Support Our Schools

Posted in: Featured, Support Our Schools, blog by Jack on 2 April 2009

When you register as a customer at CW San Diego, 5% of your purchases each quarter will be donated to the local school of your choice to use as they wish. In 2008 we donated $1580 to our San Diego county schools.

If you have empty OEM cartridges laying around, don’t throw them out. Recycle them with us and the school of your choice will receive store credit for your reusable cartridges.

While you’re saving money, you can be donating to education. What could be better than that?

Click here for a page you can print out and distribute to your school, parents or teachers.

We also sponsor cartridge recycling drives, the proceeds from which are converted into store credits for the use of schools and their staff.

In addition, school staff members receive a 10% discount on all their purchases at our store.

How ink cartridges work

Posted in: blog, inkjet by Jack on 5 March 2010

This is a presentation I gave recently to a business networking group. The slides are a bit rudimentary but provide a basic overview of the process. In a future post I’ll try to go more in-depth about both ink and laser cartridges.

InkCartridges

Cleo has a another birthday

Posted in: Announcements, blog by Jack on 3 March 2010

Cleo then

It’s Cleo’s 2nd birthday.

Our adorable greeter joined CW San Diego in August of 2008 when she was just 5 months old.

Cleo now

Bring your pup and stop by to wish her a Happy Birthday.

When you click on “Print”…

Posted in: Printers, blog by Jack on 2 March 2010

When you click on a button to print, there is a sequence of events that take place:

1. The software application you are using sends the data to be printed to the printer driver.
2. The driver translates the data into a format that the printer can understand and checks to see that the printer is online and available to print.
3. The data is sent by the driver from the computer to the printer via the connection interface (parallel, USB, etc.).
4. The printer receives the data from the computer. It stores a certain amount of data in a buffer. The buffer can range from 512 KB random access memory (RAM) to 16 MB RAM, depending on the model. Buffers are useful because they allow the computer to finish with the printing process quickly, instead of having to wait for the actual page to print. A large buffer can hold a complex document or several basic documents.
5. If the printer has been idle for a period of time, it will normally go through a short clean cycle to make sure that the print head(s) are clean. Once the clean cycle is complete, the printer is ready to begin printing.
6. The control circuitry activates the paper feed stepper motor. This engages the rollers, which feed a sheet of paper from the paper tray/feeder into the printer. A small trigger mechanism in the tray/feeder is depressed when there is paper in the tray or feeder. If the trigger is not depressed, the printer lights up the “Out of Paper” LED and sends an alert to the computer.
7. Once the paper is fed into the printer and positioned at the start of the page, the print head stepper motor uses the belt to move the print head assembly across the page. The motor pauses for the merest fraction of a second each time that the print head sprays dots of ink on the page and then moves a tiny bit before stopping again. This stepping happens so fast that it seems like a continuous motion.
8. Multiple dots are made at each stop. It sprays the CMYK colors in precise amounts to make any other color imaginable.
9. At the end of each complete pass, the paper feed stepper motor advances the paper a fraction of an inch. Depending on the inkjet model, the print head is reset to the beginning side of the page, or, in most cases, simply reverses direction and begins to move back across the page as it prints.
10. This process continues until the page is printed. The time it takes to print a page can vary widely from printer to printer. It will also vary based on the complexity of the page and size of any images on the page. For example, a printer may be able to print 16 pages per minute (PPM) of black text but take a couple of minutes to print one, full-color, page-sized image.
11. Once the printing is complete, the print head is parked. The paper feed stepper motor spins the rollers to finish pushing the completed page into the output tray. Most printers today use inks that are very fast-drying, so that you can immediately pick up the sheet without smudging it.

(Courtesy of How Stuff Works)

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Creating a successful company blog

Posted in: Business to Business, blog by Jack on 1 March 2010

Image by GRP Partners via CrunchBase

Mashable is a site I read nearly every day. It always has great tips for bloggers and web content producers.

Mark Suster,  a Partner at GRP Partners, a Venture Capital firm in Los Angeles, posted an article today that should be read and considered by every SOHO business person. He offers good points to ponder if you’re involved with or considering starting a blog for your business. Below are his primary points, but you really should read the full article.

1. Be authentic

You need to find a “voice” that is authentically yours.

2. Be transparent

The best way to establish your voice is to be transparent. Be willing to talk like a human being.

3. Get inside your readers’ minds

…you need to think about who is in the audience and what they want to hear.

4. Solicit feedback

…the best way to build an audience over time is to engage with them…

5. Don’t be offensive or take big public risks

…unless your company revolves around taking stands on controversial issues, it’s best to leave your political commentary at home.

6. Have fun

…if writing a blog becomes a chore for you it will show.

You might want to sign up to follow Mashable on Google Buzz or Twitter or Friendfeed (they practice what they preach) so you can keep up on what’s happening on the networked web.

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Inkless Printing and the future of CWSD

Posted in: blog, store by Jack on

Image by Jared Klett via Flickr

A customer the other day asked if we would go out of business if the major printer manufacturers developed a printer that didn’t use ink or toner.

I told him that no, we would be in no danger of going out of business. We know this because the inkless printing “revolution” began around two years ago and has yet to make any significant impact on consumers.

Zink is perhaps the best known application of inkless printing. Polaroid has also explored the concept of printing without ink. For an overview of how inkless printing works, check out howstuffworks.com.

The problem with the current state of inkless printing is the very thing that makes it possible, the paper. Just about anywhere you go in America there is a store that sells ink and/or toner cartridges. No matter where you live you can buy paper for your printer. But what happens if you’re in need of the special ink-embossed paper for your inkless printer and the only way you can get it is on the internet. No major problem if you’re at home. But what if you’re on vacation or visiting relatives? Will the supplier ship to a temporary address? How long will you have to stay in one place in order to get the paper shipped to you?

And what if the majority of printing you do is receipts, recipes and email? Is it worth paying a premium price for ink-embedded paper for those mundane tasks?

Also consider the inkless printer. Most of the designs envision a 4″x6″ form factor, meaning if you want to make an 8.5″x11″ print you’ll need to export your images to a flash memory card and transfer them to a full-sized printer.

Inkless printing may indeed be the future but it’s not ready for primetime just yet. Even when it is, many users will be sticking to their “old fashioned” ink and toner printers for quite a while. We see this in technology every day. Windows XP is still the most popular version of the Windows operating system in use today even though two newer versions, Vista and Windows 7, have been introduced since XP was released. Many individuals and businesses operate on the “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” principle. They’ve gotten used to XP and see no compelling reason to upgrade, especially when that requires buying newer hardware and having to reinstall programs.

CWSD will be supporting those who are still using ink and toner printers for many years to come. We still have customers using some of the very first HP laser printers designed for home use.

If anything our customer base is growing rapidly. Last year was our most profitable year yet, and this year is starting off just as strong. Businesses that once were content to pay for expensive service contracts with office supply stores or printer manufacturers have had to re-examine their budgets and face the fact that they can no longer justify paying a premium price for something that they could just as easily buy from us without sacrificing quality yet save 35% or more in cost.

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Quick Tip: Enjoy your Desktop

Posted in: Tips & Tricks, blog by Jack on 24 February 2010

Most of us who spend a fair amount of time working on a computer appreciate our desktop. We decorate it with a picture of our kids, our significant other or maybe just an image that relaxes us when we aren’t working.

Where's Waldo?

Then we start adding shortcuts to programs and websites, installed programs install an icon on the desktop and soon our image is buried beneath a bunch of distracting images. When there’s no organization to the desktop shortcuts it often takes longer to find the icon you want there than it would be to simply open the Start menu.

Here’s a tip that I’ve used for quite a while that both frees up your desktop image and makes finding program shortcuts easier and quicker.

The first step is to right-click on the desktop and choose View, then uncheck the option to Show Desktop Icons.

Now you have an uncluttered view of your desktop.

Next, right-click on any open space on the taskbar (to the right of the Windows Start button), select Toolbars and select Desktop.

Now you have a pop-up menu of every icons and its associated program on the taskbar.

One last step adds a degree of organization to your Desktop menu.I’ll use my personal method as an example. You can organize your menu to meet your needs.

Using Windows Explorer, I open the Desktop folder. I right-click anywhere in the window and select New then select Folder (do not select NewFolder in the first window). I then create folders for Apps, System, Games, Office, Reference and so forth. Finally I left-click on each icon and drag it to an appropriate folder.

Being more organized increases efficiency. Being able to enjoy your desktop image may relieve stress. I’d say either of those is a good reason to get rid of your disorganized desktop today.

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Stuff we reuse

Posted in: Conservation, blog by Jack on 15 February 2010

Image by greenlagirl via Flickr

While it’s obvious we reuse ink and toner cartridges, other items we reuse on a daily basis might not be so obvious. I say that because it seems not too many of our customers return these items with their cartridges when they come in to buy filled ones.

To help us keep our costs as low as possible and thus to be able to pass along the lowest possible prices to you, please remember to retain bring back the following when you come in the next time:

• Cartridge boxes, both ink and laser (we can only reuse boxes that haven’t been written on or damaged)
• Plastic clips on the front of color ink cartridges
• Plastic caps on Canon cartridges
• Silver bags on laser cartridges
• Anti-static bags on Epson ink cartridges

We appreciate your efforts in helping us keep down costs and furthering the practice of reuse and recycling.

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Troubleshooting tips for refilled ink cartridges

Posted in: Tips & Tricks, blog by Jack on 10 February 2010

Image via Wikipedia

Reusing ink cartridges benefits both the environment and your pocketbook, but there can occasionally be an issue with a reused cartridge that causes it to not give out ink or fail to be noticed by your printer.

The following tips are generic and may not apply to your particular printer. If the cartridges you purchase from us are not performing to your expectations and the following suggestions either don’t work or don’t apply, please call us for specific solutions to your problem.

“My printer says the cartridge is low on ink or empty when I first put it in.”

Some printers are able to detect a cartridge that has been in another printer. This ability is provided by the software in the printer and cannot generally be over-ridden. The electronics on the reused cartridge isn’t resetting the page counter in the printer, and that page counter is the only way the printer has to know how much ink the cartridge contains. You can usually ignore these warnings of low or no ink and print normally. You will have to monitor the quality of your prints to know when the ink cartridge is running low since the printer won’t warn you. To dismiss these warnings, click the “OK” button until the dialog box goes away. Sometimes checking the “Don’t display this dialog again” option in the warning window will prevent the printer from popping up the same warning every time you start to print.

“My cartridge seems to have dried out and won’t print properly even though I’m sure there’s still ink in it.”

The first thing to do in these cases is to run the printer’s built-in cleaning process. You shouldn’t run it more than once as it uses a lot of ink. If that doesn’t produced the desired result, take a paper towel and slightly dampen it and place it on a surface that won’t be discolored or damaged by ink. Tile is a good surface. Hold the cartridge with the print head against the paper towel for about a minute. Since water is a larger molecule than ink, you should start to see a bloom of ink form around the print head. This is the water wicking out the ink. Usually this is enough to moisten the print head and get the ink flowing again if the only problem was ink dried on the print head. If the cartridge still isn’t printing correctly, bring it back to us and we’ll either fix or replace it.

“I bought the right cartridge for my printer but it doesn’t fit.”

We get a phone call like this about once a week; it’s not as rare a problem as you might expect. The usual cause is the failure to remove the tape and/or clip from the cartridge prior to installation. We use a very light adhesive tape over the printhead  on black inkjet cartridges to protect them from damage or even the casual touch and we combine the tape with a plastic clip on color cartridges. The clip is intended to prevent color mixing at the printhead and to keep air from getting into the printhead. When removing the tape, be sure to only remove the light adhesive tape. Do not attempt to remove the brass electronics strip that constitutes the printhead. This will guarantee the cartridge can never be used again. We like to say that if you can’t remove the tape with your fingers, you’re probably trying to remove the wrong thing. Pliers are not required to remove the tape.

“My photos look dull using your cartridges.”

First, make sure you aren’t printing photos in “draft” mode. Check the settings in “printer properties” and be sure you have “Best” or “Photo” selected for the print quality. Second, for the best possible results using our cartridges, be sure you’re using the photo paper recommended by your printer’s manufacturer. Inks are formulated to work with certain types of photo paper. Saturation and drying time are particular to the recommended paper. Printing photos on ordinary copy paper will result in dull colors and saturated paper.

For the very best results when printing very important photos, we recommend you use the manufacturer’s paper and ink. Because we have to manufacture our ink using different components than the OEM ink to avoid legal complications, we cannot make the same claims as the manufacturers do about photo quality and longevity. Our inks are not archival quality inks, and that, usually combined with acid-free paper, is required to attain the promises made by the manufacturers as to photo quality and their claims that their ink won’t fade for 100 years.

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Print a lot? Go XL

Posted in: Productivity, blog by Jack on 4 February 2010

Image by osde8info via Flickr

Many printer manufacturers these days are offering their customers an option when it comes to cartridge volume; newer printers often accept both low yield and high yield cartridges. High yield, sometimes labeled as XL, cartridges contain twice to three times as much ink or toner as the low yield version. If you do a lot of printing, an XL cartridge will last longer and reduce the number of times a month you have to come in for refills.

HP is leading other manufacturers in offering high yield ink and toner cartridges. They currently offer XL versions of their #60, #74 & 75, #88, #901, #920 and #940 ink cartridges and many of their laser cartridges (denoted by an “X” at the end of the cartridge number; C7115x, the high yield version of the C7115A). A few other manufacturers have followed suit, but HP has the largest selection of high yield cartridges.

If you print frequently or in large quantities you should consider purchasing XL or high yield cartridges for your printer if they are available. They may cost a bit more up front, but your overall cost-per-page will be lower. You will also reduce the risk of running out of ink or toner in the middle of a large print job.

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Push or Pull

Posted in: Business to Business, blog by Jack on 28 January 2010

In discussions of on-line content you may frequently encounter the terms push and pull. These are more than catch-phrases. They reflect two totally different philosophies employed in sharing content with your audience, whether they are reading your posts on-line or employees at a company meeting.

Pushing content has become the traditional method for delivering a company’s message to customers. We tend to call our customers consumers because that’s how companies see their customer’s role in the business cycle; consumers are expected to swallow what’s fed to them, be it products or propaganda. In the words of industry analyst Jerry Michalski, a consumer was no more than “a gullet whose only purpose in life is to gulp products and crap cash.”¹ This business model creates a wall of separation between the business and it’s customers. We are telling them what we think they need to know about us and our product. It’s a one-way form of communication, one that discourages feedback from our customers. When we deny them the opportunity to provide us direct and instantaneous feedback we run the risk that they will find other outlets for their comments like blogs and community forums. These sites are not under our control and correcting misinformation or offering clarification is often impossible, even on those few occasions when we’re  aware that we’re being discussed outside of our own website.

Content that pulls customers in and along, on the other hand, provides a means for them to engage and converse with us. The conversation may not always be pleasant or productive; there are times a dissatisfied customer simply wants to vent and ignores any attempt of ours to become involved in a conversation. But if we’ve pulled them into our venue, our website or blog, we have the means to turn their comments into a conversation with other customers even if the original customer never responds. We can’t always control the conversation but we can always become engaged in it. When we pull our customers into engagements with us, we can be aware of what’s being said about our company and products and respond in a timely manner.

To pull customers we need to provide interesting and informative content and most important, a way for them to post their comments on our company and products. The best option for a company website is to provide for comments right on the site. Deflecting comments to a third-party site or only providing an opportunity for email contact detracts from the immediacy and transparency of our communications. As Doc Searls and David Weinberger remind us in The Cluetrain Manifesto:

The Internet is a place. We buy books and tickets on the Web. Not over, through, or beside it. To call it a “platform” belies its hospitality. What happens on the Net is more than commerce, more than content, more than push and pull and clicks and traffic and e-anything. The Net is a real place where people can go to learn, to talk to each other, and to do business together. It is a bazaar where customers look for wares, vendors spread goods for display, and people gather around topics that interest them. It is a conversation. At last and again.

In this new place, every product you can name, from fashion to office supplies, can be discussed, argued over, researched, and bought as part of a vast conversation among the people interested in it. “I’m in the market for a new computer,” someone says, and she’s off to the Dell site. But she probably won’t buy that cool new laptop right away. She’ll ask around first — on Web pages, on newsgroups, via e-mail: “What do you think? Is this a good one? Has anybody checked it out? What’s the real battery life? How’s their customer support? Recommendations? Horror stories?”

“I’m in the market for a good desk dictionary,” says someone else, and he’s off to Amazon.com where he’ll find a large number of opinions already expressed:

I love the look of this book, and the publisher did a great job; but I made the mistake of buying it without realizing that it was first published over 7 years ago….

I’ve had this book for two days and I keep going back to it. I may not be typical since I collect dictionaries and wanted this when I heard about it last year, but….

Ugh, they don’t have “aegritudo” but they have the “modern” definition of “peruse”….

These conversations are most often about value: the value of products and of the businesses that sell them. Not just prices, but the market currencies of reputation, location, position, and every other quality that is subject to rising or falling opinion.

It’s nothing new, in one sense. The only advertising that was ever truly effective was word of mouth, which is nothing more than conversation. Now word of mouth has gone global. The one-to-many scope that technology brought to mass production and then mass marketing, which producers have enjoyed for two hundred years, is now available to customers. And they’re eager to make up for lost time.

If we do not engage our customers in conversations, if we fail to talk with them, we can be sure they will be talking about us somewhere else.

These days the easiest way to begin a conversation with our customers is to take advantage of the many social netowrking platforms available to everyone on the internet. Create a Facebook account for your company, set up a Twitter account and start a blog. You don’t even have to spend a lot of money buying a domain and setting up a fancy website. Begin with a Blogger account and a Gmail address in your company’s name.

Once you’ve set up a place for the conversation to take place, initiate the dialogue. Start posting and Tweeting. You may not get much feedback at first, but don’t let that dissuade you. Mention your blog and Facebook page in your email signature and on company advertising. Make sure your customers know you are there and willing to respond to their comments and questions. Keep your content up-to-date and informative. Eventually your customers will respond.

When they do, treat them as if they were at the counter or front desk of your place of business. Don’t be dismissive or rude. Don’t treat them any differently than if you were both face-to-face. Use these opportunities to converse, to educate, to correct misconceptions, to build relationships with your customers. If you impress them as an open and honest business person willing to take suggestions and even criticism, it won’t be long before they are recommending you to their family, friends and co-workers. And as every small business owner knows, personal recommendations are the best advertising money cannot buy.

¹ The Cluetrain Manifesto Chapter 4 Copyright © 1999, 2001 Levine, Locke, Searls & Weinberger. All rights reserved.

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