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The Shocking Tale of BookLocker v. Amazon

Bangor, Maine based BookLocker has won a suit against Amazon.com which claimed Amazon violated anti-trust law. The complaint was that Amazon used intimidation and other mafia-like tactics to shut down a publisher’s ability to use their own printer by attempting to force these publishers to use Amazon’s own POD printing business, BookSurge (now called CreateSpace).

cartman

You will respect Amazon's authoritah!!!

Let’s say you are an independent publisher, a niche publisher or a small digital printing company. Read More »

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Awesomest comment spam comment of the day

In my continuing series of comment spams that are totally genius, I give you the following, copied with no editing whatsoever:

my God, i thought you were going to chip in with some decisive insght at the end there, not leave it with

MY GOD! Not leave it with what? WITH WHAT???

Sorry pal, no decisive insights on this blog, and I really don’t have enough traffic coming here to warrant the spamming effort you are putting into this.

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Spam Comment of the Day

SIERRA MADRE, CA - MAY 29:  Spam, the often-ma...
Image by Getty Images via Daylife

I now spend more time deleting moderating spam on this blog than I do actually writing. Annoying as hell. Although, I found the wording of this one to be pretty amusing:

“The first thing that will happen will be the termination of Lustig’s disastrous buy allegra grab me and pelted towards the door. The policeman there grabbed at me— then folded

Just read that a few times. I removed the link but left the formatting for humorous effect.

Happy Holidays!

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Where have I been?

Title page to Locke's Some Thoughts Concerning...
Image via Wikipedia

In February 2009, the print shop I was working for closed its doors. Since then, I have been considering numerous or even infinite options for my next career move. Unfortunately, the prepress and printing industries ain’t what they used to be. Companies who have looked at digital printing (an area of my expertise) or have moved fully into that realm aren’t interested in paying an expert fair market value for that expertise considering “the current economic climate”. These days it’s all about cost saving. Read More »

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How to Make a Blog on Wordpress using Network Solutions

WP_logo1- Buy a domain name (like www.jefflazerus.com)
2- Buy a hosting account on Network Solutions
3- Install Wordpress out of the “Tools” panel in your account manager area
4- Login and post, but don’t expect it to work the same each time, and always expect some new useless (?) upgrade from Wordpress at random times.

UPDATE 11/05/09:

Network Solutions now allows you to buy a Wordpress hosting package, without shared hosting or the high end virtual server, for something like $4.00 US. If you just want Wordpress on a nice stable platform, this could be a good solution. If I were going to add WP to a commerce site that already exists I would seriously consider this option.

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How to Make a Wordpress Blog Run Faster

Trying to make Wordpress go faster

FASTER! FASTER, dammit!

Optimizing Wordpress using a CDN (Content Delivery Network)

My blog had been running, if that’s what you could call it, at speeds approximating a gimpy turtle walking in mud uphill… you get the idea. So I started investigating the technical methods used by pro web developers to make their blogs load fast. Read More »

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BREAKING NEWS: Print Publishing to Go Electronic in 2010

Sorry about the sarcasm, folks. Click here for the story.

Courtesy of Gizmodo

Courtesy of Gizmodo

It doesn’t seem likely that an Apple Tablet, although fun and interesting, even a “game changer” the way the iPhone was, will “save” the print industry. It seems like another way to bypass the page. I have to get one!

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The Degradation of Prepress Employment, Part 1

Prepress employment is going away, and it’s being replaced by the content creation side. Not only are content creators doing more of the prepress part of the job, but automated systems are also replacing human beings in the workplace. Yes, a robot has taken my job.

Seeing this was kind of a shocker for me. Shortly after I posted this, Prepress Pilgrim started asking some pretty serious questions about my post.  In a comment on the Prepress Pilgrim blog, Dr. Joe Webb pointed to his own article and data where he got the original numbers. I’m not sure why he says “Enjoy!” at the end of his comment. I don’t really “Enjoy!” reading about how our jobs are being done by someone else, at a lower wage and without our expertise. Hmm. Read More »

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Just When I Thought Twitter Was All Noise

Dr. Joe Webb, print industry economist at whattheythink.com tweets some pretty dramatic news:
twitterScreenCap

Posted in Employment Issues, Printing | Tagged , , | 1 Comment
  • My name is Jeff Lazerus and my professional experience includes marketing, graphic design, prepress and prepress management; variable data printing and digital printing management.
    This blog is my personal portal for online experimentation. I write about creating your own space on the web, new marketing technology, the print business, and metablogs. Opinions are my own, and I hope someone else's as well.Contact me: jeff@jefflazerus.com




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