I miss the way American companies used to do business.

Before they got too big for their britches. You know, back when you could talk to a human being...you could actually make a phone call and speak to someone right away...and they would help you too. I miss that. I miss the integrity that American corporations once operated with.

Anyone ever have issues with Kodak Eastman? Well I am having one now. I have followed the directions in my product manual (Digital Camera) and I have gone to Kodak's website but I still have a problem. I called Kodak and spoke with "Eric" in the "Information Center" located in the Philippines. He could/would not help me. I spoke with his supervisor "Armond" he could/would not help me. I called another number for Kodak and spoke with "Wil" in "Tech Support" he could/would not help me. Then I spoke to his supervisor regarding my problem in the hope that one human being from the huge corporation called Kodak Eastman could help me. So far, I am still waiting.

All 3 people seem to be trained very well in repeating the same line over and over - "we no longer support that product" or "visit our website" (which by the way, I did before I called) or send an email and someone will contact you within 24 or 48 hours - NO THANKS. My camera is not that old. We spent hundreds of dollars on it. I would like help from a human being NOW. My pictures are being held hostage and my once expensive camera has been rendered useless.

I read that there have been 62 complaints filed with the BBB against Kodak this last year; I am # 63. Finally the supervisor "Susan" comes on and says I can pay for support by phone...$15.00! The nerve of these people. I have spent over three hours today trying to get help from Kodak regarding this product that we purchased for several hundred dollars. Before today I spent hours trying to solve the problem myself.

The best Susan could do is to put in a "call back request" for me but she "could not guarantee that they would call me back today" even though I told her we were going out of town and I needed help today. Unbelievable that a corporation as big as Kodak Eastman doesn't have ONE human being that can help me with this camera today. I called one last time to give Kodak a chance to help me resolve this issue today before I filed a BBB complaint. No such luck; unfortunately, the "consumer advocate" wasn't available (I'm shocked) but I was allowed to leave a message on her voice mail, which I did.

This madness is so pathetic and infuriating.

:rant:

Maybe someone here could lend a hand...

Windows XP supposedly there is software that fixes this problem but I downloaded from Kodak the one that is supposed to work and it doesn't.

Basically, the computer and the camera aren't speaking and my pictures are being held hostage and I can't use the camera.

What a waste.

I can't download or upload or offload or transer the pictures from the camera to the computer.

into my printer, bypassing the computer altogether. Look in your printer manual to see if this is possible. Also, maybe you could try different software, other than the Kodak software. I use paintshop pro sometimes.

At last resort Kodak sells small printers especially for use with their cameras that print the pictures out for you.

be what you need.

Is this the driver you tried to download?

http://www.kodak.com/global/en/service/downloads/dln_ekn006599.jhtml?pq-path=10/3905/3915/689/4390

Did you try another USB port (I am assuming this uses a USB port)?

Call Kinko's if you have one nearby and ask them if they have anyone there who has experience with this camera/problem. Also try Best Buy; they may have someone able to help you.

I would presume any photo shop in your area could be of some help as well.

(I wonder if this camera would work in linux?)

on the link.

A USB card reader will probably run you from $15-$30 and might even be faster than going through the camera.

You can buy a compactflash card reader for less than the $15 the tech call would cost.

I'm not sure if a USB 2.0 version is available, but if so, it would be much faster than your camera to PC connection anyway.

Another option is a PCMIA card which works as an adaptor for media cards (if you use a laptop). Dazzle makes a 5 in 1 PCMIA media card adaptor that works pretty good...



Otherwise, you can download the easyshare software from this site...

http://www.kodak.com/global/en/service/software/dcWinXp/dcWinXpSoftware.jhtml

Keep in mind, the site seems to indicate that your WinXP version must be updated to SP2 or beyond for the new software to function...


I had a Kodak DC5000 that I absolutely loved, however, it was recalled shortly after I bought it due to a tendency for the flash to explode and burn people's heads. I never sent it in for repair and now shoot with a Canon SD550, which is a great camera if you don't mind dropping $500 on it...

Good luck.

Find someone not running XP. There are some of us with more than one computer who still run old software.

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

service ment...

anywhere...you know, good old, considerate, common sense help.

must spend, is quantified and has a price attached. Everything must be quantified so its proper price may be determined!

Every second of every machine, every watt of power, every inch of packaging, all must be quantified. Must determine, and charge, the proper price! Must squeeze out every possible cent.

This is what they do ... so heaven help those kids in the sweatshops, if they're working a millisecond slower than the company thinks they should.

Check out Wal-mart. Some employees in California had to sue just to get a 30-minute lunch break. Sounds like slavery to me. (And while those slaves may have been able to sue, the repukelican congress is busily cutting off the ability of all us slaves to sue. Can't have those awful little people getting access to the courts!)

quality assurance, quality circles, total quality management yada yada yada.
I was going to buy a Kodak but bought an Olympus instead. Wanted to support them for Rochester's sake but they seemed determined to fail.

62 this year alone with the BBB.

so to hell with you and your problem unless you can generate them some more cash.

If you're desperate for your pictures, you might take the thing to a camera shop and let them take a crack at it. It would be more expensive than paying $15 to listen to a service rep from Kodak tell you to take it to a camera store to have such and so done to it, but at least you won't be giving any more of your money to those weasels. In the meantime, you've posted a cautionary note to anyone on this board considering one of their cameras.

Otherwise, I'm afraid you're just SOL, unless you can get something by Googling that particular model of camera and finding help on a message board.

corporate America. NONE.

you called up AT&T and told them you didn't think you made that long distance call? They said sorry and gave you an immediate credit.

SOooooo frustrating. I have worked with three companies in the last year whose service has been fantastic, and it always surprises me. Sad, that. I keep a mental list, even!

www.makestickers.com
www.zappos.com
and the company that makes the paint remover I used, called Peel-Away.

Good people, there.

From what I understand about them, it's a membership organization. Companies pay to belong to them and as far as know their membership cannot be revoked except for non-payment.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

get around to reporting on a specific company or line of products.

But yeah, BBB is pretty useless.

In some cities the chamber of commerce can influence your business license renewal based on your unresolved negative reports, including BBB, but that generally only impacts small business.

But, yeah, they really are only in small towns.

It has nothing to do with protecting the consumer. File a complaint with BBB and all they do is forward your complaint to the company giving you a hard time. When the company responds, BBB forwards it back to you. As long as the company sends a return response, BBB is happy. It makes no difference to BBB if the company doesn't satisfactorily resolves the problem, only that they acknowledge your complaint. Big whoop! Don't waste your time with BBB!

If so, many printers accept these formats directly. Also there is a little $19.00 multi-format memory card adapter you can get from Best Buy or office depot that you can plug into an available USB port that will let you treat the memory card as an external drive temporarily to download the files.

I just searched google with, "problems with DC 290 kodak camera" and got this link. It appears as if this guy has the same problem as you and there are a few responces with "solutions". Give it a shot, worth a try.

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.photo.digital/browse_thread/thread/d81f8aa54fbe15dd/c7944b5216ac9cb0%23c7944b5216ac9cb0?sa=X&oi=groupsr&start=1&num=2

Also here is another place to post a question.

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00EMsA

Good luck

I have just finished my lunch - Nan bread, aloo matar, chatpate cholly, dal, and shahi rajma. As I read your append I was looking at my idol of Ganeesh. Ganeesh is the God of Impossible Tasks. And, as we say- with Ganeesh, all is possible.

<><>

The easiest thing to do is flip out the removable memory card (secure digital, compact, whatever) and put it into what one of the "Memory card to Universal Serial Bus) adapters. Windows will recognize it as a disk drive - and you can download the pictures into the "My Pictures" folder on windown.

I would try it first with "Copy" -- you can do a "select all" and and if the transfer works, then you can do a "cut" (but do not be trying this until you have safely copied the pictures to your PC.

As we are saying in Bangalore - "this is a fast and dirty work around" because sometimes Windows is being very picky.

These are pictures that have been taken with a digital camera ---

<>

<>

I am sorry for what you are going through. Everyday I run into the same kind of thing and it IS infuriating. I don't have any good advice, but I wish you well in your quest to liberate your photos.

The way things are going, Kodak won't be around much longer. I am still a film only person, and my complaint with them is that they stopped making photo paper. That is insignificant compared to what you are dealing with, but as long as we are speaking of Kodak... grrr

I used to like to make black and white prints - they quit making photo paper (What in the hell?)

They make seven RA-4 compatible papers, three RC black & white papers, and two fiber-base black & white papers.

You like Kodak's paper? I never did, for some reason. Give me a pack of Ilford Galerie FB or Multicontrast and I'm a happy camper.

I have only tried ilford besides the Kodak paper. I found I could not get a true deep black with the ilford paper. What do I know? I am just a student. :shrug:

-- NOTICE --
Discontinuance of KODAK PROFESSIONAL
Black & White Photographic Papers

Due to the ongoing transition to digital output technologies in both professional and educational markets, Kodak has announced manufacturing discontinuance of Black & White Photographic Papers. Sales will cease by the end of 2005.

KODAK Black & White Films and Black & White Processing Chemicals will continue to be produced.

The final availability of specific Black & White papers will vary based on type, size, configuration and surface. Please contact your normal supplier of KODAK PROFESSIONAL Products for the latest information.

from a popup link at http://www.kodak.com/global/en/professional/hub/labDig/media.jhtml

If you're running it in Dektol, that's your problem.

Ilford paper seems to respond best to a Phenidone-based developer, which Dektol is not. Since Ilford invented Phenidone in the first place, that makes sense. Tetenal, Ilford and Agfa all have good Phenidone-based paper developers that make prints on Ilford paper look great.

There are two quick ways to tell: first, look at the warning statements on the package. If it says "contains monomethyl paraminophenyl sulphate" or "contains p-aminophenol" (Dektol says this) it's a metol-hydroquinone developer. And if you buy some and mix it, and these needle-shaped crystals float to the surface, once again it's an M-Q developer. As to the second problem: metol won't dissolve in a solution containing too much sodium sulfite. The problem is, Kodak ships their developer in a big bag containing the metol plus ALL of the sulfite. The sulfite goes right into solution and you get to sit there and stir your ass off trying to coax the fucking metol into solution...you could use one of those stirrers for your drill that we sell to guys who hang drywall, but that seems a bit extreme. Ilford will sell you ID-11, which is their only metol-based developer, but it dissolves because there are two bags in the package. One has all the metol, the hydroquinone and enough sulfite to keep the developer from corroding while you're making it up. The other bag has the rest of the sulfite and the alkali.

or at least the old-fashioned non-chromogenic paper we all grew up on.

Go to Kodak's website and you'll notice that Kodak sells a B&W paper that works in RA-4 chemistry--the same chemistry used to run color prints from negs. With this paper in their line, a one-hour lab can offer your choice of B&W or color prints (B&W is undergoing a resurgence) off the same machine--just change the paper cassette and the exposure channel. A photo studio can offer B&W portraits as easily as color ones--once again, it's the same machine. And the home darkroom worker can print this paper and develop it in a drum WAY quicker and in WAY less space, and with a lot less chemical, than he can with the old three-tray setup.

Us old farts who like screwing around with chemicals can still get the paper we need to do it...just not from Kodak.

the so-called "oil crisis" of the early 70's supposedly abated. We went into this alleged "oil crisis" having something called "service stations". How it worked: you pulled your car alongside the pump, and a man came up to your driver window and said, "Fill 'er up?" You said, yes. The man put the pump in the tank and then proceeded to wipe your windshield and check under your hood (checking the oil, for example.) Often he'd check the air in your tires and fill accordingly.

You never had to get out of the car.

After the so-called "oil crisis", we woke up to find that you had to learn how to safely pump gas into your own car. You could possibly clean your own windshield, if so inclined, using a dirty squeegee and some dirty water which was in some little containers. You could put air in your own tires if so inclined; of course, nowadays, you pay fifty cents for the air. Then you went inside to the cash register and stood in line to pay. (As you know, it's only in recent years that one can use the card to turn the pump on, thus making a trip inside unnecessary.)

It's a small thing, pumping your own gas. But it is indicative of the problem you mentioned.

And of course any mom-and-pop-owned gas stations were shit outa luck. I know of one, owned by neighbors of ours, which closed down.

station these days.

In a certain red-state largely republican suburb I know, there are a couple of gas stations where you can still pull into the "full service" lane. Of course, you pay through the nose for this attention.

I know people will say, "it's only fair that we pay for what we get". I know, I know. But the original post made a good point, I think, when it seemed to ask what happened to going the extra mile in providing service to customers? I mean, they want customers, don't they?

Used to be, if you wanted customers, you were, like, nice to them. Now, if you want customers, the game is to force the people to come to you b/c, for example, they have no other choices. I don't like this extortionist way of getting our business. Just a by-product of the "compassionate conservative" way of life, I guess.

We had full service stations. All the stations I knew of were this way. Then, a few years later, we didn't have them any more.

The so-called "oil crisis" led to a change in the network of service stations. Numerous service stations which were one-owner operations--one owner with one service station--were shut down during this time. I also remember how there used to be these little groups called "Esso", and "Enco" and some others. Numerous of those smaller groups were the subject of a big ad campaign which said "We're changing our name to Exxon!" (Incidentally, this triggered a National Lampoon issue which proclaimed, "America is changing its name to Nixxon!")

There was a period during which the larger companies bought up a lot of the smaller ones. (Just like nowadays when everything seems to be owned, or on the way to being owned, by something like one or two rich guys. Look, for example, at banking. One of our local banks is now Wachovia. Our BankOne credit cards are now Chase. And on and on.) The larger companies then set up a system in which there was a convenience store attached to a gas station.

The big oil companies realized they could knock the independent station owners, and many of the convenience stores (which did not sell gas) out, all at once, by combining the two things.

The convenience store (like all such stores) charged outrageously high prices for everything. We all know what it's like to buy, say, a gallon of milk, in such a place. Ludicrous!) The companies couldn't be bothered with keeping guys employed if the guys' function were to go out to the cars and fill them up and do the windshield and check the oil. Terribly inefficient! So it became self-service. Employ less people... this leaves more profit for the owner, right?

People didn't complain too much because everyone assumed that those damned Arabs were responsible for ALL the "gas shortages" and the resultant high prices. So everyone assumed that we all had to just tighten our belts and learn to do with less (less service) in return for the privilege of being allowed to buy gas from our friends, the big oil companies.

It was a sort of oil company version of the MacDonald's-ization of roadside restaurants. I can remember traveling 1000 miles, as a child, and you'd pass all sorts of restaurants in little towns, and you took your pick of which ones you wanted to try. Now, as you know, when you travel, your choice is generally something like, "should I try the Cracker Barrel or MacDonald's at Exit 98... or should I go to the MacDonald's at Exit 110?" People complain about how Wal-mart killed the small town main streets. Well, the other large companies have also done their share to kill the individuality of various regions.

And notice the similarity of the change in the restaurant business, to the change in the gas station business. Do you sit down in MacDonald's and have a waiter/waitress come to your table and take your order? Hell, no. You stand in line, you pay, you pick up your paper-wrapped order and you go sit down at whatever table is available. When you're through, you clean up after yourself. Less employees = more profits for the big corporation. WE are, in a sense, their "employees"--we work to clean our MacDonald's tables for free. We work to take the food to the table for free. Is it really cheaper? I don't think so. I remember some small lunch restaurants in New Orleans which were quite cheap, AND which had the "old-fashioned" table service.

nice profit and take care of it's people (all of it's people, not just the CEOs)and they actually provided customer service and they stood by their products AND they could even keep the jobs here in the good old USA. What in the hell happened? Besides greed of course.

... for letting them take care of your money. It was something called "interest". I have vague memories of being given math problems in school, way back in the 1980s, which assumed that you would put some money into a bank account -- a hundred dollars, say -- and by the end of the year, they would give you several dollars back.

I actually tried that recently, and while there were two entries in my bankbook (April and November), the interest given came to something like 11 cents in total. I actually had LESS money at the end of the year, because of something called "service charges". I don't know exactly what "services" these are, because checks cannot be written on that account. Perhaps it's become a bother to them, to have to hang onto my money for me?

I remember that there used to be a woman named Sharon at the bank. She was a "bank teller", and she knew my name. She would count out the money for a withdrawal, and I never saw her make a mistake. When I last went to that branch, she was no longer there because they said it was cheaper to install a machine in the lobby. The machine gave me $20 less than it said it did -- and the same thing happened to the person right after me.

And now they have sold the rights to operate the bank machines to some other company. I went to a machine that had my bank's logo on it, and it still charged me a dollar to make a withdrawal -- just as if it were some other bank's machine.