March, 1998

People, a wise person once wrote, hate paperwork, but love paper. Oh, so true. I have embarked upon a project to digitize as much of my files as possible. Now, this isn't as bad as it once was, I filled a truck (literally) with clippings and other materials during my last annual throw-out. But I still have a couple of dozen archive boxes of press releases, clippings, notes and the like either neatly filed, or thrust into boxes marked "urgent", "to be filed" and "immediate action required".

		My solution is a CD writer and a scanner. I have on loan a Logitech scanner which is packaged with OCR software, and a PC running MS Office and Corel Office. While I don't support copyright infringement in any way, I do like to keep my own clippings, and I don't see any harm in keeping them digitized. This could be a wrong call, but I digitize only the few articles that I am interested in, and don't sell them, so I'm hoping this is covered by the 'fair dealing' sections of the copyright law.
		What have I discovered? Well, that the sooner one scans the better, that the OCR software seems to get 'tired' and becomes less able to interpret words as the document progresses, and that it is really, really hard to throw away the paper copies. In fact, I get press releases by e-mail and download, and I have to fight the urge to print film production notes and add them to my hard copy files. Hell, let's be honest -- I'm going to do it because I can't bear the incompleteness of my files and I am not going to throw out the print copies of my film research materials. Do you see what I mean?
		Corel sent me a press release regarding HP SureStore CD-Writer Plus 7200 which is bundled with ten software packages including Symantec's Norton AntiVirus, Adobe PhotoDeluxe, Corel Print House, Photo Organizer, Documagix PaperMaster Live , Adaptec's Easy CD Audio, Adaptec's Easy CD Creator Standard Edition, Adaptec's Direct CD and HP SimpleTrax which automatically saves files to CD, ensuring that they are protected, secure, and easy to find and retrieve -- even if the CD is not in the drive.
		Although I was ecstatic about Easy CD for Windows 3.11 it (obviously) didn't support long filenames. My horror over the Windows 95 version has yet to end. The version I have (not from the CD above) doesn't display existing files on the CD, and doesn't enable me to logically replace existing files with newer versions.
		My favourite new products are golden oldies, HotDog 4.5 and PhotoImpact 4.0. PhotoImpact, for those who don't know is retouching software with a lot of web document support. It can be used to create buttons of any shape, to put fancy frames on images, to covert documents into GIF, jpg and PNG formats, and much more. I use it all the time and highly recommend it. I once wrote a review of a product and stated that I didn't finish the review because I was too busy using the product. PhotoImpact 4.0 is in the same class. If you are looking for a high-quality, multi-functioned image handling program, this is the one to get. But do me a favour, if you hate the (new) iconography on the tool bars as much as I do, send Ulead an e-mail and complain. They have used some of the interface tricks that Corel do in PhotoPaint, and I really, really, hate esoteric icons that are just meaningless squiggles, and even more, itty-bitty teeny marks on icons that are supposed to immediately communicate to us the presence of further icons annoyingly hidden from the user. Come one, you didn't expect a Digit-Ali without a rant about something did you?

		On a bright note, Festivale has been doing enormously well, due in part to the interest in Titanic (the movie) and our reviews. We have new columnists, Phil Wllodarcyzdk (Games) and Simon Feeney (Webbery) and Sally Odgers (aka writer Tegan James) in the Bookroom.
		Thanks to all those people who have visited us, especially those who took the time to write. Festivale now reaches 17,000 visitors a month. Keep those links clicking!
		by Ali Kayn, Editor
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