Green Futures Expo and Energy Options Conference

Congratulations to Charlotte County Florida for deciding to host the Green Futures Expo and Energy Options Conference! I am so happy to see government agencies finally realizing that green is important! Not only are they running a FREE to the public green expo, but they are offering short classes to help people learn more ways to save money and go green during the day!

I think anyone who is going to be in Charlotte County should stop by the Charlotte Harbor Event Center at 75 Taylor Street in Punta Gorda, FL 33950! If you would like to see my smiling face, I’ll be hanging around at booth 28. Stop by I may have some candy!

The differences between JetScape, refillers, and the big box stores.

Drill And Fill Ink Jet Cartridges

For those of you who read yesterday’s Nightmare post, and don’t know what companies that refill ink do, here it is. I was remiss in not including something for you to compare JetScape’s process with, and I apologize. Which process would you prefer?

Ink Nightmare “You Were Right!”

Yesterday I was at the Bridge Business Expo here in Fort Myers, where I was greeted by one my networking friends and the line “You were right.” Now as much as I like being right, it seemed that she’d had an issue. So I asked her what I was right about. It seems that she had decided to overlook two of my little pieces of advice.

1. Always have a backup ink or toner for your machine.
2. Don’t have your cartridges “refilled” (especially by a while you wait service)

I’m no Boy Scout, but I learned long ago “be prepared” is a great motto. Having a back up cartridge eliminates the last-minute rush to get a one when you are in the middle of a big print job, on a Saturday. This usually leads to a purchase at a big box store for 30% to 70% more money. A little bit of preparedness goes a long way in your pocket-book.

As far as refills go, they just aren’t as reliable. The while you wait refills usually skip some very important steps in the process. At JetScape Copier & Cartridge Warehouse there are a few steps to remanufacturing a cartridge so we know it is quality.

The remanufacture of an inkjet at JetScape looks something like this:

My friend confided in me she needed a cartridge in a hurry and couldn’t get to me at JetScape, so she went to get it refilled. It was a color cartridge and because they are the more expensive cartridge she convinced her self it was worth the savings to have it refilled.

The store she went to told her it would be at least an hour before the cartridge would be done. She was on a dead line and in a hurry so she just left the cartridge there to be refilled. She bought a “big box store” cartridge to finish her very important project. Now she’s bought the most expensive cartridge and still has to pay for the refilled cartridge.

She didn’t get back to pick up her cartridge for a week. She told me that even though she had theoretically saved about $3 on the cartridge the color quality wasn’t the same, it was a huge hassle, and it just wasn’t worth it to her. I hate that she had to go through that, but I do like being right!

Favorite Gadget at #BWE09

My Panda Poken! I linked to a CNN article in Business Cards which gave a basic brush-off to Poken. Being the type of person who always wants to see for myself, I of course started researching Poken.

While in Las Vegas for the Blog World Expo I met @Bajalori and she sold me this little cutie for only $20.00. Lori runs www.JustPokens.com and was selling tons of them at the expo. So my Panda started out with some sweet connections.

Here are some of the cool things about Poken:

• All you have to do is Hi Five (or maybe Hi four) Pokens and they swap information social networks, phone numbers, anything you want to share.
• The website that consolidates all of your information is intuitive and user friendly.
• They are also a great way to save paper.
• When we no longer need business cards we will all save time, money, and the environment.
• This is a one time $20 investment for unlimited information swaps (way cheaper than business cards)
• You will never give your card to someone and forget to get theirs with Poken the swap is automatic.

I do see one problem with Poken:

• Not everyone has one! Pokens will work better when more people have them!

There is a solution:

• More people need to adopt Poken, they are a huge hit overseas (and I love mine.)

I try not to take my self too seriously and like to have some personality! So my Panda Manda Poken will be traveling with me to all my networking events in hopes that she will find more friends to Hi Five!