November 2013

 

 

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Christmas arrived early this year by way of an email from a Morning Flight user in Iowa. Jim had bought the Express Edition a few years ago, then ordered Pixelblitz at the Printfire Store in August.

Maybe it's just an old habit from my print shop days, but at the end of every quarter I like to leaf through the stack of orders that came in. Web stores are manned by robots, so there's no other way I can get to know our customers. That's when I discovered Jim's note: "I am a current user of the Express version, is there an upgrade price?"

Needless to say I apologized for the oversight and told Jim he had a refund coming. Here is what he wrote back:

"It's nice to know there are honest people in business today like you! The program is well worth the price of both versions. After 40 years of estimating beginning with Porte Publishing, then an Olivetti system and finally taking the formulas from Olivetti into VisiCalc and lastly to Excel to build my own spreadsheet, I had never found anything better or quicker until Morning Flight, at any cost. So, if you still want to issue a refund, OK, PayPal would be fine."

To read such high praise from another printer/developer who had travelled down the same road I had, and who had no doubt burned the same midnight oil handwriting code, meant a lot. Thank you, Jim.

Happy Holidays and a Safe and Prosperous New Year!

Hal Heindel
Unitac International Inc.
 


 
 

How to order Upgrades

 

When you outgrow one Morning Flight edition you can always upgrade to a more powerful edition for just the difference in price. It doesn't matter how old the program is you're upgrading from. With Morning Flight there's no penalty for starting out small and adding the kitchen sink later.

That's unique in the industry (along with no maintenance fees or charges for tech support). But here is something you need to know: We don't actually sell upgrades per se, so you won't find them at the Printfire Store. Instead, we offer downloads of full versions at a discount.

That means you'll have to call or email us to get a coupon code for the difference in price between what you bought earlier and what you'd like to upgrade to. For instance, say you bought the Express Edition two years ago for $148.00 and you now need Job Tickets and Invoices that come with the $445.00 Gold. Email us before visiting the store, redeem the coupon before checking out, and the store will reduce the price of the Gold Edition to $297.00.

What if you forget to submit the coupon and get charged the full price? No harm done. Call or email us and we'll make it right.

 
Printfire Store     How to Upgrade

 


 

 

SkyMallDemo_Nov_2013

 

News about the SkyMall

 

Our SkyMall project is now far enough along to where we can expect to have a beta version available early next year. All users of paid Morning Flight programs, from the Passport Edition on up, will receive a special invitation to download the beta program at no cost.
 


 

ConversionChart_Nov_2013

 

Download Conversion Chart

Tip of the Month

 

How do I enter Paper by Points?

The short answer is to use a conversion chart. While points and calipers can be entered as part of a paper's name, they can't relate to cost, only to thickness. And thickness is whatever a particular mill decides to make it.

For computer estimating, that presents a problem. Yes, there is a close correlation between basis weight and thickness, but that correlation is inconsistent. And computers don't deal well with "close enough."

Why are points suddenly making a comeback? Digital printing, that's why. Turns out digital presses are more sensitive to how thick paper is than to how much it weighs.