Why are you anonymous?

hhp

Why do you care, Hrant? Seems like an agenda-less question. Why not be anonymous?

Observer, gulp, are you setting newspaper body copy in Frutiger? Please post a scan, just to humor us.

As far as adding a Euro, what does your Frutiger license say? Current versions of Frutiger contain a Euro. Single weights are only $21.

http://www.myfonts.com/CharacterMap10331.html

I can kinda see where Hrant's coming from. When
you're asked a non-sensitive question like this
from someone without a name it's like being
approached at a trade conference soiree by a
guy without a name tag...

Guy: "Hi there, Marc. I have a question."

You: "Cool. Nice to meet you. What's your name?"

Guy: "I'm not telling."

Wouldn't your response be: "Why?"
(or at least a chuckle?)

I'm not saying a true first and last should be
required in these forums, but what's the point of
anonymity in a situation like this? I'd like to think
of Typophile as a community, rather than a
cork board.

Stephen, good points...however, if I was laying out my newspaper in Frutiger, then I'd want to be anonymous, too.

Anonymity can sometimes be useful (like in my submissions to the t-shirt contest...), but very often it can be a barrier to the establishment of a real, contextual community. I'm not exactly sure why I care, in this case. In terms of gut feeling, it's just not honest. When you use a forum so clearly for your own benefit, it's only right to present yourself as who you are. A community benefits from mutual trust and humility, otherwise it's a dark alley where shady deals are made.

The impression I get here is that the person doesn't want to appear not to know how to fix the problem. If this is true, it's the type of insecure manipulation I myself wouldn't want to encourage. On the other hand, this could very well be a mistaken impression - but it couldn't have happened without the anonymous presentation.

Let's make Typophile -or anything else we care about- a reflection of our personal ideals. That is community.

hhp

bj - Ouch. That's rough!

nothing against Frutiger...it's just I've seen newspapers designed with sans faces and they look horrible.

But poor Observer. He or she is getting a roughing
up on his or her first visit. Ease up on the lad or lass.

Well if the poor kid had a name, I wouldn't have said nuthin.

BJ, you're actually making an interesting case *for* anonymity!
It's easier to be honest to the faceless.

Dear Observer:
Please do more than observe, jump in! :-)

hhp

Unless they don't own the font in question. Then maybe they do want to stay anon...

Doesn't anyone want to help the kid?

It's a Windows to Mac conversion problem. A quick Google search finds (from this page):

"Another problem is the Euro currency symbol. In most of the new Macintosh fonts the general currency symbol has been replaced by the Euro symbol and in most of the new Windows fonts a formerly unused position got the Euro symbol. There is even a Unicode position defined for the Euro symbol: 20AC hexadecimal, which is the same as 8364 decimal."

The Word import filter on the Observer's Quark is probably too old to catch this.

-----

Regarding the anonymity: In most online communities using real names is not the norm. I expect that someone young enough to grow up with the Internet (most college students) is used to using a nickname online.

For someone young who will probably be using the net for the rest of their work and personal life, it makes sense to separate identites online. Could you imagine a future employer, spouse, social (or professional) enemy, etc. being able to find every little scrap of writing you'd done over the last twenty years by searching for your name? People have been using net in volume for long enough for this already to be a problem. I've read about a corporate employee that was fired because of a posting he made five years previous regarding his personal life. (Sorry, I don't remember enough to find the news story.)

I've been lurking here for about six months and haven't signed up because I rarely feel the need to post. (Hi, all.) I'll never use my last name here because I don't want to leave a paper-trail because of this general principle. I've known people who have had problems with Internet stalkers. The "Observer" likely has nothing to hide, but feels uncomfortable giving out real-life info to a bunch of strangers.

Norm, shnorm.
You don't have to reveal your Social Security number, or even your full name to foster community (which is much more humanly valuable than just a place to ask techie questions). Even just a working email address is plenty.

Please get over your discomfort enough to create true value.

hhp

hey wait a second...I came here to get the info about the Euro symbol....and I had to read through that?
geez louis.

First I don't understand all this Euro Symbol problem stuff I keep seeing around board. Its option+shift+2 on key caps is it not? ...yes yes provided the font has it. ok anyway, so here's your quick fix, find/replace all your euro symbols in the word docs to something both spell checks will pick up..like "()" then make yourself a little .eps graphic, go inline and do a find/replace change all in quark.

its a roundabout way ya - I have to do it all the time with french language accents, and my love/hate relationship with Mrs. Eaves

> I had to read through that?

Yes.
And that's not a bug, it's a feature.

hhp

Sorry my internet was down for the past few days.

Whoa, you people like to argue dont you. Observer is the name of the Paper. My name is a very common all to easy to mistake with someone elses name - John. Thats all, no big deal. What if my name was actualy Observer, how silly would you feel huh?
Thanks anyway to the people who actually used this thread for what I started it for; for giving help and advice.
Ohh and don't worry, the whole paper isn't set in Frutiger, its the secondary font.

P.S. Hrant manners are free, get some. How was I supposed to know this community was so sensitive to anonymity? (Say out loud in a posh english accent!) Dismount from your high horse and walk amongst us common internet folk!
Not exactly the most warming welcome I've had :-(

P.P.S. Cheers Michael T, for at least seeing through all the unessesary (and unexpected) bull____ and trying to help.

John, apologies for the rude welcome. There are a lot of people who post (anonymously) at the Type I.D. Board just looking to swipe the suitcases of hardworking type designers. Didn't mean to imply you.

bj

good to hear about Frutiger.

My apologies as well.

:\

Dear John,
Don't mind me. In a way I guess I assumed you knew about all the abuse some of us have taken by anonyrats on Typophile, but that was indeed a stupid assumption. Now that I know you're a straight shooter, I apologize, and welcome you here.

hhp

Ok you're a pretty cool bunch afterall

Anonymity is still a a feature of this board,
Hrant. If you have a problem with that simply
keep your comments to the boards that require a
login.

Now. Does John still have a Euro problem?

Was I complaining about the feature? No. I was complaining about how the feature is abused 90% of the time. A lot like TV.

Did I single out Typophile unfairly? If so, I apologize. The same vermin are on typographi.ca as well.

Do we still have a Euro problem? Does Musharraf still have that nagging foot pain?

hhp

All I'm saying is we've created areas of these
forums where anonymous posting is not allowed. If
you're afraid of being attacked then ignore the
thread. It's simple.

Although simply ignoring unpleasantness is a tactic certain people should indeed adopt, what you're proposing is in fact unworkable. But anyway, I'm not worried about me - I've been attacked by half a dozen countries. What I'm afraid of is covert defamation campaigns weakening Typophile.

hhp

Ok, What I did was probably illegal but I had no other option. I created a euro symbol in illustrator and opened up my version of frutiger. I replaced the Ä (thats the character I was getting) with my own euro symbol. Its seems to have worked and since we dont print any German we shouldn't run into many problems.
The legal issue does annoy me a little but I apologise. I don't see the point in buying a new font for one character, thats not commercialy sensible. Also in this case even if the font did contain the euro symbol it wouldn't have solved my problem because the keyboard equilivents don't match.
Apple Euro= shift Alt 2
but when you convert the Windows command you get the Apple equivilent of Alt u shift a.
Thats on older european keyboards anyway.

As for my stance on the anonymous issue. Firstly I wasn't offering any opinions. I would have put my real name if I was voicing my thoughts on something, thats only fair. My question was purley technical, no need for a real name.

It's not illegal as long as nobody else (who doesn't [also] legally own the original design) gets the new font. Very few font houses forbid any modification outright.

hhp

Id agree with Michael T and thats its a Mac/Unicode thing. Any idea why Apple decided to put the euro symbol on the wrong unicode char?

Also > does anybody else think its unfair that Adobe expect users to buy a font again for the adddition of a single glyph (not so bad for single licences but not so good for large multi user licences)?

Hrant writes: I was complaining about how the feature is abused 90% of the time. A lot like TV.

No. Anonymity is essentially neutral although prone to abuse. TV is actually a tool of Satan.