Printing holiday photos

Posted in: Tips & Tricks, blog by Jack on 23 November 2009

As tempting as it may be to print out a few of these for the holidays, we strongly advise against it. Image by Getty Images via Daylife

There are several factors to consider when it comes to printing out those photographs taken during the holidays. I’d like to offer a few thoughts on some of those factors in order to help you decide how best to accomplish your goals.

It may surprise you to learn that we don’t always recommend our cartridges for all printing jobs. Say you have a few pictures taken around the Thanksgiving table or under the Christmas tree that you want to frame and want to display for years to come. Most major manufacturers have what they call archival-quality ink and promise that it will not fade under normal circumstances for up to 100 years. We don’t make that claim about our inks. For pictures that you want to have last as long as possible, we suggest you follow your printer manufacturer’s recommendations as to which ink and paper to use. Most recommend an acid-free photo paper and archival ink.

Most of us though aren’t taking pictures we expect to last forever. We may shoot 50 pictures or so at Thanksgiving and 100 or so at Christmas and all we want to do is print out the best of those to share with family and friends who may not have computers. For this sort of printing, our cartridges coupled with quality photo paper should work just fine. Be sure to use the proper side of the photo paper as only one side is intended for printing, usually the brighter or shinier side. Be sure, too, to allow ample time for the ink to dry on photo paper. Because less ink is absorbed into photo paper, it takes a few moments longer for it to dry. On most modern printers, resetting the paper type in your printer preferences to “photo” will cause the printer to slow down when printing, allowing extra time for the print to dry before being fed out of the printer.

You may also want to save paper by printing several images on a single sheet of photo paper. Again, this is an adjustment you can make in printing preferences. Most printers can place 4-6 images on a single sheet in either portrait or landscape orientation.

Please feel free to contact us with questions about photo printing during the holidays.

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Keep it clean

Posted in: Tips & Tricks, blog, laser by Jack on 20 November 2009

The number one cause of premature death in electronic devices is heat. The primary cause of heat is poor ventilation, a lack of airflow over the electronic circuitry. Lack of proper airflow is usually caused by improper maintenance and cleaning.

Allowing dust to build-up on fans and in ventilation ports prevents air from circulating properly, leading to excessive heat and an early death for electronic circuits. This is true for nearly every electronic device we use on a daily basis. Television sets, monitors, modems, routers, computers and even printers are all subject to overheating and early death if their ability to cool their electronic components is thwarted by dust-clogged ventilation ports and dirty fans.

It’s a good idea to wipe the dust and dirt off the exterior of a device’s ventilation ports at least once a month, more often if the device is in an especially dusty environment. Use canned air to blow dust off of fan blades and electronic circuits. Use a toothpick to hold the fan blades still while cleaning them. It’s not always good to allow the fan to spin up to a speed faster than usual when blowing it of with canned air. This can damage the motor and gears. Also, try to always blow toward the outside of the device. You may be creating further problems if you blow the dust and dirt into the case and onto the other components.

By keeping your electronic devices clean, you allow them to keep themselves cool and extend their lives as long as possible.

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A new look for cwsandiego.com

Posted in: blog by Jack on 12 November 2009

Image via Wikipedia

Our goals in redesigning our website were

• to ease navigation to information
• to present a cleaner, less cluttered look
• to provide further information on specific topics within a single click
• to incorporate the power of Google maps in providing driving directions
• to decrease confusion and increase communication

Sometimes we’re tempted to cram every ounce of information about our company on a single webpage. After three years we’ve come to understand what it is our customers and potential customers are looking for when they come to our site. They search primarily for directions, hours of operation, contact information and lastly pricing.

Those were our priorities in the redesign.

We hope you find the new layout useful and intuitive. As always we welcome your comments and suggestions.

Thank you for visiting the all new cwsandiego.com.

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New site coming

Posted in: store by Jack on 11 November 2009

Today our site will be remodeled, we’re getting a whole new look.

The redesign has already taken a week of behind-the-scenes work and it’s now ready to install. However, in order to have our new style use the same URL (cwsandiego.com) as you’re used to, I have to take this site and our blog off-line and install our new site at this location, then make many adjustments to the new site.

This will likely take me most of the day.

So I beg your indulgence today. Don’t be discouraged if links are broken or the site looks terrible for a few hours. It’s only temporary. To the best of my abilities I’ll make the changeover as short and painless as possible. I encourage you to check back Thursday to see what we’ve done. As always, your comments and suggestions will be welcome.

Thank you for your patience. We are grateful for each and every person who visits our site. Our goal is to present you with an informative and easy-to-navigate site. We think our new design will accomplish that.