"THE INKSIDER" _______________________________________ July 2002 Newsletter #12-0726 ======================================= Hi <>, This newsletter only goes to people who subscribe to it. Unsubscribe instructions are at the bottom of the newsletter. This newsletter is brought to you by Atlascopy.com. Company Goal: Offer you, the consumer, a cost savings alter- native to expensive OEM cartridges. Our cartridges are 50 to 80 percent less expensive than OEM's. We also have Refill Kits, which can save you up to 90 percent. >>>>>>>>>Please take our survey and collect your free gift! >>>>>>>>> http://www.atlascopy.com/survey/survey.shtml ********************************************************** We have completely re-designed our web site. Navigation is much easier now. We heard you and took many of your suggestions. Come and take a look at our new facelift! http://atlascopy.com ================================================== This month's edition features the following: 1. News from the InkJet Industry New Epson Stylus Photo 960 New EPSON Stylus C42UX HP recalls Power Cords Canon S530D and S830D Bubble Jet Direct photo printers Canon Safety Recall 2. New Products at Atlascopy.com 3. General Tips on Getting the Most for Your Money ================================================== 1. News from the InkJet Industry Epson Introduces The Ultimate Digital Darkroom Printer: The EPSON Stylus Photo 960 Business Editors Macworld New York 2002 Sleek New Printer Delivers Unmatched Photo Print Quality With the Industry's First Two-Picoliter Ink Droplet and an Impressive Set of Features Designed for Serious Digital Photography Epson America Inc. is adding another superior product to its award-winning photo printer line and is debuting this new printer today at Macworld Expo. The EPSON Stylus Photo 960 is the successor to the popular EPSON Stylus Photo 890 and addresses the needs of a variety of customers including advanced amateur photographers, photography enthusiasts and hobbyists. With its amazing image quality and fast speeds, this printer is ideal for applications such as photo competitions, personal portfolios, professional illustrations and photographic presentations. The EPSON Stylus Photo 960 utilizes Epson's Advanced Micro Piezo ink jet technology, the world's first two-picoliter ink droplet and a superior six-color photo ink system for creating incredible detail, more accurate skin tones and an ultra-wide color range designed specifically for photography. This six-color system actually contains seven individual ink cartridges -- two black cartridges for faster text printing -- making this printer Epson's first dye-based model to use a separate ink cartridge system. "The EPSON Stylus Photo 960 is another outstanding product from Epson. It builds upon all of the strengths that have distinguished our photo printers from other brands and includes new features that enhance the versatility and performance of the printer," said Parker Plaisted, product manager, photo imaging. "When you need your prints to look the absolute best that they possibly can, this is the printer that you want." More About the EPSON Stylus Photo 960 The EPSON Stylus Photo 960 provides the best photo quality from inkjets today with its resolution up to 2880 x 1440 dpi, wide-gamut, dye-based inks and two-picoliter droplet size. This printer can not only produce "dotless" photo quality with smooth gradations for prints that are indistinguishable from traditional photos, but it can do it quickly as well. The EPSON Stylus Photo 960 offers fast photo printing speeds that are twice as fast as the previous model, allowing customers to print an 8" x 10" image in less than two minutes at 720 dpi on glossy and matte papers. Additionally, the printer can speed through black text with its twin black cartridges at up to 6 ppm. By utilizing innovations such as PRINT Image Matching technology and Epson's patented, true BorderFree(TM) photo printing technology, the EPSON Stylus Photo 960 is able to produce the best prints possible in a variety of frame-ready and portfolio-ready photo paper sizes. Customers can effortlessly print their photos on Epson's Borderless 4" x 6" and 5" x 7" photo papers without having to trim the borders or tear off perforations. New EPSON Stylus C42UX Color Ink Jet Printer Adds Greater Value and Performance to PC Bundles Business Editors & High-Tech Writers LONG BEACH, Calif. Printer Takes Advantage of Resolution Performance Management and Achieves Peak Performance Without Hidden Ink Costs Epson America today announced a new four-color, desktop ink jet printer designed especially to benefit PC bundle systems. The EPSON Stylus C42UX is engineered to give customers an excellent combination of text, graphics and photo printing capabilities, while providing a $79 added value to PC manufacturers' and computer dealers' bundle packages. The printer incorporates Epson's award-winning Micro Piezo(R) ink jet technology, and the company's new Resolution Performance Management (RPM) system. Up to six droplet sizes (as small as three picoliters) and resolutions up to 2880 x 720 optimized DPI are used to place ink more precisely on the paper resulting in laser-sharp text, greater detail, brighter colors and sharper images. The Stylus C42UX can quickly print black text at speeds of up to 12 ppm and color graphics up to 5.5 ppm. In addition to sharp text documents, it can create attractive borderless 4" x 6" photos on Epson's perforated photo paper. It also uses quick-drying dye inks that give users the freedom to handle printed images immediately without smudging. A convenient ink level tracking chip is included on each cartridge to provide users with current ink quantities and on-screen, easy-to-follow instructions that automatically instruct users how to replace empty cartridges. "Beyond the increased speed and print quality, a major advantage with this printer is that there are no hidden ink costs associated with achieving better performance," said Rodrigo Catalan, product manager, consumer ink jet printers, Epson. "Whereas some manufacturers don't include the special ink cartridges that are sometimes required to achieve their rated print speeds or peak levels of performance, Epson printers ship with all of the necessary items in their original boxes to produce peak-performance output, without the hassle of making another trip to the store to spend more money on other ink cartridges." The Stylus C42UX features a built-in USB interface and an attractive, space-saving design -- ideal for the home user with limited desk space. The printer is also compatible with Macintosh and Windows Platforms (including XP). ================================================================ HP Safety Recall In cooperation with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), Longwell Electronics is recalling AC power cords shipped with certain inkjet printers manufactured by Hewlett-Packard Company. PROBLEM: The plug that connects the power cord to the printer may crack, exposing live electrical contacts and presenting a hazard for electric shock or electrocution. PRODUCT: The recall is isolated to Longwell "LS-7C" gray two prong power cords. The cords were shipped with certain HP Deskjet and Photosmart printers in the U.S. and Canada from April 2001 through January 2002. Do you have one of the following printers? Deskjet 800 series: (Deskjet 810C, Deskjet 812C, Deskjet 825C, Deskjet 825Cvr, Deskjet 825Cxi, Deskjet 830C, Deskjet 832C, Deskjet 840C, Deskjet 841C, Deskjet 842C, Deskjet 843Cxe, Deskjet 845C, Deskjet 845Cvr, Deskjet 845Cxi, Deskjet 880C, Deskjet 882C, Deskjet 895Cse, Deskjet 895Cxi) Deskjet 900 series: (Deskjet 930C, Deskjet 932C, Deskjet 934C, Deskjet 940C, Deskjet 940Cvr, Deskjet 940Cw, Deskjet 940Cxi, Deskjet 950C, Deskjet 952C, Deskjet 960C, Deskjet 960Cse, Deskjet 970Cse, Deskjet 970Cxi, Deskjet 990C, Deskjet 990Cse, Deskjet 990Cxi) Photosmart 1000 series: (Photosmart P1000, Photosmart 1000) Photosmart 1100 series: (Photosmart P1100, Photosmart P1100xi, Photosmart 1115, Photosmart 1115vm) Photosmart 1200 series: (Photosmart 1215, Photosmart 1215vm, Photosmart 1218, Photosmart 1218xi) Photosmart 1300 series: (Photosmart 1315) ============================================================ Canon Bubble Jet Printers S530D and S830D Bubble Jet Direct photo printers -- These Canon printers connect directly to six Canon PowerShot digital cameras, including the S30, S40, G2, G2 Black, S200 and S330 via an included Bubble Jet Direct USB cable. This cable allows users to print directly from the camera without connecting to a computer. For those customers who want the ability to print photos directly but don't have a Bubble Jet Direct Canon camera, the printer has a PCMCIA Type II memory card slot so that virtually any brand camera's "digital film" can be inserted into the printer*. The optional Canon Image Viewer allows customers to view their images prior to printing. Both printers feature Canon's Advanced MicroFine Droplet Technology enabling high-speed, high-quality printing with a high-precision, high-density multi-nozzle print head. The S830D offers six-color printing at 2400 x 1200 dpi and provides borderless printing at speeds of approximately one minute for a 4" x 6" and approximately two minutes for an 8" x 10" photo print when printing from a computer. And when using Canon's Photo Paper Pro, the images have the ability to be lightfast for approximately 25 years.*** The S830D will be shipping in August 2002 with a Manufacturers Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) of $399** including the Bubble Jet Direct USB cable, PCMCIA Compact Flash adapter and a PCMCIA 4-in-1 adapter that accepts Memory Stick, Smart Media, Secure Digital, and Multi-Media Card type removable memory cards. The S530D provides four-color borderless photo printing at 2400 x 1200 dpi with print speeds of 14 pages-per-minute (ppm) for black and 10 ppm for color. Printing borderless 4" x 6" prints in less than a minute provides customers the fast photo printing speed they expect from a direct connect printer. The S530D will ship in August 2002 with an MSRP of $249.00** including the Bubble Jet Direct USB cable, PCMCIA Compact Flash adapter and a PCMCIA 4-in-1 adapter that accepts Memory Stick, Smart Media, Secure Digital, and Multi-Media Card type removable memory cards. The S530D and S830D Photo Printers both support Exif Print (Exif 2.2 "Exchangeable Image Format File"), the new worldwide open standard for higher quality digital photo printing. Exif Print enables smart image processing of digital camera images by embedding important camera settings (such as landscape or portrait mode, if the flash was on or off, etc.) into the image file. Both the S530D and S830D Photo Printers can utilize this information when printing through the computer, direct from the media card and when printed through a Bubble Jet Direct camera. The S530D and S830D Photo Printers ship with Canon's exclusive Easy-PhotoPrint software. Easy-PhotoPrint is designed to print digital camera images with ease-of-use, speed, and quality. Easy-PhotoPrint automatically sets the optimum driver settings for beautiful photographic output from your Canon printer. Easy-PhotoPrint features Exif Print for results that will be a truer photo print matching the photographer's original intention. The Color Bubble Jet S330 replaces the current S300 printer with increased speed at 14 ppm for black and 10 ppm for color. This printer brings true borderless printing down to the $99 price level while maintaining print quality with Canon's Advanced MicroFine Droplet Technology and 2400 x 1200 dpi resolution with 5 picoliter precision. The S330 is Exif Print compatible and ships with Canon's exclusive Easy-PhotoPrint software to produce the highest quality photo prints. The S330 will be shipping in July 2002 with an MSRP of $99.00. Canon Safety Recall An electrical component used in certain FAXPHONE B640 units manufactured between September 30, 1999, and January 26, 2000, may present a risk of fire. This potential risk, and Canon's commitment to customer satisfaction and safety, have led us to implement a special Instant Exchange Program to replace, at no cost to customers, all FAXPHONE B640s bearing the following serial numbers: UKK52923 to UKK55442 UKK60513 to UKK99999 YKK02001 to YKK20000 The serial number on your FAXPHONE B640 is printed on a silver sticker located on the back of your product ================================================= 2. New Products at Atlascopy.com There's plenty of new products up this month on Atlascopy.com. We encourage you to take a look at our website because we update product listings regularly. To speed your shopping along, here is a list of the latest items you can find on Atlascopy.com, with pricing and URL linkage: We have redesigned our web site for your convienience. So, if you haven't stopped in for a while check it out. We here at Atlascopy.com love to here from our customers. Email Tim at atlas@dvol.com with comments or suggestion for the new redesigned site. ------------------------------------------------- Refill Kit for the Lexmark Z55, Z66 LX310BK Black Refill Kit $14.95 LX310C3BK 4 Color Refill Kit $24.95 http://atlascopy.com/refills/atlasbrand/lex5.htm ------------------------------------------------- Generic Chipped Cartridges for the Epson C80 and C70 T032120 $14.50 T032220 $7.80 T032320 $7.80 T032420 $7.80 http://atlascopy.com/cartridges/epson/ ------------------------------------------------- Jetpak Mailers Jetpak has suspended recycling the 15M120/125 until further notice. The is due to high failure rate when refilling the cartridge. ------------------------------------------------- If you are looking for Greeting Card stock or Photo Glossy paper, then check out our Media and Paper section. Our films and papers are designed to perform equally well with Repeat-O-Type Brand inks and those offered by the printer manufacturers. http://atlascopy.com/media.htm ------------------------------------------------- We are now selling OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) products. Among the products now on sale are Epson, Canon, Lexmark, Compaq, Nec, Hewlett-Packard, Brother, and Xerox cartridges. OEM cartridges can be found here: http://atlascopy.com/cartridges/ ================================================= 3. General Tips on Getting the Most for Your Money Hewlett Packard Tip Each Atlascopy newsletter provides a easy few tips to help you in the inkjet cartridge re-filling process...which, in turn, can help you save time, energy and (best of all) money. Burned Out Cartridges Many cartridges with internal print heads use electrical resistors to control the current to each nozzle. If the cartridge is allowed to "dry fire" too many times the tiny resistors will burn out resulting in low quality output, color distortion or weak printing. The ink actually acts as a cooling agent to keep the resistors from burning up. If the cartridge goes empty and printing continues, overheating occurs. If left too long this can burn out the cartridge. Each time this overheating occurs the life of the cartridge is shortened. The solution, of course, is to buy a new cartridge. The printer is printing different colors than what is on my monitor, is it the ink? Getting color to match the screen is confusing at best. The screen uses RGB (red, green, blue) beams of light to make colors... the printer uses CYMK (somehow the printing industry decided that black starts with a K). CYMK adds colors together to make black... RGB uses a subtractive process where the colors together makes white. Color on your monitor is relatively stable. The color you see on a piece of paper is greatly affected by the light in the room and the type of paper. The colors will change if you change paper, move outside turn on a light. Getting the right color is always a process of trial and error to get consistent matches ********************************************************* Lexmark Tip Fussy Lexmark color cartridges can come back to life if you remove the clear plastic cover over the sponges and take out the sponges. toss the cover, you won't need it any more. Wash them out with warm water and squeeze out the excess water. Put the sponges back in the cartridge. Make sure you get them back in the proper chamber. While the sponges are still damp re-fill the cartridge. Inject the ink VERY slowly so you don't make foam in the sponges. You may need a strong pair of needle nose pliers to pry the clear plastic cover off. *********************************************************** Epson Tip We may have the Epson refiller owners' most useful tool, and the best part is it only costs 50 cents! I'm talking about the BFILL tool. The BFILL attaches to any injector and can suck the foam from a cartridge faster than a vacuum cleaner on steroids! Foam is the main reason why Epson cartridges stop printing. It's easy to use and you will be surprised how much foam a small cartridge can hold. We have a nice little primer complete with pictures for this useful little tool. Check it out here: http://www.atlascopy.com/BFILLinstructions.htm If you have a tip you would like to contribute you can e-mail it to atlas@dvol.com. ================================================== Special note: Some of you are confused by our offering of two different web sites. Essentially, they both offer the same products but the difference is in the shopping cart area. Many of you asked for a shopping cart that retains the user information. The new site does that. Others complained when they were required to set up an account in order to purchase anything. So we are keeping both sites active to make everybody happy. The other difference is the new site has the ability to process credit cards in real time. The security is much higher and people get frustrated when their credit card is declined. If you want to order from the new site you MUST use the correct billing address, which is the address where your credit card statement is sent to. Also, the new site will not accept any International credit cards. If you are having problems with your credit card on the new site then you should use the old site. The old site does NOT have real time processing, we will run your credit card manually which means you won't get rejected, unless of course you deserve it. :-) The new site is at: http://shop.atlascopy.com The old site is at: http://atlascopy.com