The Productive Office

Archive for August, 2008

My current printer is an Epson Stylus Photo RX620 combined printer and scanner.

Although the machine is larger than either my previous printer or scanner it does the same work as both of them while taking up less space than both of them together. It prints fairly fast(at least as quickly as my previous printer).

Scans are slightly slower, mainly because my old scanner was a Firewire machine and this is USB, but the difference is not very great and the scan quality seems much better. I use it for scanning in text. I also use it for scanning in photos, though not as much as I used to since I got a digital camera. I have occasionally used its photocopy capability to duplicate vital documents. Although not as fast as the copying machines I have used at Kinkos, it was reasonably fast and altogether free. Read the rest of this entry »

My husband bought me my Epson CX7400 last year for our anniversary. I use it quite often, however, our old one had completely died.

It is a basic three-in-one, but suits my needs perfectly. Being an Ebay seller and an very active member at paperbackswap, the scanner never rests. The copier is mainly used for Bible verse memory booklets for my Bible classes. I usually wait until the last minute to make the copies I need. I don’t like to take the chance that the church secretary will be too busy to get to them. The printer saves me a trip to the library when I want to print off a college paper, an internet coupon, or a coloring sheet for my kids. The internet is such a wonderful tool, however, you can not use it to its’ full capacity if you do not own a printer.

This particular model is a money saver. There are four different ink cartridges for the Epson CX7400. If you run out of yellow (T069420), you do not have to throw out the rest of the ink. Also, your papers will print solid until the ink is completely empty. This energy efficient machine costs less than $100.

The Epson CX7400 does not have all the bells and whistles of other printers, but as a basic printer you can not beat it!

Lyn’s Note: The CX7400 uses the following epson ink cartridges: T069120, T069220, T069320 and T069420

I recently purchased a Canon Pixma MP-210 inkjet printer to replace an Epson CX-4800. My daughters also have a Canon Pixma MP-210 and they have been extremely pleased with it, so I thought I’d follow suit and purchase one.

My daughters are photographers and have needed to print some of their work for art shows. When I saw the quality of the photographs from their Pixma, I was pleasantly shocked! The colors were bright and vivid, they were sharp and clear. Its ability to produce excellent quality photographs is what I like the best about this printer. I had the opportunity to purchase a newer Canon model but opted to purchase the MP-210 just because of the quality I’ve seen from my daughters’ printer.

I do feel that the ink is a bit more expensive than in other printers, but if it is going to give me the quality I expect, it may be well worth it. I am using it primarily for making regular copies, however, I will use it for photographs as well. It also doesn’t have an ‘enlarge’ feature. I would have liked to have had that feature on a printer.

The printer is a bit, ‘clunky’ in design, not as sleek as I would have liked to see in a printer, but if it does a good job, I can live with it. However, it is FAST and that makes up for its aesthetic flaw. I do think that it is going to fulfill my needs, especially with printing photographs.

On a scale of 1-5, I’d have to rank it as a 4. If it were sleek in design, it would have gotten a 5 rating from me.

Editor’s Note: You can save money by purchasing the PG-40 Black Cartridge and the CL-41 Color Cartridge from Inkcarts.com! Or, click here to view all of our Canon Printer Ink.

Here is another great tip from one of our users!

Create Your Own T-Shirts Using an Inkjet Printer and Iron-On Transfers

I currently use the HP PSC 1410v All-in-One Inkjet printer. The most creative thing I do with this printer is to make iron-on transfers for my own T-shirts and for my partner and sometimes my friends.

Due to the fact that I am a big boy, I can hardly ever find interesting T-shirts in my size. Thanks to my printer and iron-on transfers that work with inkjet printers, I can now print anything I want and make a T-shirt out of it! Most people ask me where I buy my shirts and when I tell them I make them myself they are flabbergasted!

Its great! Plus, I get my shirts at a discount store for $5.00 and the iron-on transfers are around $8.00 for five transfers, that works out to less than $8.00 per shirt! Where else can you get cool shirts for under $8.00 for big boys? No where!

Everyone should do this! Its fun, easy, and cheap!

Lyn’s Note: The HP PSC 1410v uses the HP #21 and HP #22 inkjet cartridges. HP also offers the HP #21 2-Pack.

As soon as I bought an HP Inkjet 3650 printer for my antique shop I began to find creative uses for it. I printed signs, I printed tags and I printed pictures.

First, I used it to print signs for various areas in my shop. I had a digital version of a logo that had been designed by a graphic artist and I decided on a color theme for all the signage in the shop. I used cream paper and printed everything in brown ink. It looked classy.

Next, I printed lovely, big Art Nouveau tags for all my furniture. My daughter had given me a book/CD that contained a couple of hundred Art Nouveau designs, including borders. I used the borders to create the tags on the cream paper.

Finally, I had copyright-free art work, like cigar bands and perfume labels, that I scanned, printed and dry mounted in attractive groupings.

My printer was really helpful to me. It helped me establish my brand and create a saleable product. I had such fun doing this that I have been easing into scrapbooking using my vintage greeting cards.

Lyn’s Note: Wow! Another wonderful user tip. It’s nice to walk into a shop where the owner has paid attention to the little things! The Deskjet 3650 is a nice printer, and you can save a little money by purchasing the black #27 cartridge 2-pack.