Approximately half of our clients have already
converted most of their forms, cheques and reports to laser based printing.
Laser printers have a number of advantages over older Dot Matrix printers. They
are much faster, noticeably quieter and the print is much easier to read, even
when the output is printed in a smaller font. Newer Colour Lasers have all but
replaced the Inkjet Printer in most business environments.
When looking
at a laser printer there are a number of different factors to consider:
1)
Purchase Price – Compatible
printers can be purchased for as little as $200 or as much as $1000 or more,
but purchase price alone is only one factor in the overall cost of ownership of
a laser printer. Note, some very inexpensive printers are not PCL compatible
and will not work with programs such as Libra, which require it.
2)
Reliability – Obviously, a $200
printer that lasts a little over a year will turn out to be much more expensive
than a $400 printer that lasts 5 to 10 years. When you factor in lost
productivity, service and set up costs the economy model is seldom a good buy.
Pick a printer based on it’s expected duty cycle. (e.g. 100,000 pages per month
)
3)
Toner Costs – If you do a lot of
printing then toner costs will ultimately become the largest portion of your
total cost of ownership. Laser printing is generally less expensive than Inkjet
printing on a per page basis. Within Laser printer models it is worthwhile to
compare actual toner costs. Some models have toner cartridges that are only
good for 2,000 pages. Other models may have toner cartridges that are more
expensive but they can last for 4,000, 6,000, even 10,000 pages. Some
heavy-duty HP laser printer models even have optional cartridges that last up
to 20,000 pages. You need to divide the cartridge cost by the number of pages
to compute actual long term operating costs.
MONTHLY COMPUTER MAINTENANCE
There are a number of things that you can do monthly
to keep your computer in good working order. Computer Viruses, Adware, Spyware
and a disorganized hard drive can lead to a variety of problems that will
affect the performance of your computer. Spending a few minutes a month can
help avoid bigger problems in the future.
1)
Anti-Virus – Check the status of
your Anti-virus routinely. You should be able to easily determine the date of
the virus definitions. If this date falls within the last week your anti-virus
is up to date. If the date has slipped by a month or more, then your anti-virus
is no longer functioning. This can be caused by an expired subscription. It can
also be the result of an infection that has crippled your anti-virus. In this
case a variety of problems may arise affecting your computer.
2)
Spybot – We routinely install
Spybot as a way to check for the presence of Adware and Spyware that you may
have picked up from the Internet. This program needs to be routinely updated
and your computer scanned to determine if you have become infected. After a
scan you can pick the option: “Fix Selected Problems” to remove the unwanted
software.
3)
Inactive Software – If you
installed a program on your computer in the past and you no longer use it, it
can help to remove that program. It can free up space and other resources that may
be tied up even though you no longer use the program. Some programs have their
own uninstall feature on the program menu while others are removed via the
Control Panel.
4)
Defragmentation – This option is
somewhat less important now than it was in the past due to improvements in hard
drive technology. It does continue to organize files on the hard drive so the
drive can retrieve them more easily with less wear and tear on the drive heads.