Collies

Category Archives: Collies

Collie (or Colley) comes from the gaelic word “useful”. These are short posts about those little useful items that lurk about the office

A Refurbished Collie

Posted on April 2, 2014 by Bruce Cameron • 0 Comments

GE Line Printers — GE Printers,.Frederick V Johnson photographer, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, HAER CAL,42-LOMP,1A–102

Having started my career in computer science as a the junior system administrator assigned the unenviable task of re-inking the line printer ribbons (yes, back in the paleolithic age of computers, printers actually banged bits of type into an inked piece of cloth to produce easily smeared letters on a roll of perforated paper) I have a certain skepticism of recycled printer supplies – a skepticism stemming from the oft-repeated observation that the re-inking device usually managed to get more ink on the operator than the ribbon. However, this month’s collie comes from those brave folks that refurbish toner and inkjet cartridges.

About two and a half years ago, I started using refurbished toner and inkjet cartridges in my printers (after all someone else was handling the clothes-staining end of things). The upside was that I was spending one-half to one-third of the cost of OEM supplies while still getting nearly identical page quality. The downside is that the cartridges tend not to last as long as their OEM cousins – generally when my printers start to indicate low toner, it is time to replace the refurbished cartridge while the OEM cartridge was usual good for a 100 or so more pages (I tend to get 3300 to 3400 pages out of a refurbished cartridge and 3400 to 3500 pages from an OEM one). I should note that I can get the same number of pages out of the refurbished inkjet cartridges I use as I can from the OEM ones, but then my inkjet printer is not used on a regular basis and its cartridges tend to die more from clogged jets than they do from a lack of fluid.

So, this month’s collie may not be factory new, but it will sure help that ol’ bottom line – one third the price, just 100 pages short of the same life (kind of makes those last 100 pages really expensive).

Posted on January 21, 2014 by Bruce Cameron • 0 Comments

Collie watching sheep — Charles L. Bull, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

The gaelic word “collie” (or “colley”) generally translated as “something useful” (an apt name for a class of working dogs). But rather than talk about the dogs that bear this honorific, these posts (this is the start of what will be an irregular series at best) take a short look at the “collies” of the law office – those bits of technology that are just darn useful.

Today’s example of the just plain useful is Dymo’s “Desktop Mailing Solution” which bundles a postage scale, a label printer, and stamp printing software and gives you a no-cost (outside of the cost of labels & postage), no-contract mail processing solution.

With the exception of return receipt certified mail, this little gem handles all of those situations where e-mail, e-filing or e-whatever just won’t do. The cost of each “demo stamp” is about $0.02, which is a small premium to pay for always having the correct postage on hand and avoiding those last-minute dashes to the post office to buy a roll of stamps. For us “low-volume mail users,” the Dymo solution is a simple way to process the bulk of our office mail in-house without the hassles of maintaining a postage meter.

The only down side to this pup is that you are locked into using Dymo’s proprietary stamp labels – the stamp printing software won’t print unless you enter a key code that comes with each roll of Dymo stamp labels. Granted, this is a once-per-roll operation (and if you buy your stamp labels through the software it’s done automatically), but it does mean that you can’t use those less expensive generic rolls of stamp labels.