So our EFI RIP finally died and EFI says its not supported anymore. Great. Let's spend more money on a simple program that allows us to append a color profile to output.

So what is everyone using out there with their proofers? We have an Epson P9000.

Hey all. Looking for what you all are using for an online storefront solution. We tried EFI DSF but never worked as advertised with integration into ePace. Stopped paying "maintenance" years back so now looking for a different option that actually WORKS and is not crazy overpriced. Don't need it to integrate with ePace. Just produce a job ticket and we will enter into ePace. Not looking for a B2C solution. Just B2B.

I just want to share a story with you all because if blows my mind that a company in this industry doesn't care to lose a customer...

2 months ago after receiving the scanner head back from X-rite after re-certification I asked their support team to dial into the machine to check some settings. At this point the X-rite software and the feedback program that send the data back to the press were both working fine. He was just checking on the settings in the X-rite program. 

While dialed in he noticed we are on an older version of Intellitrax so he uninstalled the version that was on there and went to install a newer version. The newer version wouldn't install correctly so he went to re-install the older version again and the older, original version, wouldn't load back on. So now the computer that runs the scanner software AND the feedback integration to the press is a boat anchor. Naturally one would think the person that broken it should fix it, right? WRONG...

So at this point I have no scanner software and therefore no closed loop, spending more to run jobs and X-rite doesn't care. During the next 3 weeks and many emails back and forth with X-rite they tell me they are not responsible for used presses and any software connect to it. WHAT??? They broke it!! So now I have to come out of my pocket to have my press dealer send a technician to troubleshoot a problem that X-rite caused. Incredible.

So I just wanted to warn anyone out there that if you are looking at a X-rite closed loop system be warned. They don't stand behind their work. They don't care about you. It's just another one of these large corporations that don't care about the one person.

Do any of you guys use LithoTel Closed Loop software on your presses? We have been using it since 2000 and it's worked great. But the software is starting to act flakey and I was going to try to reload it and found out LithoTel closed shop! So I have no one to help me reload the software which makes me a bit nervous. 

Secondly, if you all are using a different solution, what is it and do you like it and how much $$?

So we use FrontRange Goldmine for our CRM. Been getting tired of their lack of response on feature requests and high "maintenance" cost. Plus Goldmine has all these other features we don't even touch!

What do you guys use? We need something that keeps a database of emails sent. So we can look through the history of a contact and see old emails. Office 365 doesn't appear to show email history. And I can't get Google Apps to even let me test it! So don't know if they keep a database or not.

So after getting new computers (7 new HP's and 2 iMacs) I was saddened when after restarting any of these computers the mapped network drives fail to reconnect automatically. The PCs will show the red X next to the drive and get the message that it failed to connect. Mac does similar. Get the failed to mount drive.

Both OS's will eventually connect though. It's almost like the drives try to mount before the network card in finished initializing. Is this just the way it is? PCs are running Windows 7 and the iMac is 10.8.

I wonder if the switch is at fault here? So I went to Cisco's site to download the latest firmware and management software (because I've always left it unmanaged) and the site won't let me download anything without a service contract.... 

Any words of advise?

Anyone get this before? Mounting issue?

Anyone got any experience with doing this? My Xserve has this ability but I can't get it to work. I'm running 10.7 server and went through these steps (http://macminicolo.net/lionservervpn) but nadda.

I don't have any guidance on how to setup my gateway router though.

So for some dumb reason I pushed aside the age old reasoning "if it ain't broke don't fix it" and decided to upgrade my mac from 10.6 to 10.7.

Upgrade went fine, except for a couple things. Preps 5.3 no longer works and when I click on a refined PDF in Prinergy 5.1 to open it in Acrobat nothing happens. Get the spinning wheel and then nothing. Same if I try to open the open Job Folder in File Browser. Spinning wheel and then locks up Prinergy.

Tried connecting with the IP and the server name. Tried mounting the drives as smb (which would mount fine) but then tried to mount the drive with afp and it failed to connect.

Although I can browse the network and connect to the server main just fine. I can open all the files on the J drive fine, just not through Prinergy.

Ideas?

Switching to a chem-free plate. Anyone want a plate processor? Can provide more details if interested.

 So it's come down to financing. As long as we can get credit, we will be a high end commercial printer with a brand spanking new digital department.

So, words of advise? Any general suggestions? What to be ready for, words of advise implementing this new workflow.

Probably ending up with a Xerox 800 and will be learning VDP from scratch and learning what/how to send files to this beast.

One thing I did like, the Xerox 800 uses the Adobe Print Engine 2.1 (or 2.0, can't remember). So it should handle the PDF files very similarly to the way Prinergy does, right? Please!

sidebar - was reading a number of threads about jpg compression. The storefront peeps are trying to convince me jpg compression is safe. Anyone using it successfully? Maybe with jpg 2000 it's more stable?

Anyone get this before? I'm using XP to access a machine with XP. Used to work and then all of a sudden stopped. Checked the Windows firewall. It's turned off and I added the exception for Remote Desktp anyway.

What do you guys do with your proofing paper? We have 2 Epson 9880's and since they use sheets for imposition proofs, I have flat sheets just sitting in a pile on a table in front of the proofer. But they are right in the way! I wish I had some kind of paper rack? I remember the 43wides we had, had a slot in the front of the proofer that we could slip the sheets into for easy access.

What are you guys using?

We are researching these 2 presses (*cough... copiers) and was wondering if anyone has one of these and can comment on it's quality/reliability. Thanks all.

I recently switched Insite over to our new ISP (which has been a huge headache!) and now I'm trying to configure the firewall on the new gateway and I can't remember what ports to forward. I didn't setup the old firewall and I'm a bit green on this stuff. So any help would be appreciated. Tried calling the tech support of the new ISP and after spending 20 minutes on hold and getting disconnected 3 times, I'm turning to my fellow prepressers for help  :grin:

So we might be looking into a digital press.... *cough* color copier.... that we will be running variable images and mail lists through. Most-like just mail merge onto static image.

What is everyone in love with? Printshop Mail? XMPie?

I have no experience with this category of software. Any advice would be mucho helpful.

Anyone use this? With people wising up and buying MACs is it time to put some anti-virus software on my MAC?

I've never used anything in the past but the market share is growing meaning more potential attacks on MACs, right?

Here's the situation (tried to get Kodak to help but found out our support expired on Upfront so I would have to pay $$ for help  :angry:) :

We have a Smart Text mark setup in Upfront and now (didn't used to do this) when it comes over from Upfront into Prinergy, the mark appears doubled where the correct mark with the variable info is there but then there is another mark on top of it with all the "$[DATE] $[JOBNAME] $[SN] SIG:$[SIG] $[TIME] $[COLOR]"  stuff there. So it's like it's putting a second set of smart marks on top of the original and it's not applying the variable info to that mark. So all I see is garbaly goo.

Any UpFront peeps run into this??

Does your shop make you sign a no compete agreement?

Just got one and I'm in shock still...

Or maybe people don't want to share their secrets  :cool:

I've got an archiving rule, auto RIP rule, and that's about it.

I can't think of anything else to add. I'm a one-man prepress show so I would love to use some cool automation if I could. Anyone want to share their cool rules?