Over the past week I have had my share (and I’m pretty sure the shares of several others) of frustrations with printing, namely, ink refills. I have an HP OfficeJet and erroneously assumed that it was meant for small office use due to the name “OFFICE Jet”. Not so. I can print 10-15 flyers and I have to refill the ink once again. That gets really messy. I do have a backup printer because I’ve learned that hard way that I absolutely need one. It is an OLD color laser. And a big headache. It prints red where it should print white (or NOT print, that is). The imaging drum on that finally gave way last night and now I am faced with two printers that just aren’t up to par. BROTHER has saved my day. I purchased a color laser printer that prints just beautifully! The white parts are white!
Now, for the $ part: toner isn’t cheap. Here are a few tips to help you save money on toner and maybe save a little sanity. I hope you haven’t had the troubles that I have had and if so, I do have a recommended printer if you’d like the information (small plug for BROTHER).
#1: Purchase ink and toner online. Ebay has a plethora of ink and toner available and you can search by your printer model number. If you need help, I can search for you.
#2: Set your default settings to GRAYSCALE. This will save you from printing the little bits of color that are in emails, web pages, and the like. It can really add up to savings.
In your START menu, go to your CONTROL PANEL
Go to PRINTERS
Right-click over the printer you use
Click on PRINTING PREFERENCES
Change the default color to GRAYSCALE or MONO, whichever is available on your settings.
#3: If possible, buy generic ink.
#4: Sell your empty toner cartridges. Yes, many places will recycle them for free but they make money on them. Why shouldn’t you? You can get up to $11 for some cartridges. Send me your printer manufacturer name and ink cartridge #s and I’ll find out how much you could get for them.
Now, on the flipside – I now offer color laser printing. Let me know if I can help you with your printing needs.
HAPPY PRINTING!
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Organizing and Storing Your Pictures
In the age of the digital camera, photographers are now faced with the problem of how to organize and store their photos.
My favorite method of organizing my pictures is to create sub-folders in my My Pictures. The first sub-folder is the year (2007). Then I create sub-folders for each month. So, January would be '01-January'. I put the '01' in front of the month to ensure that when my computer sorts my folders in sequential order that they are sorted January - December. If you just named the folders the name of the month (January), your computer would sort them in the following order: 'February, January, March' instead of '01-January, 02-February, 03-March'. When I upload my pictures I simply plug them into the month they were taken in.
Now what do you do with all of these pictures?
Too many times they are simply stored on cameras or only on computers. If you are one of these people (and I have to admit that I am but am working on becoming a 'was') you have to ask yourself this question: What would happen if your computer suddenly crashed? That happened to me! I was so grateful that our IT Guru neighbor knew how to retrieve our old documents, photos included! Next time I may not be so lucky. So here are a few tips to keep your photos safe:
Burn every month's photos to 2 CDs. If you know how to do this yourself, great! If not, you can upload your pictures to online photo printers like Wal-Mart, Meijer, Walgreens, Snapfish, etc. and then just purchase 2 CDs for around $2-3.
Keep one CD for yourself and send one to a relative. Not only will they have copies of your pictures then for their own use but GOD FORBID you were to lose everything in a fire you will still have your pictures.
Another option, which in my opinion is not as safe, is to store your pictures on an external hard drive. If your computer crashes then you still have your backup. However, this does not prevent loss due to fire.
If you have a fire safe, you could save your CDs in the fire safe as well.
You could do one or any combination of these tips. Any one of these tips will keep your pictures just a little bit safer and your mind a little less crazy (perhaps).
My favorite method of organizing my pictures is to create sub-folders in my My Pictures. The first sub-folder is the year (2007). Then I create sub-folders for each month. So, January would be '01-January'. I put the '01' in front of the month to ensure that when my computer sorts my folders in sequential order that they are sorted January - December. If you just named the folders the name of the month (January), your computer would sort them in the following order: 'February, January, March' instead of '01-January, 02-February, 03-March'. When I upload my pictures I simply plug them into the month they were taken in.
Now what do you do with all of these pictures?
Too many times they are simply stored on cameras or only on computers. If you are one of these people (and I have to admit that I am but am working on becoming a 'was') you have to ask yourself this question: What would happen if your computer suddenly crashed? That happened to me! I was so grateful that our IT Guru neighbor knew how to retrieve our old documents, photos included! Next time I may not be so lucky. So here are a few tips to keep your photos safe:
Burn every month's photos to 2 CDs. If you know how to do this yourself, great! If not, you can upload your pictures to online photo printers like Wal-Mart, Meijer, Walgreens, Snapfish, etc. and then just purchase 2 CDs for around $2-3.
Keep one CD for yourself and send one to a relative. Not only will they have copies of your pictures then for their own use but GOD FORBID you were to lose everything in a fire you will still have your pictures.
Another option, which in my opinion is not as safe, is to store your pictures on an external hard drive. If your computer crashes then you still have your backup. However, this does not prevent loss due to fire.
If you have a fire safe, you could save your CDs in the fire safe as well.
You could do one or any combination of these tips. Any one of these tips will keep your pictures just a little bit safer and your mind a little less crazy (perhaps).
Friday, September 14, 2007
Stop click*click*clicking!
If you are anything like me (some people would say there aren't many people like me but I refuse to believe it) you have layers and layers of folders in your My Documents. Many times, I find that I am working on a document, close it and then want to work on it some more. It is one of my pet peeves to have to click through all of my folders to get to the document again. I always forget about this shortcut and I really should use it more:
In the program you are going to be using (let's use Word), click on 'Open'.
In the window that pops up click on the left-hand side icon that says 'Recent Documents'.
A list of compiled of the most recent documents you've opened. Many times I use the same documents frequently throughout the day so this could save me quite a bit of time! Perhaps now that I've written it down it will stick!
For more "advanced" users:
You can create an icon in your Quick Launch toolbar by dragging the file from a folder menu down to your Quick Launch toolbar.
Have a great weekend and let me know if you have any questions!
Renee
In the program you are going to be using (let's use Word), click on 'Open'.
In the window that pops up click on the left-hand side icon that says 'Recent Documents'.
A list of compiled of the most recent documents you've opened. Many times I use the same documents frequently throughout the day so this could save me quite a bit of time! Perhaps now that I've written it down it will stick!
For more "advanced" users:
You can create an icon in your Quick Launch toolbar by dragging the file from a folder menu down to your Quick Launch toolbar.
Have a great weekend and let me know if you have any questions!
Renee
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Certified Real Estate Support Specialist
#07-09-170112Yes, that would be me! I took (and passed with a score of 98%) the International Virtual Assistants Association's Certified Real Estate Support Specialist test. The IVAA Real Estate Support Specialist™ Examination for Virtual Assistants assesses the Virtual Assistant's competencies in areas that are key when supporting real estate professionals, including:- Legally Permissible Activities by Unlicensed Assistants
- Real Estate Industry Terminology
- Privacy and Confidentiality
- Business Ethics
- Conflicts of Interest.
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Download and Install New Fonts
Fonts have great power in a design piece. They create the overall feeling of a piece and help maintain the theme and message. Sometimes you need a font that is not a standard font in your software. All you need to do is find a free font online (or pay for one if you want to), download and install it. It's really quite easy.
Step 1: Find the font you want to install. Some good websites are:
Step 1: Find the font you want to install. Some good websites are:
Step 2: Download the font. I recommend downloading the font to your My Documents for easy access during installation. Most fonts will be downloaded in a zip file format.
Step 3: Unzip the font. Locate the downloaded zip file, open it and 'extract' all files.
Step 4: Open the Control Panel from your start menu and open the Fonts folder.
Step 5: Install font:
- In Fonts folder, click on the File menu then Install New Font
- In the Folder window, locate My Documents and double-click. A list of available fonts will appear in the top box. Click on the font you wish to install and click OK.
NOTE: If you are currently in a software program in which you wish to use your new font, you may have to close it in order for it to appear in your font list.
If you run into any problems, please feel free to call me and I will walk you through the installation. I can also help you if you need to email your font to a printer or other person who does not have the font.
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