Floating Point Digital Images

Waiting for a free bumpersticker?

2010-09-18T09:35:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the delay, I'm busy, busy, busy at the moment but should get the backlog sorted out next week.

Thanks for your patience,

Sunday - the day of...

2010-08-15T10:06:00.001-07:00

...shipping. Yay! :)

Gaaaaah!

2010-08-09T08:49:00.001-07:00

@ the post-office. The phrase that clearly identifies a n00b and I'm gonna be here for hours:

'What are my options for...?'

How about: 'Look it up online and let me get the hell outta here???!!!???'

Leighton Jones, Owner
Floating Point Digital Images
403-510-4793

2010-07-23T17:40:00.001-07:00

People with iPads in a dark movie theate = asshats

Leighton Jones, Owner
Floating Point Digital Images
403-510-4793

Movies

2010-07-23T17:26:00.001-07:00

So here I am at the movies, or rather waiting for the theatre to be cleaned. It's 1824 and the two-and-a-half hour flick prior has just ended.

Who the hell is at the movies at four in the afternoon?? ...more to the point - why don't you have a job? You're mobile evidently!

Grrrrr ;)

Leighton Jones, Owner
Floating Point Digital Images
403-510-4793

Happy Pi Approximation Day

2010-07-22T10:14:00.001-07:00

22/7 in case you don't get it ;)

Wohoo! 400th Order

2010-07-20T16:16:00.000-07:00

Yay me! >:) (And it was a Mario sticker order (http://www.fpdimages.com/html/StoreNewSuperMario.htm) going to Texas)

Hello To The Spammers!

2009-12-02T07:37:00.001-08:00

Just a quick hello to all the idiot spammers who keep posting crap about prescription pills, part-time jobs where I can make a bazillion dollars and things to increase my 'manhood' to my blog. Hello cretins!

Amateurs @ the Post Office

2009-11-30T09:21:00.001-08:00

Eugh. The run up to Christmas. Tons of unwashed masses at the Post Office with their parcels, incomplete/non-existant forms deliberating for hours over which rate they want.

And then there is me. Nineth back in the line. Form ready, waiting for amateurs to stumble through the process of mailing a gift to Manitoba with more angst than NASA needs to get cargo to the ISS.

I hate the festive period. :(

Email on the go, sent by TELUS

Missing blog

2009-11-17T14:14:00.001-08:00

Thanks to some asshats who keep abusing the blog-script on my front page I've had to remove it.

It bastards kept injecting urls into my legitimate html source which would lead to Google and others reporting that my site was laden with evil.

Assholes.

Email on the go, sent by TELUS

Success & Whoops

2009-11-03T07:03:00.001-08:00

I'm dead excited to report that using SynCE I've got my Windows Mobile device to talk to Evolution on Linux.

The downside is that rather than taking the contacts and calendar from my phone and moving them to Evolution, I took the nothing in Evolution and blew everything away on my phone. Ooops.

If you call me or I miss an appointment, Im sorry - my phone has temporary amnesia until I can restore from a backup.

Love, me.

Email on the go, sent by TELUS

Migration to Linux Almost Done

2009-11-01T21:20:00.000-08:00

For a few years now I've been going back and forth to Linux trying to figure out if I can get Floating Point into the Open Source world.

I'm quite excited that for the last week things have been going 'OK'. Not fantastic I'll grant you but OK.

The major obstacle is that all of my current designs and client-base are heavily entrenched into Adobe Illustrator or Corel Draw, so to get around this I'm running a virtualized Windows XP environment via VMware server under Linux. Although a little sluggish on my laptop it's tolerable and I have my XP workstation to fall back on if things get very tedious. Aside from Quickbooks and the software that drives my label printer everything else has been migrated to Debian.

There are still some quirks. I haven't got my Windows Mobile Palm synchronizing with 'Evolution' yet, but I'm getting there.

Generally speaking things are more clunky under Linux, but on the whole routine tasks are much faster than Windows.

I'll keep you posted...

Leighton, Owner
Floating Point Digital Images
403.510.4793, www.fpdimages.com

Test upload from my phone

2009-10-26T21:39:00.001-07:00

Ooooh, the unbridled excitement of mobile blogging...

Email on the go, sent by TELUS

Free Bumpersticker Template Fixed!

2009-09-01T18:47:00.000-07:00

Hi Folks,
A couple of weeks ago I updated the free decal template on my website and screwed it up in the process.

I've now fixed the problem - just in case you were wondering what I was playing at.

Thanks (and sorry!) :)

Open Systems Banner

2009-08-05T18:50:00.000-07:00

...just updating the Open Systems Banner here tonight. Mark Farina is spinning on the CD player so all is good. More RAM in use than you can shake a stick at.

A quick 'hello' to all my friends in Europe (and one down in the US) who have ordered the monster banner of open-system loveliness.

Take it easy, people...

'Oh, hi, Jesus. You free for dinner Wednesday?'

2009-07-09T21:36:00.001-07:00

Jesus
Whether or not he shows up will sure answer a lot of questions for people worldwide.

My grandad
Died long before I was born. It would be great to meet the only one of my grandparents I never knew. It would let me talk to the man who my grandmother use to speak about so lovingly.

I'd fit in well in 'Casablanca'

2009-05-09T10:32:00.001-07:00

I like Rick. He's a hard, no-nonsense kinda guy but at the same time is pained and vunerable. I like that he sees the big picture and knows that Ilsa is better off with Victor than him, and that Victor needs Ilsa to help with his work.

Captain Renault I quite like. He spends most of the movie playing both sides of the argument, not favouring one or the other, but doing what seems best given the circumstances.

Please, Use The Curtains

2009-05-08T21:30:00.000-07:00

A cautionary tale, folks.

I've just finished up with the plotter for the evening, and it's 2230, so - obviously dark outside.

I look up, and to my horror across the cul-de-sac, one of my neighbours is merrily changing the sheets on his bed, with the light on, the drapes (curtains) open, stark-bollock naked.

You just can't make this stuff up...

Fortune Cookie

2009-03-31T18:53:00.000-07:00

Thanks to 'Fais' Chinese Take-Out' for this one:

"Good ideas will spring forth naturally from your mind in the coming week"

Fantastic ;)

I'm hoping this happens before my arteries clog from the gingerbeef and deep-fried chicken-balls. Heh heh heh.

Gadget wish list, please

2009-03-27T21:13:00.001-07:00

Top gadget? Right now I've got my eye on a 'HeadPlay' (www.headplay.com). My plan is to again become James Bond on my PS/2 that sits idle for a large part of any given month ;) Late last year I finially finished off 'NightFire' after two years of on and off tuxedo clad coolness.

After that, I'm after a Garmin GPS so that myself and my wife can get into GeoCaching. There are tons here in Calgary as well as outlying communities so that'll get us out and about before winter shows up again. Last weekend we tried it but there was 18" of snow on the ground and that made things somewhat tricky.

Government Sanctioned Spam

2008-12-07T19:07:00.000-08:00

So, I'm sat here, Sunday evening thinking about activities for next year and I've got banging around in my head that I'm going to do a spot of mail-merging.

Oh, but wait - isn't that the same as spamming? Uhh, no - that's advertising. Surely?

Let's compare. I'm sending out unsolicited information to people I don't know advertising my services. Can't tell whether I'm talking about sending a letter or an email, can you?

So how is it, I could get locked up for sending out a half-million unsolicited emails, but no-one thinks twice about prosecuting the thousands of spammers who dump unsolicited flyers into my postal mailbox year in, year out?

The difference? Well, obviously it comes down to money.

You pay to send mail. You pay 51cents here in Canada for a regular letter, and Canada Post must just be loving it that companies use it's door-to-door service to carry their spam. Millions of either addressed letters from banks you don't want to save with, or the even more irritating 'unaddressed' letter-mail where they'll merrily stuff any old companies crap directly to your door? How is that not spamming? And where is the 'unsubscribe me' information?

Seems to me that people who spam via email are doing nothing different, the difference being that the postal services of the world don't see a dime, and neither do the governments, and that must just drive them nuts. How dare they communicate with potential clients for free. How dare they make a profit on return rates that would get heads of traditional marketing departments fired!

How is it everyone cries out for spam-houses to be closed on the internet, but the very governments that are trying to kill email spam don't go after their recently and very profitably privatized mail services?

In this eco-conscious world, shouldn't we be prosecuting the Citi-Banks of the world who regularly send me applications for credit-cards I don't want and contain no less than 40g of fine paper that's been coated with lovely environment dissolving solvent inks? Oh no, wait - we can't do that, since that creates 'employment' and email spam doesn't.

Seems like a bit of a double-standard to me. Either it is fine to send someone stuff they don't want, or it isn't. It can't be acceptable to spam provided you pay through the nose for it - either via mail or fax, but that it's not groovy if it's for fractions of a cent as an email.

So postulte this. If each of those irritating emails you get advertising prescription meds was individually typed by someone, and they were being paid a fair wage with respect to their local economy - would we still be screaming out to have it stamped (ha ha - punn there!) out? No - probably not. We'd whine and complain, but probably not do anything because we know some effort went into it. When we know it's a machine mass emailing, then we get all hot and bothered.

Seems we've got it round the wrong way...

Love me,

My Big New Task List

2008-11-23T19:43:00.000-08:00

Hurrah! Christmas is almost here and I have crap loads on my mind - or at least, did.

Thank god for my bathroom mirror. Yup, you read that right. I've got two dry-erase pens on top of my bathroom cabinet and in true 'A Beautiful Mind' form I'm writing my notes and tasks on that.

It seems to work pretty well. It's the first thing I see in the morning, and just before I crawl into bed I can pour out all the thoughts that I've got banging around so I don't forget them.

Awesome. :)

UK Roadsign Translation Fail

2008-11-01T07:30:00.001-07:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/7702913.stm

Whoops :)

Congrats to Brent @ Good Under Pressure!

2008-09-28T07:52:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to Brent Trevors of 'Good Under Pressure' (Pressure Washing and Graffiti Removal)!! He appeared on the front page (above the fold, no less!) of one of the Calgary Heralds supplements this week with regard to his involvement in Calgarys graffiti cleanup.

The connection here is that I've decalled three of Brents vehicles, of which I've managed to remember to take photos of zero.

Anyway - nicely done, Brent, and all the best :)

Attention Darwin Fans!

2008-09-06T21:28:00.000-07:00

Fantastic post on 'The Onion'...

http://mobile.theonion.com/content/node/85766

FPDI #1 On Google!

2008-09-02T20:15:00.000-07:00

Thanks to a friend for spotting this, but if you run 'tension sheet' through Google, I come out top! How awesome is that!!!!

I also think I come out third or fourth for 'free decals' as well as 'unspeakably low' for just about everything else. But I'm not focusing on that.

Excellent...

Oooh, Cool!

2008-08-16T15:16:00.000-07:00

FPDI is now ranked third for the search 'free decals'. Awesome!

Watch this space 'Fail' and 'Epic Fail' decals coming soon...

Easy Install Vehicle Projects Now Available

2008-07-24T14:47:00.000-07:00

I've just added a page to the site that deals with a frequent request - that of custom lettering for vehicles. Lots of clients I've met would like some basic, no frills text for their car, van or pickup but don't know where to start.

So I've put together the idea of a 'vehicle kit' where you can one-stop-shop for lettering and get it shipped right to your door. Swing by the site for more of a looksie...

FPDI Summer of Banners

2008-07-13T10:23:00.000-07:00

Summer has rolled into Calgary, bringing all manner of outdoor activities. If you're planning an outdoor event, my 'Summer of Banners' promotion will help you attract attention. Order any banner before the end of July and I'll take 10% off the total. Includes as always free shipping!

All banners are grommeted for attaching to poles or fences, weatherproof and always in glorious full colour. Get in touch...

Just Got Illustrator CS3

2008-06-06T09:42:00.001-07:00

Well, I say 'just' - I've had it now for about a week.

I've finally crumbled and bowed to the mainstream graphic arts world and put an Adobe product on my machine. Whoopee ;) Not that I intend to use it for design work, mind you. The only reason I've got it is so that I can take .ai files from clients and then convert them into something that Corel Draw X3 can handle.

Big shout out to 'The Fog Guy' (http://www.thefogguy.com/) who I'm working with again for the third time - helloooooooooooo Tyson - go forth and check out his Blog.

S'bout it, really - take care people...

Cool Stuff / R2D2 Repair Manual Shirt

2008-05-28T08:06:00.000-07:00

http://www.uncrate.com/men/style/tees-polos/r2-manual-tshirt/

Awesome...

Thanks To Tim @ CasioRepairs.com

2008-05-21T12:55:00.001-07:00

Couple of months ago I was on holiday in Mexico and naturally my camera (Casio EX-Z750) decides to crap out mere hours before reaching the highlight of the week - Chichen Itza, merrily displaying the dreaded 'Lens Error' problem. Grrr!

'Repair Master Tim' at www.casiorepairs.com has worked his magic on it, and now it's all lovely and working again.

So, thanks to Tim for his efforts. Great turn-around time and saved me a whack of cash having to buy a lovely hermetically sealed Olympus unit ;) Thanks Tim!

Oodles of New Goodies Available

2008-05-11T16:36:00.000-07:00

$12 decal sheets now available in the store. Right now I've just got some auto-manufacturer logos (Ford, Chevy, Dodge, GMC, Honda, Toyota, Acura etc) in there along with some miscellaneous stuff such as the 'Apple' logo, for sale decal, student driver decal, CND logo, some smileys etc.

At $12 per sheet which includes global shipping you really can't go wrong. Not that I'm biased or anything. :)

Open Call For Artist/Cartoonist

2008-05-08T09:50:00.000-07:00

Hey,
I'm looking for someone to draw some cartoon-ish illustrations for me that I can use for decals.

Get in contact if you feel up to it...

WarGames is 25 Today!

2008-04-22T07:05:00.000-07:00

Wohoo! WarGames celebrates 25 today (well, 3rd June actually) and American Classic Movies is showing it uninterrupted. Tonight, there will be popcorn - oh yes ;)

...and in other news non-bill paying client got in touch with me so that's all good. Yay.

Keep It Simple, Stupid

2008-04-20T19:48:00.000-07:00

Well, the 'Pricing Wizard' set of web-pages was a pretty good idea, but I think it was a bit clunky. So, in light of this, I've reworked it into something a lot more simple. As always it consists of my usual blend of bad layout and even worse HTML, but hey - I never claimed to have liked web design >:)

Let's Get Personal, People

2008-04-15T18:19:00.000-07:00

Ahhh, gotta love 'Search and Replace'. Just went through and updated all the info@ and mydesign@ email references throughout the site and changed them all over to leighton@.

Yes, I know - a truly thrilling event here at FPDI. I'm sure that this will result in nothing but an absolute deluge of spam but you know what - I'd rather have that and put a unified 'personal' front on FPDI than hide behind lame, faceless aliases.

Sad Day At FPDI

2008-04-06T16:29:00.000-07:00

Sad day here folks. Today - for the first time in four years of running FPDI I've had to unleash a 'nasty demand letter' to a client for non-payment.

Kinda sucks. I'd hoped that I'd never have to do this and in typical (global!) business owner style I let it ride on in the hope that after a few phone calls and emails and faxes that the matter would sort itself out.

Alas it has not, and now I find myself sitting in front of Word making forceful demands to a regular client who I hope - has simply 'forgotten', gone temporarily blind (in that he can't see the faxes, emails) as well as temporarily deaf (in that he hasn't heard any of my voicemails over the last two months).

Basically, I don't want to have to admit to myself that this guy is trying to stiff me.

It's hard not to build up relationships with regular clients and this guy is one of my oldest and now I have to do that hard thing which is extricate myself from the situation and unleash the hounds as it were.

On the upside at least I have something meaningful to put on this blog instead of the usual drivel I put out, so watch this space...

Bad, bad Install

2008-03-31T16:15:00.000-07:00

Spotted this little gem at a store that will remain nameless, I thought I'd put it up as a testament to crappy installation.

The whole thing isn't straight at all with the top of the cabinetry over which it sits.
WTF happened to the 'g'?
Actually, WTF happened with the 'ge' of George too?
...I'll tell you what happened - they slipped during the installation :)
The 'd' of 'Bernard' is also off, but it's hard to see from this image
The 'e' of 'creating' is off too, but again, hard to see
The 'a' of 'Shaw' has crowded up against the 'h' and left a massive gap at the 'w' where it looks like it slipped, plus, it doesn't align on the base.

Anyway - that's all I have to offer for the moment - love...

Fun In The Sun

2008-03-23T07:47:00.000-07:00

Its 0841 on Sunday morning and Im sat here at Calgary International waiting for a flight thats now delayed two hours.

On the upside I've got my Palm with me with my groovy new unlimited data plan which kicks ass, so I figured I'd update the blog to say 'I'm off to the sun' for a week.

I've got this months 'Wired' and a copy of 'Tipping Point' so I'm hoping to get some reading done. Might even get some blog ideas :)

Should have some automotive decals available in the next month along with some minor tweaks to the odd page here and there.

Shout out to the 'Downtown Prophets' - a local band who I produced some decals for during the week. I know they have a MySpace page but I cant remember what it is.

Later people!

The Importance of Being Idle

2008-02-26T20:15:00.000-08:00

I can't be the only person out there who has trouble not being occupied. By that, I don't mean in some strange obsessive compulsive manner, or a neat-freak who's constantly reordering the CD collection - I mean in a 'pursuit' kind of way.

Let me explain further. I started Floating Point, um, five years ago - maybe - not sure to tell you the truth. The first three years were an absolute uphill slog each and every step of the way. I had to learn how to apply decals, there was the website to sort out, the physics of driving a plotter and all of it had to be done while I worked around my regular job - which meant an obscene number of late nights to the point I'd frequently nap over lunch.

Something strange then happened about eighteen months ago - it was all done. The website although tragically crap was more or less done. I'd caught up on my accounting, all orders were out the door, I had a number of prospects in the pipe and all my software was reasonably recent so I wasn't constantly having to fight with bugs. The prospect of not having to do anything to do with FPDI was quite horrible actually. For three years I had performed mental juggling of a constantly changing list of priorities - and now it had crept up on me that that list was down to zero.

It was a bit scary to tell you the truth. I felt like I should be doing something. Guilt sunk in that I wasn't being busy, I panicked and started to learn to fly - which is an entirely different story all together, but it serves to underline a point that I started off with - are small business owners a breed of people who just like to be 'busy' - or is it that we can't stand to be unoccupied but hate Suduko? :)

I've often described to my wife that running FPDI - for all it's pain in those first few years, wasn't a job to me - it was an interest and a self-pursuit. Perhaps it's that sense of achievement that a runner gets after completing a marathon that in someway translates into something more business oriented for owners like myself. Or, of course it could be that we're all just outright crazy and that staying up to 2am and crippling ourselves with debt is far more satisfying than lactic acid coursing through our muscles.

When it boils down it, is it just that - that we see it as a 'sport'? Something that as business owners we work at, honing our skills, getting better and the very irritating problem of simply finding more interesting problems to resolve and work through. Perhaps that's one of the differentiating (I'm not saying 'only' here) factors between those businesses that make it, and those that don't. Those that do have people who are as passionate about their business as some people are about playing bridge. I'm probably not breaking new ground there with that observation but it is kind of neat to put into ones own words.

So here's the really scary question - how the heck will we ever quit? Can we ever 'let go'? If small-business owners retire, do they explode? Go nuts? What happens to them?

I say 'no' - we can't (let go). I've always maintained that if someone came along and gave me a big sack of cash for FPDI, I'd turn the keys over to Lola (the plotter) without a second thought. The sad thing here is that I don't think I'd stop needing to do 'something'. I have no idea what that next something might be, but I don't think after all my life doing 'something' that I could ever really detune from further ideas and opportunities.

Here's an interesting thought and one that Seth touched upon in one of his books - can that 'passion' be taught? Surely, you either like it, or you don't? I'm sure plenty of business have got by with very well trained executives at the helm that hated every minute of the experience. Could they have done as well, if not better - if they'd had passionate staff leading the charge?

OK - back to earth. Last thought and one that started off this whole post. How do you 'declutter' - and by that I mean, stop the thoughts from jangling around so that you can at least get a half-descent nights sleep without lying awake thinking about them? I've got a pad of paper and a pen (which lights up!) by the bed that I scribble on, and I find that helps - but I'd like to hear if anyone else has other solutions.

Bit of a rushed wrap up there, sorry for that - ideally I'd like to burble some more but I need to go to bed. The ideas are calling. >:)

Take care, people...

Random Thoughts on Website Building

2008-02-23T21:00:00.000-08:00

How is it that this wonderful technological miracle aka 'The Internet' is still driven largely off of software that's no more helpful than a 1980's wordprocessor?

I'm sure there's better stuff out there, obviously the people at Amazon and Google don't sit there merrily pulling their hair out over layout - so how come this hasn't distilled down to something 'simple' - yet?

The way I see it, you're not really editing a webpage, what you're really doing is desktop publishing but without that icky end bit where you have to print something. So my question is 'Where is Quark Express' for the Internet age?

I'm ranting again because I've just spent a happy hour and a half watching 'Mr Beans Holiday' while I updated a few pages on my site. Nothing grand, but naturally DreamWeaver wants to do nothing other than get in my way and make this process as God-awful as possible. I shouldn't whine, I'm sure that there are far, far worse products out there, but I'm pretty sure that they all boil down to the same old problem that you really have to know what you're doing when it comes to building a site.

Clearly, for the most part - I have no idea. It's no secret that sections of my site do truly suck. They don't render properly on whichever new browser was featured on the front of 'Wired' this month, the text goes all crappy if you increase the font size and in places the pictures obliterate the text if you resize the window. All of this Adobe managed to fix with Acrobat - so why can't we somehow just translate that into something easy to use?

Obviously someone has cracked this problem. Professionally built sites don't suffer from these issues, so somewhere along the line that knowledge does exist. Since this is the case, how is it that that technology hasn't become as enabling (read 'easy to use') to morons like myself.

With all the technological resources that the IT world has to offer, why is it so hard to build a solid website?

Maybe 20 years from now we'll all be using sites to build sites, and that the convergence of publishing to the web, paper or TV is so blurred that it makes no difference anymore. One can only hope. Until that happens I guess I'm stuck hurling abuse at my laptop at quarter past ten on a Saturday evening.

Nicely Formatted Blog!

2008-02-21T17:36:00.000-08:00

Oh, this is so nifty. Thanks to Andy at Web-Feet for writing some .asp for me that takes the Blogger blog-feed and merrily formats it nicely to this page. Oh so cool, oh so groovy and I have no idea at all how it works - but I was able to change the colours and the date formatting :)

Figs

2008-02-20T20:20:00.000-08:00

Evening everyone,
Just a couple of notes here. First of all, I've put up some sample sticker prices right there on the main page. I figured that it wouldn't hurt to put that where everyone can see them, otherwise you've got to wade through the whole pricing wizard 'thing' that I built a few months ago.

Secondly, I've added to the 'support' section a nice picture and description that talks about how a decal is put together. The more people who contact me via the net the more I realized that I needed something that talk about what exactly a decal was and how it was put together.

Lastly, I've started putting ideas into my Palm about topics for this blog. That way, with any lucky, it won't become just a constant stream of 'Hey, this is new!'.

Take care, people...

New Sticker Packs

2008-02-10T18:42:00.001-08:00

Quick announcement - new sticker bundles coming soon - yay!

'Small Business' Is A Crappy Term

2008-01-19T16:58:00.000-08:00

It struck me over Christmas that I really don't like the term 'small business'. In some way, it somehow manages to come across as like a parent talking to their child - 'there there, it's ok - you're a small business'. Bite me.

When you think that FPDI has shipped so far to over 20 countries - in that regard, it's not 'small' at all. In fact, if you roll together all the jobs that are maintained by 'small business', surely that makes all of us a huge force economically.

Banks particularly piss me off. "Oh, you'd like a small business loan?". No, I'd like a loan for my globally active business - thanks very much. Then there's that whole sham about how small business are such a risk for banks. Yeah, like Ford isn't losing billions each month along with most of the other North American car manufacturers. Yeah - 'big' business is sooooo much more secure, honorable and righteous - give me a break.

FPDI - so far as I'm concerned has a global mindset and that makes me a 'big' business trapped in the body of a single individual, but a worldwide player none the less. OK, sure - I don't have the production capability of a massive shop, but 'small business' sounds like I'm content to only work with people who are right on my doorstep and that's really not true at all.

Maybe this is just ego talking and if it is well I really don't think there is much harm in having aspirations of where you'd like to see your Company go.

...anyway, that's my thoughts on the subject >:)

...and the blog is linked!

2008-01-19T08:58:00.001-08:00

Wahey! Thanks to my buddy for telling me how to do an embedded linked frame. Gone is the lame 'mini-blog', now I can post straight to Blogger and it'll all be groovy :) Who knows, this might mean the blog is updated on a semi regular basis!

No 1 - The Larch

2007-10-03T21:02:00.001-07:00

Monty Python themed freebie now available :)

What The Hell Am I Going to Do With 1,000 Paperclips?

2007-09-30T20:58:00.000-07:00

Forgot to add this earlier.

I was at Staples picking up ink, paper and other assorted goodies that appeal to the small-business owner and I wanted a pack of paperclips.

Not jumbo paperclips, not pretty coloured paperclips (although I have some of those) - just regular, paperclips. By that I mean the little curvy bits of silvery metal, not the big spring of black metal and two flexible arms (bulldog clip in the UK). The only option was the '10-pack' consisting of 10x packs of 100 clips all held together with impenetrable shrinkwrap.

What on earth am I going to do with 1,000 paperclips? Who uses that many clips? I can understand that a few may go missing, a couple irretrievably bent out of shape to open a locked CD-ROM drawer because you're too lazy to power the thing on, but really - 1,000?

I wouldn't object too much if they were in a nice, small box - but each 100 was packaged in a little container the size of a box of matches, so even if I only use one pack, I've still got to find a home for the other nine boxes.

Do people give them away as presents? Would you want to receive a box of paperclips as a gift?

The mind boggles. Who uses 1,000 paperclips?!?!?! Seriously, think Staples, think...

...and fall slams into Calgary

2007-09-30T20:44:00.001-07:00

What the hell happened to summer? I want a refund. I know that fall is here because I'm stood in a parking lot Wednesday evening putting decals on a day-cares new buses and it's starting to get damn cold!

I know this because the material isn't as pliable, it's dark half-way through the first bus at 2030 and my fingers are starting to get that dryness that just begs for paper cuts.

Still, can't have everything I guess. My apologies for no posts recently, it's been busy here - so much so that I've just sent out invoices for work performed back in June. I hate doing my accounting - but I'm getting better at it. On the plus side I should have a new tutorial that explains DPI and pixels pretty well along with some more amusing stuff to go in the amusement gallery.

Must go, bed is calling...

'No Soliciting' Sign Now Available

2007-09-09T10:24:00.000-07:00

The aforementioned 'No Soliciting' sign is now available as either a free sticker or as a downloadable PDF. Feel free to distribute as you see fit. I put mine onto corplast and used foam-backed adhesive to mount it to the vinyl siding next to the door-bell of FPDI HQ.

If you've got any suggestions as to free stickers that you think other people might like - send me an email, or post something to this thread.

Free 'No Soliciting' Sign - Coming Soon

2007-09-08T15:17:00.000-07:00

I've just made up a 'No Soliciting' sign to go on the door-bell of my workshop. It's been a constant stream of people all summer wanting money in some way shape or form.

Anyway, I'll make a PDF version available for download tomorrow, and I'll also make a free sticker version available in the 'Free Decals' area of my website.

Watch this space...

The Weirdness Of Webstats

2007-08-31T07:37:00.000-07:00

'lo people - thought I'd drop a line to prove that I've not evaporated from the planet.

I've been paying lots of attention recently to the stats collected by the webserver for Floating Point - you can take a look yourself here: www.fpdimages.com/webstats

Specifically, since moving the site away from the 'framed' version to the new swanky layered version the traffic is steadily increasing which I'm particularly glad to see since the move to frames caused traffic to crater.

What always causes complete confusion in my mind is why so many people are downloading the font lists. Within the support area I have two large PDF's that contain samples of all the fonts I currently have to hand. You can't extract the fonts, much less use them for anything, but that doesn't stop the top-downloads each and every month being the two PDF's. Anyone got any ideas why this would be?

Also interesting is that the Mario graphics are getting a lot of serves so I reworked the pricing and ability to purchase more efficiently 'pairs' of the two main products.

As you might have noticed on the mini-log I'm being bombarded from time to time with tons of returned spam. This comes and goes but is more a pain in the bum more than any real inconvenience. I'm convinced though that having an easily clickable email address outweighs the deluge of crap I get each day, so it will stay.

I'm investigating the possibility of being able to produce custom-wrapping paper and am in the midst of sourcing a suitable material. I'd appreciate feedback on this thought as always so either contact me directly or put up a post here. Like with most things Floating Point it'll be pretty flexible so contributions are welcome.

More pics coming to the gallery soon, along with a bunch of reader-submitted amusing signage pics :)

Take care,

Love and Hate Through DreamWeaver

2007-08-05T10:19:00.001-07:00

All go here. Lots of changes on the website. The pricing pages have been entirely restructured so that it now quizzes you about your project before producing a guide to the costs involved. I'm quite happy with that, but it still needs some fine tuning.

After making a reasonably snap decision, I've put my contact phone number up there. In the past I've held off on that because I didn't want to get bombarded with telephone sales people, but we'll see.

A tutorial on why tiny gif files don't scale up very well has also been written - that came out really well.

Most of this was originally sketched out using Freemind - a wonderful tool for abstract planning and best of all, free.

Naturally, my love/hate relationship with DreamWeaver has been pushed to the limit. A combination of weird-crashes have plagued me all through the revising of these pages, but right now I have no compelling urge to rush out and purchase a replacement. 'Suck it up, Princess' is definitely the phrase there.

A mini-blog has been added to the front page of the website, this keeps a record of what's going on and is immediately visible to visitors.

The plan to gradually personalize the site away from the sterile 'we' and 'us' is coming along nicely, so now there is a wonderful disconnect between some pages describing FPDI as an outfit with at least two people, and others that describe it more accurately, which is of course - just me. Oh, and I added a pic of me on the front page, and there is a 'Simpsonized' version on the 'About FPDI'.

...and lastly, my customized packing tape has arrived. This compliments my unhealthy fascination with tape-guns nicely >:)

Down To Earth, And Being People Focused

2007-07-26T21:20:00.000-07:00

I've got sick and fed up of pretending to be something I'm not. I'm a sole-proprietor, I don't have a staff. Enormous ego at times sure, but staff? - no. At the same time, I think it's time to 'personalize' Floating Point and to communicate to the population that it's a friendly service that I provide. There are any number of non-descript 'is there anybody home' websites there. I want people to visit Floating Point and feel the enthusiasm for decals oozing from the page, and that there is a warm-bodied person behind it.

So, I'm gradually working through the web-pages, swapping 'us' for 'me', 'we' for 'I' and basically making it very down to earth. I hope that in doing so the 'personal' touch comes through and that people feel more comfortable approaching FPDI out of the blue.

Consequently, I'm gradually removing all the 'mydesign@' and 'info@' vague email addresses that just scream 'bottomless pit'. They'll be replaced with links to my personal box, which of course is 'leighton@fpdimages.com'. I'm sure this will attract spam like there is no tomorrow, but I don't care. I don't like emailing 'info@' - there is no connection to a person, I can't think for the life of me why anyone else would want to either.

Moving on. I've been delighted to provide Janet Parke with numerous samples of my fractal printing service, by her invitation no less. I'm very excited about this as Janet is a recognized leader and skilled teacher in the world of fractal art.

It occured to me that if someone is printing an image that is very precious to them, then they want someone to care. Servers don't care, a typical shopping-cart website is like talking to a brickwall. So I pulled out all the workflow that involved people talking to servers to make their purchase. There is a place for efficientcy - so the online purchasing still exists in most other parts of the store, but I recognize that fractal printing needs something 'different'.

Instead, people are now directed to contact me directly, and I'll do all the legwork for processing and receiving payment of an electronic invoice.

I'm hoping that this will be a much more personal experience for my clients. I'm sure I've alienated those people who do just want to talk to a server and get through as quick as possible, but I think most people want a bit of acknowledgement. That is to say, that someone - not something - is going to make sure it gets done right. The medical world has known about this for centuries - it's called 'bedside manner'.

Well, that was quite a long post, and I need to turn in for the night. Keep your eyes on the website as it gradually 'humanizes' it way through another small set of changes. Send me your suggestions if you have any - as always...

Seriously Awesome Portable Darwin Sticker Pack Launched

2007-07-21T22:57:00.001-07:00

I don't think I've been this excited about a product since I launched the tension sheets.

Anyway, Portable Darwin Sticker packs are now available on my website, here.

Each pack ($10 Canadian, free shipping) has twelve pages and concists of 12 4" 'Darwin Has A Posse' decals and 36 0.4" 'Posse' decals. They're business card sized so they fit conveniently into wallets and purses for stickering opportunities. Or, if you prefer, you can use the supplied fetching cable-tie and strap them to backpacks, bags and other 'stuff'.

Very, very groovy.

Seriously Cool Darwin Product - Coming Soon (And Back From Vacation)

2007-07-20T21:20:00.000-07:00

After a weeks worth of camping in British Columbia I'm back from the 80% humidity and raring to go - at least for the next 48 hours at least.

I worked my way through Seth's 'The Purple Cow' for the second time and made notes, so that all gave way to lots of exciting new things for the upcoming six months of Floating Point fun and entertainment. I made a start on 'The Big Moo', but didn't finish that up before the rain set in. BTW - Palm 700p's - not waterproof. They do not like being in a pair of shorts that's soaked by a downpour. However, you can remedy the situation with 1 hours worth of low-heat hairdrying action.

I digress.

The biggest thing is that I have a seriously cool idea for a new Darwin product, which I've been prototyping like a man posessed for the last few hours. Once I've got it 100%, I'll put up a post, link to the store and start assembling a newsletter announcement.

More, probably tomorrow - along with photos...

Darwin Disclaimer Stickers - Coming Soon!

2007-07-01T08:23:00.001-07:00

Attention 'Darwin has a Posse' fans! The full set of Colin's 'Schoolbook Disclaimer Stickers' will soon be available from Floating Point.

The decals (as featured here: http://www.swarthmore.edu/NatSci/cpurrin1/evolk12/evoops.htm) should be available in decal form over the next couple of days from Floating Points site - here:

http://www.fpdimages.com/html/StoreEvolutionSmallDecals.htm

Later!

Website Revamped - ish

2007-06-26T19:20:00.000-07:00

After a couple of days of effort I've reworked most of the pages on our website to take advantage of 'layers'. That is to say, the days of having the bizzare effects of 'frames' plaguing URL references - are no more!

All URLS are directly accessible and in the process some of the more complex pages have been entirely reworked away from stupidly tricky tables. All in all, a step in the right direction. This should be the last rework of the site for a loooong time, or at least - I really hope so - I hate website editing.

By the way, this was no mean feat - believe it or not there are almost 60 pages that make up the FPDI website - so, stop by and if you spot a problem please let me know!

Thanks!

Back on the tape-gun fettish

2007-06-17T20:00:00.000-07:00

Hey :) Glad you could join us.

Exciting things afoot at Floating Point - we've just ordered our first batch of CUSTOM Floating Point 2" packing tape. Yes - we've hit the big time now! All shipments will have our name and fetching logo all over the tape. Wow-wee! Custom tape to load into our tape-gun - it doesn't get much better than that.

We've also ordered a whole whack of letter-size card mailers to satisfy the demand for the free 'Decal The World' fall-out, which is rather nifty.

The Darwin sticker project took a bit of a lift when I met IN PERSON Jay Ingram from Discovery's 'Daily Planet' - I sent him a whole bundle of stuff that may or may not one day grace the screens of the TV - here's hoping.

I think that's just about it for this post... Later...

Meetup.Com Badge - Let's See if this works...

2007-05-31T07:57:00.000-07:00

Click here to check out
The Calgary Nintendo DS Gaming Meetup Group!

Help - Please!

2007-05-25T17:28:00.001-07:00

Hi there,
I'm about half-way through Seth Godins' 'Small is the New Big'. To summarize, he advocates going in the opposite direction to the way that your competition works, or at least - doing things differently. Now, while I don't think he means that literally and that Floating Point should suddenly start making everything from glue and macaroni, what I think he's getting at is that Floating Point should at least go about reinventing the way that signage shops work.

So - I'm throwing this open to suggestions. To get the ball rolling - Floating Point has instigated the 'Free Decals For The World' - which I mentioned in the last post. If you've not read that one, what it basically means is that I'll print and ship to you - absolutely free - a set of graphics of your own design. If you like them, and want to buy more you can - but there isn't any obligation. I have yet to hear of any other signage shop doing that.

I'm hoping that the Floating Point fans out there will have some ideas for me, or at least suggestions on what you want a signage shop to be. What will help? What is important? What can I do to turn Floating Point into something considerably more 'remarkable'?

Thanks in advance...

Free Decals For The World!

2007-05-21T17:46:00.001-07:00

Seriously cool news. I've just updated the website to now offer up free decals from Floating Point. I've dropped a handful of templates to get the ball rolling, but basically all you need to do is design your decal, send it to us and we'll print and ship it for free!

That is really all there is too it. No catches - have at it people! Can't wait to see what you come up with...

FPDI In Sponsorship Excitement!

2007-05-13T20:00:00.000-07:00

OK, so that headline might be a little over the top, but FPDI has sponsored it's first 'thing'. The 'thing' in question was a junior hockey tournament held here in Calgary. So, we kitted them out with banners, and name badges, and door signs and everything and it looked great. Thanks to Neal and Janice @ Professional Sign Supply who donated the material.

Once I get the pics off the camera I'll upload them to the gallery.

The great decal give-away hasn't gone entirely to the dogs, it's just a case of getting around to it - so still stay tuned for that.

Lastly, Floating Point has moved it's mailing list provider to 'Constant Contact' because it appears that bCentral is being knocked on the head by Microsoft.

Oh, and our laminator has broken down. Right now it's in lots of little pieces, but thanks to the nice people at Daige a new 'bit' is on the way.

S'all I've got right now, take care, people...

New Pricing, New Pics, New FTP Instructions! Aye aye aye

2007-04-23T11:11:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been a full on exciting weekend full of the joys of spring. Here's some of the wonderous delights now awaiting at FPDI...

Probably the biggest thing is that I've finally got around to updating all the 'Pricing' webpages with the new, well, pricing. In a nutshell I've abolished all of the $65 set-up fees as well as introducing 'Print by the square inch' for artwork printing. This makes the math a bit easier to do.

Secondly, the gallery has been updated with some more new cool projects - most of them in the fractal area but also a couple in the banner section too.

Thirdly, I've finally made up some 'official' instructions on how to use our FTP site for image upload. This is pretty exciting for me since up until this point I've been sounding like a broken record each time I've needed to send the information to someone in an email. These instructions can now be downloaded from the 'Support' section of our website.

The unusual project of the month award goes to an aircraft decal. I'll put pics up when it's completed, but it's a 2' rendering of 'Scamp' from 'Lady and the Tramp' (Disney) and will be eventually mounted on the underside of the wing on a Cessna 152. Very cool, traced from a teeny gif.

That's about all the news for the moment, other than if you've signed up for our newsletter, the service will now be coming to you from ConstantContact since Microsoft is retiring their bCentral product.

Later people...

No News Is Good News

2007-04-19T19:36:00.000-07:00

Not much to report here, other than the excitement of now being able to do my own shipping on Canada Posts' website. It's truly wonderous.

At ease, people...

New Gallery Bits and Bobs

2007-04-08T21:06:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I updated the gallery, so I've cleaned up some of the photos I've taken, along with photos sent in very kindly by clients and now they're in the respective areas of 'The Gallery'. Queue theme from 'Vision On'. Don't worry if you don't get that little joke. ;)

This weeks monumental discovery was that I can now address, pay for and label all my outgoing work thanks to Canada Posts online Business Centre. It's great. The rates still seem almost random, but at least now I don't have to stand in line-ups at the Post Office.

That's about it for this little update, later..

Small Business Ownership - Losing Ones Marbles

2007-04-04T21:29:00.000-07:00

Today I found myself lusting after the 'deluxe' tape-gun in my local Staples. I think I've finally lost my mind. The fumes from the ink in the plotter have finally caught up to me. My life, as I know it has suddenly taken a very sad and tragic downturn.

Please, a moments silence for my dignity...

Calgary Nintendo DS Meetup.Com Event Launched!

2007-03-31T21:52:00.000-07:00

So, I decided that Calgary need a Meetup.com event for Nintendo DS enthusiasts like myself. I've already got some Mario stickers on my site that I produced originally for my neice and nephew - so I guess it was only a matter of time before something larger took off.

The problem of where to host so that everyone in Calgary could get to it was solved when I hit on the idea of hosting it on the C-Train, so that's what I've decided to do. On April 10th (if anyone shows up) we'll meet on the C-Train @ Dalhousie and game all the way down to the last south stop - Somerset. Then, we'll game all the way back to Dalhousie which I figure should take about 90 mins. The theory being that we might pick up people as we go along. On Monday I have to start letting the media know about this, but it's late and I need to get some sleep.

Anyway, you can read all about it here. Please let people know!

Congratulations to the Glenlake PeeWee 4 Hawks!!!

2007-03-19T07:33:00.000-07:00

We're dead pleased that the Glenlake PeeWee 4 Hawks are now the Division 5 Champions, Minor Hockey Week Finalist, Division Points Leader, Jingle Bell Classic Tournament Winners!! Congratulations to all of you! Their goaltender, Julian Bentivegna is also up for the Mike Vernon Goaltender Award, which we can only conclude is good.

We do their banners and decal work - incase you were wondering, since the rest of this blog is entirely void of sport related material :)

Again, congrats to the team and support crew!

Ooooh, Toys...

2007-03-17T16:12:00.000-07:00

Time for an update. all go here - we've bought a huuuuuuge trimmer for slicing wide sheets of 'stuff' and we've now also got a sweet grommet press. Ok, so it's not massively exciting but big news for us.

Other news is that the UltraFractal roundrobin has now finished so we're now in the process of printing off the resultant images as the sponsorship we contributed.

Right now the plotter is flat out in 'trade show' season - so that's great.

Lots of other ideas here and we're still trying to get our free decal give-away sorted out. Oh yeah, and stay tuned for news on revised and simpler pricing.

Later, people... :)

Almost There With Free Stuff!

2007-03-06T20:06:00.000-08:00

Well, it's been a bit of work, but the plans for the Give-Away are finally coming together.

Coincidentally, I've been able to tie this together with a massive overhaul of how custom high-resolution printing is priced, so I'll be announcing those via the newsletter - which, if you've not already signed up is located here:

http://www.fpdimages.com/html/NewsletterFramed.htm

Our hosting people have been hard at work preparing and 'Upload' area for us, so we're now able to accept files dropped directly onto our server. This will remove the need for us to be so reliant on YouSendIt who insist on fluctuating between requiring registration and not - which is most irritating for our clients.

Anyway, I must get back to FreeMind to finish off putting all my thoughts down before I forget.

Later, people...

Ultrafractal Sponsorship

2007-02-26T10:09:00.002-08:00

FPDI is pleased to announce that we're sponsoring the community fractal project that's currently taking place on the ultrafractal mailing list. Each contributor will receive a high res. print of the final fractal, mailed to them free of charge.

Free stuff coming up!

2007-02-26T10:09:00.001-08:00

It's always been a goal to make the FPDI newsletter a vehicle to give away stuff to the dedicated fanbase. So far this hasn't exactly happened but things are in the works - might have some news by the end of the week...

Back at it

2007-02-26T10:09:00.000-08:00

Ok - so, I have a swanky new Palm Treo phone which is working wonders for me. In theory I should now be able to update this blog more often because now I can do it while sat on the bus!

So - almost new years resolution - update blog more... better late than never...

Help Me, I'm Melting

2006-07-03T21:22:00.000-07:00

Oh the humanity. It's +27c at Floating Point right now. It's so hot that the plotter barely has to warm up.

Anyway - enough of that whining.

The overhaul of the 'support' section is just about complete but as with most things it's always a work in progress. I've taken down a lot of the really dull and uninteresting PDF files. I don't know what I was thinking when I originally wrote them - but I guess they served a purpose. So, the content has either been removed entirely or it's been transformed into HTML.

The Gallery has been updated to include new and interesting projects. As the projects have become more varied over the last 18 months I've now broken out a couple more categories of gallery to include outdoor banners, indoor 'Special Event' banners as well as small decal projects. The standard categories of vehicles and buildings still exist. The only project that I really want to get pushed to the web are the funky flowers that I'm making to go on the Floating Point picnic table that sits outside of our workshop. As it stands, they flowers have been ready to go for about two years now but something else has always 'come up'.

That's about it, it's getting late here so I'm gonna turn in for the night - take care,

Busy, busy, busy

2006-05-27T11:55:00.000-07:00

Well, s'been a busy couple of weeks - hence no updates.

I've got a couple of projects on the go at the moment. The exciting one is that my groovy little Pantone monitor calibration puck is merrily working away on my workstation, so when it's done I shouldn't have to worry about mucking about with colour balancing any more. All exciting stuff.

Other bits and pieces are that I plan to overhaul the support-pages so that it's less of a jumble. The support pages are a hang over since the days when the site was entirely bog-standard HTML with lots of linkage and in those days it was a nightmare to build extra pages. Hence, it was a challenge to pack as much info onto a single sheet as possible. Now that I have the groovy ASP back end in it's time to revise and make it all a little more user friendly. Watch this space.

I'm also working on making a glossary of terms for the website. It struck me that I'm continually having to explain what rasters and vectors are - along with the pitfalls of colour matching and a bunch of other print/signage terms - so when I've tidied up the definitions a little, I'll publish to the site and I'd appreciate feedback. The page will be full of references to Wikipedia for more indepth discussions as I'm too lazy to write me own.

Other than that, I face the exciting prospect of overhauling the installation documentation because to be honest - it's a bit crap. Similarly I want to make some headway into writing the 'tips and tricks' document that should enable customers to make more satisfactory installs of their signage and decals.

So, once more unto the breach dear friends - until next time...

Vacation Pics Coming Soon

2006-04-25T20:34:00.000-07:00

OK - I'm back from a much needed weeks break to the Maya Riviera. I have some nice shots of beaches and stuff like that, so those that are suitable for backdrops I'll soon put into the 'Freebie' section of the website, but it probably won't be until the weekend.

As an aside, I spent a few hours considering opening a bar here in Calgary inspired by my stay in Mexico - it'll be called 'Leightons Sandy Crack', a tasteful title I know. If it ever comes to pass, it will have the following features for those of us up here in the Great White North that don't get a whole lot of beach fever during the year:

tanning beds
the entire floor will be sand, with a little wading pool
80% humidity
30-34c all year around
bar (wet and dry, naturally)
beach volleyball court
tropical drinks
variety of nic-nacs for sale behind the bar

I spent a good hour by the pool figuring that lot out - feel free to post further suggestions as to what needs to be included ;)

In the meantime stay tuned for further ramblings...

Special Day Banners Now Available!

2006-04-15T13:24:00.000-07:00

All right, back in the ring today with my old nemisis the website.

I've got a number of photos of projects that I've completed that haven't found their way into the gallery, so I'm trying to clear that backlog - a thankless and tedious task I might add. Today it was the turn of some 'special event' banners that I produced. So, they are available for viewing here:

http://www.fpdimages.com/category.asp?ID=117

It'll be a while before I get any 'stock' designs (as mentioned on the above URL) made as I need a healthy bout of inspiration before I sink my teeth into that.

On the plus side, I found a much quicker way in Corel Paint to achieve the 'faded picture edge' effect that gives the soft-edge feel to the graphics, so it wasn't an entire waste of time!

Lastly, ages back I did a vehicle lettering project for 'The Register' - you can read the full story here - so I'll probably put portions of that on my site next...

...more soon...

First Newsletter Goes Live

2006-04-09T21:01:00.000-07:00

In a moment of absolute astonishment, the newsletter email and web-page version has gone live without a hitch. Incredible. Incase you're wondering or at all care, it was assembled in MS Publisher.

If you subscribe to our newsletter, you should by now have a copy in your inbox, if not - sign up here:

http://www.fpdimages.com/category.asp?ID=85

or view the newsletter online here:

http://www.fpdimages.com/category.asp?ID=116

Take care, people!

All Things Bright and Sparkly

2006-04-08T17:10:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been a busy couple of days.

Additional pages have been added that describe shipping and pricing policies - with any luck this will dispell some of the mystery surrounding how pricing is calculated. Shipping is always a nightmare to explain, so a comprehensive guide for that has also been created. I'm pretty happy with how both came out, particularly the pricing guide as that's full of 'ifs' and 'buts' when a client first makes contact with us.

I hate doing web-work. I can't understand why anyone would want to do this for a living. For all the wonders that technology has to offer you'd have thought that by now we'd have progressed past the point of spending hours and hours fiddling with icons and cells and the bizzare rules that govern column spacing. Infuriating - what can I say.

With any luck I'll be able to get the newsletter out tomorrow which will be good because it's been a while since I last sat down and put pen to paper there.

Besides catching up with web-work, which I hate with a passion you can only imagine - not much else going on right now besides the run of the mill projects.

Fingers crossed though that when I find a few minutes to make some calls, things with the PopYerStress625 sheets might take off a bit. Plus, the newsletter for the local community association showed up at the end of the week so there are some people in there I'll be contacting for activites that would lend themselves nicely to needing out-door banners and such.

2006-04-01T18:48:00.000-08:00

OK - so, this is our blog - and, welcome from all of us at Team FPDI.

In a sense this is a bit like January the 1st, isn't it? You've spent the last week and a bit waiting to crack open that lovely new, crisp diary that your grandma gave you and now it's finally here - January the first. At first it seem like the dullest gift on the planet - but now it comes into a life of it's own.

You've meticulously filled in all the Emergency Contact info, the addresses and phone numbers of everyone you've ever known and then ran out of space on the 'E' page and started writing down the margin.

Now for the big moment. It's time to fill in the details of your first tentitive steps into a new year.

With the exception here of course that it's April 1st - and let's face it who can't fail to see the irony there?

Almost a month and a half ago some programming code broke when we moved our site to a new server. Unfortunately, no-one noticed so when we went to update the site well over a month ago we had to wait for maintenance to come and fix it. It's now working, so most of this week has been spent updating products, correcting a host of grammar errors (thanks BTW to all of you who do correct our site for us!) and addition of some new products - specifically:

Enormous 'Darwin Has A Posse' sticker (15"x5")
PopYerStress625 - the definitive bubble-wrap stress relief device and lastly
A graphic for the Oil/Gas Industry

So - this is it - our blog, our first post. Happy day ;)