Category: Helpful Hints

How to Save on School Supplies

Posted on by chase

The Yakima Herald-Republic has an article up about ways to save money during back-to-school shopping, but it’s nothing new. They advise checking fliers and websites for the best sale, getting to the store early to avoid crowds, planning your trips in advance so you don’t have to fight your way through crowded aisles…

Doesn’t it all just seem like a huge headache? This is the latest in a long line of back-to-school shopping tip articles flooding my inbox and they all seem to forget the same point: you can SHOP ONLINE and get your stuff cheaply, quickly, and reliably. No messing with sales, no throwing elbows down at the Walgreens to get the best deal on a gum eraser. Seriously, check out your options and make the smart choice.

How to make telecommuting a win for employers & workers

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The Richmond Times-Dispatch has an interesting article up about teleworking at the potential benefits to employers.

In it, they showcase the Virginia Department of Taxation, who recently made a move to digitize their offices by sending certain employees home kitted out for telework.

The move saved them over $130,000 annually in rent, utilities, and other costs, though it is not without its up-front caveats:

There is an initial outlay of money. Your company will have to outfit teleworkers with whatever is needed to perform their job at home, for example:

A personal computer, a laptop and docking station, a business phone line, shredder, fax, printer, copier, Internet service and office supplies. Also, it has to assure that its computer system has “layer after layer” of security and the ability to apply patches to protect from viruses, Bowen said.

I’ve always been a huge advocate of the work-from home model, and it’s nice to see companies embracing it as well. I feel that with the right gear, there’s nothing you can’t do from home that you could do in an office.

Obviously it’s not the ideal solution for every company, but in these tough economic times, it seems like a move more should consider before resorting to layoffs (or, heaven forbid, buying fewer office supplies.)

Secret to Cheap School Supplies: wait.

Posted on by chase

Over at user-generated content site The Examiner, they have posited an interesting conundrum: what happens when you buy TOO MANY school supplies?

The theory goes like this: you have a general list of things you think your child may need, and you buy enough of them for everyone before the first day of class.

Maybe you see a good deal at your local big-box store and, fearing the worst, snatch it up while you can. Now you feel you’re geared up for school, and this happens:

Picture yourself running out buying four notebooks here, five folders there, not to mention the six 2” ring binders that you had to get because you couldn’t resist the sale sign. All, only to find that after the first day of school, Mrs. Douglass only allows 1” ring binders. Mr. Pryor requires a 3” ring binder for science class and science labs. Now, Mrs. Rogers is simple. She only wants loose-leaf paper in a 3 Prong, 2 Pocket, $0.49 folder. What a waste.

Sure, it makes sense to buy pens, notebooks, and other simple items ahead of time. But don’t get caught up in all the back-to-school craziness, sending your kid off to their first day weighed down with a hundred and one awesome supplies that will end up going to waste while you scramble to buy the “right” ones.

Instead, try this: kit your kid out with a simple loadout: notebook, pens, pencils, simple folders. This will give them the ability to store any materials they are given, while writing down what supplies they still need. Then, find a reliable web distributor of office supplies who just so happens to offer next-day shipping, and boom. Your shopping is done, you have exactly what you need, no fuss, no muss.

Working from Home: What to Ask Your Broadband Provider

Posted on by chase

IT-director.com has an interesting piece from David Heyes, COO of TFM Networks, about some of the less-often-considered aspects of working from home. Namely: is it as simple as plugging your employees into a broadband connection and letting them go?

In the article, Heyes covers five key points you may not have thought of, and that your broadband provider might not like you to think of. Since these points imply something a little more involved than the plug-and-play aspect of working from home that a lot of companies (that want to sell you a “business broadband package”), it’s important to take a look before you dive in:

1. Service: What happens if the broadband connection fails?
2. Performance: What about speed, bandwidth and prioritizing key applications over your network?
3. Security: How important is this to you, including data protection?
4. Health & Safety: What are the regulations for home workers?
5. Maintenance and Procurement: Who provides the home office supplies and equipment?

All in all, the article is a decent breakdown of letting employees work from home. I personally had never considered, for example, how a from-home employee would still be covered by a business’s insurance plan, and how they might have to conduct site visits to make sure someone’s home office was up to spec.

Basically, this is an interesting read for anyone looking to pitch the idea of working from home, or any employers looking to expand into that area. As much as we’d like it to be as simple as throwing together a desk, a chair, a filing cabinet, some computers and a broadband connection, the reality is a little more complicated.

Blurb: Manage Expenses Strategically

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As part of a larger Reuters article on ways in which businesses can better manage their funds, I came across this useful tidbit:

Office supplies. Cancel unnecessary subscriptions and services. When re-ordering supplies, look for discounts and consider items that do the job without the frills. Perhaps you can reduce costs on items such as paper with the efficient use of e-mail.

Not the most mind-blowing of observations, but it highlights an important element of what we do: find people the best office supplies at a price that works for them. If you’re flush with cash and want only the highest name-brand items, we’ve got them. If you’re trying to trim your budget and just want something no-frills that can do the job, we’ve got that too. By not being propped up by huge vendors the way some big-box stores are, we can afford to be flexible and meet your needs, rather than just trying to sell you the priciest widget we can.

Just another reason I love my job.

Question: Can I use any ink I want in my printer?

Posted on by chase

Short answer? Yes you can.

A lot of manufacturers try to bully you into buying official, name-brand ink from them at exorbitant prices by claiming that you will be voiding your warranty or have to pay more for maintenance if you use anything other than their ink. Well, it was recently brought to my attention that not only is this claim ridiculous, it’s also illegal.

Under the Warranty Improvement Act, United States Code Annotated, Title 15 Commerce and Trade, Chapter 50: Consumer Product Warranties 15, Section 2302:

(c) No warrantor of a consumer product may condition his written or implied warranty of such product on the consumer’s using, in connection with such product, any article or service (other than article or service provided without charge under the tears of the warranty) which is identified by brand, trade or corporate name; except that the prohibition of this subsection may be waived by the commission if:

  1. The warrantor satisfies the Commission that the warranted product will function properly only if the article or service so identified is used in connection with the warranted product, and
  2. The Commission finds that such a waiver is in the public interest.

So basically, unless the manufacturer can claim (and prove) that using a third-party product, like printer ink or toner, is doing some kind of harm to the device, than anything else they say about it is forfeit. And guess what? No one has yet come forward with that kind of proof.

Not only does this mean you can use any ink or refill kit you want without fear of your warranty being voided, but the company can also not threaten to remove or discontinue support, break a lease, or basically do anything else about it, either:

The Supreme Court (IBM vs. The United States) held that IBM could not threaten customers with termination of their data processing equipment leases just because they did not use supplies manufactured by IBM. Such practice constituted a “tying agreement” and was found to be to violation of the Sherman and Clayton Antitrust Law.

So there you have it. Buy whatever ink you want, to your heart’s content (though remember, buy from your friendly neighborhood online store, not those other guys). This goes for computer parts, replacement parts, and just about anything you might need to buy. You learn something new every day!

 

Article: Organize More Efficiently By Staying Put

Posted on by chase

My favorite go-to blog for organizing and streamlining my life, Lifehacker, has a great article up right now about organizing your space.

While the article is geared toward general organizing, I find the tips within to be pretty much in line with my own philosophy about cleaning up my home office.

Basically, the article (which quotes from another favorite organization blog, Apartment Therapy), says the main trick to making sure you do the job you set out to do is to stay in the room you’re doing it in:

When you’re in the sorting process (the crucial first step) of organizing a specific room, STAY in the room for the organizing session. (Prepare for the session by having trash bags on hand for trash, recycling, donations.) Invariably you’ll find objects that actually do have a home in another room or on another floor. Most of our clients, if left to their own devices, are inclined to leave the room immediately every time they come across an object like this to return it to its home. And in the process, it’s REALLY easy to get distracted and to not return to organizing.

I find this to be immensely true. I’ve never had a huge house to fan out and get lost in, but even during apartment living I’ve found that the second I leave the room I’m tidying, I lost the motivation to re-enter it. Seems like the farther you get from the job at hand, the easier it is to not go back. Solve the problem by staying put.

The best office redesign I’ve ever had came when I purchased some plastic organizers of the bucket and bin variety, set up some new shelves, and sat down in the office and went to town. Remember, you have to make a mess to clean one, sometimes, so don’t be afraid to tear your office down before re-building it. Just don’t walk away after step 1 and never come back for step 2.

Article: Design a Home Office on a Budget

Posted on by chase

I just came across an article from the Los Angeles Times with some helpful hints for building a home office on a budget. While I plan on doing a full feature on this very topic, I thought I’d share the article now because it has some interesting tips. In the article, interior designer Lauren Rottet is shopping brick-and-mortar office supply stores and liquidators, but the fundamental principles she outlines could easily be applied to online ordering:

“Because it’s quick and easy, there’s always the temptation to buy a whole room ensemble – matching desk, chair, cabinet and hutch – but they really dominate a room, and chances are you don’t need all four pieces.”

She moves on, gravitating to the simplest desk – nearly black with unfussy hardware.

“Wood veneers and laminates look cheap,” she says. “The darker the piece, the more it tends to disappear.”

And in the lighting aisle?

“Most people probably have a lamp at home that would serve their purposes,” she says, passing on the options here. “Or they could find a cool one at a vintage furniture store.”

Rottet’s main piece of advice is to keep your home office as much a part of your home as possible. Use design choices that match your personal style, rather than making your home office feel like a workstation or cubicle. Mix-and-match pieces and look for vintage or pre-owned materials to accent your new hardware. One of the ideas I really like was using two pedestal file cabinets as pedestal ends for a desk, and laying a piece of thick glass or granite across them for a DIY feel that still has charm and elegnace.

However you end up kitting out your home office, be sure to do it with quality materials from a reputable retailer. While the temptation is there to trawl the bargain-basement offerings and your local big-box store, you’ll more than likely end up with cheap particleboard junk that falls apart before too long. You don’t need to break the bank; just buy a few quality pieces and accent them with personal touches wherever you can. If you’re going to be spending a lot of time in your home office, you want it to be as comfortable and natural as possible.

Terminology Roundup: DVD and CD formats

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terminology-roundup-dvd-and-cd-formats

When writing my last article, I was searching for a good link to printable DVDs. I noticed that they came in both DVD-R and DVD+R variations, and realized that despite having seen both terms before, I was unclear on the difference. In the event that you feel the same way, I’ve compiled the results of my research here.

DVD-R is the first recordable DVD format, developed by Pioneer in 1997. It is officially recognized by the DVD Forum, an international organization composed of hardware, software, media and content companies that use and develop the DVD and HD DVD formats. The Forum was initially known as the DVD Consortium when it was founded in 1995.

DVD+R was developed in 2002 by a competing collection of companies, which was known after-the-fact as The DVD+RW Alliance. DVD+R was made a direct competitor to DVD-R, which caused the DVD Forum to not recognize it as an official format until January of 2008.

Here’s where it gets weird: the differences between the two formats are highly technical and mostly negligible. The main difference is an incredibly small difference in how much each disc can hold, measured in GiB, or Gibibytes (a shortening of “giga binary byte”), with DVD-R claiming 4.38 GiB and DVD+R offering 4.377 GiB. Hardly a difference that matters to the average consumer. Other small differences include the way data is archived on each disc, with each format offering slightly different technology which is, again, basically invisible to the traditional user.

Since combination drives that burn and read both formats have been commercially available for years now, there is not much reason to choose one over another. DVD-R has been around longer, so if you are burning a disc and are unsure of who will be playing it, DVD-R may be the best choice as it will work in older drives (both computer and home video player) than DVD+R will. Other than that, it’s simply a case of two competing companies offering a product and the industry never setting a standard. If you’re working on a highly technical project, find out the technical details and choose the one that best suits your needs. Otherwise, either should be fine.

It’s important to note that CDs do not suffer from the same problem of nomenclature, and one CD-R will be comparable to the next. There is no such thing as a CD+R, as far as I can figure out.

The addition of RW to any of these brands (including CD-RW) means that the disc is re-writable and can be burned over with new data more than once, while regular CD-R and DVD-R (or +R) discs are write-once and need to be “finalized” (meaning no more data can be added) before they will work in most players.

Hopefully this breakdown shed a little light on an otherwise baffling subject. It was interesting to learn about the history of these products and I’ll continue to demystify office and tech terms in the future.

Choosing a replacement office chair caster

Posted on by chase

Let me get this out of the way: I hate my chair. It’s a bargain-bin piece of junk that I got from one of the big chain department stores, and I’m pretty much marking time until I can afford the upgrade to something a little nicer. In the meantime, I make do. My chair does everything I need from a chair: it lets me sit on it, and it rolls along the floor. Until today.

I’ve been having a rough roll lately when I get up from my desk, and today one of the casters hard-locked on me and the chair almost flipped over. After prying it out, I realize it’s got a huge knot of carpet fuzz, cat hair, and who knows what else in there from years of use. It’s new caster time.

Unfortunately, I’m nowhere near the place I bought the chair originally, and the manufacturer’s site was no help. I know I can get replacements online, but I wasn’t sure what kind I needed. After some quick googling, I found a blurry chart. Yikes. I understand that all the information I might need is in there somewhere, but I wasn’t about to put myself through eyestrain just to figure out how to order a plastic wheel, and neither should you. So I’ve put together a handy guide to ordering a replacement caster. For the most part, the search boils down to answering two simple questions:

How big is the original caster?

For a replacement caster, the most important things to know are the length and diameter of the “stem” (the part that sticks into the chair). Grab a ruler, yank out the offending caster, and measure like so:

How to Measure Office Chair Casters Infograph

In my case, the stem was 1 inch long by 3/8ths of an inch in diameter, making it a “K” class stem (some manufacturers use these letter codes, but knowing the length and diameter is really the important part.) Also, whether your stem has a flat or a round head doesn’t really matter; as long as the measurements are right the caster will fit. The next question determines the material the wheel should be made of:

What kind of floor will the caster be used on?

In my case, I’m currently on hardwood floors. For hard surfaces like wood, chairs mats, tile or linoleum, a soft wheel is recommended. Hard wheels should be used on soft surfaces, like carpet. Just like any other wheel, really. Think about it: soft rubber car tires for the hard concrete road, but hard plastic tires on your lawnmower for moving over soft dirt and grass. But I digress. By plugging the length, diameter, and floor type into the “Narrow your Results” column on the casters page at OnTimeSupplies.com, I found the best match for me would be these Doublewheel Nylon Casters from Master Casters. They come in a set of five so I can either replace the whole chair’s worth (and have one left over!) or replace the bad one and keep the rest in reserve for the day the other wheels inevitably lock up on me. Not too shabby, and it beats replacing the whole chair.

So there you have it. Proof once again that shopping for office supplies and equipment doesn’t need to be a hassle. Something as simple as finding a new caster was turning into a pretty hair-pulling exercise, and hopefully the above guide will spare a few shoppers that grief.