|
|
|
|
Greetings!
This Summer's newsletters have been merged into this single edition this one time only. We don't have any plans at present to make this a bi-monthly newsletter as a regular practice unless it becomes necessary. In July and August it became necessary. As the webmaster for cwsandiego.com and the editor for the newsletter, I have had to deal with a few major changes in my life, and as a result, ran out of time to devote myself to composing this missive. Things are slowly getting back to normal now, so I hope to be able to get back to our regular monthly delivery for the rest of the year.
Joe, our new owner, was in Emeryville, California attending a new owner's orientation in July. He returned with a lot of updated practices and ideas for helping Cartridge World San Diego improve our product and reach even more customers. We will be updating the look of our store later this year and encourage you to stop by and check out the improvements. Our goal, as always, is to provide the best product possible and outstanding customer service.
In order to serve you better, we've also changed our hours of operation. We're now open from 9AM to 7PM Monday through Friday and 10AM to 2PM on Saturday. As our workload increases, we hope to add more staff which will allow us to further add to our open hours.
Jack Carlson
Manager / Webmaster
Cartridge World San Diego
|
|
|
3rd party cartridges best the OEM's
 Recently the respected tech-review site trustedreviews.com conducted an investigation into the quality of refilled inkjet cartridges as compared to the original manufacturer's own. Here's a summery of their findings. A more detailed report can be found on their website.
"The single biggest complaint that customers have against
manufacturers of ink-jet printers and all-in-ones is the cost of
consumables. While hardware prices continue to drop, the costs of ink
and paper stay pretty much the same and, each year, can well add up to
a good proportion of the purchase price of a machine.
This is why third-party ink and paper has proved so popular. At a
fraction of the price of manufacturer's own products, you can buy
look-alike consumables which appear to do exactly the same job as the
originals. But there's a nagging doubt in the back of the mind that the
quality of the resulting prints won't be up to the original
manufacturers' standard - a doubt which is played upon by all the main
printer makers.
The four big names in printers and all-in-ones - Canon, Epson, HP and
Lexmark - all suggest you may damage your machine by using unbranded
consumables and that, even if they work, the print quality won't be as
good.
We set out to answer this question: Are prints produced using
third-party inks and papers as good as those produced with
manufacturers' own products?
We borrowed samples of current, mid-range all-in-one machines from the
main four printer makers: Canon's PIXMA MP600, the Stylus Photo RX640
from Epson, the HP OfficeJet 6310 and the X5470 from Lexmark. These are
the kind of multi-function printing devices that are selling in great
numbers for general home and home office use. They represent a good
cross-section of the kind of devices that customers may consider using
with third-party inks and papers. To test these all-in-ones, we obtained ink from each of the printer
manufacturers and from four other suppliers: Cartridge World,
InkTecShop, JetTec and StinkyInk. These are all substantial suppliers
of cartridges from the Web or through high street shops. InkTecShop and
StinkyInk are dealers and importers, who supply cartridges from a
variety of different manufacturers, or re-manufacturers, while JetTec
makes and fills its own cartridges. CartridgeWorld specialises in
refilling empty cartridges that its customers bring to its chain of
franchised stores. One thing you need to realise when considering third-party ink
cartridges is that those that are refilled, manufacturers' cartridges
are a bit of an unknown quantity. You don't know how many times the
cartridges have been through the re-manufacturing process and, on
cartridges with integral heads, how worn the heads might be. In this
test, the HP and Lexmark devices use cartridges with integral heads.
Other printers use permanent heads - the Canon and Epson machines in
this survey - and here there's a different problem. If you use a
third-party cartridge in these machines which doesn't give the
performance you want, you may have trouble flushing all the ink out of
the print heads, so you can use the manufacturer's ink again.
There are two parts to the printing process: the ink and the paper. The
printer makers are keen to expound on how the two parts of the printing
system are developed together. The chemistry of the ink is matched to
the characteristics of the paper and most papers are built up from
several different layers of material, some of which absorb ink, some
prevent it spreading and others maintain the gloss in a photo print.
With each manufacturer, third-party ink and paper combinations won more
top scores than prints produced with own-brand inks and papers. In the
case of Canon, none of the photo paper prints produced with its own ink
got a top score. With the Canon, Epson and HP printers, Cartridge World
received more top scores than using manufacturers' ink and with
Lexmark, the same is true of the ink sold by InkTecShop.
The highest score for a paper and ink is shared by three different
combinations, on three different printers, all of which scored 8.29/10
overall: the Canon printer using InkTecShop ink on Kodak paper, the HP
machine printing on HP paper with Cartridge World ink and the Lexmark
device using InkTecShop ink on Staples paper. If you look at the inks across the full range of papers, taking an
average of the scores from the different print samples, then Cartridge
World wins three out of the four categories and InkTecShop takes the
fourth. In every case, though, these scores are only marginally higher
than the scores for the manufacturers' inks." |
|
HP Dismisses Laser Printer Health Risks
 Hewlett-Packard Co. Friday disputed research published earlier this week that said some of its laser printers may be a health risk
to office and home computer users. While it did not directly contest
the data gathered by Australian researchers, the U.S.-based printer and
computer manufacturer flatly rejected the idea that emissions pose a
danger. "We do not believe there is a link between printer emissions and any public health risk," the company said in a statement. On
Wednesday, researchers at Queensland University of Technology in
Brisbane, Australia, published a paper detailing emission measurements
of 58 laser printers inside a typical office. Emissions, believed to be
related to the ultrafine powdered toner used in the printers, were
tracked and the printers ranked as non-, low-, medium- or
high-emitters. HP's models dominated the last category, accounting for
90 percent of the printers classified as emitting high levels of
particulates. Researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, a U.S.
Department of Energy lab in Berkeley, Calif., agreed that it's too
early to draw a line between printer emissions and health dangers. "What
we don't know is what the findings in the study mean," said Rich
Sextro, an environment scientist at Berkeley Lab, in a posting on the
laboratory's Web site. "Certainly our expectation is that exposures to
lots of ultrafine particles probably isn't a very good thing, but we
have no idea at the moment what that translates into in the real world." Read More... Particle Emission Characteristics of (PDF)
|
|
Recycle your electronics
 We're often asked to recommend a location to which someone can donate working and non-working electronics for recycling.
One resorce we've used and recommend is the Technology Training Foundation of America.
From their website:
The
Technology Training Foundation of America - Computer Donation Program
has five key components:
- DONATIONS:
TTFA accepts working computers and working computer parts other
related office equipment. It provides an avenue through its 501(c)(3)
for Corporate America to donate its equipment no longer of use
to serve a greater need. Pentium III, 800 Mhz, and higher, go
into TTFA's refurbishment process. All other equipment is recycled
keeping it out of our already over crowded landfills. Parts that
can be reused from older equipment or incomplete systems are pulled.
Scrap and office equipment that does not meet TTFA's placement
criteria, but has value, helps generate revenue for TTFA's parts
fund.
-
RECYCLING:
The computer equipment that cannot be repaired or upgraded, and
other non-technology donations, are recycled through one of TTFA's
statewide recycling partners. They provide transportation/pick
up service for the large donations.
-
REPAIR: The donated equipment that meets TTFA's placement
standards is transported to one of its repair sites for refurbishing/upgrading
before being placed into schools and non-profits at no-charge.
If computers do not work, or if they are missing components or
do not have enough memory, they are of little use to schools or
non-profit organizations. TTFA makes sure that all equipment it
places meets the recipient's technology standards and is fully
operational. The donated computers come with a 90-day replacement
guarantee.
- TRAINING:
The repair facilities offer vocational students exposure to a
wide variety of computer hardware and opportunities to train with
real-life troubleshooting exercises. In California, TTFA has become
partners with statewide computer refurbishment-training
school programs. They include computer repair programs within
the California Youth
Authority, the Consolidated Brig MCAS Miramar in San
Diego, a few high school training programs and and regional vocational
training programs. TTFA has high standards and only places computers
that can and will be used.
- HELPING
BRIDGE THE DIGITAL DIVIDE: Computers donated through TTFA
are helping stretch technology dollars. With ever advancing technology
and decreasing resources, schools and non-profit organizations
will never have enough money to keep up. Retired corporate computers
that are serviced before being donated, assuring they meet minimum
technology standards of the recipient, are providing necessary
tools to prepare students for our technological world at a tremendous
savings to the taxpayer and to the organizations they are helping.
If you have electronics you no longer need or use, please consider donating them to the TTFA. They can be reached at 858-547-3992. They're located just off Miramar Road at
8825 Production Ave. San Diego, CA 92121.
By donating your electronics for recycling, you're not only doing something positive for your community but for our local environment as well. Our landfills are filling fast, and tossing computers, printers and monitors into the trash isn't helping. Recycling does.
|
|
|
Thank you for your interest and your business.
The next edition of our newsletter will be published within the first week of October.
|
|
Sincerely,
Jack Carlson and Joe McGrath
Cartridge World San Diego
|
|
|
