In our case, we were backing up on an external hard drive every night. Have you heard the old adage “fail to plan and plan to fail”?  Well we failed to plan appropriately, with only one backup device and not regularly checking our backup, we ended up with lost data.

Hope this does not happen to you.  I thought it would be appropriate to give some tips on developing a backup plan.

Backup Tips – Prevent data loss with a good backup strategy

A comprehensive data backup strategy is vital to your data security. Too many people wait until disaster strikes before they think about a backup. A good backup is an excellent way to protect against viruses, deteriorating hard drives, disasters and human errors. If it would not be cost effective or even possible to re-enter data, then you need a backup strategy.

Step 1: Plan for data backup

• Think about where you keep your backup.
• If you live in an area that can flood, don’t store your backup in the basement.
• If the storage location for your backups is protected by sprinklers, what will the water do to the backups?
• If there is an earthquake, will you be able to get to your data. An off-site copy or online backup is an excellent idea.
• Store a full backup at another location to protect against fire, theft, or other disaster.
• If your data is critical it may be a good idea to have a quarterly and yearly backup as well so that you can recover files that may have been deleted, but not discovered until months later.

Step 2: Begin a backup routine

• Make backing up a part of your normal scheduled daily tasks.
• Don’t count on anyone else to back your data up for you.
• Do backups of your own critical data.

Step 3: Tailor your backup strategy to your needs

• To determine the best schedule for your data backup, it is important to know how often your data changes. If your data changes weekly, a daily backup might be overkill. If you have critical data that updates every hour, you may need to back up several times a day.
• It’s a good idea to have at least three different backups of your data.
• Full backups can be supplemented by incremental backups. An incremental backup will only back up files that have changed since the last full backup, and is normally much quicker than a full backup.

 For example, If you run an incremental backup at the end of each work day, it protects all your newest data if anything happens overnight, and all of the data not backed up by the incremental backup is still protected by the full backup you may run every weekend.

Step 4: Be sure to test your backup periodically

Don’t simply rely on backup software to get it right 100% of the time, no matter how good you think your backup software is. To ensure that your backups are protecting you, periodically test the backup jobs by attempting to restore them to an alternate location. This will bring out any flaws or corrupt data before it is too late.

Also, most backup applications also have a “backup log” or generate a “backup report” that can quickly identify any problems or skipped files in the backup job. Be sure to review these logs every time your backups complete for anything suspicious.

Step 5: A backup of a backup of a backup

Many people think a backup is simply moving their photos, videos, music, financial documents, or other important files off to an external hard drive or removable disk. However, simply moving data from one location to another isn’t giving you any extra protection in case disaster strikes. If there aren’t at least two separate copies of your data, it isn’t a backup at all.

However, even though a single backup may be a good start (two copies of your irreplaceable files), there is still some risk for data loss, especially if both copies are kept in the same location. (Think about things such as fires, theft, floods – if any one of these happened, they could easily damage or destroy both copies of your data.)

For the best protection against data loss, especially from catastrophic events, having at least three copies of your data (the original files, an easily-accessible backup, and a protected copy of your backup) is recommended. While some large companies may use dedicated off-site data storage services for this, you don’t have to be a big company to have three copies of your data. Even something as simple as using an inexpensive online backup service to keep a 3rd copy of your data will be sufficient.

How about you? Have you experienced a major computer failure? I’d love your feedback. Here on this blog, you’ll get commentluv. This is a wonderful opportunity to leave a link back to your own blog when you leave a comment.

Until next time,

Karen

A few days later, the customer called and brought his printer in. This customer was convinced that he was having a very serious printer problem and that he would have to purchase a new one.  Upon examination of the cartridges, it was easy to see why the colour was of such poor quality.

The cartridges were remanufactured by a company and sold by one of our competitors.  The problem was the inconsistency of products used.  Two of the cartridges had OEM drums and the other 2 had their OCP drums changed, however, they were from a different manufacturer, evidenced by the variation in colour.

The most important thing in remanufacturing colour cartridges is consistency.  Any remanufacturer should be using toner from the same source in all cartridges.  Also, the OCP drum should be changed for best printing results.

We prepared four new cartridges for the customer and test printed them in his printer….beautiful……the colours were crisp and clean.

When you bring your toner cartridges in for refill or you are ordering over the phone, always ask your supplier about their process:

• What components if any are changed
• What brand of toner are they using (we use Static Control…very high quality)
• Is the cartridge test printed for quality control
• What is their guarantee if the cartridge fails mid-cycle

Having these questions answered will help you to determine which toner supplier would be the best for you.  Here at Cartridge World Newmarket, in addition to being environmentally friendly, we strive for excellence both in product and customer service.

I’d love your feedback! Here on my blog you’ll get commentluv. This is a great opportunity to leave a link back to your own blog site when you leave a comment.

Until next time,

Go Green and Save Some Green!

Karen

I considered the Brother MFC-J615W printer, which is pretty cost effective to run, but I decided that I wanted a laser printer so that I could print letters and other businesses documents while at home.

I came across the Samsung CLX-3185FW printer on sale for $199.00 and decided to give it a try.

The unit is surprisingly quite compact and fit perfectly on my computer table.

The setup instructions were very clear and I had the wireless setup complete within about 15 minutes.  I was also able to set it up on my husband’s Mac with the touch of a couple of keys, once I had shared the printer on our network.

My first project was a mail merge of labels.  The Samsung took the labels with no problem and was quite quick, printing the black labels at 17ppm. They were ready in no time.

I also did some colour photocopying and this was at 17cpm, a very good speed for colour copying…and the colour quality was very good.

The unit also scans up to 4800 x 4800 dpi enhanced and faxes up to 33.6 Kbps

Some of the other unique features of this printer are:

• One touch wi-fi setting lets you connect quickly and easily
• One-touch eco copy button lets you combine four documents into one document, saving you valuable time
• Easily fits onto any size of desktop while leaving plenty of room for you to get your work done. Dimensions: 13.55”(H) x 16.38”(W) x 14.88”(D)
• One-touch eco print button saves paper while the default toner mode makes saving toner effortless
• Engineered to be whisper quiet, generating a noise level of as low as 46 dBA while it’s printing
• Samsung’s AnyWeb Print software lets you easily select, drag, and drop content from different web pages onto a printable scrap board
• Always know the status of your print job with navigation feedback LED pattern

The toner cartridges are not the largest, nor are they expensive.  The black cartridge yields 1,500 pages and a remanufactured cartridge is only $37.99.   Colour cartridges will give you 1,000 pages each and a remanufactured cartridge is only $33.99.

This is a pretty good printer for the money and the cost of the consumables.  With an acceptable print speed, wireless capabilities and size, it is perfect for a home office setting.

Does anyone else have this printer? Share your thoughts on it with me! On this blog, you’ll get commentluv. This is a great opportunity to leave a link back to your own blog when you leave feedback.

Until next time,

Karen

I have heard from several customers who were having connectivity problems with similar models.  One customer who had the same model as me, went on vacation and he could no longer print wirelessly.  We decided to try to get to the bottom of this problem.

Our technician did some troubleshooting and found a solution for both our printers.

If you are having the same issues, your printer may somehow be disconnected from your  Wi-Fi network.  You can verify this by using the following steps:

1. Go to the front panel of the printer, click on setup button
2. Select Network option
3. Under Network, select print wireless network test

The printer should print a diagnostic page.  Check that it passes everything on the diagnostic summary.  In the configuration summary section, Network Name (SSID) should be the SSID of your router and it should have a valid IP address.

If your printer is disconnected from the Wi-Fi network, you can reconfigure it using the following steps:

1. Go to the front panel of the printer, click on setup button
2. Select Network option
3. Under Network, select Wireless Setup Wizard
4. It searches for wireless routers
5. Select your router
6. Enter the password

If you try to print and nothing is happening and there are no error messages, follow these steps:

1. Take the IP address of your printer that you got from the Wireless network test report and type the IP address in your browser on your computer.  This would test if you can talk to the printer and make sure that your computer and the printer are on the same WiFi network.

Then, print a test page:

1. Go to Control panel -> View devices and printers
2. Double click on the printer
3. Go to Printer menu option and then choose properties
4. Click on Ports tab
5. Select Standard TCP/IP port and then click on the Configure Port button
6. Make sure the IP address in the “Printer Name or IP address” field matches with your printer’s IP address from the diagnostic report
7. Try to print a test page to see if it works

This problem can also occur if your printer goes into sleep mode.  If this happens to you, follow these steps:

1. Go to your printer
2. Select the arrow key to see the next menu. (it should be on the right side of the LCD  panel, looks like a sideways triangle)
3. Select Setup –> Network –> Wireless Network Wizard
4. The printer will begin to look for wireless networks
5. Choose your network (or the network that you use…  it should be the same one your laptop/computer is on)
6. If it is password protected, enter the pass key/password
7. Your printer will print out a network status page
8. Your computer should “recognize” the printer on the network on its own. Your HP help window may display a large green check (that’s a good thing!)
9. Print what you desire!

Hope that this helps!  I’d love your feedback. Here on this blog, you’ll get commentluv. This is a great opportunity to leave a link back to your own blog when you leave a comment.

Until next time,

Go GREEN and save some GREEN

Karen

STOP SAMSUNG

STOP LEXMARK

STOP DELL

STOP IBM

Samsung is offering customers upgrades to their printers. If you accept, you will locked into using Samsung original cartridges, at high prices.

End Users, previously happy with remanufactured cartridges, find that they can only use original cartridges after accepting an upgrade. Samsung changes the printer to make the printer not accept the aftermarket cartridge and chip.

Say NO to any upgrades on all Samsung (or Dell versions) printers. Any upgrade to your printer will cause remanufactured cartridges to no longer work in your printer. Once you have installed an upgrade on your printer, you cannot reverse it. Therefore, any upgrade will force you to buy expensive, new Samsung original cartridges rather than remanufactured cartridges that SAVE you MONEY, SAVE OIL, CREATE LOCAL JOBS and are ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY. In order to be sure that your printers can continue to use remanufactured cartridges now and in the future, SAY NO TO ANY UPGRADE THAT SAMSUNG WILL OFFER YOU and make certain that any repair person or technician who wants to work on your printer does not accept a firmware upgrades. Do not lose your right to choose remanufactured cartridges for your printers.

As well, Lexmark can AND HAS used upgrades that kill remanufactured cartridges.

On January 12th 2011, the Office of Fair Trading and the Trading Standards Institute in the United Kingdom confirmed they are investigating complaints that Lexmark has used upgrades that lock out third party remanufactured cartridges to those printers.

Customers previously happy with their remanufactured cartridges were duped into accepting an upgrade that promised to “improve” users’ printers, but has now locked them into using ONLY original Lexmark cartridges. End users have found that the upgrade is irreversible and their printer will not work until all cartridges are original Lexmark cartridges. Consumers claim this is an anti–competitive and a restrictive trade practice. BEWARE. It could easily happen to YOUR ink jet and laser Lexmark (Dell and IBM equivalent) remanufactured cartridge customers.

Lexmark® and Samsung® firmware changes lock out aftermarket cartridges. These actions are a serious threat to the remanufacturing industry and hurt end users by forcing them to use only OEM replacement cartridges.

Has this happened to you? I’d love your feedback. Here on this blog, you’ll get commentluv. This is a great opportunity to leave a link back to your own blog when you leave a comment.

Until next time,

Karen

Not Comfortable with “Remanufactured Cartridges?”

What if we told you that many HP laser cartridges are in fact remanufactured just like those that come in a Cartridge World box? It’s true! Many HP laser cartridge boxes have something like this written on the side: This product may contain parts selectively recovered from HP’s recycling program. Interesting, when you consider that when Cartridge World rebuilds a laser cartridge, we only use new parts that far exceed the quality of an HP original, let alone those “selectively recovered” from used cartridges. We take our 100% satisfaction guarantee seriously for a reason!

LIGHT UP WITH GREEN

Other than buying refilled printer cartridges, another great way to go green is through the lighting you use at your home and office.  Here are a couple tips to help you get started:

1. Use CFL’s. Those are the funny looking bulbs that look like a soft-serve ice cream cone. After about 500 hours of use, it actually has paid for itself!

2. As great as CFL’s are, they do contain small amounts of mercury so remember not to just throw them in the trash when you’re done with them.

3. Install dimmers and motion sensors. Traditional light switches only give you 2 options; on and off. Dimmers and motion sensors let you use only what you need to!

4. Lastly, buy green power. Most electric companies will let you pay just a little bit more to know your electricity is coming from a green source.  It’s well worth the peace of mind!

Add to the list! I’d love your comments. Here on this blog, you’ll get commentluv.  This is a great opportunity to leave a link back to your own site when you leave feedback.

Until next time,

Karen

1. Environmentally Friendly

The reason that many re-manufacturers got into the business is to help the environment.  Reducing the number of cartridges that take up limited landfill space is good, and re-manufacturing saves natural resources as well.  When cartridges are re-manufactured, not only is pollution prevented from going into landfills, but also fewer new materials must be produced. The plastic of each toner cartridge takes one and a half quarts of oil to produce, and each new inkjet cartridge requires two and a half ounces of oil.  Half a gallon of oil is conserved for each laser cartridge that is remanufactured, industry sources say.

2. Save Energy

Also, reusing cartridges saves energy.  It requires significantly less energy to remanufacture a cartridge than to produce a new one, saving energy and the natural resources used to produce power.  Remanufacturing also reduces the greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change. It even takes less energy to remanufacture products than it would to recycle them.  Why?   Recycling converts components into raw material, which is used to manufacture an original product, while remanufacturing captures a large percentage of resources from the original product, including the added value of labor, energy and capital.

3. Reduce waste

The average toner cartridge weighs 3 to 4 pounds –made mostly of plastic, which is the main material in many cartridges.  Unfortunately, it’s plastic that’s not very recyclable and will take more than 100 years to biodegrade in landfill.  Many consumers are familiar with the number system used to indicate if the plastic is recyclable. These numbers range from one, the most recyclable, to seven, the most difficult to recycle.  On many products including shampoo and water bottles, the number is stamped into the plastic on the bottom of the container.  PET plastic bottles, such as two liter soda pop bottles, are fairly easy to recycle and are given a rating of one.  Most laser cartridges are rated seven because they contain mixed resin plastics; estimates indicate that only 5 to 10 percent of the plastics in this category are recycled.  In addition, the toner residue can seldom be completely separated from the cartridge’s plastic, contaminating the plastic and making the cartridges even less likely to be recycled.

It’s a better choice.  Remanufacturing is the best way to save products from landfills.  However, remanufacturing can only take place if aftermarket companies have access to empty cartridges.  Although recycling of toner cartridges does have a number of benefits, remanufacturing is a superior choice both environmentally and economically!

At Cartridge World Newmarket, we refill and remanufacture all brands of ink and toner cartridges.

What do you think? I love getting feedback. Here on my blog, you’ll get commentluv. This is an opportunity to leave a link back to your own site when you leave a comment.

Until next time,

Think green, re-use your printer cartridges and save more than money.

Karen

Every year more than 350 million plastic printer cartridges end up dumped in landfills around the world. While we can never completely stop the cycle of cartridges entering the waste stream, we can at least stem the flow.

The printer consumables market is a billion-dollar industry.  According the Lyra Research, worldwide revenue of printer cartridges totaled $74 billion dollars in 2010.  Of this, the aftermarket claimed only 20 percent of the desktop inkjet revenue and 15 percent of the toner cartridge revenue.

Millions of cartridges are manufactured every year. This is why re-manufacturing matters.  Every cartridge re-manufactured is one that does not go directly to the landfill.  For every re-manufactured cartridge purchased, it is one less new cartridge that needs to be produced, saving it from entering the waste stream and from draining the planet’s natural resources.

In fact, many printer cartridges end up dumped in places you’d never expect – like China. Nigeria and India.

Save Money and get quality

Of course, many companies want to be environmentally sensitive, but the main reason companies use re-manufactured cartridges is to save money.  Most re-manufactured cartridges cost considerably less than OEM cartridges and are comparable in quality and reliability.  In fact, many re-manufactured cartridges last longer, as they often have up to 20 percent more toner than OEM cartridges.

In short, printer cartridges don’t need to be so expensive.  In order to protect their profit margins, the OEMs often claim that non-OEM cartridges might damage your printer.  No manufacturer (or re-manufacturer) can guarantee that a cartridge will never fail, but there is little chance that a toner or ink cartridge could ever affect the functionality of a printer or fax machine.  Plus many re-manufacturers offer guarantees, promising to repair any possible related damage; due to the excellent quality of re-manufactured products, this is an offer they almost never have to make good on.

Cartridge World offers quality ink and toner refills at a fraction of the price of purchasing new.  Our retail location located in Newmarket, Ontario, makes it easy to walk in with your empty cartridge and walk out with a high quality filled one.

I’d love your feedback. Here on this blog, you’ll get commentluv. This is an opportunity to leave a link back to your own blog when you leave a comment.

Be green.  Re-use your ink and toner cartridges.

Until next time,

Karen

Did you know that it is illegal to be forced into using only OEM brands of printer supplies?

The next time your IT or printer service person says “You will be charged for this service call because you are using recycled ink/toner cartridges” or “Your warranty is void because you are not using OEM brand ink or toner” tell him/her that it is ILLEGAL to force any computer printer owner to use only OEM brands of ink or toner supplies!

This requirement is in violation of the Canada Competition Act and in the USA, the Sherman and Clayton Antitrust Acts.

In 1963, an example of this concern was brought before the US Supreme court and involved IBM vs. the United States. IBM leased their own data processing machines to clients stating a requirement that only tabulating cards manufactured by IBM be used. Their clients were warned by means of termination of their lease if they used cards produced by non-IBM manufacturers. This outcome was found to be in violation of the Antitrust laws.

Don’t be intimidated by sales, service or computer technicians.  Let them know that it is illegal to make this a requirement. Proof that remanufactured, refilled or non-OEM brands are incompatible with supposed printers would have to be made. Show this information to anyone insisting on voiding a warranty or charging for a service call because they found you weren’t using OEM brand of cartridges.

The Canada Competition Act. 77 (1) & (2) explicitly prohibits the practice of coercive “tied selling” that is, it is unlawful for any supplier to threaten an individual/company to purchase unwanted product or service (i.e. OEM cartridges) as a condition for obtaining another product or service (i.e. warranty) from said supplier and/or their designated affiliates.

For more on unlawful market restrictive practices, see the Government of Canada’s Department of Justice website. In the USA, the Sherman and Clay Acts prohibit tied selling.

I’d love your feedback! Here on this blog, you’ll get commentluv. This is an opportunity to leave a link back to your own site when you leave a comment.

Until next time,

GO GREEN AND SAVE SOME GREEN!

Karen

Every Autumn we hear from people who are having problems with their printhead printers. So this summer, here is a tip to save your printer.

Most of the problems arise in Epson printers.  They have a tank style cartridge and the printhead is in the printer.  Canon, new HP’s and Lexmark’s and Brother printers have printhead printers as well.  They use cartridges Canon CLI 8, CLI221, HP 564, 920, 940, 88, Lexmark 100, 105, 108, Brother LC51 and 61, just to name a few.

The difference between a printhead printer and a non-printhead printer is that on the latter, the print head is on the cartridge (for example HP 21,22,56,57 etc. and Lexmark 16,17,34, etc.) and if the cartridge gets a blockage from non-usage, you purchase a replacement cartridge.

For printhead printers, most of the problems arise from non-usage of the printer for a period of time, usually over the summer vacation period, which causes ink to block in the tubes going to the printhead.

If you try to print and there isn’t any ink showing up on the paper or the print is inconsistent and light, you have blocked printheads.

The only way to move this blockage is to perform the printhead clean function on your printer.  You may have to do this many times, as many as 10 or more,  to release the blockage.  This will use up most of your ink.  Sometimes, the blockage will never clear rendering the printer useless.

If you have an Epson printer or one of the other makes outlined above, it is best to use it on a regular basis (once a week) to keep the ink flowing nicely from the printhead.

The same holds true for any printer.  If you don’t use it, you lose it.  Try to print with your inkjet printer once a week as a minimum to assure that your cartridges are ready for you when that important print job comes up.

If you require any information on your specific printer model, please write back to us. We love getting feedback. And here on this blog, you’ll get commentluv. This is a plugin that gives you the opportunity to leave a link back to your own site when you leave feedback.

Until next time,

Karen