toeinwater.co.uk

Scribus

I am a huge proponent of Open Source software and one of the applications that I have been crying out for is a good DTP package. At the moment, and for several years now, I have been using Adobe CS2. I feel that this is the benchmark to which anything else has to aspire, despite Adobe's questionable upgrade and pricing policies!

So, every now and again, I dip my toes in the water of Scribus. I have enjoyed using it in the past but still feel that it is still not ready for primetime use. I design and layout my CD sleeves for my band using using CS2, so I need something that I can rely on to do the job. Scribus is very, very good at the moment, but one or two things let it down for the work that I do. One of them is that I can't seem to create a page and have negative guides. That is, say I layout a page with 240mm by 120mm - actual CD booklet size. One normally requires a 3mm bleed, so in CS3, you simply either bung in a negative guide or enter the bleed amount during the PDF export cycle. Nice and simple and does the job.

Not so in Scribus. I can't find any way of achieving the same thing.

toeinwater.co.uk is now live

After many delays, I am pleased to announce that our new site is finally on the air! I hope you enjoy what is has to offer now and in the future. It will build over time into something you will be pleased to bookmark and return to often.

As well as that of course, I hope you enjoy looking at some examples of my work and would like to employ me!

New Design!

Hope you like the new design of the site. I call it toeinwater_dark! It's meant to be nice and simple, very clearly laid out and easy on the eye. As well as fast loading and whatnot!

Dream Theater - Lifting Shadows

Just had this awesome package delivered the other day! What is it? Well, it's an official biography of Dream Theater (Words), a book of photos and memorabilia (Images) + a CD of rare and unreleased tracks (Lifting Shadows); all wrapped up in a superb slipcase! As I was one of the early adopters prior to publication, my band (Elegant Simplicity) get a mention in the credits page! Fame at last etc!

It's a massive tome, totally uncensored and sanctioned by the band and I look forward to reading it over the Christmas period. The CD, to be honest, I can take or leave. Mainly it is demos and live tracks going back to the bands earliest days as Majesty. All good stuff, for sure, but some of the quality of the tracks is borderline bootleg.

Getting there . . . .

Our new blog based toeinwater.co.uk site is now well under way! Several pages have been created, some images uploaded and a fresh new design started! Naturally, and I daresay, unfortunately, progress will grind to an inevitable halt due to the onset of Christmas, but I will try and keep thing ticking along whenever I can get away from family obligations!

Kicking off

This is our new site, based around BlogEngine.NET, and we are just getting it all underway. Hope you find it a useful place to be . . . . !