Newsletter Archives for 2011
January: Happy New Year
March: Shopping for new equipment
July: Different inkjet printers
September: SMTP
November: World economy
Newsletter: January 2011 Happy New Year
Well, it looks like we made it through another year. Business was slow but at least we had some business and didn't have to close our doors. Now we have to start thinking about how we are going to get more business in the new year.
When contacting prospects I try to show the value I bring to them. This can be with product knowledge, experience, the ability to troubleshoot problems over the phone and having vendors with technical knowledge that I can use to help my customers to solve their problems. With all the printer makes and models out there it helps to have vendors you can turn to that will know about the problems I encounter and have solutions for them.
When looking for placement of a printer, make sure there is clearance around the printer so the fans can get plenty of air and keep the printer from overheating which can cause problems.
Newsletter March 2011, Shopping for new equipment
I am hearing from a lot of companies that are buying new equipment. When you are replacing Hewlett Packard equipment they have a nice feature on their website. You can put in your old equipment and they will tell you what the new equipment equivalent is.
When looking for new equipment don't just buy the cheapest version of the printer, sometimes for not much more money you can get one that uses a high yield cartridge which will save you money on supplies.
When looking at new equipment I like to think about what I want it to do. You might not duplex now but you might want to in the future which will save you on paper. Sometimes it is nice to have two paper trays so you can have your letterhead in one and plain paper in the other. Some people have one tray for invoices. But you have to be sure to configure your printer to know which tray has what paper.
More people want to print in color now. The color lasers are more expensive printers but you will pay less for the supplies. You can also get a lot of the laser cartridges remanufactured which will save you money over new.
Newsletter May 2011: Printer troubleshooting
When having printer problems you need to look at the last thing you did to the printer. Sometimes adding paper to the paper tray will cause paper jams. Paper has a curl to it so if you are having jams after changing the paper, turn the paper over in the tray and see if that solves the problem.
Sometimes the printer does something we don't expect and you might need to upgrade the printer driver. The driver will become corrupted and you will need to reinstall it or get a new driver from the manufacturer website. Make sure you pick the righter one for your printer and the software package you are using, example: HP Laserjet 3500 using Windows XP. They will have a generic one but the more specific you can be the better off it will work.
Sometimes we need to download new firmware for our printers. Lexmark has added something to theirs. When you download it to your printer it will make it so you can only use Lexmark brand supplies in the printer. I suggest not downloading their firmware if you don't need to. It can become very costly to run your printer if you are used to getting remanufactured cartridges.
Newsletter July 2011: Different inkjet printers
There are a lot of different inkjet printers and you need to look at what you need before you get the printer. Some people need to make copies or send faxes with the inkjet and others just need to print. If you want to print in color you need to see what cartridges it uses. Some have individual cartridges for each color and other are tri-color cartridges. Usually the individual cartridges are better as you only change the color you are out of and not the whole cartridge because one color is out. If you only need to print in black and have a color printer, try printing in gray scale to save the color cartridges as a lot of printers use the colors to make black.
A lot of the cartridges are available as remanufactured but with the chips you might have to go thru some extra steps to use the cartridges. You could get an error message that it isn't an OEM cartridge but usually you can override this and keep printing. With some of the new firmware available remanufactured cartridges can't be used.
There are a lot of remanufactured toner cartridges available but how do you know which one to pick. With STMC (Standardized Test Methods Committee) you know you are buying a product that has been tested. The global committee formed in 1998 to come up with test methods for the printer cartridge industry. They use ASTM International test methods to evaluate a finished cartridge against an OEM cartridge.
There are over 250 companies around the world that have been STMC certified. The International Imaging Technology Council (Int'lITC) administers the program, assures proper usage and polices against misuse of the logo. If you want to know if a company you are considering buying from is STMC certified you can go to www. i-itc.org to check
out the list of companies. You are only certified for 4 years and have to renew after that.
It is nice to have the STMC certification so you know you are buying a product that has been tested and meets or beats OEM quality.We keep hearing bad news about the economy and the world economy. I think if we all just try to get back to working and not worrying about what is going on in the financial markets we will be fine. It is hard to tune out the bad news, but it isn't helping anyone by panicking. The money isn't real until you cash in your stock so it doesn't matter if the market is up or down unless you are cashing out. The markets have always fluctuated but with the media we are hearing more about it. We start to make progress on getting the economy moving again but then someone comes up with more bad news.
It seems people are looking for someone to blame for their problems so we are targeting the big banks and the government. When did we start looking to blame someone else for our own problems. Maybe we need to look at what we are doing and take responsibility for our own problems. This won't be easy but I think it will be more helpful than looking for scapegoats.
Becky: 651-776-3657/800-249-8576
fax 651-772-4574
or
beckyp@customofficeproducts.com
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