-- dmc

Bit bucket ...

"The only thing standing in the way of a complete rollover from [Quark] XPress to [Adobe] PageMaker is the conservative (some might say stubborn) designer community. The combined argument of PageMaker, Adobe's PDF commitment, automated workflows (remember that PageMaker is extremely scriptable), the increasing incursion of Windows NT and the somewhat outdated XPress model might be enough to change the direction of the designer community."
-- Gary Poyssick, Steve Hannaford, THE GASP REPORT

Ships passing in the night: Though they were both originally copy editors, each has taken a different path over the years. One graduated from the desk to pagination guru at the Evening Standard in London; the other moved from the desk to pagination guru at the Kingsport Times-News in Tennessee. Then their careers diverged: The Englishman moved to the United States and held both editorial and production jobs with the now-defunct Racing Times, as well as spending a couple of years with Information International Inc. and a British web products supplier; the Tennessean moved to the Alameda Newspaper Group in Pleasanton, Calif., and continued in the world of pagination, moving from the newsroom to the systems department and pioneering a variety of technologies, including complete full-page output, PDF archiving and the use of intranets. Last month, they flipped job worlds. The Englishman (Philip Jordan) returned to newspapers as the manager of editorial systems at the Los Angeles Times while the Tennessean (Grady Cooper) moved to the supplier side, becoming the sales support engineer at Harris Publishing Systems Corp. of Melbourne, Fla. ...

Top techs: At The Record, Macromedia Inc.'s morning daily in Hackensack, N.J., Richard Ruffino has been named vice president for technology (he will also oversee technology at Macromedia's North Jersey Newspapers); previously Ruffino had spent three years as a consultant to Macromedia and had been acting head of The Record's information technology department for several months. In earlier lives, he had been with Gannett Co. Inc. and before that, Cowles Media Co. ... At the San Diego Union-Tribune, Janet Niehaus has been named computer systems and support director; previously Niehaus was network systems support manager at the Detroit Newspaper Agency and before that was with the Des Moines Register in a variety of roles, including systems and programming manager. ... At the Hartford Courant, John Suchecki Jr. has been named chief information officer; previously, Suchecki was deputy chief information officer at the University of Connecticut Health Center. ...

Real bits: At the Chicago Tribune, Kara Gabbert has been named senior process analyst in the Quality Department; previously Gabbert was data services administration manager at the St. Petersburg Times. ... At the Daily Press of Newport News, Va., Michael Sacks has been named vice president of production and technology; previously, Sacks had been with The Sun-Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., where he worked as circulation sales supervisor, classified telemarketing supervisor, pre-press manager and production manager. ...

Inside the insiders: At the Newspaper Association of America of Vienna, Va., Dawn Rhine has been named director of NEXPO, the newspaper technology conference. Previously Rhine had been manager of exhibit sales for NEXPO, and before that had been in trade show management for nine years. ... At Macweek magazine in San Francisco, David Morgenstern has been named editor; previously he was a senior editor. ...

New media mavens: At Cox Interactive Media of Atlanta, three group vice presidents have been named: Stephen Becker, previously with Cox Communications Inc.; David Scott, previously vice president of site development, and Gary Mills, previously senior business manager for CIM. Also at CIM, the following directors have been promoted to vice president of their areas of responsibility: Debbie Craig becomes veep of sales, Hilary Goodall becomes veep of content programming, Keith Herndon becomes veep of operations and Michael Parker becomes veep of marketing. ... At the Daily Press of Newport News, Va., Kristine Faulkner has been named director of Internet publishing and general manager of the paper's on-line affiliate, Digital City Hampton Roads. ...

Vendors, smendors: At Miles 33 International of Darien, Conn., Kenny King has been named newspaper systems sales manager; King has had a long and colorful career in the newspaper supplier world, most recently running his own business, King Systems International. ... At the Software Construction Co. of Atlanta, Lee Funnell has been named vice president. Funnell had been with the company for more than two years, and joined the Atlanta office last fall when he moved with his family from the United Kingdom. ... At Vivitar Corp. of Newbury Park, Calif., Douglas Howe has been named president. Previously Howe was vice president and general manager of Vivitar's digital imaging division and had been veep of marketing for digital products at Olympus America Inc.; prior to that, he was general manager of the electronic imaging department at Nikon Inc. ...

Confabs: America East and New Media World are March 16-19 in Hershey, Pa. The new media sessions (on Monday) will cover topics including how to sell on-line and "unconventional partnerships" between newspapers and cable. America East topics include color, readership, digital imaging and tips for improving print quality. In addition, there's a trade show of more than 135 suppliers. For more information, call (717) 234-4067. ... A four-day session on XML, the new extensible markup language (which is a subset of SGML), will be March 23-27 in Seattle. Sponsored by the Graphic Communications Association, the organizers claim you'll find out why companies such as Microsoft, Adobe, Sun and Netscape think XML is so important. For the skinny, call (703) 519-8167 or e-mail info@gca.org. ... The Society of News Design's annual Quick Course will visit two towns soon: March 28, Murfreesboro, Tenn., and April 18, Manhattan, Kan. For more information on this year's sessions, call SND at (401) 276-2100 or send e-mail to snd@snd.org. ... A one-day session on research, product development and branding at The Star, a full-color tabloid in Dublin, Ireland, is the focus of an April 3 "executive visit" sponsored by the World Association of Newspapers. Topics include continuous investment in market research, focus on content creation and product development, and concentrated marketing efforts. For more information, call (011) {33} 1 47 42 85 00 or send e-mail to contact_us@wan.asso.fr. ... The financial health of System Integrators Inc. of Sacramento will be on the agenda of the spring meeting of the System Integrators Systems Users Group April 5-8 at the Hotel del Coronado in San Diego. SII's recapitalization will be discussed, and users may meet members of the supplier's board of directors, as well as get demos and previews of current and upcoming SII products. For the skinny, enquire of Dulcie Shoener of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel at shoener@onwis.com. ... Ink and Paper, a two-day seminar sponsored by the Newspaper Association of America, is April 6-8 in Vienna, Va. Topics will include ink and paper properties, basic testing considerations and problems and solutions. For more information, call the NAA's Joan Phillips at (703) 902-1856 or e-mail her at phij@naa.org. ... #

From THE COLE PAPERS, March 1998, Copyright © 1998, All Rights Reserved.