TCPglobal - news, views and issues on total cost of printing

Issue #1122 – Alarming reports have been emerging in the press over the last week or so suggesting that Hewlett-Packard (the only manufacturer named so far) laser printers could be susceptible to catching fire as a result of a hacking attack. Firstly, is this seriously a possibility and, secondly, surely the alarming factor here is not the danger of catching fire but what could happen to a user’s information and printer control?

#1121 – Double vision? In a print? Yes, it seems that an ink that is not formulated correctly for a print head can produce a replicated image effect similar to double vision. It’s enough to make you feel seasick! Read on for possible explanations, with illustrations.

Issue #1117 – Now, here’s an interesting one for a Friday afternoon. Pigment ink vs dye ink – do we need to know the difference and what difference does it make?

Issue #1115 – Litigators in North America are again having a go at extracting money from Epson on the grounds of alleged ‘wasted’ ink. Supposedly depriving the user of fully benefiting from their purchase, these are bizarre cases. It is my personal opinion that Epson is being unfairly victimised, probably for someone’s personal gain. Testing shows that it is not OEMs ink cartridges that are the worst offenders anyway – some third party brands are far, far worse.

Issue #1113/3 – A recent report claims more than 127 million employee hours are lost to IT downtime each year [costing businesses in the order of $4.8bn at US rates]. We speculate that, with around 30-40% of help centre calls reckoned to be printer-related, printer downtime costs could be as high as $1.9bn. Thus, we cannot afford to ignore the reliability factor in relation to the printers we buy.