COLE'S NEWSWIRE, March 27, 2002

March 27, 2002
Vol. 8, No. 12

COLE'S NEWSWIRE is a weekly distribution of information about the sales and installations of publishing technology and the latest news on new products developed by suppliers to the industry.

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CREO USERS ASSOCIATION
This group, an independent network of users of Creo systems worldwide, has launched a new web site, which marks several changes to the CUA, including the group's name. The Creo Users Association now matches the supplier's recent name change from CreoScitex and Creo Products Inc. to Creo.

The CUA structure has been expanded to promote a broader membership geographically and through the representation of more Creo products. Now every user of Creo systems may join the association free of charge to participate in on-line user forums specific to individual products

The organization also announced its annual meeting will be held May 1-4 in Vancouver, British Columbia.

The Creo Users Association is on the Web at http://www.creousers.org/

JARVIS ENTERTAINMENT GROUP INC.
This Houston-based Internet technology and entertainment holding company has announced the testing release of Project Aurora, the PHP version of the forum software Ikonboard.

The company now offers Ikonboard in Perl, PHP and hosted environments. Aurora runs on a wide variety of operating systems and web server applications, including Mac OS X, Windows 2000/XP, Linux, Apache, IIS and others.

More information on Aurora is on the Jarvis web site at http://www.ikonboard.com/aurora/.

LEXISNEXIS GROUP
Congressional Quarterly Inc., the provider of governmental information and the LexisNexis Group, a provider of on-line research services, have announced a distribution agreement, allowing LexisNexis to distribute CQ's content on Congress, politics and public policy.

Under terms of the partnership, subscribers to the LexisNexis flagship services will be able to access a wide range of CQ's high-value legislative products, including the CQ WEEKLY, the CQ DAILY MONITOR, the CQ HOUSE ACTION REPORTS, BILL WATCH, COMMITTEE VOTES and congressional member profiles.

In addition to being available through LexisNexis, this CQ content will continue to be distributed electronically through CQ.com. As part of the arrangement, LexisNexis announced that it will discontinue its own legislative tracking service, called LexisNexis Political Universe.

Congressional Quarterly of Washington, D.C., is owned by the Times Publishing Co. of St. Petersburg, Fla., publisher of the ST. PETERSBURG TIMES; it is on the Web at http://www.cq.com/. LexisNexis, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. and based in Dayton, Ohio, is at http://www.lexisnexis.com/.

MEDIA COMMAND INC.
THE ADVOCATE (26k) of Burnie, Tasmania, Australia, has purchased a digital asset management and archival system from Media Command; the paper is owned by Harris and Co. Ltd.

The system, provided by Media Command, includes Software Construction Co. server software plus its web browser module that enables Internet access to the archive for authorized users. It will provide THE ADVOCATE with the facility to store and manage all of the newspaper's text, images and advertising material in a wide range of file formats, integrated with other Media Command systems. Plug-ins also support a wide variety of third-party software such as Adobe Photoshop.

Atlanta-based Software Construction Co. is on the Web at http://www.swcc.com/, while Media Command -- headquartered in Tampa, Fla. -- is at http://www.mediacommand.com/.

SHOOM INC.
The PLAIN DEALER (360k) of Cleveland, Ohio, has signed a multiyear agreement with Shoom to have the software company provide it with iTearsheets, a web-based system for digitally delivering tearsheets as proof of publication for print advertisers.

iTearsheets captures data at the raster image processor (RIP) and transmits it to the Shoom processing center, where they are validated, processed, posted to an on-line database and archived. A thumbnail image of each newspaper page is created, and the files are tagged with codes to make them accessible via keyword search.

When processing is complete, the full contents of the newspapers are posted to the Shoom iTearsheets web site as digital representations of the pages as they were published. An e-mail notification is sent to the advertiser with a URL link to his or her account summary page. From the summary page, the user can directly access the ad pages, measure ads digitally, review them for quality and compare them against the insertion order.

Shoom, formed early last year when the Digital Services Division of TransData International Inc. (TDI) merged with web developer Shoom.net LLC., is based in Los Angeles and is on the Web at http://www.shoom.com/.

SOFTWARE CONSTRUCTION CO.
This Atlanta-based company has announced the recent sales of its MediaServer Production and Archive Database System to nine newspaper operations worldwide.

U.S. customers include Alaska's ANCHORAGE DAILY NEWS (86k), California's SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE (457k), Florida's Treasure Coast Newspapers (the STUART NEWS (45k), the VERO BEACH PRESS JOURNAL (36k) and the FORT PIERCE TRIBUNE/PORT ST. LUCIE NEWS (28k)); New Mexico's SANTA FE NEW MEXICAN (26k), and Tennessee's KNOXVILLE NEWS-SENTINEL (158k).

Sales outside the United States include systems to the GLOBE AND MAIL (406k) of Toronto, OCHO COLUMNAS (48k) in Mexico, Prisacom in Spain and the on-line division of EL PAIS (413k), also of Spain.

The Software Construction Co. is on the Web at http://www.swcc.com.

TEAM ASA INC.
This San Diego-based manufacturer of high-performance networking products for pre-press and digital media has announced support for the Macintosh OS X 1.2 operating system for its Stallion GE-II fiber-based gigabit Ethernet adapters.

Team ASA drivers have been optimized to achieve files transfer rates in excess of 20 megabytes per second. The company said that all network cards come with a universal driver installer.

The suggested retail price for the fiber Stallion GE-II Gigabit Ethernet adapter is $795.

TeamASA is on the Web at http://www.teamasa.com/.

TERA DIGITAL PUBLISHING S.P.A.
DIARIO DO COMERCIO (58k), a daily financial newspaper published in Sao Paulo, Brazil, has contracted with Tera for a 30-workstation editorial system. Tera Brazil Ltd., a division of Tera, will install the GN3 system as well as the Tera archiving system TARK, the Topic OPI serve and wire service reception.

Tera valued the transaction at $US200,000.

Tera, based in Milan, Italy, and with U.S. offices in Bedford, N.H., is on the web at http://www.teradp.com/.

X-RITE INC.
This Grandville, Mich.-based supplier of color measurement products has announced that it is now shipping its 500 Series Spectrodensitometer.

The 500 Series is a spectrally-based densitometer line whose new features include a reduction in the measurement time of successive measurements, the ability to allow users to compare measured colors to stored reference colors from customer palettes or color guides such as PANTONE, and the ability to download supplemental color recipes for any reference color.

Current 500 Series users can update to the new platform either by ordering 500-FIRMUP ($35) from X-Rite offices or authorized resellers, or by registering at http://www.x-rite.com/ga/500update/ to download the update free.

YAHOO! INC.
USAToday.com, companion web site to the Gannett Co. Inc.-owned national daily newspaper, has announced a content distribution agreement with Yahoo. This relationship marks the first time USAToday.com will directly distribute content on a major web site other than its own.

Under the agreement, USAToday.com is supplying a daily selection of news coverage, reviews, columns and features from its News, Money, Sports, Life and Tech sections to the corresponding areas on Yahoo.

USAToday.com, based in McLean, Va., is on the Web at http://www.usatoday.com/. Yahoo, of Sunnyvale, Calif., is at http://www.yahoo.com/.

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