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This year Toby and I are upgrading all our equipment at the office and we are just about finished. We feel that if it is our business to offer solutions using technology we should set an example by being on the cutting edge of what works as much as possible. So hence our replacing stuff that still works just to keep up with the latest and greatest. The nagging question is do I really need all this stuff with ever increasing features and capabilities being built in to products or is all I'm doing is complicating my life while keeping the economies of foreign countries humming along?
Well, we just finished spending all our hard earned profits so now I can lean back and reflect on what we did and didn't buy and what has worked and what has been a colossal mistake. The first item was a new 2-line phone. Pretty much a no-brainer as we had a corner of the office that someone sits without a phone. The cost was reasonable as we had to match our current 4 line phones but the real trick is programming the little things as ring volume, DND (that means DO NOT DISTURB, my favorite feature!), Conference calling and programmed numbers. What I've found over the years is that if you don't take the time to properly set this stuff up when you first get it you never will. So if you take anything away from this rant is SET IT UP NOW, give yourself enough time and do it right.
The second item we got was to replace all our cellular phones. They all worked fine and had very large batteries and could carry a charge for quite a long time. But what the heck even I succumb to slick ads from Verizon to commit to another two years and get the new small camera phones. Well I have to tell you, they stink! I'm one of those people who use a cell phone out of necessity and I am not married to it. But I know enough to get all the extras such as the car charger and headphone mic. These phones are so small the buttons are hard to push and I already have a digital camera so the only pictures I take are when I'm bored in the bathroom. The batteries don't last long and the ring tones are a bunch of god-awful tunes. I miss the old Ringggggggg. I still have to re-program voice activation and all my phone numbers because I did not do it when I got it so it still may never get done now. So here I sit longing for my old phone which was cheap, reliable and was easy to use.
The third on our list of items was a new Brother Message center FAX/Answering machine. These are really wonderful items that can tell the difference between voice and fax on incoming calls and handle them appropriately. This one replaced again another unit that worked but had a few annoying tendencies that if you ever left us a message you might have noticed. It worked like a charm as I already knew how to program the lengthy list of features, Ring time. Message time, incoming message and remote control. I thought I had it all set but for some reason it stores every fax it prints so I end up printing two copies of those stupid faxes you get wanting to refinance or the latest hot stock pick. But as I said before. I did not set this up right away and now I may never fix it. But all in all a good purchase.
Forth and fifth on our list was new printers for the office. My pride and joy is our IBM Infoprint 1352 Laser printer. At 23 pages per minute this thing almost shoots the paper across the office it's so fast. I love it. But the real reason I'm so happy that by purchasing a printer with lots of horsepower I have eliminated a huge source for the day to day working of our office. How many of you readers out there have ever had to struggle with printer problems? Yeah, I thought so. Well not me anymore. This printer is in the workgroup class with a network card built in to it so it's always ready with blinding speed, a 500 sheet tray that takes a full ream of paper at a time "nice" and the toner has a 32,000 page capacity. That's right 32,000 pages. I'll probably grow old before I have that panic run down to the store to buy toner right in the middle of something crucial. I even spent the extra $150.00 to buy an extra tray to put all my checks in to print on demand, sweet! On a scale of one to ten this scores a ten. One of my best purchases ever. One thing to remember though: ALWAYS buy QUALITY paper and not CRAPPY CHEAP COPY paper because cheap paper sheds paper fibers into the rollers and other components reducing quality and increasing service and repair costs. Yes folks, with a printer like this you DO PAY to have it serviced!
Though not so lucky with our next acquisition. Two years ago I bought a Lexmark 320 Color laser printer at an incredible savings. After unsuccessfully trying to unload this $1,500.00 item to one of our unsuspecting customers we decided to put it into service to replace our worn out HP 2500C Inkjet printer. This has been a disaster from day done. It weighs about five hundred pounds and takes two people to put it on a desk. When you turn the bloody thing on it whines, whirrs, whistles and chirps for about ten minutes while it warms up. We had to move it away from Toby's desk as he couldn't hear anyone on the phone. It took 4 different toners as well as an oil reservoir. And to add insult to injury the first time I used the beast the paper jammed just as a SIG was starting so I left it and when I tried to get the paper our later that week I got fused to the fuser roll and we had to replace the whole brand new fuser unit for $300.00. Ouch. Needless to say Toby has forbidden me buy anything with the name Lexmark on it. Oh well you can't win them all. It does print in beautiful color, so on the scale rate this purchase a three.
And to wrap up this somewhat boring rant we ended our buying spree with upgrading our computers. Both of ours worked fine but we like to use what we sell so in this respect we had to keep up with the Joneses. I got an 3.2ghz Athlon 64 with an AUS board for free from AMD so I promptly put this technological wonder in my custom green case and gave poor ol lonesome Toby the had-me-downs. Sometime having all the screwdrivers pays off! My PC is fast and reliable and I was able to recycle the old one. What more can you ask for except to match the color of your car which it does. So when it comes time to upgrade your life I hope you fare well and get something that works for you and works well. And if your not sure what that is, well, come to us. We have lots of experience with the GOOD, BAD and the UGLY.
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