Think Global But Buy Local

When thinking about your local office products dealership versus a giant manufacturer, they are often first perceived like David going up against the behemoth Goliath that sells office equipment direct to the public. Dealer/suppliers, much like David, are smaller infrastructures than their larger competitor, and thankfully, this is a great advantage that translates into superior speed and agility when responding to requests for fast customer service!

Unlike the giants that make and in some cases sell their copiers, multifunction and other office products direct, your local community dealer won't try to impress customers with their size. Instead, they will typically bend over backwards to provide first-rate customer service. After all, they have a personal interest in ensuring fast turnaround and excellent service—their livelihood depends on it.

But that’s just one of the reasons why you may want to buy from a dealer versus the manufacturer. Dealers have brand flexibility and can represent more than one brand of products. This enables them to recommend products and solutions that most closely meet a company’s real business needs, pricing and corporate objectives. They also maintain relationships with multiple software providers. And since they’re not in the business of developing software, they’re free of any natural bias towards their own products. An independent dealer/supplier is going to take special care to find the kinds of systems that best serve you.

A dealer/supplier can also guide you through the thorny leasing process and even manage your lease agreement if that is your preference over purchasing. This ensures that your business doesn’t incur any of the penalties and fees which are part and parcel of the leasing business model. Partnering with someone that is experienced in the leasing game can mean the difference between saving and losing money on the deal.

Some dealer/suppliers serve as single-source solution providers that can streamline your business processes and ensure maximum efficiency and accountability. Why spend valuable time and resources coordinating several or more vendors when a single supplier may be able to provide a range of services? Imagine having one vendor provide services such as:

• Document imaging including document preparation/re-assembly and image indexing and verification
• IT services from network design and installation to desktop applications• Facilities management including copy and mailroom management

When you purchase office equipment from a local supplier, you’re buying from someone right in your backyard. You know where to find them and they’re directly accountable to you. Then there’s the human factor. A local dealer is a solid member of the community, and many dealers believe in giving back to their local region by supporting worthy causes, running the gamut from assisting in civic events to charitable donations to college endowment funds. They invest in the needs and people of their community, only some of which are customers.

Save Some Money With These Printing Tips

When printing Office Documents like XLS, PPT or DOC:

For Powerpoint: Print Handout and not slides. Use Grayscale or B&W mode rather than the default Color mode.

For Excel: Instead of printing full spreadsheets or the entire active spreadsheet page, select the areas (or cells) that you want to print and choose "Print Selection". Reduce the print quality (dpi) from the Page setup window and also deselect the option to Print Gridlines. If possible, use the Draft Quality mode.

For Word: Click "Options" button in the Print window and choose "Draft output" in the Printing options. Specify the page numbers that you want to print instead of printing the entire document. That will save your printing time, paper as well as ink.

When printing Photographs or Web Images:

Printing colored pictures on a home computer consumes the maximum amount of ink.

For many inkjet printers, printing a color photo can use as much as 30 times more ink than printing a standard page of text. The best bet is that you take the digital camera to the nearest photograph printing lab rather than print those jpg files at home. That may actually cost cheaper than printing on your personal printer.

If you still want to print images at home, get a good photo editing software like Photoshop or Gimp or even Paint.NET. Resize and Crop the picture to make it look more interesting. For best results, use photo paper recommended by the printer manufacturer as non-standard quality paper may jam the printer rollers or may even repel ink. I personally prefer a photopaper with a Matte finish than a glossy paper.

ISP to Sell Your Browsing History for Targeted Ads

It's one thing when Google uses your search for boobs to deliver targeted ads for plastic surgeons in your area. It's another when your ISP uses deep-packet inspection to snoop on which sites you visit and for how long, and then essentially sells that data to advertisers for super-targeted. That's exactly what Charter is about to do, calling it an "enhanced online experience." Naturally, the program is opt-out, not opt-in, so you've gotta take the initiative to hang on to one last shred of privacy. And no, they're not passing on the money they're making off your browsing habits in the form of discounts. I hope this doesn't migrate to other ISP's like pay per byte billing. Which incidentally is putting a limit on the amount of bandwidth a person uses and then billing them for "overages".

Fake, infected media file attacks half a million victims in a week

In what is being called the largest fake media file outbreak in three years, some 500,000 people have nearly fallen prey to a phony music or video track that is actually a spyware-infested Trojan horse.

Usually purporting to be a music track with an MP3 file extension, the file is actually an installer that claims to require a special codec and special media player to play back the file.

Install the codec and what you really get is a computer screen full of pop-ups delivered through a variety of malware programs. You can see what the infection process looks like by checking out the video on this post. The attack is primarily being distributed through peer-to-peer networks.

This is hardly an original attack, but the scale of it is immense: Those 500,000 atacks occurred in the space of just one week. That's substantial.

The bright spot is that according to McAfee, which provided the data in the BBC report, only about 10 percent of those who downloading the infected file actually installed it.

The infected file incorporates all manner of potential file names. Though the BBC story includes a half-dozen infected file names, the real list is exhaustive to the point where it would make little sense including it here. It's likely that that list will continue to grow, too, as the attack continues to develop.

You already know what you need to do now, but I'll say it again: Update your antivirus software, make sure it's running real-time scans, and keep off those peer-to-peer networks.

Can I fax with an all-in-one over cable internet?

Can I fax with an all-in-one over cable internet?

If I buy a regular all-in-one printer and hook it up via usb to my computer, can I then fax via the internet? I do not have a phone line that works anymore, as I use voip.
Also could I received faxes? and if so how would I figure out the number, or would I have to ask comcast for a second # ?

Thanks

by Pendrago...

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker

1) No
2) Maybe
3) Home Number or 2nd number either/or

Faxing over VoIP is sometimes a problem due to "lossy" codecs. Analog (old phone line) is still best for faxing.

You can read more about it here.

http://hylafax.sourceforge.net/docs/fax-...

In short faxing over VOiP might work. Use caution and at your own risk.