Quark to Macintosh users: Go die!

MacEdition reports on the current status of QuarkXpress for Mac OS X.

Publishing professionals who attended a Quark-convened “executive summary” in New York last week are still abuzz over the performance of Quark CEO Fred Ebrahimi, a gentleman whose outbursts make Steve Jobs seem like Captain Kangaroo.

The ostensible topic du jour: the pending integration of Quark Publishing System and Digital Media System within a framework of Microsoft’s .Net and SQL Server technologies. Notably absent from the roadmap: any support for Mac OS X Server.

Indeed, these witnesses attest, audience questions about Mac OS X provoked an Ebrahimi tirade of Old Testament proportions: Quark‰s Dear Leader told his squirming guests that “the Macintosh platform is shrinking,” and that “publishing is dying.” He suggested that anyone dissatisfied with Quark’s Mac commitment should “switch to something else,” although he insisted that making the move to Adobe’s long-Carbonized InDesign package is “committing suicide.”

“Everyone was stunned, and most folks left by noon,” one attendee reported. “It was awful.” Although many of Quark’s hapless visitors were lured to the gathering by a promised demo of XPress for Mac OS X, Quark provided precious few details and no time line.

The implication there is that anyone staying with Quark at this late stage is committing suicide. FWIW, I made the move to InDesign full-time when v2.0 was released and haven’t looked back since.

The first shambling down a long server migration road

I was tipped off to JohnCompanies awhile back by OxDECAFBAD and pulled the trigger on one of their Linux servers. Been steadily working on it and feeling that deep internal satisfaction you get from learning a new system (even if it just a plain ole Red Hat box).

The object is to merge together all the random servers and domains I’ve got scattered around out there and bring them all together – plus free up the poor battered home DSL line that’s been serving up the no-fi.com and chrisbarrus.com domains.

Still doing this with one hand on the O’Reilly books…

The Perpetual War Portfolio

Why suffer through the coming Dark Times? Join in on the profit just like your congresscritters. No Skull And Bones membership required!

An evenly weighted basket of five stocks poised to succeed in the age of perpetual war. The stocks were selected on the basis of popular product lines, strong political connections and lobbying efforts, and paid-for access to key Congressional decision makers.

And it’s time for the Beloit College “Mindset List”

Most students entering college this fall were born in 1984, which means…

  • South Africa’s official policy of apartheid has not existed during their lifetime.
  • They have no recollection of Connie Chung or Geraldo Rivera as serious journalists.
  • Fox has always been a television network choice.
  • Vanessa Williams and Madonna are aging singers.
  • Weather reports have always been available 24-hours a day on television.
  • George Foreman has always been a barbecue grill salesman

The full list is up on their site.