It shouldn't happen to an IT consultant
Spend your time doing business, not IT.
Friday 5 December 2008, 3:25 AM
Three penny pinching thoughts
A belts are pulled in, troubled times are entered and journalists struggle for clichés, I thought I would throw three cost saving thoughts into the ether.
1. When optical mice are declared dead more often than not I find, even if there’s nothing visibly wrong, the area above the lens just needs a good clean.
2. Many small business are spending a fortune on costly tiny ink cartridges. Cheap inkjets are no more than subsidised consumable hogs. A bargain if you print only the occasional page or two, but businesses print a lot, so do many homes come to that. Surprisingly there is no need to spend much to get a faster, reliable and most importantly economic printer. More often than not I recommend the HP OfficeJet Pro K5400dn
A full colour page at 5.33p is £26.65 a ream (500 sheets). A mono 0.85p page runs to £ 4.25 a ream. Some printers running costs are more than five times that. 'Cheap’ printers can run up a bill of hundreds of pounds over their lifetime. HP’s K5400d is available online (rarely if ever retail) from around £76+VAT.
3. Lastly when you upgrade, keep at least one slow but working PC as a spare. It’s an effective chunk of business continuity plan that costs nothing.
Next post: how to get the cheapest price out of Dell.
1. When optical mice are declared dead more often than not I find, even if there’s nothing visibly wrong, the area above the lens just needs a good clean.
2. Many small business are spending a fortune on costly tiny ink cartridges. Cheap inkjets are no more than subsidised consumable hogs. A bargain if you print only the occasional page or two, but businesses print a lot, so do many homes come to that. Surprisingly there is no need to spend much to get a faster, reliable and most importantly economic printer. More often than not I recommend the HP OfficeJet Pro K5400dn
A full colour page at 5.33p is £26.65 a ream (500 sheets). A mono 0.85p page runs to £ 4.25 a ream. Some printers running costs are more than five times that. 'Cheap’ printers can run up a bill of hundreds of pounds over their lifetime. HP’s K5400d is available online (rarely if ever retail) from around £76+VAT.
3. Lastly when you upgrade, keep at least one slow but working PC as a spare. It’s an effective chunk of business continuity plan that costs nothing.
Next post: how to get the cheapest price out of Dell.
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