Stuck in Corel land

I need some OpenOffice.org business cards, as I will keep next week a presentation at a Linux conference. So designed a nice one in Inkscape and experimented with some export options.

The next step was to search for a print shop to make them.

Print Shop 1, a little pricey, varying from .25 to .50 RON (about 0.07 - 0.14 EUR) each, depending on the amount of colour used. It was like this:
- What file formats do you accept?
- Any Corel up to version 12
- Anything else? EPS? PDF?
- We don't work with EPS, PDF yes, if you do the entire A4 paper, but we will not be able to edit it or adjust colours.
- OK, I will not need adjustments, but you will accept bitmaps?
- Sure, but we will not be able to edit it or adjust colours.
- Fair enough, what dpi?
- Anything more than 72 dpi
- OK, will do 600 dpi

Print Shop 2, a seriously cheaper one: .18 EUR
- What file formats do you accept?
- Corel
- Anything else? EPS? PDF?
- No, only Corel
- F*ck you very much

I don't have much time to search for other options, so I guess will go with Print Shop 1.

Another step will be do design a t-shirt (with OCAL to wear at the same conference) and to find a shop where to print it. I expect it to be more trouble some, as I want to use a non rectangular shape and maybe some gradients (at a second thought, maybe without gradients). I suspect here PNG is the only option.

All this experience reminded me of another one, about one year ago, when I had to do a brochure for my job. Then the print guy (our company is a regular customer of him) was a little more enlightened: he used both Illustrator and Corel (with a preference for Corel) and, as a big surprise for me, was a OpenOffice.org user, preferring it to MSO because "it work better with tables". But from our discuss I learned he never heard of PNG before. SVG, W3C? Obviously, he knew even less about those. (Is possible to know less than nothing about something?)