Hi,
Sandra, that's good stuff. Thanks for posting that one and for everything
else that you post in this regard.
Tom
----- Original Message -----
From: "Sandratomkins" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Saturday, May 18, 2013 4:36 AM
Subject: Comparing Prizmo 2 and Text Grabber using the StandScan pro and a
more complicated layout.
Hallo,
i hope I am not boring you all to death! However, with the latest
incarnations of prizmo 2 and Text Grabber, I am looking to find their
various strengths. Without a doubt, I still like the immediacy of the TG
interface and often find it perfectly adequate to the task. However, when I
tried a comparison shot taken from a magazine page, with 2 columns and with
the added difficulty of a headline situated in the centre, displacing the
text to either side, I discovered that Text Grabber got seriously confused
and pplanted a sackfull of carots half way down each column. Whereas, Prizmo
2 did an excellent job! I can only deduce from this that Prizmo 2 still has
the better, that is, more sophisticated, OCR engine. For letters etc, there
is nothing to choose between them, but when you need more intelegent OCR
functionality, I must say that prizmo 2 is the one to use.
Happy scanning, and here, as always, is an offering, this time from
Prizmo 2.
Temping in the city in my college holidays for me means three things: easy
money, a relief from Cambridge stress and jobs which usually involve no more
mental strain than thinking of what to wear the next day. Yet one night,
sitting on the commuter coach, ploughing through the rush hour traffic, out
of London and into
the suburbs, I began to wonder what temping meant for others.
I had noticed immediately that most of the temping agencies were staffed by
women. These seemed to be wellpresented, attractive girls in their mid
twenties with pleasant manners who dealt with temps as they applied for
work.
There were rarely men doing
these jobs; instead, the male
members of staff seemed in
managerial positions or would go
out to companies in which temps
worked, in order to liaise with
clients. The majority of temps,
too, were women. They ranged
from twenty year old secretaries bored with their previous employment to
forty year old mothers returning to work when children were of school age,
but despite this variation they were predominantly assigned to low-scale
clerical and secretarial positions. In most cases this meant that female
temps were either directly or indirectly subordinate to men, thus
reinforcing the "office bimbo" image of working women and the stereotypical
image of the female temp.
What is even more damaging than this image is the reality of the temp's
working situation. In a temporary assignment, unlike a permanent job, there
is little room for promotion, so the women who temp are often left with
little chance to develop their skills, even though these might already be
quite substantial, l also came into contact with women who had excellent
educational qualifications which were not utilised in their temping jobs.
One girl l met, Natalia, temping while travelling, had an excellent
university degree, yet was still placed in a low scale clerical position,
subordinate to male supervisors with half her skill and intelligence. This
was not the only type of discrimination. In one company l was assigned to,
working in the share issues department of a large bank, there was a fairly
even mix of male and female temps, mostly students.
Even "on the job" the male temps were placed in the more prestigious
positions whereas the girls were confined to filing, sorting and
coffee-making.
Thus I became aware that temping, and the practices associated with it,
directly contributed to women's disadvantage in the workplace. Yet l noticed
another side to temping, that is the positive aspects it gave women, which
must not be overlooked.
Feminists have been eager to point out that the breaks women take from work,
to have children disrupt their careers. However, women who temp are able to
take a break from work whenever they feel. One such woman, Karen, was
working for a few weeks while her husband was at home, looking after her
baby. Thus, by temping she was saved from part- time work for little money
or home work.
temptation -a look at office temping
The skills temps have are not easily devalued and aided by cross-training
schemes at temping agencies women are quickly able to regain their
confidence in the labour market.
This allows women who temp the freedom to work whenever they want, and
although this may raise theoretical problems, in reality temping is ideal
for women who want to work and spend time with their families.
I also noticed that temping is used by younger women to find suitable jobs
for temporary assignments often become permanent. Temps are often freed from
the nightmare of sexual harassment, being able to terminate jobs whenever
they feel. Alternatively, if a temp likes a job she may apply for the
permanent position. One temp I spoke to, Michaela, had left her previous
unsatisfactory job and was one the verge of finding another which she
preferred with the insurance agency for whom she was temping. I felt this
gave women like Michaela more choice, yet, paradoxically, Michaela's job was
one of the least skilled, involving photocopying, filing and coffeemaking
for predominantly male insurance brokers and underwriters.
Another interesting factor about temping is the financial aspect. A
competent temp, skilled in typing or wordprocessing, can earn up to £7 or £8
an hour, £9 or £10 for legal secretarial. One temp I met did just this. Not
only did she command very high rates, but had all the qualities of a female
executive, exhibiting professionalism in the jobs she chose and the way she
carried them out. She was, however, the exception rather than the rule, and
although she had been temping for over five years, most women are eager to
leave the often unpredictable world of temping. Moreover, temps are often
aware that the agencies earn at least an equal amount from their labour, and
while the staff of such agencies may form an unconscious female support
group for women workers they are effectively paid out of their earnings.
Thus while the glossy advertisements in tube-stations present glamorous
images of the female employee freed from the restraints of long hours, and
two weeks holiday a year, the reality to temping is somewhat different, as I
found out. The small amount of responsibility is traded for the perpetuation
of the "bimbo" image or a more sinister sexual side of temping whereby the
"feminine" temp may unconsciously fuel sexual harassment in the office. Yet
measured against this must be the freedom which temping gives, liberating
women from the claustrophobia of home and children. However, all the
thoughts and opinions expressed here are from my own account. You would be
quite right to see my views as being narrow in perspective in limiting my
subject matter to temporary employment in the city of London. For it is not
just the position of women in one sector of the employment market which is
at stake, it is the occupational structure as a whole, and society's
attitudes and conceptions of women and their working lives which are at the
heart of the issue•
andrea felsted i corridor 23
Sent from my iPhone
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