The Productive Office

Archive for September, 2011

Do you like to print your own photos? Perhaps you like to print them for family albums, scrapbooks, or general photo crafts. Whatever the case may be, you should be aware of some of the free image editing programs available to you. These programs will help you crop, resize, colorize, and edit your pictures so they can look their best. They can also help you add text to pictures or even impose images over one another if you want. Here are a few of them to test out on your digital photos.

Paint

Paint is the most basic image editing software available, and it comes free on all Windows computers. You should be able to find Paint by going into your start menu and clicking on the “Accessories” folder within your programs. You can also right click on a photo on your computer and click “Open with…” and then “Paint” to get the program to pull up. Depending on what model of paint you have, you should be able to resize and crop images as needed. You may also add arrows, circles, text boxes, and more to pictures with this program. It will not offer you an incredible amount of options for printing, but it should give you a few ideas to play around with.

IrfanView

IrfanView is a slightly more sophisticated image editing program that you can use to edit images with. It allows you to change the coloring of an image, and it can open more picture formats than paint can. IrfanView is safe to download, and you can get it directly from its website: www.irfanview.com. There are new versions of this program coming out all the time, so be aware of updates as you begin using it. Luckily, the programs and the updates are both completely free.

GIMP

If you are dying to truly put your toner cartridges to the test, GIMP may be the program for you. This is a GNU program that allows you to do just about anything you would want to do to an image. It may not be as high tech as Photoshop, but it is the best free software out there for image editing. You can download GIMP for free from its official website: www.gimp.org.

Hopefully some of the programs above will be just what you need to get through your image editing. Check out tutorials for them if you want more ideas about how to effectively use them to edit your images.

“Extreme couponing” is becoming an incredibly popular trend across the US because of the recent downturn in the economy. This process involves using coupons to their maximum potential to get incredible discounts on regular household items. TLC has an entire show devoted to extreme couponing, and it shows viewers that it is possible to get an entire shopping cart of groceries for free with proper coupon planning. Couponing takes time, dedication, and a little luck, but you can do much of the work through your computer. Here are some tips to help you do just that.

Couponing Sites

There are tons of websites out there devoted to helping you save money. If you buy cheap ink and paper online, you can print out coupons from these places and use them in your local stores. Groupon is the most well-known coupon site online to date, but there are others that may be better suited for your area. If you can gather coupons from those sites in combination with coupons in your newspaper, you should get a decent amount of savings to use.

Brand and Store Websites

If you have a certain brand of goods that you cannot live without, you can try going on their actual website to see if they offer any printable coupons. You can do the same with stores that you shop through on a regular basis. Grocery stores are great about putting coupons online, and many of them also offer e-coupons that you can load onto a shopping card and swipe when you checkout. All of this can help you save money when it comes time to pay.

Double Coupon Days

Many stores offer double value coupon days that allow you to double the value of any coupon you use in the store. This can significantly improve the savings you see during your checkout. Many extreme couponers will stock up on coupons to use during those special sales because they can get a lot of savings in one trip, rather than missing out on something because they weren’t prepared. You can shop just like them.

You never have to look for sales on ink cartridges because we strive to offer great prices every day. You can user that ink to print off coupons that will help you save money for the rest of your needs. Extreme couponing is all about watching for sales and learning when you can make the most out of the coupons available to you. Get some printer toner and paper, and start printing off the savings today.

Most people think that a printer is purely made for printing documents. While that may be its primary function, there are many other uses for a printer that you may not be aware of. You can use your standard office printer and ink to do tons of different things if you know what it is capable of. Here are just a few uses for printers that you might not even realize are possible just yet.

Edible Images

If you have edible ink in your printer, you can actually use it to make edible images for cakes and other baked goods. You will of course need edible paper for this as well, which may not be sold with common office supplies. Many bakers have special printers specifically for printing edible images, and others do what they can with office printers. You can see what your options are from there.

Photo Printing

Photo printing may be one of the most common uses for printing outside of printing documents. If you are not aware of this ability yet, you can actually use your printer to print out pictures for albums and frames right at home. You can do this on standard printer paper, or you can use special photo paper that has a gloss on it like you are used to seeing. You do not need special toner cartridges to make this happen. You just need the paper and the printer itself.

Iron-Ons

You can print images through your printer that can be transferred onto a piece of fabric. You need iron-on paper to make this happen, but you can find that in a variety stores locally and on the web. You will need to print a mirror image of your photo to be able to iron it on properly. Otherwise it will come off backwards when you try to put it on the fabric. With everything printer, all you will need to do is apply the image to the paper.

Tattoos

If you have tattoo paper, you can use your printer to make your own temporary tattoos. Of course, you will not be able to get a permanent tattoo from your printer, but that does not mean you cannot get a fun one to wear for a few days. Find some clip art to put on your body and you will have a cool new tattoo in no time.

It seems like every child you have nearly triples the amount of printing projects you have as a family. Whether you’re a single mom raising an only child or the proud parent of a family of 12, you need to find a low cost printer that is going to work out well for your whole family. Choosing a printer for your home may not be as challenging as you think. You just have to keep a few things in mind. Here are some of those “things” so you don’t end up with a printer you can’t use.

Quality Brands

Name brand printers aren’t necessarily the best ones on the market, but you need to think about the brand of a printer before you buy it. Quality printer brands like HP, Brother, and Samsung are at the top of the market for a reason. It is because they use good parts in their printers that last for a long time. You may have to spend a little more for a printer from one of these brands, but you will get more use out of it in the end. That is the cost effective shopping mentality that you need to use for your family.

Low Ink Costs

Most people looking for cheap printers don’t necessarily think about the cheap ink they will need to buy later on. You need to find a printer that will use ink conservatively so you don’t have to buy new ink cartridges every month or two. If you find a printer with cheap, efficient ink, you will not have hefty maintenance costs to worry about in the future. Just make sure you think about that before you purely consider the cost of the unit itself.

All in One Features

The best printers for most families are all-in-ones because they act like three machines in one. You can get a combination printer, scanner, and copier to use in your home so you don’t have to spend money on the machines individually. If you send faxes on a regular basis, you may consider getting a four in one. That will act as a fax machine on top of being an all in one printer. You can find other machine combinations like that on the market, so check out the different models available for your family.

Whether you are already in college or looking to start school in the near future, you will probably need a printer to use for your classes. College students tend to do a lot of printing throughout a semester, and they usually don’t have a ton of money to spend on ink cartridges and office supplies. The printers below are great for college students because they can produce high volume prints without costing a fortune in ink. One of these models may be perfect for you.

HP LaserJet Pro P1102

The HP LaserJet Pro P1102 costs less than $100 to buy in most stores, and it offers very good printing quality for the price. It’s got a dpi resolution of 1200 x 1200, which is well within industry standards for printers that are much more expensive than it. It can print 19 pages per minute, which makes it great for last minute reports that every college student is a victim of turning in. We sell plenty of HP toner cartridges to keep this printer working throughout your college career.

Samsung ML2525W

The Samsung ML2525W is a very fast printer, and it is still affordable for a college budget. It prints a whopping 24 pages per minute, but it does not offer the same crisp quality that the HP above offers. Nevertheless, the Samsung toner cartridges for this printer are cheap to buy, just like the printer itself. It could serve you well in college.

Samsung ML1630W

The Samsung ML1630W is similar to the model above, but it is a lot quieter to use. If you have several roommates that you don’t want to wake up during your 2 am printing session, this could be the printer for you. This model is also highly compact, so it can fit into just about any area you have left in your dorm room. The printer is easy to install and dare-we-say stylish to use, so you should have no trouble working it into your office for college.

The printer that you end up getting may not be one of those models because printer features change every year. Think about getting an all in one printer that will let you copy, print, and scan images all in one unique unit. That will give you the best bang for your buck. Hopefully that one unit will last you until you graduate.