Google is amazing!

I'm amazed at how Google has come from nowhere to become an everyday household name and a verb. When Google came out, it wasn't long before people said, did you "Google" that? It was all over for yahoo. Even George Bush does "the Google". 

Since Google search, Google has released hit after hit, the most recent Chrome a browser that will take on industry giant Microsoft IE8 head to head. Some of what Google has done has been expected, but they continue to think outside the box and come up with products that people never even knew they wanted or needed. I'm sure it helps that Google has more money than god, but still there are tons of huge corporations that never surprise us and never do anything unexpected. What makes Google different? Will they start selling Check Paper and MICR toner cartridges and put us out of business? Probably not, still one thing is for sure, I wouldn't want to be the target of Google, because if you are, you probably won't be in business for long. 

Google continues to churn out industry leading Internet software at a dizzying pace.

• Google Earth - amazing
  
• Google Checkout - definitely a great way to buy products without disseminating your personal information.
  
• Google Picasa - what a great way to share your pictures
  
• Gmail - best web mail out there
  
• Google Desktop - great for searching your computer. I'm not a huge fan because it can bog your computer down.
• Google News - A collection of news from the net
• Google Chrome - still new, but already it's replaced IE 7 and SlimBrowser for me
  
• Google AdWords - The real money maker at google is the most effective way to reach targeted users out there. We spend 90% of our advertising on AdWords. And when someone searches for the key words we specify, they see our ads. Perfectly targeted!
  
• Google Maps - again probably the best map software on the web, I love the new terrain feature.
  
• Blogger - I'm using it right now, it's great.
  
• YouTube - Obviously the most used video sharing on the web
  
• Analytics - If you are a webmaster, this is great stuff if you want to know about where your visitors come from and how they got there.
  
• 800-Goog-411 - Great free 411 service that works better than regular 411.
• The list goes on and on including Google Calendar, Orkut, Google Groups, etc...

In some cases like YouTube, where Google Video was not number one, Google just opened their wallet and bam, Google is number one once again.

Maybe its the environment that Google employees work in. Check out these pictures of the Google office in Europe. Nuts! But who wouldn't want to work there. Who knows why Google is so damn good at whatever they put their mind to, but one thing is for sure, they aren't done yet. Google is currently the 12th largest company in the world based on market capitizalization. With Apple Computer just ahead of them and Cisco just behind them. If google keeps it up, I won't be suprised to see Google in the #1 spot some day.

Weak dollar and high oil prices driving HP prices up

The weak dollar and high oil prices are conspiring to bring about price increased for HP toner cartridges. The weaker dollar automatically makes oil prices increase all on its own. You've seen inflation in everything at the grocery store from bread to beef, and now we are starting to see the results in our little corner of the world.

As I wrote a month ago, in the face of significant UPS fuel surcharges, we plan to continue to offer free shipping on our toner cartridges, but unfortunately it looks like HP is raising prices 5-6% on it's toner and inkjet cartridges. We'll have no choice but to pass the cost increase along to our customers. This will affect new HP Product as well as our Premium MICR Cartridges (New MICR). On the plus side, maybe this will be an incentive for our customers to switch to Advantage Brand toner cartridges (Remanufactured). Advantage Cartridges have the same quality and guarantee as new cartridges. And now there will be an even greater savings.

HP announced the price increase effective September 1st, but our suppliers have told us they will not actually increase the price until October 1st. So be warned, new pricing will be here by October 1. If you are a big HP toner user, I'd go ahead and make an extra big order before October comes around.

Here's the HP price increase letter:

Buying a Laser Printer... Do your homework!

These days, printer manufacturers are practically giving away printers. For instance you can buy an HP P1005 laser at Costco for $49.00 (This includes a $80 instant rebate from HP). They will sell you toner cartridge for about the same price.

The days of disposable laser printers has arrived. It used to be inkjets were disposable, not laser. Color laser printers are now dipping below the $400 level as well. But before you go out and buy a laser printer, you might want to do some research into how much it will cost to print per page.

Just like when Gillette send you the latest Mach 5 razor (now with 5 blades instead of 3) - better grab your wallet, because that free razor takes $4 blades. You get the point.

The good thing about HP monochrome printers is that the printers comes with an all-in-one cartridge, meaning there is only one cartridge. Some other manufacturers will tout how inexpensive their toner cartridges are, but neglect to mention that for every 3 toner cartridges, you'll have to buy a drum unit. Panasonic, Okidata, Brother all use this concept. So do the research and don't get burned. The printers that use multiple cartridges are not necessarily bad and sometime can be less expensive, but unless you do the research, you won't know. I've had customers call looking for a drum unit for a printer they only paid $200 for to find out the drum unit was $250 -they were not happy. All-in-one cartridges are easier to troubleshoot when you do have problems, and tend to make more sense to remanufacture.

Color laser printers are even more tricky to compare. At the bare minimum, your color printer will need 4 toner cartridges, and many of them will have a drum unit for each toner cartridge, so now you're looking at 8 cartridges.

Here's an average example an HP 3600n costs $399 (shopping.hp.com), a set of cartridges (4) costs $522.96. The 3600n with cartridges is less expensive than one set of toner cartridges for the unit. Crazy! and HP is actually better about this than most manufacturers. So you might think, each time my printer runs out of toner, I'll chunk it and buy a new one. From an environmental perspective, this would be just wrong, but HP also has another trick up their sleeve - the printer comes with a "starter" cartridge. Starter cartridges typically print only half as much as the cartridges that you would buy on the street. In reading about printers from HP, they don't mention this anywhere that I could find, but we see it all the time. Lexmark has been doing this for years, and HP only recently adopted this ploy.

Do your research before you buy. We always recommend HP printers over any other brand. We've found HP the most reliable and the easiest to source parts and supplies.

What is "The Box"?

If you've purchased any of our Advantage Brand toner cartridges recently, you may have noticed the cartridge was packaged in "The Box". The concept behind "The Box" was to create a more useful box; a box that is not covered with obnoxious graphics that can be reused for other applications. We put the company information on the bottom of the box and used took a minimalist approach for product identification. Hopefully we achieved our goal and many of you are finding other uses for "The Box".


Recycling the corrugated cardboard is preferable to chunking the box in the landfill. But better yet is using the box for storage especially if it keeps you from purchasing a new box.

In addition to using the box to return your toner cartridges for recycling, we plan to offer additional recycling services where you can use the box to recycle batteries, tennis shoes, etc.

We would love to include a free Advantage return label with each toner cartridge like HP does, but it's just not economically feasible. Especially with increased fuel costs, shipping costs have gone out of control. For certain cartridges that are high in demand, we will provide recycling labels to return the cartridges to Advantage. And we have a huge supply of HP recycling labels. So if you want to recycle your cartridges with HP, just let us know when you order and we'll include an HP recycling label. Or if you don't mind paying shipping, we are happy to recycle your cartridges for you, but you'll have to get the cartridge here on your dime.

We're pretty particular about the cartridges we remanufacture and for most cartridges we only use"virgin" cartridges, that is cartridges that have never been remanufactured before. We have outlets for non-virgin cartridges as well, so you can be assured any cartridges you send to us will be recycled.

One way or another, be sure to re-use "The Box". Thanks! -Marvin

Why don’t you make a MICR toner cartridge for my machine?

This is one of the most common questions we are asked. Many times it is asked in frustration and many times our answers leave people feeling empty inside. Ok, maybe not empty inside but companies who want to print checks also want to use the printer they already have.

If you aren’t using a Hewlett Packard or Lexmark monochrome printer, chances are there isn’t a MICR toner available for your machine. Supply and demand dictates where production dollars will be allocated for both the toner cartridge and consumable (cartridge, parts and loose toner) manufacturers. Since HP and Lexmark have a stranglehold on the laser printer industry, companies such as ours will spend money to produce a MICR toner cartridge for those very machines that saturate the market. This trickles down to the loose toner vendors, they too will not create a MICR toner powder for machines that don’t saturate the market.

All you need to do is dump some MICR toner into a cartridge!

I have been quietly to very loudly told this by many customers who think they understand the toner manufacturing industry. We wish it were that simple because it would have saved us a lot of time and money. It is far more sophisticated of a process to make a MICR toner cartridge because not every cartridge takes the same MICR toner. The component parts of a HP 4200 toner cartridge will not work with the MICR toner used in a HP 1100 cartridge and vice-versa. The component parts may also need to be manufactured specifically for MICR printing. There are even more variables that need to be considered, but it would be silly and equally boring to list them all.

So what do you do if you can’t find a MICR toner for your laser printer?

1. Research what MICR toners are available and then buy that machine
2. Buy pre-printed checks
3. Find a company that claims they can produce it.

Buyer Beware- if a company claims to produce a MICR toner for machines other than HP and Lexmark, research that company’s return policy and make sure they have a money back guarantee. We carry some MICR toners for laser printers outside of HP and Lexmark lines however they either have the same engine as a HP/ Lexmark machine or the demand at one point substantiated producing it.

Good luck and Happy Check Printing!

HP Going Green?

HP recently announced a new initiative for green printing. The new initiative includes a new $40 DeskJet printer almost entirely made from recycled plastic and new company goals to make their printers 40% more efficient. HP also plans to triple the recycled materials that are current used in their toner cartridges, laser and inkjet printers. And lastly, HP plans to surpass the 250 million toner and ink cartridges that will be recycled in 2008.

I applaud HP for making the effort. If all business made this effort, the world would be a better place. Going "green" as we have done is not only "the right" thing to do, it's also good business. In our case we are not only conserving to help the environment, but we're saving money and feeling great about doing it. We're saving on everything from an advanced climate control system to analyzing and recycling every possible outflow we can find.

HP is a great business and when I see the enthusiasm about HP's green program, I just want to remind you, this is not 100% altruistic. When you read HP will recycle 250 million toner and inkjet cartridges, the real goal there is not to recycle them, but to take them out of circulation - again good business practice on HP's part.

For HP, recycling means separate the components and melt them down to raw materials. This takes energy - a much greener approach is to do what we do, which is to remanufacture the cartridge. In this way the cartridge keeps it's present form, the imaging system such as drum, developer, wiper blade, doctor blade are replaced (and recycled). But the rest of the cartridge stays intact. HP wants to take cartridges out of circulation, because HP knows that every cartridge they don't collect for recycling may potentially become a "competitor" in the form of a recycled or remanufactured cartridge.

HP is also releasing a carbon foot print calculator for your laser printer in June, so you can save the world buy upgrading your printer. More on this later. -Marvin

Higher Gas Prices = Fuel Surcharges, but not from us!

Now that oil has topped $130 per barrel, the notifications are coming in from all of our suppliers that fuel surcharges will be applied on incoming shipments. Ugh!

We only ship via UPS, and effective June 1, our fuel surcharge from UPS will be 8.5% for ground and 28% (ouch) for air shipments.

The Buck Stops Here!
We realize times are tight. We will not pass along the increased fuel surcharges on our toner cartridges. Our toner cartridges ship with free UPS ground shipping and we we won't increase our prices or take away the free shipping. Check paper is a different story, check paper is heavy and and it's expensive to ship, so we charge actual UPS charges for check paper.

I'm no economist, but... it's easy to see that virtually every business in the world will be affected by higher transport costs. The "trickle down" effect certainly has the potential to cause significant inflation. We're doing what we can to stop the increased fuel costs from trickling down to the next level.

On the positive side... higher fuel prices seem to be motivating Americans to make smarter choices with their transportation. The US has enjoyed relatively low fuel prices compared to the rest of the world for some time now. If you ever travel to Europe or Australia, you'll notice our cars are huge compared to theirs. Higher fuel prices are driving people to bike to work and take mass transit, and relocate closer to their jobs. Here in Atlanta, where the average commute is 32 miles (the highest in the country), people that work downtown are flocking to new intown developments. Urban re-development is booming. If the the time wasted sitting in traffic doesn't convince them, maybe the gas prices will!

Did you know... on average it takes a pint of oil to make a toner cartridge? So just by buying 8 remanufactured cartridges, you'll save a gallon of gas and save 40%. Our Advantage brand toner cartridges are remanufactured right here in Atlanta, Georgia and they work great.

We really appreciate all of our customers business, and we're doing what we can to eat the fuel surcharge and not pass it along to our customers. -Marvin