arrival of Adobe’s inDesign has turned the whole industry on its head. So much that the print industry has to have both at hand to maintain compatibility with clients and bureaux. Even then, life is not simple because some DTP dinosaurs are still using QuarkXPress 4, a legacy of the mid-1990’s.

When Apple, the choice of all discerning designers, moved to Unix-based Mac OS X, Adobe produced one of the first true Mac OS X applications, the late great inDesign 2. It was so far in advance of then current version of QuarkXpress, 5, that it attracted users in droves. It had its faults but at least it ran ‘native’, unlike QuarkXPress which stuck in the ‘Classic’ emulation mode. However, this was actually more stable and on a fast Mac, better than under the old operating system Apple had abandoned. Many companies stayed with QuarkXPress and the industry was in the software doldrums.

Apple deliberately stopped making computers that could run the old operating system leaving many design companies chugging along with antiquated equipment to retain full use of their beloved versions of QuarkXPress. Quark eventually released XPress version 6, compatible with Mac OS X. This pleased the hangers-on immensely, they could buy new computers at last. It wasn’t a true OS X application, just a ‘carbonised’ version of XPress 5. As such, deprived of most of the features of the Unix hidden under OS X.

Meanwhile, Adobe released Creative Suite 1, then 2. These heavy-duty, integrated sets of software contained every application print and web designers need, including the venerable Photoshop and inDesign. The suites are not only cheaper than stand-alone QuarkXPress but leagues ahead in features, stability and usability.

And so we reach today. Quark has come up with version 7, complete with inDesign-emulating transparency, layers, drop shadows and other goodies, whilst Adobe has lagged behind Quark because its software runs in emulation mode on the new Intel powered Macs. I have learned to hate them both as an increasing number of bugs emerged.

DTP software is something I’ve used since the mid-1980’s. It has never been entirely stable, always complex but at least QuarkXPress 5 and inDesign 2 and CS1 never let me down. Not so with the latest offerings. Adobe’s Help System has a copy of Opera 7, ancient software, hidden deep within its ‘package’. Opera 7 is something my Mac always choked on for some reason and including it in Creative Suite 2 meant that choked on it too.

My last piece of work, a 256 page large format book destined for the US market (full of photographs) was all set to go to the imaging house. They are still using QuarkXPress 6 but as version 7 saves back to 6 it should have been no problem.

Bad thought! QuarkXPress 6 could not open the files saved by QuarkXPress 7.0.1. Thank goodness I’d kept a version 7.0.0 – the pre-Intel compatible and original QuarkXPress 7. Saving the files from that solved the problem otherwise that cold, sinking feeling in the stomach would have meant redoing the job from scratch. All 10 files and 2.4 gigabytes of it.

These are just two of the many Ouch! moments the latest versions of QuarkXPress and inDesign bring up. I could also mention resizing in-line graphics, opening files with duplicate fonts active, converting older versions of files, creating PDFs with the OPI XTension installed, using text run-arounds and clipping paths…

So which do I use for the next job I do? Buggy XPress or inconsistent inDesign? Decisions, decisions, decisions. Thank goodness it’s nearly September.

There are some things in life that can always be taken for granted. Bruce Willis will lose his shirt at some point in a film. Jean-Claud Van Damme will show his naked backside. Imaginary telephone numbers always start with ‘555′. The minimum specifications for Vista will increase as the delivery date slips further into the 21st Century. Steve Jobs will wear a black polo-necked shirt and jeans when he delivers the keynote speech at MacExpo.

Thank goodness Adobe introduced their portable document format to the world as far back as the early 1990’s. In those days the web was something you bumped into in the shed so it mattered little that the first PDF format lacked support for external hyperlinks. It was also competing with well-established competitors including Adobe’s own PostScript file format. Original PDF creation tools as well as viewers cost money so it was slow to catch on. Eventually Adobe started to distribute the free Acrobat Reader software, the competition died out – largely due to not being cross platform, and PDF’s became the standard.

Over the years, Adobe have worked on the PDF format adding features, java script, inter-activity, multi-media and lately, 3D. It remains device and resolution independent and can include all the elements to make an exact copy of a 2D or embedded 3D document. In addition Adobe have released it as an open standard, licensed on a royalty-free basis and created subsets of PDFs standardised under the ISO banner (International Organisation for Standardisation) including: PDF/X for print and graphics, PDF/A for archiving, PDF/E for engineering drawings and PDF/UA for universally accessible PDF files.

The latter, PDF/UA, means it is now possible to create documents that are completely accessible for people with disabilities. PDFs do this by including XML tags, audio descriptions and other features that enable devices such as screen readers to read the documents out loud. Visually challenged users can zoom into documents which reflow the text automatically to take this into account.

In the printing and publishing industry, PDFs have changed the way we work completely. The days of paper proofs have all-but disappeared as PDFs are sent via email. It used to be that the only way to get absolutely guaranteed output was by creating enormous PostScript files of whole documents. This was instead of sending an application’s native documents complete with graphics and such like, hoping the imaging bureau had the right typefaces and colour profiles installed. Nowadays we use high resolution PDFs, containing crop marks, transparency, bleeds, fonts, images and all that made the document in the first place. All wrapped into one document which even has some editability in Adobe Acrobat Pro or can be viewed and printed from a free Acrobat Reader.

So why then do Microsoft want to muscle into this highly efficient way of working with their proposed XML Paper Specification to run under Vista? Microsoft Word can already export PDF files, albeit with some problems – but then that’s because it’s such a dog that everything you try to do in Word is difficult. Microsoft’s usual Three E approach is likely to ruin an efficient and working system by Embracing, Extending and Exterminating, except in this case they are doing it with their own piece of software and Word.

This is, hopefully, where Microsoft’s entry into the arena will wither and die. Adobe have nurtured the PDF over years, it is available for all major computer platforms and ‘just works’. As governments and organisations are abandoning Microsoft’s office in lieu of open source alternatives, it may be too late for XML Paper to catch on.

I can always live in hope.