Book Reviews and Money Saving Tips

I mentioned in a previous blog I am on a vacation. I lugged an old Okidata 10ex laser along to leave in Florida. I figured once the drum needed changing, I would just recycle it. Since I have thee of them it would be no loss to abandon it. Since my laptop doesn’t have a parallel port I had to figure out how to hook up the laser to my laptop. I found a male USB to Female DB25 adapter at Buy.com for $8.97 with shipping which allowed me to plug my parallel cable into the laptop. I tested the connection before I left home and after fooling around a bit, I got it to work. I dragged the laser down here to Florida and set it up. If you are familiar with lasers then you know that moving them can be problematic. The older lasers had a tendency to bleed toner over the entire printer if tilted. I shrink wrapped the toner cartridge and covered the drum to insure I had no mess. That all worked, no mess. Sadly the rest of it didn’t go as well. The laser self tested just fine. The problem was I...

I sit here listening to Christmas music and printing out photos for my Christmas tree photo ornaments. I enjoy using the photo ornaments for stuffing stuffers. Of course I enjoy giving the grandkids ones of me in Santa hats or other silly poses. Sure it is cheesy, but the kids laugh and give me a hard time and we all enjoy it. Yesterday my granddaughter and I found a great Disney site that allowed her to dress Cinderella and then print out the finished product. We also had to print out new princess photos for her “house” decorations. Being the ever doting grandparent, I use photo paper and quality setting. Needless to say, those full 8.5x11” printouts go through ink like there is no tomorrow. I use dramatically more ink on the days I baby sit and the holiday season seems to just suck the life right out of the ink cartridges. If you go through as much ink as I do and you are in the UK, you may want to consider checking out Cartridge Save . They have printer cartridg...

It’s Not Really Free. Suspicions confirmed, they don’t really make any money on the printers, they get their money on the toner. However, a free, laser printer is still a pretty good deal if you need one. You’re going to be buying toner anyway and it is always iffy using third party stuff when you are under warranty. Generally if you use third party ink/toner and it trashes your printer it also may invalidates your warranty. Technically that is illegal and you can fight it, but who needs the hassle. Anyway check this out if you need a pretty nice color laser. READ the FINE print, you may not purchase enough toner to keep the printer free. Good luck and maybe for you it will be FREE. http://www.freeprinterpromo.com/

Inkjet Cartridges for Less. I may have mentioned I am an avid grandparent. That fact leads to printing lots of photos and other assorted graphics for said grandchildren. Graphic printing is very ink intensive. I seem to run through ink like there is no tomorrow. Consequently I am always trying to find the cartridges on sale. I do not recommend nor will I use the refilling kits. As a reseller, we frequently got printers in for repair that appeared to have had small animals sacrificed in their interior. Generally speaking the problem was home refilled inkjet cartridges. Although in one instance we did find two halves of a mouse that had wondered into an Okidata 3510. So I am not a fan of home refill kits for inkjet cartridges. I had found a reseller that seemed to have the best price I could find for Epson branded inkjet cartridges. Databazzar’s prices were good and the shipping was free when over $50.00. However I had a defective cartridge and emailed their cust...