5 things to keep in mind when buying a new printer

Posted in: Printers, blog by CW on 29 April 2010

There is no fixed season for new printer purchasing. Printer manufacturers don’t have any particular time of year set aside to introduce their new models. Some manufacturers introduce a new printer once a year, others bring out several new models a year. The decision to buy a new printer is going to be based on your needs and the condition of your current printer. From what we’ve seen, the average life expectancy of a new inkjet printer is about 2 years. Since inkjet printers are not made to be repaired, if your inkjet printer breaks you really have no alternative but to replace it (and recycle your broken printer). Laserjet printers are designed with repair in mind and replacement parts are usually available. But these days the cost of parts and labor can exceed the value of the printer. In those cases replacing the printer may be a better decision financially than repairing your broken machine. We would generally advise a customer to reuse their old machine, but with an appreciation of financial reality, we understand that doesn’t always make the best fiscal sense. Still, we encourage anyone replacing their current printer to find a way to recycle it rather than throwing it in the trash.

So you’ve decided it’s time to but a new printer. Here are some questions to ask yourself before you commit to a specific model or brand.

1. What type of printing will the new printer be doing as its primary task?

This is the most important question of any you need to consider before deciding which printer to buy.

Will you be printing photographs or color copies? Then unless you are willing to spend a few hundred dollars for a color laser printer you’ll be looking for an inkjet printer. Inkjets produce the best color prints for a reasonable price per page. If you only intend to print out documents and forms and have no need for color printing, then you should consider the various models of personal laserjet printers being marketed today. These are smaller than the typical office laserjet and while the single cartridge may set you back $40 or more, that cartridge will produce, on average, ten times more pages than an inkjet cartridge, so your cost-per-page is a tenth of that printing with ink.

2. How often will you be printing?

If you print something at least every couple of weeks then either an inkjet or laserjet will be useful to you. However, if you’re only going to use your printer for a few weeks every year you’d be better off considering only a laserjet. Laser printers use powdered toner which isn’t subject to drying or evaporating. You can leave a laser printer alone for 3 months, come back and run a perfect print. That isn’t going to happen with the majority of inkjet printers. Laserjet printers are subject to humidity, though. The toner in a laser cartridge kept in a humid atmosphere will clump up and be unavailable for printing. This can be remedied by gently shaking or rocking the cartridge back and forth to break up the toner clumps. At worst clumped up toner is a waste; toner clumps cannot damage your printer. Ink cartridges left too long without being used will most likely form hard blocks of dried ink on the printhead. This can sometimes be cleared up but most often requires replacing the cartridge.

3. Is printing vitally important to you or something you only do once in a while?

The more important printing is to you, the more attention you should pay to all the capabilities of your next printer. If you do a great deal of printing, you want to minimize costs as much as possible while ensuring the highest quality of output available. You’ll want to purchase your printer from a retailer who offers a solid warranty and good service-after-the-sale. If printing is a casual practice and you don’t need all the bells-and-whistles of a high-end printer, watch for sales at the big box electronics retail stores and even scout out your local thrift stores. Older printers and discontinued models may meet your needs and save you quite a bit of money.

4. Where will your printer be located and how many computers will be using the printer?

One of the capabilities being built-in to newer printers, both ink and laser, is wireless connectivity. Previously, if you wanted to connect your printer to a wireless network, you had to purchase a separate print server, a nasty piece of hardware that usually proved difficult to configure and nearly impossible to use without problems. I used to work for D-Link on the help desk, and I’d say the most difficult calls we had to handle dealt with print servers. No one is happier to see the end of these devices. Printers with built-in wireless capabilities are simple to set up and deploy. It’s not much harder than adding another computer to your network. A wireless-capable networked printer is available to any computer within range of the router. You could have your printer in one office and send print jobs to it from any other office in your business or any room in your house.

Another alternative is a wired network printer. Many newer laser printers have an ethernet card built-in to the chassis and can be added to your network by simply connecting a standard RJ-45 ethernet cable from the router to the printer. This means that the printer will need to be located within cable length of the router, usually 6-15′.

One advantage to a wired printer is security. If for any reason you are sending print jobs to the printer that should be kept secure from possibly being intercepted by an unauthorized 3rd party, you’ll want to have a wired connection to the router for both your computer and printer. Any data sent wirelessly to a router or printer can be compromised by being intercepted en route. For the average user this isn’t much of a concern. But if you deal with sensitive data or any information that shouldn’t be exposed to the risk of interception, it’s something to keep in mind.

5. What is going to be the cost of consumables?

The initial cost of the printer is not the only expense you’ll be incurring over the lifetime of your printer. You need to factor in the cost of consumables, primarily ink/toner and paper, as well. With each new generation of printer the manufacturers are shrinking the volume of ink and toner in their cartridges. This makes sense when you consider they make little or no profit off the sales of the printer but instead have chosen to make most of their profit from the sales of cartridges. To increase profits they need to make you buy cartridges more frequently. This is most easily accomplished by reducing the amount of ink and toner in the cartridges so you’ll have to replace them more often. It’s true they have also reduced the price of many of their newest cartridges, but the price reduction doesn’t always reflect the amount of toner or ink in the cartridge. Your new cartridge may cost $2 less than the ones you used to buy, but you’re often only getting half the ink that was in those older cartridges.

While we can’t help you reduce the cost of the paper you buy for your printer, we can help you control the cost of ink and/or laser cartridges. On average remanufactured cartridges from CW San Diego cost from 30-45% less than the manufacturer’s suggested retail price of original cartridges. Our cartridges are filled with quality ink and toner manufactured for your specific printer, and all of our products are guaranteed for the life of the cartridge. We offer you a no-risk way to reduce the cost of ink and toner cartridges.

We encourage our customers to call us before and even while they shop for a new printer. We can let you know our prices for the cartridges required for your new printer, allowing you to make an informed decision about which printer best meets your needs.

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Digital copiers put personal information at risk

Posted in: Security, blog by CW on 23 April 2010

We’ve mentioned on our blog how fax machines that use a film roll, primarily Brother and Panasonic fax machines that use film in place of a laser or ink cartridge, keep what is essentially a carbon copy of every fax that goes through the machine. This can put personal information, both yours and your customer’s, at risk of exposure to identity thieves.

Now CBS News shows how digital copiers can pose a similar risk.

At a warehouse in New Jersey, 6,000 used copy machines sit ready to be sold. CBS News chief investigative correspondent Armen Keteyian reports almost every one of them holds a secret.

Nearly every digital copier built since 2002 contains a hard drive – like the one on your personal computer – storing an image of every document copied, scanned, or emailed by the machine.

In the process, it’s turned an office staple into a digital time-bomb packed with highly-personal or sensitive data.

If you’re in the identity theft business it seems this would be a pot of gold.

“The type of information we see on these machines with the social security numbers, birth certificates, bank records, income tax forms,” John Juntunen said, “that information would be very valuable.”

“Nobody wants to step up and say, ‘we see the problem, and we need to solve it,’” Juntunen said.

This past February, CBS News went with Juntunen to a warehouse in New Jersey, one of 25 across the country, to see how hard it would be to buy a used copier loaded with documents. It turns out … it’s pretty easy.

Juntunen picked four machines based on price and the number of pages printed. In less than two hours his selections were packed and loaded onto a truck. The cost? About $300 each.

Until we unpacked and plugged them in, we had no idea where the copiers came from or what we’d find.

We didn’t even have to wait for the first one to warm up. One of the copiers had documents still on the copier glass, from the Buffalo, N.Y., Police Sex Crimes Division.

It took Juntunen just 30 minutes to pull the hard drives out of the copiers. Then, using a forensic software program available for free on the Internet, he ran a scan – downloading tens of thousands of documents in less than 12 hours.

The results were stunning: from the sex crimes unit there were detailed domestic violence complaints and a list of wanted sex offenders. On a second machine from the Buffalo Police Narcotics Unit we found a list of targets in a major drug raid.

The third machine, from a New York construction company, spit out design plans for a building near Ground Zero in Manhattan; 95 pages of pay stubs with names, addresses and social security numbers; and $40,000 in copied checks.

But it wasn’t until hitting “print” on the fourth machine – from Affinity Health Plan, a New York insurance company, that we obtained the most disturbing documents: 300 pages of individual medical records. They included everything from drug prescriptions, to blood test results, to a cancer diagnosis. A potentially serious breach of federal privacy law.

“You’re talking about potentially ruining someone’s life,” said Ira Winkler. “Where they could suffer serious social repercussions.”

Winkler is a former analyst for the National Security Agency and a leading expert on digital security.

“You have to take some basic responsibility and know that these copiers are actually computers that need to be cleaned up,” Winkler said.

If you own a digital copier you owe it to yourself and your customers to read the full article. Don’t let your electronics compromise your security.

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Intoducing the CW San Diego Community

Posted in: Announcements, blog by CW on 16 April 2010

CW San Diego is pleased to announce the grand opening of our forum, The CW San Diego Community.

We are providing the forum as a place for our customers and others who may be interested in learning more about ink and laser printers, as well as computers, to ask questions and share knowledge.

Initially we have set up categories based on the most frequent questions we are asked by our customers on a daily basis. Obviously most of the questions they have center around printers and cartridges, but since most printers are attached to computers, they frequently have questions regarding computers as well.

I have worked as a help desk tech for both Gateway computers and D-Link and have been involved in PC help forums for over 7 years. I enjoy sharing what I’ve learned in that time, and a forum is the most practical method to accomplish that. You can search for a particular topic years after it was first posted. Topic titles make finding specific information much easier.

Some of you may have looked into forums before only to be turned off by the attitudes of the other members. There are may poorly moderated forums on the internet. We will do our best to make sure that our forum remains a family-friendly site where no one has to feel intimidated or hesitant to ask any question they have.

I hope any of you who are interested will check out our forum and join in the conversations. A forum is only as dynamic as its members, so for a while things may seem rather dull there. This will change with the addition of more members. Please invite your friends, family and co-workers to join up and become contributors.

Solving hardware issues with software (drivers)

Posted in: Printers, blog by CW on

One practice we frequently employed on help desks was to insist that the caller first go and download and install the latest driver for their hardware before we attempted to troubleshoot their issue.

This wasn’t done to get them off the phone. It was a valid attempt to solve their issue.

The disk that comes with your printer was most likely created months before your printer was packaged and sent to the retail store where you bought it. By the time you go to install the drivers on the disk into your computer they could be over a year old. During that year other owners reported issues they had to the printer manufacturer, the manufacturer’s engineers re-wrote the drivers to correct those problems, and the manufacturer made these updated drivers available on their website. Windows 7′s recent release will also have caused new drivers to be written in order for your printer to work with this new operating system.

This is why we recommend that when you encounter odd behavior or other issues with your printer, before you do anything else in an attempt to fix those issues, go to the manufacturer’s website, look for the Support section and download and install the latest drivers for your printer and operating system. That alone may very well solve your problems.

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Join CWSD at TSRI GREEN FEAT 2010

Posted in: Conservation, blog by CW on 15 April 2010

Come on out and join us in showing your support for Mother Earth at Scripps today from 11AM to 1PM.

TSRI Green Team is pleased to announce TSRI Green Feat 2010 “Reducing Footprints, One Step at a Time”—A 2-day event promoting environmentally sustainable efforts and practices within the TSRI community and commemorating the 41st annual Earth Day.

Day 1: April 15, 2010
Day 2: April 21, 2010

Day 1: Green Expo

TSRI’s Green Expo promotes green thinking, green action, and green living within the TSRI community. Commemorating the 41st Earth Day Celebration, this event serves to provide our institute’s researchers and support staff an opportunity to learn more about our campus’s sustainability efforts and accomplishments; green purchasing decisions for work and home; local environmental education, outreach, and volunteer programs; and the current evidence and effects of climate change in the San Diego area.

Date: Thursday, April 15, 2010

Hours: 11:00am to 1:00pm.

Location: Immunology Building Breezeway.

We’ll be at table #2 providing answers to your questions and handing out our new (and colorful) reusable shopping bags. We are joined by the following companies and groups:

Bottlehood
California Center for Sustainable Energy
Chipotle
Clean Energy Quotes, Inc.
City of San Diego Water Conservation
EDCO
Family Adventures in Nature
H2OME
Hydro-Scape Products
I Love a Clean San Diego (HHW)
Jimbos
NCTD Transit Alliance
San Diego Credit Union
SANDAG
Seabreeze Organic Farm
Sempra/SDG&E/Flex Your Power
Birch Aquarium/Scripps Institute of Oceanography
TerraMoto
Think Blue San Diego
Water Conservation Garden
San Diego County Water Authority
San Diego Roots Sustainable Food Project

If you have any personal electronics you want to recycle, Scripps is hosting a recycling drive tomorrow:

Electronic waste or “E-waste” is one of the fastest growing segments of our nation’s waste stream. Most electronic devices contain a variety of materials, including metals that can be recovered for recycling. Some electronic devices contain high levels of certain materials, such as lead, that render them hazardous waste when disposed. Recycling your e-waste will divert hazardous materials from landfills, conserve natural resources, and reduce pollution.

When: Wednesday, April 21st from 8:00am to 1:00pm

Where: CimBio (Carr B), 3215 Merryfield Row, San Diego, CA 92121

What: Personal home office electronic waste including computer devices (terminals, monitors, keyboards, wires, etc.), laptops (batteries included), scanners, printers, fax machines, radios and stereo equipment, VCR’s and DVD players, TV’s, and cellphones (batteries included).

For those unfamiliar with the location of the Carr B building it can be found in the lower right hand corner of the TSRI campus map and
is labeled “Center for Integrative Molecular Biosciences”.

TSRI campus map can be found here:
http://www.scripps.edu/intro/tsrimap.pdf

For more information contact:
Julio Giannotti (x4-8462, julio@scripps.edu)
David Hinton (x4-2291, djhinton@scripps.edu)

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Phil McArtridge-The Value of Customer Service

Posted in: Customer Service, blog by CW on 14 April 2010

Phil McArtridge

CW San Diego is not the only place you can find inexpensive replacements for your printer’s OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) cartridges. On any given day you can search the internet and find literally hundreds of sites offering low-cost refills or compatibles. You can find refilled cartridges at the swap meet, at yard sales and offered on Craigslist. With no overhead to pay for, there are people who refill cartridges in their garage and offer them for sale at prices far below our own. If you feel adventurous you can even buy a refill kit and perform the task yourself.

So what sets us apart from these other refillers? What justifies our pricing?

There are several factors that we believe have contributed to the last two years being the best years in sales for our store.

Unlike the garage refillers and refill kits, we do not use generic inks. One size does not fit all; one ink cannot be used in just any printer. This is also true for toners. Every printer is set up to work with ink and toner of a specific composition. For inkjets, the ink molecules must be the same size as the space in the printhead through which they pass. Too big and no ink can escape the cartridge; too small and the ink runs out of the cartridge like a river. For this reason we have over 75 formulations of black ink alone. In similar fashion laserjet printers are designed to work with a specific formulation of toner. If the molecules of toners are too large the wiper blades will wipe it all off the drum and no image will be put onto the paper; too small and you’ll get a paper covered completely with toner that escaped onto the drum. Each component of a printer from the mechanical parts to the type of toner or ink used are designed to work together to very specific tolerances. By formulating inks and toners that match the qualities of the originals as closely as we legally can, we can assure you of the best experience with your printing. That’s why we feel comfortable guaranteeing your satisfaction with our products. If for any reason you are not pleased with the results you get using our cartridges we urge you to return them for replacement or a refund. You don’t have to hunt us down at the swap meet or fill our RMA forms and pay for shipping. Just come in or give us a call.

Just recently we’ve expanded our basic operations to include offering on-site printer repair and the opportunity to order office supplies on-line through our website. Buy partnering with providers we personally know and trust, we have incorporated these services into our store to save you time and hassle when you need repair work done on your office printers or run out of copy paper or paper clips. In addition, we have always offered free business pick-up and delivery of any order over $50. We reduced that limit from $100 to $50 as a service to our customers who run SOHO (small office/home office) businesses.

There is a term that sums up the reasons we feel we can offer a better experience than all our competitors in this market: Customer Service.

Every factor in our business model, from our pricing to our offer of free delivery, is motivated by a desire to provide superior service to our customers. We can’t offer as low a price as the guy filling cartridges out of his garage, but we can make sure that you get the best value out of what you spend in our store by providing you with service that he cannot. Everything we do every day our door is open is based on a sincere desire to serve our customers any way we can.

Customer service should be the primary factor in any marketing plan. You cannot buy the results you get from providing outstanding customer service. No amount of advertising, no amount of shelf space at retail will return to your business the same bang-for-the-buck as will providing quality customer service. People may not remember your ads but they will remember how well they were treated the last time they entered your store or had an issue with your product and sought a resolution. Character is just as important to a business as it is to an individual. Being willing to provide excellent customer service speaks well of a company’s character.

If you are a customer of our store you may have noticed we aren’t a bunch of stone-faced, dead-serious old grumps. We like to have fun and interact with our customers. We have Cleo, the Cocker Spaniel extraordinaire, as our resident greeter. She loves her job and never complains about being paid in biscuits.

Cleo

Today we’re introducing Phil McArtridge (see above)(not to be confused with Joe McGrath, the owner of CW San Diego) as our on-line Customer Service representative. His face will appear in posts to our blog that relate to the topic of customer service or that may be in response to questions or comments we have received. Why a cartoon character? To add a bit of humor and whimsy to an otherwise serious topic. We want to stress the importance of customer service, not just in our store but in our postings to fellow businesses as well, but stress it with a smile. Phil will be the “official” on-line ambassador for CW San Diego. Soon you’ll be seeing his handsome mug crop up all around the store.

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Our newest staff member

Posted in: Customer Service, blog by CW on 11 April 2010

Canon 210/ 210XL and 211/211XL

Posted in: blog, inkjet by CW on 9 April 2010

We now have inks and weights for the Canon 210 and 211 series cartridges.

Pricing for refilled cartridges in this series is:

• PG-210 blk  $11.99
• CL-211 color  $14.99
• PG-210XL  $14.99
• CL-211XL  $18.99

At present we have a couple of cores on-hand that we were able to resuscitate, but most of those we had collected have sat empty too long for us to reuse. We would encourage you to bring in your freshly emptied cartridges for us to refill. You may have to wait 10-15 minutes but you’re more likely to get a cartridge that works. Eventually we’ll build up a backstock of these and have them available for purchase in quantity.

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Samsung ML-2525 on sale at Fry’s

Posted in: blog, laser by CW on 2 April 2010

There are often really good bargains to be found at the week-end sales at Fry’s Electronics. I don’t usually recommend shopping at Fry’s as it can be a frustrating experience to find what you need. But for those brave enough to wander the aisles of the cavernous store some good deals can be found.

Samsung ML-2525

This weekend Fry’s is selling the Samsung ML-2525 monochrome (black only) laser printer for only $59.99 after an instant savings of $48.00.

If you only ever print out forms, receipts and documents with no color, you can reduce your costs by a substantial amount over the life of your printer by switching from an inkjet printer to a laser printer. The cost-per-page with a laser printer can be as much as a tenth of the per page cost of an inkjet. In addition there’s no worrying about ink cartridges drying out or leaking with a laser printer.

The Samsung ML-2525 is one of the new breed of laser printers aimed at the home user. They take up no more room than an inkjet printer, they’re quiet and easy to operate. These printers offer no copy function, so if you need a printer with a scanner and copier, this would not be a model for you. These printers are generally easily recognized by Windows, Macintosh and Linux, so no matter which operating system you use connecting this printer to your system should be plug-and-play simple.

If you still want to have the option of printing in color, you can have more than one printer connected to your computer, especially if both connect via USB. The only consideration would be that you should remove the color cartridges (if they are the type with an integrated print head) if you aren’t going to be using the inkjet printer for a while. Keep them store in a cool, dark place with the clip on the color cartridge until you need them.

The cartridge required for the ML-2525 is the MLT-D105S which is available at office supply stores for around $70. Currently we do not have parts available to remanufacture these cartridges but we are looking into the possibility of reusing these in the near future.

The Fry’s site describes the ML-2525:

The ML-2525 mono printer is designed to fit into any workspace. Built for durability boasting print speed of 24 ppm and a monthly duty cycle of 12,000 pages.

Geared to give more print flexibility, the ML-2525 series printers offer a range of features to make you more productive. These include a print screen function so you can print what you see on your screen at the touch of a button.

• Designed to fit into any workspace, this mono laser printer is built for durability
• Print speeds up to 24 ppm to keep you on track
• A monthly duty cycle of 12,000 pages for durability
• Built-in 8MB memory
• 250-sheet paper tray

• Output Type Black and White
• Printer Type Laser Printer

• Automatic Two-Sided Printing No
• Printer Type Laser Printer
• Output Type Black and White
• Networking No
• Paper Capacity Up to 250 pages
• Print Speed Black Up to 24 ppm
• Weight 16.09 lbs
• Maximum Paper Size 8.5″ x 14″
• Dimensions (W x D x H) 14.2″ x 15.3″ x 7.8″
• Maximum Resolution Up to 1200 x 600 dpi
• Monthly Duty Cycle 12,000 pages
• Connectivity High Speed USB 2.0
• Memory 8 MB

I use a Samsung ML-2010 at home and have nothing but good to say about the brand and printer. It’s a solid performer that is always ready to print when I need it to.

If you’re in the market for a basic laser printer for your home or office, the ML-2525 may meet your needs. If you’d prefer to get one that uses cartridges we can remanufacture, check out the following Samsung models:

• ML-1610 CW cartridge price $49.99
• ML-1710 CW cartridge price  $54.99
• ML-2010 CW cartridge price $54.99
• ML-2250 CW cartridge price $69.99

These models may be hard to find at retail outlets; you may have to check Craigslist or eBay.

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Closed Easter Sunday

Posted in: blog, store by CW on 1 April 2010

Just a reminder that we will be closed on Sunday, April 4th, Easter Sunday.

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