Epson Stylus Pro WT7900

Epson America Inc., announced on December 8th, 2009 that the Epson Stylus Pro WT7900 would be the world’s first printer to utilize aqueous-based white ink printing technology, which has been developed by Epson America Inc.  This will enable packaging designers, flexographic and gravure printers to use white ink on materials such as transparent and metallic films. This aqueous-based white ink technology will drastically lower manufacturing costs while significantly increasing the quality of work.

What is Aqueous-Based White Ink

Aqueous based white ink proofing technology was developed for the sole purpose of producing higher quality white yields. This technology drastically increases ink density, provides custom white color toning, and allows white ink to be displayed on a range of substances like never before, including; inkjet coated transparent and metallic films. The secret you ask? Epson UltraChrome™ HDR White Ink, which is a water-based resin that doesn’t consist of any known carcinogens.

Epson Stylus Pro WT7900 Review

Epson America Inc., says the Epson Stylus Pro WT7900 will forever transform the package proofing and prototyping industries.  This printer will utilize the Epson UltraChrome HDR White ink as well as their cutting edge printhead, the ten-channel MicroPiezo Thin Film Piezo (TFP) with ink repelling coating technology.  The MicroPiezo TFP also enables the WT7900 to be virtually maintenance free, due to it’s auto cleaning function as well as ink provides a repelling coating that reduces the chances of nozzle clogging.  Consistency won’t be an issue with Epson PreciseColor, their groundbreaking production technology, which automatically evaluates and collaborates during and after each print.

The Stylus WT7900 provides several inivative printing options, such as the reverse-white and surface-white. Reverse-white printing mode allows the WT7900 to print in color first, followed by white ink. While surface-white printing mode is just the opposite – the white is printed first, followed by the color. These are just two of the numerous printing modes and features tha the Stylus WT7900 has to offer.

The Stylus Pro WT7900 will be available in early 2010 and has a MSRP of $8,495.

For a full list of features and specifications, check it out on Epson’s website.

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could hire someone to complete a few tasks for your small business without having to pay taxes, insurance, or vacation time? With a virtual assistant, you can! A recent trend within small businesses has shown the popularity of outsourcing tasks to virtual assistants.

Photo by mecookie

If you haven’t heard of them, virtual assistants work independently for your business through the Internet. When looking for a VA, you can decide on means of communication and location. Some people prefer a local virtual assistant, while others prefer VA’s in opposite time zones.

For small business owners, it can be essential to outsource the small tasks so you can focus on the bigger things. If you have a project that you need help on or small tasks that you just can’t get to, virtual assistants provide plenty of services. Here are some examples of what your small business can use a VA for:

• Administrative, technical or creative services
• SEO services
• Website development/maintenance
• Accounting/Bookkeeping
• Graphic Design
• Social Media/Blogging
• Data Entry
• Telephone/E-mail Response
• Content Writing
• Proofreading/Editing

To get a better idea of what exactly a virtual assistant can do for your business, we had a Q&A with VA (and Supplies Guys customer) Jenifer De La Garza.

Q: Please give me a brief description of what services you provide as a Virtual Assistant and the benefits they provide.

A: I provide general administrative services.  This includes email and database management, website updates, internet research and much more.  I also specialize in real estate services such as lead management, listing services, email blasts, CRM management etc.

Q: How do you efficiently complete projects between your client and yourself? Do you have special software or a system that assists you in completing and sending documents between your client and yourself?

A: My real estate client uses Top Producer 8i to track projects and tasks.  Other clients use similar software.  Email communication is very popular because everyone is so busy.  Most of my work is done online using web based applications.  This cuts down on paper and makes transferring of information much more efficient.

Q: Do you have any recommendations or suggestions for those looking to hire a Virtual Assistant? (Such as working with time difference, long distance, etc.)

A: Communication is key.  Let your prospective VA know exactly what it is you need from them and, if you know it, what you might need in the future.  This makes for a good foundation and less confusion.

Q: Why do you think virtual assistance has become so popular, and how do you think it will continue to grow?

A: Well, the economy has affected many businesses, especially small businesses.  These companies cannot afford the overhead of a full time in office employee who will be even if they don’t have anything to work on.  A Virtual Assistant only bills for actual time worked, does not get paid for vacation time, sick time, personal time or benefits, and has their own computer, software, cell phone and other office equipment.  The average full time, in office employee costs almost double that of a VA working the same amount of time on actual projects.

You can check out Jenifer’s website at www.supportmyoffice.com for more information.

In the market for a new laser fax machine for you business? We are here to review two products in the Brother Intellifax line of laser fax machines. There are a number of variables you should consider when evaluating laser fax machines which include; max printing speed & resolution, standard capacity (how many sheets of paper the laser fax machine can hold at one time), if it prints in black & white, color or both, internal memory, media sizes excepted (size of paper the laser fax machine can process), type of toner the fax machine uses and of course the dimensions and manufacturer’s warranty.

Brother IntelliFax 2920 High-speed Laser Fax Machine

This B&W laser fax machine, which was first released in 2007 Q3, would fit addition to any small to mid-size business where there is an intermediate volume of incoming and outgoing faxes.  The Brother 2920  fax machine was designed with the multi-user office in mind. It is capable of storing up to 600 fax pages in it’s 16 MB memory. The 250 capacity front loading tray, with 30 page automatic feeder capacity, can recgonize what the type of paper (legal or letter) is loaded making it simple and convenient to keep this laser fax machine working efficiently. If time is an issue, the Intellifax 2920 is able to store up to 220 numbers on auto-dial, and the SuperG3 Fax Modem enables the Brother 2920 to transmit up to 2 seconds per page. The 1200 x 600 DPI resolution produces an impressive quality of the prints (or copies).  Need to send a mass fax to the entire company? No problem – the Intellifax 2920 allows you to broadcast faxes to as many as 270 numbers at once. Another nice feature is the use of passwords on incoming faxes, to ensure that confidential faxes are received by the proper parties.

Best Price: $285.00
Replacement Toner: TN350 (2,500 yield) or DR350 (12,000 yield).

Brother Intellifax 4750e High-Performance Laser Fax Machine

This laser fax machine from Brother, can no better be described as high-performance. First released Q3 of 2005, the Brother Intellifax 4750e features B&W laser technology and was designed for a high frequency, high volume business environment. The speed of the Intellifax 2920 is matched, as the Intellifax 4750e also has a SuperG3 Fax Modem capable of producing fax transmissions up to 2 seconds per page, and printing speeds up to 15 ppm. This laser fax machine comes standard with 8MB of memory, which can be upgraded (capable of storing 600 fax pages for transmission), stores up to 232 number in auto-dial, and can broadcast out to 282 locations with one transmission. The 4750e fax machine also features a 250-sheet expandable (additional trays are optional) paper capacity that can automatically distinguish between letter and legal paper sizes, and can automatically feed up to 50 pages.  Lastly, the Intellifax 4750e also serves as a laser printer (capable of printing at a 600×600 DPI at a max speed of 15 ppm) and copier (capable of copying at 15 cpm at a 600 DPI resolution).

Best Price:  $480
Repaclement Toner: TN430 (3,000 yield), TN460 (6,000 yield) or DR400 (20,000 yield).

Do you know what your customers are saying about you?

From blogs to social networks, people rant and rave about personal experiences of all sorts. If you’re a business owner, you need to know what your customers are saying about you so you can respond accordingly. Many tools have been created to make this monitoring easier – so that it’s not time consuming or expensive.

One of my favorites is Social Mention.

Social Mention gives you the option to filter your search through blogs, bookmark sites, or comments on blogs or forums. You can see all of the options to the left of the “search button” above. Or, you can choose to search through all of the options by selecting “All” at the bottom.

Once you hit search, you receive your results in real-time. Usually, I’ll search several variations of The Supplies Guys, as people tend to spell it quite differently, some with spaces, some without!

The social media monitoring tool that is my second-runner up is Keotag.

Instead of searching by the social media type as in Social Mention, Keotag searches for your keyword by specific social media sites. As you can see in the icons, you can search through Technorati, Twitter, Google Blog Search and YouTube, to name a few. Similar to Social Mention, Keotag is quick, easy and FREE!! Again, I check numerous ways of spelling “Supplies Guys” to see what comes back.

Using different tools to monitor is helpful, because some tools will pick up items that others won’t. In addition to these two tools, I use Google Alerts to send me an email any time our company name comes up.

What social media monitoring tools are your favorite?? Let us know – we are always looking for more ways to monitor!