So, as we noted earlier, 2017 ended with a bang. We delivered a significant number of AP MALDIs worldwide and registered further sales of our MT50 mass spectrometer. Thank you to our customers in Peru, France and South Korea for your hospitality and good luck with your new toys!
However, we really wanted to note a couple big updates on the website:
In the DOWNLOADS section, AP MALDI users should check out the newest version of Target for the AP MALDI (ng). For our high resolution devices, we’ve incorporated some software tweaks to help with imaging. One of the first things we’ve done is added a “Coordinate Correction” feature. Take a look at the document section in the Downloads page and read Appendix C for more details, but in short, this feature corrects for plates or plate holders which may not be perfectly aligned with the stage. By telling the software where the center of your sample wells are (at the extreme ends of the plate), we perform a coordinate transformation and…voila…the system corrects for the misalignment. For large samples, this can help significantly.
Second, there was a bug in the automated (external timing) mode of AP MALDI (ng) version of Target when firing with a spiral. This bug would cause problems such as laser misfiring or prevent the AP MALDI from moving to the next target well. That bug has now been fixed! If you were experiencing problems, you should download target 8.6.3 as soon as possible.
Finally, we will continue to push out software updates, and in 2018, you can expect a completely NEW, totally recoded version of Target before the end of the year. This will get rid of many of the legacy coding issues we occasionally run into, and give you a clean application to work with.
2018 looks to be a promising year for AP MALDI and AP MALDI imaging. If you are an existing customer and have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact us. If you are a potential new customer, and would like to see what we can do for you, feel free to email or call us.