just to update everyone, we ended up buying a used xp machine. it was cheap enough that it made braving the unknowns of boot camp/parallels/etc not worth the hassle. we did end up with the perfect storm, though. had a new digital press get installed/set up/trained on while i was setting up new pc for the platesetter, and we're busier than all hell on top of that. been a crazy couple weeks. now if i can get half a second i might be able to try out all the new bells and whistles on the digital press that the salesman promised is going to "change my life"...

Quote from: Santa on January 09, 2014, 09:51:54 AMBoth Parallels and VM run a Virtual PC at the same time as OSX, which is great in most environments, but when also running a rip on top of it, unless you have mega ram (16 or above) and an i5 or i7 quad core processor expect some loooong rip times and a lot of out of memory errors.

just checked and the ram requirement for our rip is 2mb [that is not a typo], so we should be pretty good if i need to go parallels/vm route...

Quote from: Joe on January 09, 2014, 10:47:24 AMIt is not an XP simulation. You actually install XP. Bootcamp is a little more complex setting up than Parallels/VMWare. With Bootcamp you are going to have to re-partition your drive as Bootcamp has to have it's own partition. I agree with Santa that it would be better not to have both OS's running at the same time but I would try something like VirtualBox first since it is free and just to see if you can make it work. You can install XP and run it without activation for a few days and you won't have to re-partition your HD as VirtualBox uses a VDI file as a virtual hard drive. When you are done you just delete the VM along with VDI file and you've lost nothing.

that's what i thought about the "simulation" but wasn't sure enough to challenge him on it. brilliant idea with virtual box. nothing lost and less painful if it doesn't work out. gonna try that...

think i'm gonna try boot camp first since it will be the lower entry fee if it doesn't work. i might have enough horsepower [16gb ram/i5] if needed. our plan is to just schedule better. if i have to log out and log back in to make plates i'm going to burn all the plates we need at once, rather than one here/one there on demand. we try to run all the press work together each week and even then it only runs one or two days a week. the tech rep for one of our dealers is concerned that "rips are heavily registry dependent so the xp simulation might not be compatible", but i'm not sure he's fully grasping the boot camp concept...

the bummer is harlequin version 7 is xp only. version 8 will run on windows 7. i have a copy of xp and upgrading the rip will probably be a deal breaker for the boss. it's looking like this dual boot plan might work out, though. i'm surprised no one really tries this. i can see the downsides for a big shop, but for a small 2 ½ man operation it could be a way better way to go...

lucky for us it's connected via usb! i'm thinking this might be a feasible avenue, then? asked our rep but they've been less than helpful. prob because they're selling computers with their platesetters that might not actually be necessary for smaller shops like us and that's a pretty good revenue stream.

been a while. hope you are all doing well.

we upgraded our old platesetter a few months ago. stepped up to metal plates and this unit blows our old one away when it comes to screens and gradients. new platesetter was pulled out of a shop that went out of business so we basically got a crate of STUFF and had to try to make heads or tails of what was what. the company that sold it to us deals strictly in presses so they had no idea what they were selling, they just wanted it gone. we got the pc with the harlequin rip up and running, after replacing power supply and motherboard. worked great for a couple months and then it died. replaced a couple more parts. back up and running for a bit then died again. think it's done for good this time. we're exploring options and i had a thought that might be crazy but don't know enough about it to say. instead of buying another pc to do only one task [run the rip/output plates] why can't i just use boot camp [or parallels/vmware/etc] to run windows on my mac workstation? is this feasible? has anyone seen or done anything like this? the only downside i see is if i run bootcamp, i think i'll have to log out/log in when switching. 75% of our work is digital, though, and we run the press one or two days a week, so it's not like i'd have to constantly be logging in/out. like i said, i know zero about this side of things. i set up virtual box on my mac at home several years ago and installed linux just to mess around a little, but it was very limited. i must be overlooking something, because this seems like too easy a solution, am i right?

edit: prob should have mentioned my setup. running 10.8.5 on a 2012 imac. will upgrade to 10.9 within the month [waiting for new digital press]. 16gb ram, 2.7ghz core i5, 2tb hdd
harlequin is version 7.something. if i can get the pc to power up i can verify

the "it's the paper" routine has GOT to be part of their training. our tech pulled that on us a while back. it was a stock that we had been running from day one on our machine. we've run miles of it, but all of a sudden, the paper was the problem.

same problems with skewing and registration on the 252 but they claim it's "much closer" on the 700. these machines are the fast food of our industry...

xerox rep is trying every move she has to get us to take a 700 [we currently have a 252]. it has the high cap feeder and a finisher, but i'm not sure which finisher [i think it's the standard finisher] i'm gathering a list of questions/concerns for her. anybody have a question they wish they had asked before you got your 700, or impressions now that you have it in production?  i have concerns with registration from front to back on the 252, it's terrible at running coated sheets and you can only feed 12x18" in the bypass tray. how does the 700 compare?  here are some questions i'm going to ask the rep. let me know if there's anything i'm missing:

what is the max cover weight for booklets? on our current machine, 65# uncoated cover is the max. will the 700 stitch/fold 12x18? coated text/covers? max number of sheets/weight for booklets?

will the 700 auto duplex coated sheets? what is the max weight it will auto duplex [coated/uncoated]?

can i change tray attributes from my workstation? currently if paper is loaded the paper type has to be set at the machine. can i load paper, walk back to my workstation and set it from there?

our current machine struggles with screens/gradients/certain spots. any info on how the 700 handles them?

good info... thanks for the help, guys. i'll let you know how it shakes out

been a while. hope you're all doing well.

i have a friend who is a professional photographer. he has a gig coming up where he'll take photos of party attendees as they enter the building [kind of like a red carpet situation]. he wants me to set up a station with my laptop, drop photos on a template for 4x6" and print the pics so the guests can take home with them. he's bidding the job today and wants to know what i need. he's going to buy a printer for me to print the photos. i guess my question is if anyone has any recommendations for a nice, portable printer? i won't have any kind of cutter so, unless there are some other ideas, i think i'll need a printer and paper that will specifically print 4x6". anybody have any ideas?

i just noticed that there's a progress indicator above the tool bar. export a pdf and look just below the "type" and "object" menus and you'll see a bar letting you know it's working...

got it. i was using "format cells" but was opening the file after saving/closing to confirm the changes. that's where it was boning me. just opened in textedit and can see the zeros. thanks for the tip!

just discovered this. i'm doing a mailer and using data merge in indy. just realized that i have zip codes that start with zero. when i save the spreadsheet [excel] as a csv file it drops the zeros. i've tried formatting the cells as a custom number, zip code, etc. but nothing seems to work. is this normal or some kind of fluke on my part? any ideas on how to keep the zeros in there so i can get these addressed?

i think it's confirmed here:


https://www.dropbox.com/help/179