The Mercian Labels Group Blog – Security Labels International, Mercian Labels and AC Labels

A well placed source yesterday whispered in my ear that Xeikon are going to launch something special at IPEX next month.  IPEX, second only to DRUPA on the world stage for print innovation launches (both with an offset 4 year cycle) is being held down the road from us in Birmingham, UK.

The new YouTube video (above) is a humorous take on a recent press event, but makes the point well – something new is about to come out of Belgium.

I cannt find out what this is (yet), but as well as the new toners, look out for something new and exciting from Xeikon at IPEX.  My vote?  Speed. lots of it.   Lets call it the Xeikon 3600 and think 40 m/min.

If you wish to speculate, then join in the fun by adding a comment to this post.

Watch this space.

Mercian Labels are recuiting in Cannock

Business is picking up and we are recruiting again!  If you are looking for an entry level office assistant or apprentice factory worker/ rewinder then please see the advertisments on our webpage.

[Photo courtesy of the good people at FreeDigitalPhotos.net]

The team at Edale involved in the new press - Peter, Louise, Adrian and Jeremy

A first for this labelling blog, a review and pictures of a new press!  Yesterday I was invited to Edale Ltd, one of the few UK press manufacturers left to see the new Edale Alpha Multi, an 8 colour flexo press with a very small footprint.  At Mercian Labels we run a new standard 4 colour Edale Alpha we bought in 2008, but the additional 4 print stations in this configuration is a new concept that has not been seen before, and showcases the engineering ingenuity that Edale has developed a reputation for.

The new Edale Alpha Multi - the long running standard Edale Alpha press in on the right, with the retrofit bolt on 4 colour 'multi' upgrade on the left. the web moves under the yellow footplate between the units

So this is the new press – a very different concept for meet a particular market – those label printers needing a high end specification press with the smallest footprint possible at a good value price thats much less than a comparable modular press.  Here you have an 8 colour press with a length of 4.5m, compared to a normal modular press with 8 colours thats about 8-9m long – a big space saving.  The amount of ‘metal’ is also significantly reduced, thus reducing the price.  Its an easy retrofit onto any existing Alpha press, or obviously you can buy a compete stack as it is.

the mechanical drive for the multi is shielded by the orange bar - which also makes a handy seat....

The version I saw was the very first unit, that had literally just come off the production line some days ago and was only powered up last week, so had a few minor modifications to be addressed, as is common with all development projects, but there were minor and trivial to fix. I also pointed out a couple of possible modifications to consider to improve the design, and as always they were very receptive to ideas.

You can continue to use 1 stack of 4 colours and bypass the other using a clever splicing system to easily change back and forth.  The print runs the left ‘multi’ stack first, then the main stack, then lamination and converting as appropriate.  It would seem sensible to set up the left ‘multi’ stack with CMYK UV permanently, and add water based spot colours on the main unit as needed, maybe with a UV varnish.  9 colours is the maximum I believe.

The registration wasnt bad either, quoted at +/- 0.15mm at 60m/min although due to the minor modification needed I couldnt see this in action at the time, but the registration at slower speed (40m/min) was good.

close up shot of the 8 colour demo label design with cross hairs of 0.15mm

This was the shot I took at the end of the demo of a the printed web – its not bad at all, but Edale assured me that it will be crack on perfect after the final press modifications are made, and from previous experience of dealing with them, I believe that to be likely.

Overall, this is a great piece of design, and should be an easy upgrade for those like us at Mercian with an existing 4/5 colour alpha.  In fact, its so innovative that it should really be nominated for an award somewhere, showing what the best of British engineering talent can design.

Yes you can buy cheaper 8 colour presses from developing countries, but as always you do get what you pay for, and this configuration is much,much cheaper than a new 8 colour modular press.

This one is destined for Kingfisher Labels as reported in the trade press here and here and I’m sure they will be pleased with their purchase.

Disclosure:- my company is a previous (satisfied) client of Edale Ltd, but we have no current involvement with them and I was not influenced or rewarded in any way (apart from some butties and a packet of crisps) for this piece.

Copyright: - these pictures and text are copyright of Mercian Labels – please feel free to link to this piece but please dont copy and use it without our permission

The National Memorial Arboretum is in South Staffordshire just off the A38 between Birmingham and Derby

We had visitors this weekend including a serving army officer, and took an opportunity on Saturday morning to visit the National Memorial Arboretum just a few miles north of us.

If you have never been, then I would recommend fitting it into your itinerary when next in the midlands.  Its a beautiful place and a fitting tribute to our country’s fallen.

dell mini 9 running ubuntu netbook remix

I’ve had problems recently connecting my Dell mini 9 using ubuntu netbook remix to a t-mobile  3G modem over bluetooth as previously blogged, which I think is related to this ubuntu bluetooth bug.  I had some time yesterday and set about finding a fix to this problem to enable me to get web access on the netbook anywhere I have my phone and a 3G cable.

The solution was to connect the phone to the netbook using a normal USB cable and select “PC suite transfer” on the nokia e90.  Then setup a new “mobile broadband” connection under system>network connections>mobile broadband, in my case t-mobile UK.  Then unplug and replug in the usb cable and the new t-mobile connection appears in the network connections icon in the top right of the page.  Click and it just connects.

Ok, we give in. You can now follow our posts on Twitter at http://twitter.com/MercianLabels .

I’ve been to lugradio live a couple of times, and am hoping that the new Oggcamp event will be the replacement FOSS social and networking event.  I’ve got relatives in Liverpool, so have it in my diary to visit Oggcamp 2010 this year.  Hopefully see you there!  If you want to catch up with me and discuss our experiences of open source soft3ware in a UK SME environment then please post a comment and we can try and meet.

15/2/10 NOTE: this post has content that is seen as inaccurate by Miserware and you are advised to read all the text before forming conclusions to give Miserware a fair hearing.

I used a power meter to measure the electric draw of the PC using and not using miserware

Interested by some of Alan’s posts at the Open Sourcerer, I’ve been conducting an experiment in recent weeks with the Miserware power saving software that claims to save energy by better controlling CPU management.  I run a new (late 2009) pc with an Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 (4x 2.33) CPU with a 450w PowerCool 80+, and have given it a go.  However, I didnt rely on the software’s own claimed power savings, I put an electric meter between the PC’s plug and the socket, and directly measured the power usage over 3 weeks, both with and without the software installed, set at my current domestic electricity rate pkwh.

Here is my data:

What I did was to run the PC without the software installed for 4 days from 19-23 Jan, installed miserware from 23 Jan to 8 Feb, then ran the PC again from 8 Feb until today.  Congratulations to the miserware support though, when I had issues installing they were right on the ball, and FOC.

The results are pretty unimpressive.  Despite a claimed 15% power saving claimed by the software (sudo grep Estimated\ energy /var/log/* )  it actually made very little difference at all.  In fact, if you average out the estimated annual usage for the 2 periods without running miserware ((52.22+54.07)/2) = 53.15 and compare that to the annual cost running miserware of £51.77, you see a 2.7% power saving thats worth about £2.30 a year.  OK, its a saving, but its not worth a lot to me.

The scary observation is that if you leave a PC on 24/7, its going to cost you over fifty quid a year at current online dual fuel electricity tariff rates!

We have completed a trial of linerless labels - is this the future?

One of the really enjoyable parts of running a business with an innovation culture is that we are always experimenting with new products, and here is a preview of the our linerless self wound label stock.  Please forgive the fact that the image is back to front -  it was a proof of concept trial!

The reason why this could be very interesting is that there is no siliconised liner waste, which is a lot more environmentally friendly than normal label stock.  See our previous blogs on this subject .

the finished label reel, without perforations

There are obvious limitations to this concept, notably that you must perforate between labels leaving a ragged edge, and generally you must have a flat bottom to the labels, or be prepared to deal with the waste between labels as you remove them.

we can also make 4 colour process tamper evident linerless labels in the same way

Interestingly, we also found it easy to make a tamper evident CMKY process “thin film” tamper evident security label construction as well.

I’d be interested in any views of this concept.  No doubt its been done elsewhere before somewhere, but its interesting to try these things for ourselves and see what the reaction is.

security labels that leave permanent residue

Yesterday I was down in London and whilst travelling on the underground I took these 2 pictures of the residue left by security seals used to seal cabinets and fire hydrant areas.

at least 5 different seals have been tried here and left residue

Nice.

If you have an issue like this in your workplace, then take a look at our no residue Label Lock product range or watch the YouTube security labels video of them in action.

helmet sticker test.

Thanks to an inquiry from Australia yesterday from an earlier blog post, I thought I’d clarify the position in respect of the safest adhesive to use for hard hat and helmet labels.  The history here is that in the 1979’s there were stories of motorcycle accidents where helmets were providing insufficient protection to the wearer’s head in a crash as the adhesive had significantly damaged the helmet surface and weakened it.  You can read an interesting page on the subject here.

I tried to get a definitive answer to this question in 2007 from the EU technical manager for Fasson about the hard hat and helmet  label adhesive we commonly specify for this application , and got this reply.  “The history is that many years ago, during the 1970’s, polycarbonate crash helmets were introduced for motorcycle riders, and some time after this there we some issues with stickers coated with solvent based adhesives causing a weakening of the polycarbonate, reducing the effectiveness of the helmet. SInce this came to light we have stipulated the use of solvent-free, waterbased acrylic adhesives such as our S692N for this type of application. Although waterbased, S692N has excellent water resistance and good resistance to UV light making it ideal for outdoor exposure. “.  Further consultation with an adhesive consultant suggested that any solvent based adhesive is a definite “no no”, normal hotmelts are undesirable, but any water based acrylic adhesive (used as standard on the vast majority of labelling material) is probably suitable, as are UV cured hotmelt adhesives (rare).   If you want further advice, then please contact us.

As one of the UK’s top label printers, with over 40 years of trading behind us, we are looking for an experienced office based Sales Manager. You will be a charismatic leader, with excellent mentoring skills and a very good IT and customer services background. You will be dealing by email and telephone with a large number of companies, big and small, across the UK and beyond, in order to close sales. At the same time you will be providing inspiration and motivation to a small but committed team of internal sales coordinators, and crucial  feedback to the wider business. You will be given training, and as much decision making responsibility as you can handle comfortably. For more information on our culture and values, please see our corporate website at http://www.mercianlabels.com/careers.php which also describes how to apply.

NO AGENCIES PLEASE

This security label was used by a cruise liner company to seal passengers luggage, and this is how it arrived with the owner. Its not been tampered with, but the poor quality design gives a very strong impresion its been tampered with

A family member recently returned from a caribbean holiday (lucky them!) and showed me this security label that the holiday company had used to seal their luggage as them returned.  Its a pretty basic seal that just uses security cuts to indicate a tamper.  This is not an easy application to tackle, as the range of different materials, fabrics, plastics and metals that are used in luggage (typically quite dirty too!) makes it a challenge for security labelling.  However, we are working on an improved solution for this, and would welcome contact from any users who want a quality solution to sealing luggage, bags and cases.

2D QR Barcode Label used for an intereactive marketing campaign by Pepsi

Whilst out at a trade show today I bought a soft drink with this new marketing campaign on the label.  I dont know if it was printed flexo or digitally, but it was unique enough to get me to use the 2D QR barcode reader on my Nokia e90 mobile phone, which redirected me to a unique website (only viewable on a WAP browser) for this specific marketing campaign.

This sort of application is ideal for digital label printing, and I can see that it wont be long before forward thinking brand owners start approaching us for this sort of campaign with static or variable data.

the sarcmark is a great way to punctuate sarcastic sentances so you protect yourself from misinterpretation

The new sarcmark is the first novel piece of punctuation that I have seen for a long time, and solves a real problem in electronically written english communication, this being trying to use sarcasm without running the risk of offending the recipient who may miss your subtlety.  I like it, and will try to use it, even though its got 3 problems as a concept:

1) its going to take some time to become widely known amongst the population to achieve its purpose.

2) its only being promoted as a “font”for windows and crackberrys.  Not Mac and not Ubuntu or any form of linux as far as I can see from their site.  Thats very clever and forward thinking. It also means that you cannt use it as a font unless everybody has it, typified by the fact that on the advertising websitre the originators cannt use their own product as unless you have the font you cannt see it, so they use a PNG image file of a sarcmark ()  instead.  Thats a rare thing – a vendor who cannt use their own product as nobody else can read it unless you’ve already bought it – catch 22.

3) the originators are trying to patent it and charge $1.99 to download and use it, no doubt with some form of license.  Some on guys, how do you propose to patent a piece of the english language?

Its a great idea, but just cut the commercialism out, open source it, and its use should just explode.

In the meantime, users could use the PNG version of the sarcmark () in html emails and webpages.

box sealing tape marked as "tamper proof"...

Yesterday I received a consignment of low energy GU10  LED light bulbs for home from a supplier sealed with what was labelled as “tamper proof” tape by Haddad Brands.

Oh no it isnt.

removed and reapplied, and you'd never know

I removed it intact in about a minute, and reapplied it the other way around.

Label Lock applied

I then applied a Label Lock security seal  on it

Label Lock removed

and removed it using the same technique I used to defeat the allegedly tamper evident tape.  The result is pretty obvious and the lesson clear.  Dont try and seal your packages and fool people by marking tape as tamper proof when its just not!

reporter breaks unbreakable phone

This video from the BBC Click programme shows a proud CEO demonstrating an “unbreakable” mobile phone to a reporter, and challenging them to break it.  You can guess what happens next – what a nightmare for the company concerned!  Good product though – even it it can be broken with a lot of force.

I bought a new printer cartridge yesterday and it was delivered with a really neat security label on it that looks great, has some good features, but IMHO entirely misses the point.  As you can see from the photo below, it is a branded security label from Samsung that is applied to seal the box closure by the red tab with security cuts as its only tamper evidence mechanism.

Here is a close up of the label in place sealing the box over the blue printed area (see the carton cut being sealed to the right), showing its 2D QR barcode and the colourshift ink (red and yellow overprint)

and the colourshift looked at from a different angle in blue and purple

the problem is that the tamper has a very low level of tamper evident security, and can be removed with ease (but I’m not telling how!).  Here is a picture of the removed label, reapplied a few cms away on the box… not much a seal then.

I then applied one of our dual layer Label Lock security labels (uncustomised version off the shelf) to the place where the Samsung label was. Ok, its a bit big, but makes the point.

I then attacked it in the same way that I removed the Samsung label and it still indicated the tamper as it should do, leaving a big dry peel OPENED message on the box and in the removed label.

and this is the carton opening that the label was supposed to protect.

The lesson here is that you really have to work out in advance what your “security label” is for – is it to prevent counterfeiting (brand protection), and/or prevent tampering of a closure.  This security label is a good brand protection label that is hard to counterfeit that is used to prevent tampering, but dosnt work as a security seal.

We offer selected brands the opportunity to use our latest Label Lock security label technology to secure their product closures with bespoke security labels inclusing colourshift inks, tactile features etc, as well as deter counterfeiting.  Please contact us if you dont want to fall into the same trap!

What treats does 2010 hold ?

Last year I made a bunch of predictions for 2009 – some of which have come true, and others not.  I think I got 1,2,4, and 10 right. 8 is coming with the Google Nexus One phone running Android. The others I got wrong, or show no signs of happening. Hey Ho.

So, here are my 10 predictions for 2010:

1. Sterling will fall below the value of the euro before June 2010 and the FTSE 100 will rise from 5400 to 6000 during 2010
2. The Conservatives will win the 2010 UK general election and instigate big cuts in the public sector
3. Inflation will return in 2010, with the RPI reaching above 4% by December
4. There will be a pile of administrations and pre packs of UK retail business in January and February, and by the autumn of 2010 the banks (assisted by HMRC) will be closing down lots of businesses and crystallising a bunch of loss making liabilities before their year end
5. There will be lots of consolidation in the UK label printing market, with many companies ceasing trading on the back of tighter credit control from the material suppliers linked to 20% material price rises from the devaluing of sterling.
6. The volume of labelling material converted by the UK labelling industry will continue to fall during 2010 as alternative packaging technologies such as shrink sleeves take over in the high volume food and logistic labelling markets.
7. 2D QR barcodes on digital labels will become a standard tool for B2C marketing as smartphone cameras connect to webpages
8. The must have gadgets for xmas 2010 will be a home ADSL based internet TV and recording box and Google will follow their  Nexus One phone with a chrome OS powered tablet PC.
9. Virgin will launch a true 100mbps synchronous SDSL home internet connection with fibre to the house
10. Our Label Lock security labels will continue to find new and interesting markets!

2010 is going to be an exciting year, some great commercial opportunities and we are looking forward to it!

Any comments?

A couple of months ago I started getting into running.  I’ve always found running really boring, even at the gym watching TV, listening to music whilst pounding the pavement, or whatever.  However, I’ve now discovered the secret – podcasts.

Download any podcast on a specialised subject that you enjoy, but dont get time to listen to normally, load it onto your MP3 player, and get out there and enjoy the fresh air whilst losing weight, getting fit and all that good stuff.

To get you started, here are some good podcasts that I regularly download and listen too whilst running:

1. Shot of Jaq -twice weekly 10 minute podcasts on technology from the legendary Jono Bacon + “Aq”
2. Prime Ministers Questions – the UK’ weekly political punchup
3. Small Biz Pod – small business podcast with some very good interviews
4. FLOSS – weekly open source podcast
5. The Naked Scientists – science podcast from some boffins

I’d love to find some more good ones on similar themes – please comment on this post if you can suggest any!

We are now getting close to the end of 2009, which has seen Mercian Labels celebrate 40 years in business  – there arent many things to celebrate in this economic climate and this is one of them!

We are still taking order for dispatch before Christmas, but will shutting down at 5pm Wednesday 23rd December and reopening at 9am on Monday 4th January 2010.

Merry Christmas to all our readers, and thanks to our many clients once again for their business during another successful year.  We have a  special offer planned for January 2010 – I’ll blog about this early in January so watch this space!

Yesterday I found out that the LabelEvent 2010 that I previously blogged about has been cancelled due to lack of support.  This is a great shame as the format promised to be a novel and exciting one.

However, the recession continues to bite deeper, and this event appears to have been a casualty of it.  I hope that the organisers try again in future.

new apple tamper evident security label

Apple have applied for a patent for a new tamper evident security label that will detect if a device has been opened, thus voiding the manufacturer’s warranty.  This has attracted much comment from user groups, with a general acceptance that manufacturers need to protect their warranties, but it does stop people tinkering with their devices.

Its an interesting, if not unsophisticated design compared to the technology we use for our Label Lock range of products and it will be interesting to see if Apple start a trend in using hidden tamper evident labels to detect unauthorised access.  After all – who wants to destroy the famous design appeal of a an ipod !

Watch this space.

I have been using a cowon iaudio iplayer for playing MP3s for some time now, as its the only small mp3 player I could find that mounted natively in linux without special software that needed to be run under WINE or similar.

Today I had a problem whereby after a power cut where the unit was charging and the unmount had not been done “properly”, it refused to mount in any other way but “read only”, and no amount of CHMOD 777 ing would solve it (see this post also).  In the end I found the solution was simple but brutal.

1. copy the SYSTEM directory to a different device over USB
2. reformat using ubuntu linux system>adminitration>disk utility in FAT32
3. copy the directory back and any files you want to listen to
4. it then works.

Ok, you have to recopy all the files back again, and at 15GB capacity thats a few hours of USB transfer, but its the only way I could find.

USB mounting under linux just isnt as forgiving under linux as windows, as I’ve previously blogged abut, and thats a shame.

I’m pretty well travelled with about 40 countries visited over the years, but I’ve never been to such a poor airport as paris charles de gaulle where I have been 3 times in recent weeks.

1. Its got the traffic problem from hell, taking 40 mins for the bus I took to the trade show to even get out of the airport
2. its ugly, and takes for ever to move between gates with everything so far apart
3. the facilities are diabolical – I’m sat at the gate after security and there is no food or drink anywhere, and through most of the airport there are no seats anywhere
4. even the plugs for laptops wont take overseas adapters, its as if the airport has gone out of its way to make life difficult for travellers
5. the wifi is more expensive than switzerland
6. it looks like something designed by overly creative schoolchildren

Suffice to say I will avoid this place in future and recommend others to do so as well!

A classic piece of labelling machinery!

I’m just back from a weeks holiday in Sydney seeing friends, and spent a very pleasurable couple of days in the Hunter Valley wine region.  At the Blueberry Hill vineyard I came across this classic piece of labelling machinery, a beautifully made wooden label applicator. Sometimes its easy to forget just how long labelling has been around!

opusvl is our new open source support provider

Since Senokian Solutions Ltd ceased trading earlier this year we have been in negotiations for a new supplier of open source software support for our systems.  Today we can signed up with Opus VL in Rugby, who we have met and look very capable of meeting our needs.  We look forward to working with the people there.

It wasnt easy finding quality suppliers of open source support in the UK, in fact there appear to be about a handful or less.  Hopefully with the rise and rise of linux, this will change.

the BBC covers the upcoming Karmic Koala release

With the recent release of Windows 7 getting widespread publicity as a half decent replacement for Vista, widely acknowledged to be a failure, its great to see the BBC covering the new Ubuntu release on their homepage yesterday.  You can read all about it here.  I will be using it, and its free, as in speech as well as beer. Give it a go – just download the CD ISO image and try it from your CD drive without it evening touching your hard drive!

YouTube Video of Label Lock Security seals

Label Lock security seals are our flagship product, and we are delighted to lauch this video on YouTube today to showcase the many and varied applications for both low residue and Dual Layer Label Lock security labels.  I hope you enjoy it.

Ginger6.com sell PCs with no operating systesm that work with Ubuntu

My home PC was a 9 year old Dell heavyweight box (1ghtz pentium with 512mb ram running ubuntu 9.04) given to me years ago, and it finally gave up its lust for life recently and started tripping my home electrics.

Looking for a new supplier of a good value linux desktop I initially ordered from Efficient PC, but after some days of no response I cancelled the order by email and bought a custom made box from a local supplier to us, Ginger6 in Wolverhampton.  Of course Dell have now stopped selling ubuntu desktops, and for good value linux preinstalled hardwere there are few options in the uk now.  Looking at the Efficient PC site today they have ceased trading.  Ginger6 duly constructed the machine (entry level intel quad core, 4gb sdramm) in 2 days and shipped it over. I installed Ubuntu 9.04 first time with no hassles (”it just works”) and was up and running in under 30 mins after waiting for the hard drive to format.

I’m really pleased with it, ubuntu runs all 4 processors with no config, and its so much quicker than my old machine, especially when running multiple apps / firefox tabs at the same time.  Thank you again to the community who make such fantastic software available to download for free, and I’m happy to recommend Ginger6 as a good value supplier of PC hardware that works with ubuntu linux straight out of the box.  Now all I have to do is persude them to sell ubuntu preinstalled!