Hi, this is Frank Romano from WhatTheyThink.com.  Welcome to RIT.  I’m here for a few days on some business and of course, I come back to lots of mail, which I love to discuss. 

One of the largest categories of mail that I get, and probably that you get, has to do with conferences.  Right? Meetings?  Here is one from the Graphics of the Americas.  It says that you can take your business to another dimension.  I don’t know what dimension that is, but hopefully it’s a good dimension.  By the way, like all of there them, there’s lots of information about the programs they put on so you have descriptions of all the seminars.  And that’s very typical; the On Demand Show sent one out as well.  Again, they’re trying to entice you to attend the conference sessions, so they give you good descriptions of them. 

There’s a little bit of a disconnect on the NAPL one by the way.  This is the one they sent, which is very good.  They have lots of nice sessions for their program, but the cover says, “A smart thinking this way.”  But I got a post card that says, “Solutions, Next Exit.”  So, I want to know NAPL, which exit should I take by the way, the Smart Thinking, or the Solutions?  You know, this can be very confusing if you’re driving along at 65 mph in a 35 mph zone.  

This is ISCST, the International Coding Science and Technology Symposium, which again, has descriptions of all of their programs.  This is from RIT, by the way.  This is the postcard promoting the Printing Applications Laboratory Seminars that they have, my favorite, by the way, Printing Process Identification and Image Analysis for Forensic Document Examiners.  You know, this is a growth area given the amount of counterfeiting and forgery that goes on out there not only with currency, but with packaging and other materials.  It’s a very interesting area. 

The Digital Printing Boot Camp is one of the best.  Well I do it; well I do part of it.  Orientation to the Graphic Arts is always good.  That’s for someone who knows nothing about the printing industry.  They will teach you everything you need to know and more. 

This was one of my favorites, by the way.  Typical of what I call the Frank Comma School of Variable Data Printing.  So there you see it, and what it says is, “Frank 2010 is all about you.  Frank, 2010 is all About You.  Well, now I’m interested.  They’ve had the wrong address here, by the way.  But it is the Print Solutions 2010 Conference in Baltimore in May.  Now, inside there’s nothing about me.  Nothing.  Lots of stuff, but nothing about me. 

You can take the envelope apart.  I like this.  This is very interesting, by the way.  The entire envelope comes apart.  I love this; this is the best idea ever.  Now, they could have done something more creative on the inside here.  This is very interesting.  So, it’s an 8 ½ x 11, almost an 8 ½ x 11 sheet.  Is it 8 ½ by 11?  It is 8 ¼ x 11.  So, I like the idea that it became the envelope.  They could personalize this part, but they had difficulty personalizing that part. 

Andy McCourt, one of my friends from Australia, he works for Océ.  They had a conference there, or meeting of some sort, and he sent me a copy of a personalized newspaper.  So, here it has Andy on it.  He apologized for the fact that he didn’t get on with Frank on it, but that’s okay.  This is a very interesting concept to me, the personalized newspaper.  I’m not sure I like the idea of a newspaper that only has the news that I think I want.  One of the great things about reading publications is you find things that you didn’t know you were interested in.  It’s that serendipity that really makes it more interesting.  I mean, I might come upon an article about Egyptian archeology that’s interesting to me, but that’s not something I might list as saying, “Yes, show me every article about that.” 

On the inside, it was also personalized, and I guess you can choose the kinds of stories and articles and materials that come in her.  Now, of course, Océ has both roll fed toner and roll fed ink jet technology and so they can do this either way.  It looks very good.  It looks as good as any newspaper.  In fact in some cases better than some offset printed newspapers that I’ve seen.  So, very interesting concept.  I appreciate that Andy sent it because, again, we’re going to be talking a lot over the next year or two about the concept of a magazine or a newsletter or publication of some sort that is attuned to your particular interests.  And I don’t know if I really know what my interests are.  I have a general idea of the things that I am interested in.  They’re the kinds of things that I cover for the industry.  But there are a lot of technologies and other areas that sort of embellish all of that, and to list all of those things, that would be kind of hard. 

This part has nothing to do with the printing industry.  You’ll like it; well I like it.  Steve Johnson from Compresso, which is a digital on-demand printing company in the Chicago area; Carroll Stream, Illinois, sent me the 2009, well this is the old one now.  It is a publication for people who want to rent private railroad cars.  So, you can rent a railroad car and it will take you – in fact, they have a map of all the places that you can go on these things.  And they will lug it all around for you, with you in it, and some of them are beautiful.  For many years, I’ve seen them at various Amtrak Stations and have gone up, and in most cases they’ll invite you in, if they’re there, and give you a tour of it.  The name of this publication is Private Varnish.  Private Varnish, that’s very interesting. 

When Amtrak first started, the only equipment they had was the Legacy equipment from the 1940’s.  I remember taking train trips on those.  They were really interesting cars in many cases.  Then, of course, they went to the Superliners.  That was the first new breed they came out with.  And then on the East Coast, they come up with the Viewliners.  Both are okay, but they’re showing their age at this stage of the game. 

The Viewliners were ahead of their time.  They had little TV sets in the room, those have been taken out.  They had many amenities; those have been taken away over the years.  But you can see that these cars are almost homes on wheels.  Although I don’t know, the toilet down here looks very interesting.  It looks like there’s a foot pedal for – I guess you have to pump it.  I like the stove that they have here, but they are very, almost Victorian in nature.  So, if anybody wants to join me, let’s take a trip.  We’ll rent a railroad car and travel around the United States giving seminars on new technology while traveling on old technology.  Now, so long as Amtrak doesn’t pull it, we’re probably okay.  But if they do pull it, we’re probably in trouble. 

And lastly, I wanted to show you one thing, and that is, there’s a lot of talk out there about the iPad, the product from Apple.  And I determined that I invented the iPad.  You know, look.  It understands text, it does graphics.  You can drop it; it will not break.  You can bang it against things.  You can kill flies with it if you feel like killing a fly with it.  And the nice thing is that I don’t have to carry the whole thing around with me.  I can take a sheet of paper and fold it and put it in my pocket.  However, with the apple iPad I have to lug the entire thing around with me everywhere I go.  So, I don’t think Apple invented anything really new. 

What they really should do is one with a yellow screen with lines on it and then perhaps it would be more interesting. 

And that’s my opinion.  Thank you very much. 

It happens to involve Dubai, of all places.  And this was when they had money.