Crazy About Copiers

Copier firmware upgrades - Does your dealer install these on a regular basis?

In todays digital market manufacturers release firmware upgrades for dealers to install on customers equipment to fix bugs and improve copier performance. These firmware upgrades by manufacturers keep copiers at optimum performance.

• What is firmware?
• Firmware is software that runs a copier - an operating system like Windows is to a PC.
• Why do you need the latest version?
• Software can provide patches to fix bugs and improve the overall performance of the copier.
• Software can also provide additional features that may be available, that were not previously.

It is important that the servicing dealer you choose supplies its technicians with laptops. While on a routine service call a technician can simply go on-line to the manufacturers site and download the software right into the copier. This ensures optimal equipment performance.

Print Management for your entire printer fleet!

If your office has multiple printers you may want to assess the benefits of putting them all on a cost-per-copy program similar to how copiers are often done. 

Can You Answer These Questions? 

• How many printers, copiers, MFPs do you have?
• Are they being properly used?  Too much?  Too little?
• How often are they in need of service?
• How often are the printers out of toner?
• How old are they?
• What is your current meter read submission process?
• How much time does it take?
• How much IT time is spent supporting printing devices?
• How much money is tied up in your supply inventory?

Don't know?
      You could have a Print problem that hurting your bottom line. Click here for more information.

Smelling is Believing

Changing the Copy Toner – that dreaded chore we all try to avoid, thinking the next person who walks up to the copier will take care of it.  Sound familiar? Well, I am in the copier industry as a Director of Marketing and tend to brainstorm wacky ideas. One such thought is why not have Aromatherapy Toner.. the technology is there ..heat transfer would activate scents etc – can you imagine pleasant scents wafting from copy rooms? Changing Copy Toner could actually be fun,… a pick your scent of the week task.

Well interestingly enough our Director of Sales found an article in Road and Track and passed it along to me … here it is in a nutshell:

“ ….. Kumho now has a tire that smells. How does it work? Rolling friction produces heat that releases aroma from oil that is mixed into the raw rubber. Since the scent is infused in the tire rubber, the smell should last the life of the tire. Depending on the success of the lavender scent, Kumho might introduce other odors such as orange and jasmine. The ECSTADX is targeted primarily toward mid and full-size sedans owned by female drivers..…” – Article by Calvin Kim of Road and Track

Sounds intriguing, right? (Lavender is an odd choice thought – it’s been shown to relax and calm the nerves and even aid in sleep – Kumho may want to re-think using a scent that also functions as a sleep aid!) 

My question is this: why are manufacturers who have a plethora of research data at their fingertips not thinking outside the box and exploring these opportunities?

Erasable Paper by Xerox

Wall Street Journal Cites Xerox's Experiments in Erasable Paper as Environmental Breakthrough

In its annual search for breakthrough technologies, The Wall Street Journal cited Xerox Corporation's experimental erasable paper as a top innovation in the environment category. It was one of 30 technologies selected from more than 800 entries in fields ranging from medical/biotech to network security and semiconductors. Xerox's technology prints temporary documents that erase themselves, allowing the paper to be used again and again and reducing excessive paper dependency in the workplace. The experimental erasable paper uses light to image the paper, which automatically erases hours or days after the page is printed. Erasable paper allows reuse of the same sheet of paper, reducing paper waste. Editors of The Wall Street Journal selected the technology as an innovation that "breaks with conventional processes and goes beyond marginal improvements in products and services." Despite our reliance on computers to share and process information, there is still a strong dependence on printed pages for reading and absorbing content. Xerox estimates up to two of every five pages printed in offices are for "daily" use -- printed for a single viewing then discarded within hours. With this new technology, people would be able to print "temporary" documents (emails and web pages) and reuse the paper rather than discarding it. The ability to re-image a sheet of paper has enormous environmental implications since re-use is much preferred to recycling. For example, it takes about 202,000 Joules to manufacture one sheet of virgin paper. Even to recycle that sheet takes 114,000 Joules. To re-image every pixel on Xerox erasable paper takes only about 200 Joules, so every re-use can save an enormous amount of energy. At 30 to 100 re-uses per sheet this amounts to a very large savings in energy. Currently there are about 2.5 trillion pages printed worldwide. The experimental erasable paper system is still a laboratory demonstration, but it exemplifies how Xerox is applying innovative thinking in the area of the environment. And it complements the recently announced High Yield Business Paper, a first-of-its-kind paper for digital printing that uses half as many trees as traditional paper, while lowering the cost to mail printed material.