Iceni Technology Blog

On May 20th one hundred years ago, William “Bill” Redington Hewlett was born. In 1935 William (better known as Bill) graduated from Stanford University, California with a degree in Electrical Engineering. At Stanford University is where he met David Packard who also graduated with the same degree, who together formed Hewlett-Packard from a garage in Palo Alto.

 

 

Here is a brief look at the growth through the years….

 

January 1st 1939

Hewlett-Packard (HP) was established from a garage with an initial capital investment of 538 US Dollars.

 

$5,369 revenue, 2 employees.

 

July 11th 1939

Hewlett patented the design for their first product, the HP200A.

 

1941

Bill serves as a U.S. Army officer until 1947, David runs the company while Bill is serving for his country.

 

January 6th 1942

The HP200A was granted and manufactured, it was a low-distortion audio oscillator used for testing sound equipment and were sold for $54.40.

 

$522,803 Revenue, 8 Employees.

 

August 18th 1947

HP incorporated, Dave is named president of the company and Bill is Vice president.

 

$851,287 Revenue, 111 Employees.

 

1951

The 524A high-speed frequency counter was invented, used to measure high frequencies in very short times.

 

$5.5 million Revenue, 215 Employees.

 

November 6th 1957

The company went public with shares selling for $16.

 

1958

HP establishes a division structure, with each product group becoming a self-sustaining organization responsible for developing, manufacturing and marketing its products.

 

$28 million Revenue, 1,778 employees.

 

1959

The company goes global, setting up a manufacturing plant in Germany and establishing marketing organizations with Switzerland.

 

March 17th 1961

The company was listed in its first New York Stock Exchange.

 

1962

HP named 460th in the fortune list.

 

$110 million, 6,260 Employees.

 

1963

HP invented the HP5100A, frequency synthesizer, used for deep space shuttles.

 

1964

Dave is made CEO and chairman of HP and Bill is elected president.

 

HP5060A atomic clock was invented, very accurate and was set for the new standards for international time.

 

1966

HP opens its first laboratories for creating their new ideas.

 

Barney Oliver becomes founding director.

 

The company creates its first computer, the HP2116A, was designed to withstand environmental extremes and was the world’s first go-anywhere, do-anything computer.

 

$203 million, 11,309 employees.

 

1968

The world’s first desktop scientific calculator is invented, the HP 9100A, it was 10 times faster than most machines at solving science and engineering problems and sold for $5,000

 

1969

Dave Packard becomes Deputy Secretary of Defence for the U.S. and serves till 1972. Bill becomes CEO in Dave’s absence.

 

$326 million, 15,840 employees.

 

1971

HP produces a laser interferometer capable of taking infinitesimal measurements, positioning HP as a world leader in the market.

 

1972

The HP 3000 computer was invented which started the distributed data processing era.

 

The world’s first hand-held scientific calculator (HP-35) was invented, small enough to fit in a shirt pocket.

 

$661 million, 28,255 employees.

 

1974

The company produces the first minicomputer using dynamic random access memory chips rather than magnetic cores.

 

Plus world’s first programmable pocket calculator was invented.

 

1977

HP introduce the HP-01, world’s first digital wristwatch, calculator and personal calendar all-in-one.

 

Bill retires as president but remains as the CEO, but one year later (1978) Bill retires as CEO, John Young becomes new CEO.

 

$1.4 billion, 35,062 employees.

 

1980

HP produces the HP-85, its first personal computer

 

$2.4 billion, 52,030 employees.

 

1981

HP-12C was introduced, it is a business calculator which has become the world’s standard financial calculator and is still being sold today.

 

1982

The HP-75C was debuted as HP’s first handheld computer which was able to connect to digital cassette drives and printers.

 

The HP 9000 was introduced and was a technical computer and the first desktop mainframe and was as powerful as the room sized computers in the 60s.

 

The company introduced the world’s first mail systems wide-area commercial network.

 

$4.3 billion, 69,538 employees.

 

1983

The introduction of the HP-150 touchscreen PC.

 

1984

HP inkjet and LaserJet printers take off and become the world’s most used desktop computers.

 

1986

On March 3, 1986, HP registered the HP.com domain name, making it the ninth Internet .com domain ever to be registered.

 

HP becomes the first major computer company to introduce a precision architecture based on reduced instructions set computing (RISC) making computers faster and less expensive. The effort

 

takes five years and is HP’s most expensive R&D effort to date.

 

1988

HP DeskJet printer launches and is the companies’ first mass-market inkjet printer.

 

$9.8 billion, 87,000 employees.

 

1991

The HP DeskJet 500C revolutionary colour printer was introduced and was affordable.

 

HP 95LX palmtop PC was an advancement of their earlier portable computer which was lightweight and roughly the size of a pocket calculator, it had as much computing power as a desktop PC.

 

$14.5 billion, 89,000 employees.

 

1993

The Super portable HP OmniBook 300 was produced weighing (1.4-kilogram).

 

HP shipped its10 millionth LaserJet printers.

 

Dave Packard retired.

 

$20 billion, 96,000 employees.

 

1994

The HP officeJet personal all-in-one (printer-fax-copier) was the world’s first mass-market device.

 

HP invented the world’s brightest LED’s for applications in cars, traffic lights and moving-message signs.

 

The 64-bit microprocessor architecture was developed with Intel.

 

1995

HP enters the home computing market with the HP Pavilion PC.

 

Dave Packard publishes The HP Way.

 

$31.5 billion, 105,200 employees.

 

1996

Dave Packard dies aged 83.

 

HP recycles its 10 millionth LaserJet Print cartridge.

 

2000

The Superdrome server line was introduced, giving an advance position in internet infrastructure.

 

$42 billion, 84,400 employees.

 

2001

Bill Hewlett dies aged 87.

 

HP creates HP Services to provide consulting, outsourcing, support and solutions deployment.

 

2002

First global brand advertising campaign, called “everything is possible”.

 

HP announces breakthroughs in molecular electronics in the emerging field of nanotechnology.

 

In May 2002 HP merges with Compaq and serves more than one billion customers in 162 countries.

 

HP announces new colour printers (HP DeskJet 5550) and paper that deliver results surpassing traditional prints in photo quality and fade resistance.

 

$56.6 billion, 141,000 employees.

 

2004

HP rank 11th in the fortune list.

 

New digital entertainment products including Flat-panel TV’s (plasma & LCD) and the HP digital Entertainment Centre was introduced.

 

HP wins the Corporate Innovation Award from the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) for the development and commercialization of thermal inkjet technology.

 

$80 billion, 150,000 employees.

 

2005

In April creates SnapFish an online photo service.

 

In July, HP announces a breakthrough ink-based printing platform. The inkjet printhead is fabricated as one unit via a photolithographic process, rather than welded together in post-production.

 

HP unveils the HP Officejet Pro K550 which is the world’s fastest home and office photo printing device.

 

In December, HP disrupts the traditional video conferencing market by introducing the HP Halo Collaboration Studio.

 

2007

HP introduces the TouchSmart PC, an all-in-one PC with a touch-screen display. HP also introduces a touch-screen consumer tablet PC.

 

$104.3 billion, 172,000 employees.

 

2008

In April, HP introduces a full-function, mini-notebook: the HP 2133 Mini-Note PC.

 

$118.4 billion, 321,000 employees.

 

2011

HP introduces the industry’s first wireless mouse. The HP Wi-Fi Mobile Mouse is the first mouse to connect quickly and easily without a USB dongle via a PC’s built-in Wi-Fi receiver.

 

$126 billion, employees 324,600.

 

2013

HP now have introduced a laptop and tablet all-in-one the HP ENVY x2 11t-g000, which the keyboard can detach making it into a tablet.

Text in Infix is placed into text boxes. You can position text boxes anywhere on the page by clicking the Text tool and clicking in an empty space.

If you click inside an existing text box while the Text tool is highlighted, the text inside that text box becomes editable.

What if Text Overflows?

For long sections of text, a single text box won’t be big enough. Aesthetically, one very large chunk of text is not always easy to read. If you want to vary the layout of your text, you’ll need to split it over several columns or pages.

If you’re interested in building a complex layout, you may also want to arrange multiple textboxes on a page and have the text flow through them in a particular order.

Manually maintaining the text in each box is incredibly difficult, particularly if your document changes often. But you don’t have to continually shift and edit the text in order to get it to fit. You can use Infix’s Linked Text feature instead.

Linked Text is available in both the Standard and Pro versions of Infix.
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This program [Infix] is the solution I have been looking for! I am a professional translator, and in the past when clients gave me a .pdf document to translate, I would either plead with them for a .word version, threaten to charge them more, or simply refer them to another colleague willing to deal with the headache. Infix PDF Editor has changed the way I do business.

I can use it in conjunction with my CAT (Computer Assisted Translation) memory tool to manipulate the source document and work on the translation as easily as I would with any other format. Then I can save my work, open up the PDF editor, and see in real layout how the final product will look. It is fairly intuitive to use, and a little practice goes a long way, too.

If you’ve resorted to reading this blog, I’m sure you’ve already tried all of the other “solutions” for dealing with PDF documents (copy-pasting, adding comments, whining, etc.). This is a much more elegant and professional way, and certainly worth the reasonable learning curve.

- Ben Guevara

Today, May 17th, marks the 79th birthday of Ronald Wayne, one of the original co-founders of Apple Computers, better known to us today as Apple Inc or just Apple. In light of this, we thought we’d have a brief look at Apple’s timeline through the years….

 

 

April 1st, 1976
Apple Computer founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne.

 

July 1976
The Apple I computer went on sale priced at $666.66 to be precise.

 

January 3rd, 1977
The company is incorporated. Albeit without Wayne on the board, as he had by this time sold his share back to the others working on the basis that he felt the venture too risky.

 

February, 1977
Michael Scott comes in as Apple’s first CEO and holds this position until March 1981,

 

April 16th, 1977
Apple II computer is introduced at the first ever West Coast Computer Faire

 

May 1980
Apple III is introduced but flopped in terms of sales when compared to those of it’s predecessors. It had various design flaws and was deemed as overpriced. It was discontinued only 3 years later to be replaced by the Apple III Plus

 

December 1980
Apple shares go public, at $22 per share.

 

February 25th, 1981
“Black Wednesday” occurs at Apple as then CEO Michael Scott abruptly fires 40 Apple employees, believing they are redundant. His explanation of this, over a keg of beer, quoted as “I used to say that when being CEO at Apple wasn’t fun anymore, I’d quit. But now I’ve changed my mind — when it isn’t fun any more, I’ll fire people until it’s fun again.” was met with disbelief and he was moved to vice-chairman soon after.

 

 

March 1981
Mike Markkula, original angel investor of Apple and the man who hired disgraced CEO Michael Scott, replaces him as Apple’s second CEO.

 

January 19th, 1983
The Apple Lisa personal computer is released for $9,995

 

April 8th, 1983
John Sculley becomes Apple’s CEO as recruited by Steve Jobs and replaces Mike Markkula. He was forced out by Apple’s board 10 years later due to expense on products and development that did not return ROI.

 

January 4th, 1984
The first Apple Macintosh is released following an intensive marketing campaign including the use of George Orwell’s novel “1984”.

 

September 13, 1985
Steve Jobs resigns from Apple after various internal power struggles, and goes on to form NeXT, a computer company in California catering to the B2B and higher education markets.

 

March 2nd, 1987
The Macintosh II is released, and was the first model to be a PC as well as supporting a colour display. The Macintosh SE is also released on this date.

 

September 19th, 1988
Macintosh IIx is released as an upgraded version of the Mac II

 

September 20th, 1989
The first Macintosh Portable was released to some criticism for its charging capabilities.

 

October 1990
The Macintosh LC is released to the lower end of the budget market

 

October 1991
The first Powerbook models are released

 

 

June, 1993
Michael Spindler takes over as Apple CEO from John Sculley, and oversaw several successful projects including the PowerPC, but was replaced in 1996 by Gil Amelio after takeover discussions with big names including IBM went nowhere.

 

December 20, 1996
Apple announce they are intending to acquire Steve Jobs’ company NeXT and buy it for $429 million in cash. Steve Jobs rejoins Apple in 1997 although is not paid money for NeXT and instead is given 1.5 million shares in Apple.

 

February 2nd, 1996
Gil Amelio becomes CEO of Apple, succeeding Michael Spindler. During his time he made extensive layoffs in staff, and eventually resigned just over a year later on July 4th, 1997, due to internal disagreements related to Steve Jobs and the board of directors.

 

September 16th, 1997
Steve Jobs becomes interim CEO after Gil Amelio resigns.

 

November 10th, 1997
Apple introduce their online store, known by most as “The Apple Store”, which carries all of their product lines and has an iOS app.

 

August 15th, 1998
The iMac is first released and to this day remains the primary part of Apple’s consumer desktop range.

 

May 19th, 2001
Apple’s first retail stores open in California and Virginia.

 

 

October 2001
The iPod is first announced, and goes on sale November 10th, 2001

 

April 28th, 2003
The iTunes store is opened (originally named the iTunes Music Store).  It has been the biggest US based vendor of music since 2008, and worldwide since 2010.

 

June 6, 2005
Steve Jobs announces that Apple will start producing Intel-based Macs in 2006. By January 2006, the MacBook Pro and iMac were using Intel’s Core Duo CPU, and by 2007 the whole Mac line was using Intel chips.

 

January, 2006
Apple’s market cap surpasses Dell.

 

January 9th, 2007
The word ‘Computer’ is removed from Apple’s name and announced at Macworld Expo 2007 by Steve Jobs. This was to reflect their continued focus across the consumer electronics market as a whole, and not solely around computing.

 

June 29, 2007
The 1st gen iPhone is released after 3 years in development, code named as “Project Purple”.

 

July 11th, 2008
The iPhone 3G is released, with a faster processor and a higher resolution camera.

 

April, 2010
1st Generation iPads are released

 

June 15, 2010
Apple release the iOS Apple Store app.

 

 

June 24th, 2010
iPhone 4 is released with an upgraded camera and a new, squared design.

 

January 6th, 2011
The Mac App Store opens after announcement in October 2010.

 

March, 2011
2nd Generation iPads are released

 

June 6th, 2011
Steve Jobs delivers what will be his final keynote speech at WWDC 2011, where he introduced iCloud, OS X Lion and iOS 5. This was also his last public appearance before his resignation and subsequent death.

 

August 24th, 2011
Steve Jobs resigns from Apple due to ill health and is elected Chairman of the Board. Tim Cook takes over as CEO of Apple and remains so to this day.

 

October 4th, 2011
Virtual personal assistant Siri is released on iOS5 and on iPhone 4S. iPhone 4S is also announced, the upgrade to the iPhone 4.

 

October 5th, 2011
Steve Jobs dies of cancer after an 8 year battle

 

October 12th, 2011
Public release of iCloud, which currently is estimated to have over 300 million users

 

October 14th, 2011

iPhone 4S goes on sale in the USA, with global release on October 28th.

 

October 16th, 2011
This date has been declared “Steve Jobs Day” by Californian Governer Jerry Brown.

 

March, 2013
3rd Generation iPads are released

 

September 2st, 2012
iPhone 5 is released, still with the 8MP camera and 1080HD video but with a new, 8pin charging port and with iOS6 as standard.

 

October 23rd, 2012
The current generation of the iPod Touch goes on sale

 

November 2, 2012
4th Generation iPads are released, alongside the iPad Mini

 

November 10th, 2012
Apple agree to a settlement deal with HTC that will dissolve all lawsuits to that date between the two companies, including a 10 year licence agreement for current and future patents.

 

March, 2013
Apple announce an AR system patent

 

May, 2013
Apple make it to the top 10 of Fortune 500 list of companies, in 6th position.

When you’ve completed a PDF document in Infix, you can come back to it and edit it whenever you like. None of the contents are fixed, and that gives you the freedom to keep your PDF file updated without a huge investment of time.

Over the lifetime of a document, you may need to change the links you’ve created to point to a new location, a new domain or a different file on your company intranet. You might want to change all of the file extensions for a particular link, or replace one link with another. Of course, there’s a good chance you’ll need to do this more than once, and in large documents, that becomes an unmanageable task if you’re trying to handle it manually.

With Infix, there’s no need to scan the document and alter your hyperlinks ‘by hand’. The software has a special addition to its Find and Replace function that will help you to locate troublesome links in a few seconds. By searching using particular words, or strings, you can Find (and, optionally, Replace) the terms you’re looking for.
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As a self-publishing author, I struggled with converting Word documents into PDF format in order to upload manuscripts to the server. Especially in terms of charts, most PDF editors destroy it upon conversion. Not only need I rebuild it within the PDF editor, but in actuality I need rebuild it every time I amend the manuscript and again convert to PDF. Talk about a tedious waste of time. But then I discovered Infix. This gem allows all manuscript editing to be accomplished with the PDF environment. There is no conversion process, and therefore no need to continuously re-modify the charts and graphs.

Infix is peace-of-mind which keeps me focused on the manuscript as opposed to the tedious PDF conversion and inherent recreation. Infix is the pinnacle of PDF editors!

My first book, Messiah and the Sign of Jonah, had relatively few charts, and still the PDF conversion was an on-going headache. Then I was asked to re-write Vampire Killer 2012, which is graphic intensive; and the very reason I started researching the world of PDF editors. Upon my discovery of Infix, my hesitation to head the project has subsided and I’m on-board one hundred percent!

I encourage everyone who’s considering such a project to save yourself the time, and spare yourself the frustration. Infix is an all-encompassing simplifying solution to the world of PDF.

Christopher Jones
Messiah and the Sign of Jonah

PDF forms allow the reader to type data into text fields – much like filling in a form on the web. Using Infix, you can fill in PDF forms you’re sent and distribute the results without any compatibility problems.

Why would you want to do this? For one thing, it’s quick; as the recipient, you can fill in the form and return it digitally without having to print it out (and either post or scan it). In fact, by using PDF forms, you might find you can pack away the fax machine for good and save a lot of paper in the process.
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I have recently used Infix editing my dissertation. My computer was stolen, and I lost the entire document (I had a brain f*rt and had not backed up). (All) I had left was a hard copy I had printed the day before the thief took my computer (I did retrieve the computer about a week later, hard drive wiped).

I was prepared to spend a couple of weeks retyping the entire document (245 pages). A friend referred me to Infix and I tried the OCR tool. It did a wonderful job and my two weeks of planned grunt work took me about 4 hours to complete.

After using every other PDF editing software, including Acrobat, this OCR is by far the best when it comes to numbers. In addition, unlike Acrobat, the OCR correction tool makes it extremely easy to fix software mistake without have to export the file and recreate a PDF.

The most useful part of Infix is the ability to use it for free to learn how it works.
I would recommend anyone needing a PDF editing software to consider fully Infix.

- Phillip Mixon

Automated translation is a useful tool for any business. Getting content translated by a human can be slow and costly, but automated alternatives are making translation more accessible and affordable than ever.

In order to translate content in your PDF files, you will need to use computer-assisted translation (CAT) software. Infix has some functionality that makes the PDF translation process very straightforward, no matter which machine translation package you decide to use.

In this article, we’ll take a look at the role Infix plays in the translation process, then quickly cover some translation tools that work well alongside it.

Exporting PDF Content For Translation

Open the PDF you want to translate in Infix, then go to Document -> Translate -> CAT Export.

The CAT Export results in an XML file which can be imported into your CAT software. The XML file contains all of the contents from your PDF, reformatted into a structure that your CAT tool can interpret and translate.

Once translation is complete, simply repeat the process and chose CAT Import to bring the translated content back into Infix. Infix reads the XML import file and places the translated text in the correct place(s).

Choosing CAT Software

There are many CAT tools on the market, and your choice of tool will largely be a matter of budget and personal preference. While Iceni doesn’t endorse any CAT software, we thought it would be useful to look at some of the tools our users tend to use.

SDL Trados Studio

Trados Studio is an incredibly popular CAT tool; its makers claim users complete projects up to 40 per cent faster. Trados Studio uses context matching to improve results and cut down on the need for manual reviews. Its integrated PerfectMatch tool allows the software to learn from past projects and automatically substitute the most likely match during a new translation.

The Trados Studio suite is a comprehensive package that includes project management features, change tracking and the ability to expand the tool with apps. It can also effortlessly translate the XML exports generated from Infix and provide a fully compatible XML file for import.

Sisulizer

Sisulizer is designed for software developers that need to translate their software into other languages. It also does a very good job of translating the XML content exported from a PDF you’ve been editing in Infix.

Within Sisulizer, users can create a new project and use the Import tool to bring in the exported XML file that was created in Infix. A wizard steps you through the translation and gives you the option of saving the results.

Across

Across Language Server is a modern CAT tool that supports up-to-date software including Windows 8 and SQL Server 2012. Like Trados Studio, it includes project management functionality. It also allows users the ability to fix standard translations of certain excerpts, and it can automatically adapt the size of translated text to the size of the end user’s monitor.

Exported XML documents can be passed from Infix straight into Across for translation. Additionally, you can apply templates to your documents so that your content will be processed in precisely the right way, and you can automatically review the XML structure to ensure you avoid import errors once translation is complete.

Translation Tips

Automatic translation has come a long way, but you may still need to manually review the results of your import. Look for strange characters and try out different fonts to eliminate these. Also, use normal PDF editing functionality to alter the layout if the translated text spills out of the allocated text boxes in your document.

The month of May has long since been one of significant events in computing history; not only did the first stored program electric computer perform its first calculation, but events such as the first ever WWW conference was held in Switzerland and developers such as John Kemeny were born – co-developer of the BASIC programming language. So what else happened during May that has helped to shape the computers and technology that we see today….

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