Do you ever find yourself watching a crime show on television or the movies and laughing at what they claim to be able to do with their computer? It happens all too often with me. Yet I know very well that computers, along with graphics software, are often used in the process of solving a crime.
The reason I know they are often used is that one know one person who uses CorelDRAW to fight crime. David McClocklin was recently written up in the Orillia Packet & Times for his award-winning work. Even better, I know I played a small part in it as David has attended multiple CorelDRAW Unleashed Training Boot Camps to sharpen his skills. Congratulations David on your award-winning work and for putting the bad guys in their place!
David asked me to post this comment for him:
Foster,
Thank you very much for those kind words and Yes! You did play a very large part in my success. It’s been a few years when I stumbled upon the software CorelDraw and began using it. Like many people who start something new you begin to lose interest if it doesn’t go the way you want it to. I knew in my mind how I wanted my work to appear but I couldn’t translate it to my hands. I am sure we all have experienced that frustration that comes from a lack of knowledge and no one to ask for help.
I remember searching the internet and one day I came across Foster’s webpage and there was an opportunity to attend one of his famous “Boot Camps.” I never looked back from that day. That class led me to end user conferences and many contacts that use the product daily. You gave me a reference library that I could never have obtained on my own.
I have been in Law Enforcement for 30 years and the last 20 as a tactical crime analyst. There are two kinds of analysts, those who sign up and get put on waiting lists to take training classes and those that take training classes. I differentiate this group because those that take training often pay for it themselves given the current economic climate in both the public and private sectors.
Funny thing about that, I have never seen a person who paid for their own training complain because one of the best kept secrets in my type of work is how often you are requested and have to work extra paid hours. I look upon my whole experience with CorelDraw as a journey in the eyes of a Canadian humorist, Stephen Leacock, “I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.” Remember to invest in your own skills and don’t wait for the opportunities to come from someone else.
Mr McClocklin should maybe also check out Markzware FlightCheck. Many in law enforcement investigations use FlightCheck, which is a stand-alone application, to see what was used inside of a said graphical digital file; all fonts, images and colors – even showing the link to the server they were sourced from in many cases!
I will let him know, but I don’t think he is looking at digital files to solve crimes but rather using CorelDRAW to design presentations showing evidence from the crime in a graphical form.