It has just come to our attention that canon printers that are sold with the 37 black and 38 colour low capacity cartridges should be able to use the 40 black and 41 colour high capacity cartridges. They are the same size but if you remove the lid of the low capacity one you find that half of the internal volume is used up by a huge lid. Many of our customers have returned either the black or colour XL cartridges claiming that they are being rejected by the printer and we have obliged with a refund in all cases.
Today a customer brought her printer to us and we observed that the printer did indeed reject the cartridge but, and here is the shocker, only if you mix the low and hi capacity cartridges. When we replaced both the low capacity cartridges with high capacity ones they worked!

During a recent visit to a major IT retailer I was amased by the number of people proudly queueing up to purchase a new printer. I found myself thinking, “how can they still not know in 2010 that they are being ripped off.” I felt like standing outside the store with a board pointing to my shop. Had I done this I am sure I would have been moved on because the store manager would know the truth of it. That customers purchase a “so-called” cheap printer only to find out to their cost later that the replacement cartridges are astronomically expensive. I have heard the cost of printer ink compared to that of unicorn blood. I am certain that no argument attempting to justify cartridge prices that these retail outlets care to make, would stand up for 1 second against our Continuink printers and ink. Please check out your options with us before you make an expensive mistake. One free phone call could well save you £100′s. Even if you don’t end up purchasing one of our products we will happily advise you on what’s good and what’s not for free. Call us on 0800 849 6344.

The old saying “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing”, is as true today as it has always been, especially so as far as computers and their use goes. I used to work for a major IT retailer selling computers and a multitude of peripherals. Now I am involved with Continuink and we specialise in inkjet printers but I have noticed the same phenomenon happen frequently with customers of both businesses.

“The printer does not work”, is the complaint and often it is said as if it is our fault, usually the person is then unable to elaborate any further. The problem is almost never an actual fault with the device concerned but a lack of knowledge on the part of the owner.

The best description of this came from my new friend Alistair who has also come across this in his line of work. He told me that a common entry in the database of his technical support department is, “a critical error occurred between the chair and the keyboard”. Their usual response to this is to expand the knowledge of the user with training.

I am aware that at my age of 42 I am probably one of the oldest adults in the UK who had the benefit of learning IT skills while at school. Anyone a bit older may not have had that advantage.

My point here to anyone who feels a bit lost with computers is that you do not need to remain in the dark if you do not wish to. There is a wealth of information in printed form written in common language for non technical people to improve their IT skills. A good example is the “for dummies” range of books. Don’t be put off by the title, they really are good.

There are also a multitude of in-expensive courses on a whole range of IT subjects run at thousands of colleges across the country. I attended one myself to learn the basics of how to use Adobe Photoshop. I enjoyed attending the 3 hours a week and picked up a new skill in a couple of months.

Designing computers really is rocket science but learning how to use them effectively does not need to be. Give it a go, what have you got to lose.

The video below shows what not to do when you fit your new, expensive printer cartridge. Surprising how many times we have seen this!

Contrary to popular belief it is not necessary to print photographs at your printers maximum resolution. Modern inkjet printers are capable of printing at thousands of pixels per inch. You may need to use this resolution to print minutely detailed engineering drawings but for photographs the ideal resolution to use is 300 dpi.

This is because our eyesight can not really take advantage of anything over this value and if you do crank up the resolution there is a tendency to swamp the print head, creating poor quality prints and even unwanted artifacts in the image.

To do this you really need to decide what size you want to print before you take the photograph.

For example to print a 6 x 4 photo at 300 dpi the image should be 1200 x 1600, surprisingly only a 2 megapixel image……

3 megapixel should be used for 5 x 7 and 8 megapixel for A4.

This technique has the added bonus of using less ink.

Here at Continuink we like HP products and we have sold a great many of them.  There have been some issues with the software they come bundled with however.  The problem is that the setup program either freezes or crashes. Even if it appears that you have been successful you may find out at a later stage that the device does not behave as expected. Commonly the printer works but the scanner does not.  Invariably this is caused by anti-virus and firewall software interfering with the setup process.  HP software tends to install itself into computer memory addresses commonly frequented by spyware and viruses, and your security software does not trust it.  To minimise the risk of failure, disconnect your computer from the internet and disable all your security software before you start.  Then we recommend you watch the following video that shows you how to disable other programs that run in the background of your computer that can also create conflicts, before running the HP installer.

Have you ever left your printer for a while and not used it?

Perhaps only over the weekend, only to find when you start it up again it has poor print quality.

This is caused by ink drying out in the print head.

Go to control panel and select printers.  Right click on your printer and select printing preferences.  Then within preferences you will find maintenance or something like it.

Now select “clean print head”.

In most cases this will solve your problem.

Don’t be tempted to use cheap paper in your inkjet printer.

At best you will achieve poor print quality because the budget paper is too porous.  Ink tends to bleed into the paper and you do not get nice sharp lines or images.  At worst the fibers from the paper stick to the rubber rollers that pull paper through your printer and they will slip, causing feed problems.

Check the packaging and ensure the paper is rated for use on an inkjet printer.

Spend a little bit more, it is worth it.