So, chances are, that if you don’t already have a printer you will soon, and that if you have one, you might need another, or perhaps a few other ones, very shortly. How should you choose the best printer for you?

3 tips.

Tip #1: Focus on functionality and budget:
Assess your needs and budget. Find the most printing capabilities, or at least the most pertinent one, that you need within the budget that you have. Specifications to assess should include:
- Speed, or how many pages per minute the printer will produce,
- Resolution of the printing, expressed in dots per inch,
- Whether you will need color printing or will do with monochrome,
- Multiple trays, and whether you will need to have different forms or colors available without having to change tray content each time,
- Dual side printing,
- Multifunction capabilities, whether you will need fax and copier functions or will use the new device for printing only,
- And, of course, whether you will want your new printer to be accessible via a local area network or WIFI networks.

Tip #2: Focus on printer supplies impact on cost per page:
While, many informed buyers will use a similar check list before buying a new printer, few consider the following part in their budget considerations.

A printer’s cost cannot be assessed solely on the basis of the purchase price of the device, but, rather, by combining such purchase cost with the cost of the printer supplies -toner cartridges, inkjet cartridges, drum unit, developer unit, and other laser consumables- to produce an actual cost per page.

The cost per page is the single most important financial measure of the actual price of your new device over the life of the device. And, as you can see, it largely depends on the price of your printer supplies. So, after identifying your preferred printers, visit a well-known printer supplies online web site, and check the prices of the supplies for your printer. Then, account for the estimated yield, calculate the cost of the printer supplies, and compare the printers on the common cost per page measure over the number of pages that you expect to print per year.

Tip #3: Consider quality alternatives:
There are many such web sites, so why a well-known one? Choosing an established vendor of printer supplies online will ensure the validity of the pricing and also provide you with quality alternatives. Indeed, while you can now find compatible printer supplies, toner cartridges, or inkjet cartridges, made by third-party companies to fit in your printers, online, you should only trust those offered by quality vendors or risk seriously affecting the quality of your printouts or even damaging your printer.

So, here it is, needs and budgets, count with printer supplies, consider compatible ink and toner. Good buying.

There will also be a price increase on IBM InfoPrint imaging supplies, effective the same day. In this case, 79 items are scheduled to increase by an average of 2.22%.

But hurry, this Sony promotion ends 01/31/2010.

Often, you will also need to reset the drum counter manually. Besides its effect on the counters themselves, this simple process informs your printer that a new drum was installed and allows it to recognize the new cartridge unit.

Check your printer’s users guide for this function.

1 – When you want it:
Unless you are expecting a critical or time-sensitive message, don’t handle emails as they come. Depending on your daily volume, set up fixed times, or even make it a habit to check your email as you move from one task or project to the next. Disable your alerts if necessary.

2 – On your screen once:
Any one email should only hit your screen once and be processed. Whether it is replied to, discarded, printed, or filed away in a project or archive folder, you should process it the first time and move it out of your inbox.

3 – Format it:
Unless you have corporate standards, write your emails how you would prefer to receive them. Use greetings. Make the subjects rich and explicit. Sign your emails. Provide your contact information. Use correct grammar. Do not write all in caps. Be courteous.

4 – Thread carefully:
Keep your emails focused. Multiple revisions of a same document with multiple threads of discussions and multiple round trips between parties are not best handled via a single email. When necessary, send more than one email to the same recipient and request that they stay on topic in their replies. Or, when you sense confusion, pick up the phone, reframe the discussion, and resume your email from there. And, make it possible for your email recipients to do the same by providing them with your phone number or instant message contact in your signature.

5 – They don’t all want to know:
When receiving an email addressed to multiple recipients, don’t reply to all unless all would benefit from your email. It wastes time for all and does not speak well about your email etiquette.

6 – Empty your inbox:
Your don’t leave mail in our physical mailbox, to attend to it someday. There is no benefit in leaving email in your virtual one either. Make it a habit to leave your inbox empty every day.

TallyGenicom announced a supplies price increase of about 14% to be effective on 7/13/09.

Also, effective on the same day, Printronix announced a price increase of an average of 5.7% on all their supplies.