Using the Internet for personal or business projects can be very helpful for you, especially when it involves sign printing. Google itself can help you find ideas for graphic designing, let alone images that you can use for these designs. It is not uncommon for graphic designers, especially amateurs, to search images on the Internet that they can use for sign printing.

The Internet provides you thousands, if not, millions of results when you search for one particular image. And when you find the image perfect for your project, there is one common thing that stands between you and the image you want to have for your signage and that is the fact of whether you may use it.

Copyright

Images you find on the Internet are covered by copyright. This frustrates most people who are looking for images for them to print. Usually, what’s perfect for their printing project is also the one with a watermark, and that’s not ideal for most. Although many websites have copyright information often placed at the bottom of their pages, it is not required that their images be protected. You normally find that out on your own.

If you do not know whether an image is copyrighted, you must examine the source of the image for a copyright symbol. Sometimes, logos of the creators or owners are placed on the image itself. If you can’t find out if an image is copyrighted, you are most probably risking yourself for breaking the law.

Images for printing

Many company's stock photo sources offer free images that you can download via the Internet without violating the copyright law. However, it will require you to sign up an account before you can download, but they won’t charge a penalty. There are also images from sources that give them freely with a simple copy and paste. For some sources, they charge a certain fee in return for access with their images. Prices may differ.

Here are some photo sources that offer free images:

• Morgue File
• Photo8
• Unsplash

It is important to know that the image you will use for personal or business purposes is legal. It is not only the copyright you will worry about. It can also be the quality of the image.

Image quality

Five best scanners for image documents:

The first scanner is Contex, where it offers a solution that includes the art digital copying and large format scanning. It is the world leader in large format scanning. This scanner takes pride in producing highly advanced technology and innovative scan and copies software applications.

The second scanner is Colortrac; it is capable of providing imaging solutions for color and monochrome scanning needs in a cost-effective manner. It considered as the pioneer of cost-effective full format imaging solutions.

Next is the HP Designjet HD Scanner, which offers the easiest of in-house copy and scanning with a single touch of a button with HD scanners from HP. Innovative digital imaging systems make it easier for the user to create digital copies from original documents by scanning and copying through HP scan-copy-print systems. 

The fourth scanner is KIP 2300 Scanner; it is the latest production to rock the high resolutions, is a high-speed imaging system that combines enhanced color scan and world-class monochrome imaging quality. The KIP 2300 scanner set an exceptionally high standard for high productivity by embodying the fast speed, flexibility, and quality. 

Lastly is the Graphtec; it provides solutions for Mapping, CAD, Reprographics, Document Archiving, and GIS applications. This scanner is one of the primary providers of quality imaging products in the world for quality scanners that use Contact Image Sensor (CIS) technology to provide high speed and quality. This enables users of large format scanners to enjoy higher accuracy in geometric scanning, enhanced reliability, and high-speed capture together with other performance advantages at a lower cost.

Here in The Graphics Shop, not only do we help you in finding the perfect photos for you, we can create them! With our team of professional graphic designers, they will surely meet your needs.

If you have questions, submit your message below or you can contact us today!

About Us
Contact Us Here

The post Can I Use An Image I Found Online For Sign Printing? appeared first on Hackworth.

When printing colored images, it is essential to know which color mode you should produce the best results. With this, you must learn which color mode best fits your photo. These two can be quite confusing, especially when you don’t have enough background for graphic designing. Most graphic designers know that differentiating the color profiles is crucial because choosing the wrong color mode will affect the tone and message of your document.

RGB
The RGB color profile comprises Red, Green, and Blue hues that combine to create many variations of colors. Exists only in screen displays, the RGB color mode is present in computer monitors, mobiles, and television screens. Although this color mode exists in all electronic devices, the color elements vary across systems and models (e.g. the image you see on an iMac differs on a Dell desktop computer).

The RGB profile is involved in additive processes to produce color by blending light instead of using ink to produce hues. The presence of all RGB primary colors at full intensity results in white, while the absence of color produces black. As you turn a screen off, you see an absence of RGB color, i.e. you see a black screen. The color you see on your monitor or screen is caused by the RGB base hues.

When to use RGB color mode

It is not uncommon to cause complications on color profile. However, to avoid them, always set a document in RGB when designing for social media, digital design, or online advertisements. Whatever image or design you have, as long as it exists on a screen or monitor, set it as RGB.

CMYK
The CMYK color profile contains Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Key (Black) that combine to produce a range of hues. This color mode is what we see on printers. When you zoom in on any printed image, you will see the four-color dots that layer to create different hues and gradations. Although all printers produce prints in CMYK, the results will differ among different styles and models of printers.

If the absence of all RGB colors produces black, CMYK produces white. Cyan and magenta create blue, magenta and yellow create red, and yellow and cyan create green. The presence of the all CMYK color combined produces an off-black shade.

When to use CMYK color mode

CMYK are commonly reserved for printed designs such as business cards, flyers, posters, and packaging. Setting your documents to CMYK before exporting or printing will prevent unbalanced colors that will result in RGB colors being translated into CMYK equivalents.

We hope you have learned about the RGB and CMYK color modes. By letting yourself be informed about what these are and when to use them, you can now know which one to use when printing an image!

If you have questions or comments, please submit your message below or you can contact us today!

​About Us​​​
​Contact Us Here​​​

The post Should I Use RGB or CMYK Color Mode for Printing Images? appeared first on Hackworth.

In materials, sign printing can offer a lot of options. Each material has special features and benefits that can make it suitable for a specific situation. Here are some commonly used materials we have tested and compared for your reference.

• Medium Density Overlay - Popularly referred to as ‘MDO’, is made of plywood panels with a resin fiber fused to the surface. Commonly used in sign designs, because of its tough quality.
• Glass–glass applications can be found almost everywhere. This material is used as a canvas to apply graphics for signage and marketing purposes.
• Aluminum–A perfect material for any permanent outdoor sign, this material will not rust with tough enamel that will not flake or peel like other painted materials.
• Fabric- Printed fabrics are relatively new to the sign industry but are making a huge name thanks to digital printing. Fabrics can be printed for banners, awnings, flags and fine art, including canvases.
• Acrylic This tough, transparent, versatile thermoplastic is used in many applications, especially in visual communications, design and architecture. This material is also very resistant to shock, flexing, scratching and weathering, which comes in a variety of colors and finishes and is recyclable.
• Gator board is a hard but lightweight display material that has a thick inner foam core and a wood-fiber veneer exterior. It is water, scratches, and dent resistant. Thanks to its portability and toughness, gator board is ideal for signs that will need to be frequently moved around.
• The foam core is a thick, inexpensive, and super lightweight display material. It has a dense foam core sandwiched between two layers of thick matte paper. Because it is so low cost, foam core signs are a great option for temporary displays and presentations.
• Ultra-board is a heavy-duty, all-plastic panel used for vivid prints and high use displays.
• Vinyl and painted wall graphics –creative designs with bright and colorful details can be achieved using this material. They are adherent and can be applied directly to walls.
• Wood–Wood can be used when it is important to match the surroundings. But not only just woods, good quality wood can have excellent durability and looks high end.
• Textured wall coverings–or without the technicality, the ‘wallpaper’. It adds intensity and interest with a huge range of visually pleasing looks and feels.
• Steel and stainless steel–Strong, durable and versatile, this long-established construction material is made from mixing iron and carbon in the right proportions at high temperature, but other additives give it qualities.
• Stone–Whether a just a normal-looking stone or slate can be cut it to size and shape. Great for traditional architectural signage with natural surroundings, this signage also gives the feeling of permanency and solidity to any environment.
• Coroplast is ridged polypropylene with a limited exterior life. These materials readily accept stress0-sensitive vinyl graphics, screen inks, and digital images.
• Polycarbonate- this material is clear, shatter-proof plastics that provide more durability and more flexibility than conventional acrylic plastics. They are widely used for exterior sign faces in areas that are subject to vandalism. Polycarbonates are also used for light box graphics.

About Us
Contact Us Here

The post What Materials Can You Print On? appeared first on Hackworth.

Here at Hackworth, we offer a wide variety of different sign and banner printing options. We can produce all different signage types such as back-lit, way finding, entrance, point of purchase, site signs, wall graphics, and window clings as well as ADA (American Disabilities Act) signs. With all these printing options, there are two ways of producing these signs: vinyl and digital print.

Each has its own advantages and disadvantages depending on what type of signage. However, in comparing how long they last in serving your business, you must know their differences.

Vinyl-made Signs
Vinyl is a kind of adhesive that can be cut into shapes and letters. It can be used in printing shirts, window and floor decals, vehicle wrapping, and many more. Vinyl can be made with materials that differ from one another, which means they can have different effects. Either way, they are made to withstand a range of environmental conditions. When using quality materials, most users look into a material’s longevity, and vinyl has just that. Although the sun can gradually fade vinyl as time goes by, vinyl-made signs are expected to last at least 5-10 years. However, it should be noted that while this time range may seem extensive, its lifespan will rely on the vinyl the user have chosen.

Here are the types of vinyl and their life expectancies:

• Calendared–this material is common and is recommended for businesses that do not require bigger printed materials; lifespan is about 3-6 years
• Cast–this is a much higher quality of the calendared type of vinyl; this material often has the longest life expectancy ranging from 5 to 12 years
• Metalized Polyester and Fluorescent–this vinyl material is designed for flashy ad decorative graphics which is why their life expectancies are not that long, and often last after 2 years
  
  

Digitally Printed Signs
Digitally printed signs can print color-specific, unlike vinyl that has its limitations when it comes to colors. It can print all the shades and fades of today’s complex designs. Despite that, when compared to the life expectancy of vinyl, digitally printed signs will not last as long. These signs usually last about 3 years, especially when exposed to the elements. However, you can add about 2-3 years of its life span when the sign is laminated.

Ultimately, your decision will rely on what kind of business you have and what goal you want to reach when advertising with these materials. Although one can clearly compare each other’s life expectancies, it is the goal of the user how long he or she intends to use the sign.

If you have questions please leave a message below or you can contact us today!

​About Us​​​
​Contact Us Here​​​

The post How Long Does My Sign Usually Last? appeared first on Hackworth.

Here are 4 creative and clever design ideas for business cards that will make your company memorable:

1. Stretchable Card

This kind of business card is mainly used by personal trainers or gym owners. The text will be unreadable at first but with its elastic characteristic, you’ll be able to see the text and have a little bit of hand and finger exercise as your first step in the pursuit of fitness at the same time! A business card with this kind of texture is going to need minimum design and text to avoid too much distortion.

2. Cheese Grater Card

A business card in the form of a cheese grater will show your creative side as a chef or a restaurateur. This features a change of orientation, as well. Most business cards are in landscape. However, this unique and fun business card will be in portrait to hold the exact likeness of a cheese grater. Put inside a small container or envelope and you can unfold the contact information with little cheese confetti. Fun and helpful at the same time!

3. Tearable Business Card

For divorce lawyers, this is the most suitable and creative design as a business card. Its design shows a broken line to cut the business card in half to imply separation, thus, the presence of contact information on both sides. This is to emphasize what kind of lawyer you are about to contact. As said earlier, it is important to make your design relevant and correlated with your business.

4. Free Stuff Business Card

Everybody loves free stuff. Giving away some of your products is a good way to advertise and inform people what your business is all about. This example belongs to a hairstylist who uses bobby pins to make the illusion of hair.  Other than being fun to look at, this card also shows a side of practicality. With bobby pins being lost all the time, this business card is helpful in more than one way: telling about the business and keeping your hair in place!

Here at Hackworth, we are able to produce many types of creative print jobs including business cards. We work with our customers to provide high quality solutions for whatever print project you may have. If you have questions or comments, you can submit your message below or contact us today so we can design your business cards for you!

The post 4 Creative Ideas for Designing Business Cards appeared first on Hackworth.

The post 5 Tools Your Print Provider Should Be Using appeared first on Hackworth.

Creating an employee handbook is the easiest way to make sure everyone on your team is on the same page. This is their guide for everything from the dress code to how to ask for time off and how to handle work-related issues. The employee handbook lays out all the expectations of your team in detail.

As such, it’s often pretty boring for a new hire to go through. When you explain everything from safety protocols to payment processing to parking details, you tend to lose people somewhere along the way. Employee handbooks just don’t have an exciting, interesting feel to them.

At least, the old-school ones don’t.

Here’s how to make an employee handbook your team will actually want to read.

1. Make It Visually Engaging

The best way to display any kind of lengthy content is to break it up. Separate your employee handbook into as many sections as possible.

You don’t have to get overly descriptive or come up with a category for every little thing. But, you should be able to group certain things together based on subjects like Office Behavior, Payments, Confidentiality, and Culture and Values.

Think of these groupings as the table of contents. They make it easier for your employees to jump to a certain part of the handbook when they need to check something for reference. Not to mention, small sections are easier to read through than one large document, which means more people are likely to read the handbook in its entirety.

To make each section even stronger, consider color coordinating them or adding visuals. Place a few pictures and graphics here and there to keep ahold of the reader’s attention. If you’re printing the handbooks, make sure you opt for high-quality services.

2. Simplify What You’re Trying to Say

Think of the last time you saw a big stack of papers on your desk and thought, “wow, I can’t wait to dive into this.” Unless you were using sarcasm, it was probably never.

Your employees are the same way. They have more important things to do than read their way through pages and pages of onboarding information. They’re here to actually do the job you hired them for!

Make it easier for them to get to their actual duties by creating an employee handbook that is straight to the point. The more direct you are, the better.

3. Tell a Few Jokes

There’s being direct for the purpose of saving time, then there’s being too direct and coming off as boring. While you’re writing the handbook, add a few jokes here and there.

These will get your employees’ attention and remind them you’re here to have a little bit of fun just as much as there is serious work to be done. Jokes encourage employees to relax. While an employee handbook is no laughing matter, a few funny moments represent all sides of your business – the practical, and the people side of it, too.

The #1 Rule of Creating an Employee Handbook: Focus on the Culture

Whether you’re breaking down the payment schedule or using a play on words to tell a joke, always keep your company culture in mind. After all, this is the main purpose of having an employee handbook!

Creating an employee handbook allows you foster community. It makes each employee feel like they are an official part of the team, and gives them clear expectations to uphold. These go beyond individual roles and duties – the employee handbook puts everyone on an equal playing field and brings them together.

For more office management insights, click here.

The post 3 Steps to Creating an Employee Handbook Manual That Your Employees Will Want to Read appeared first on Hackworth.

Booklets are resourceful, and a great way to promote your business by providing essential details to your potential customers.

Don’t worry, we’ll explain what is a booklet and what exactly you can use it for.

Read on!

What Is a Booklet Exactly?

Booklets come in all shapes and sizes, however, they are smaller than an actual book. A typical booklet has a stack of 2 or more sheets of letter-sized paper, folded in half.

If you’re trying to picture this in your mind, think of a brochure, recipe books, and inserts in a CD booklet.

The great advantage is, you can design them however you want. If you want to go basic, you can print them strictly in black and white. For additional costs, add some color.

Let’s get into how this is going to help YOU with your business.

Make a Catalog

Think about it, why do you flip through an IKEA or Sears catalog? To see what they have, right?

Catalogs are a perfect way to advertise your products to potential customers. You can compile them in a beautifully designed, easy-to-read booklet.

By making a catalog, these booklets give you a chance to market inside people’s homes! It’s a win-win for you and the business.

Consider a Promo Booklet

If you don’t have the money to create a catalog, that’s ok! Consider choosing a few of the best products from your inventory and make a smaller, promo booklet.

Give people a taste of what your business has to offer.

Make Training Manuals

Even if you have a smaller, startup business, you probably have some employees working for you. Training your employees is way easier when you have a manual at your fingertips.

When it comes to a training manual, you need something with enough space to handle all of the important information, e.g. instructions, goals or objectives.

Booklets are a cheap and effective alternative rather than printing a standard book.

Design Is Key

No one is going to pick up your business booklet if it’s bland and boring. You need something that really catches a customer’s eye.

Most businesses like to go with saddle-stitched binding for their booklets. It’s common for small booklets, calendars, and even magazines. Using saddle-stitching will allow the booklet to be opened up flat.

There are even booklet envelopes. Those are open-side envelopes with wallet flaps or side seams. They’re used for brochures and other multi-page mailings.

Why Consider a Booklet?

So now you know what is a booklet and why they’re an effective marketing piece. All it takes is a little paper and ink and design then you’ve got yourself a nice booklet for your business.

That’s why we here at Hackworth want to make sure your booklet is everything you wanted it to be. So contact us today and our production team will fire up the printers!

The post What is a Booklet and What Can You Use One For? appeared first on Hackworth.

We have gathered why you can boost and grow your business with professional business cards.

Read on to learn more.

Sign of Preparedness

You don’t want to be the person who is running around to find a pencil and paper to write down your contact info to give out.

Having your business cards on hand and ready to give out shows that you are ready and prepared to make business connections.

This is a good sign of someone who is prepared and ready to make their business grow and is impressive to those who you want to connect with.

Makes Sharing Information Personal Again

While sharing contact information digitally is sometimes easier, it is less personal.

When you are networking, it is essential to make genuine connections. This can start by simply swapping information via professional business cards.

This helps keep the eye contact during the conversation instead of breaking the eye contact to stare at your phone to input information.

This way you can make a solid memory of the meeting situation that you can remember well into the future.

When you walk away from the conversation, you can then take the time to input the contact info into your device.

Professional Business Cards Are the First Impression of Your Business

You want to make a memorable first impression when you meet possible business connections

A well-designed professional business card establishes how you are presenting your brand and the most critical aspects of the business.

Think of your business card as an icebreaker.

Decide what is important to your brand and what will make a big impact on the receiver.

You might be surprised the doors that can be opened and where the conversation can go from a good-looking and creative business card.

More Unique = Increased Shareability

Interesting and unique business cards make people in the industry want to share your business message.

Here are ideas on how to make your business cards unique to your brand:

• Include a QR code
• A picture of yourself or the company
• Use metallic ink
• Cutouts or stenciling
• Make the shape what you sell (i.e., skateboards or cheese)
• Play with the thickness of the material
• Print on non-traditional materials (i.e., wood or metal)
• Engravings
• Change the shape to a square or make a vertical rectangle

These innovative ideas will separate your business card from all the other business cards out there and definitely make a memorable impression on the person you give it to.

You don’t want your business card (and by default, business) to be easily forgettable by being basic.

Boost Your Business!

Business cards help grow your professional network and increase your brand potential and success.

Check out other printed projects and how they can also help your business thrive.

The post 5 Ways to Use Professional Business Cards to Boost Your Business appeared first on Hackworth.

However, you’d be wrong.

The Neuroscience May Surprise You

Studies into the neuroscience of recall, comprehension, and emotional impact continue to show that print content outpaces digital in every respect. This includes advertisements.

Using high-resolution EEG brain wave measurement as well as eye-tracking technology and old-fashioned questionnaires, researchers at the Canadian firm TrueImpact tested the effect of print advertisements versus digital ones.

Digital media, they found, required much more cognitive effort to comprehend than direct-mail marketing pieces. The digital media included email and banner ads on both smartphones and laptops. Yet across the board, it garnered lower brand recognition.

In fact, many more participants were able to recall the brand name after having been shown a paper advertisement than those who had seen only the digital version.

It’s no secret that the most effective advertising campaign is the one that you remember.

Print Advertising’s Reach Is Better

“What?” you may be saying. “The internet is global! How can a hard copy of anything compete with that?”

Well, what about garage sale signs, banners announcing a local 5K fun run, a “Coming Soon!” sign in the window of a shopfront under construction? A vehicle wrap? A business card?

Even the posterboard you hold up at your son’s basketball game that reads “Go Panthers!” is a form of print marketing, and one that simply won’t work online.

Sure, information about store or cafe openings, neighborhood events, and even yard sales is all available online. But, with a few exceptions, potential “customers” of these activities would have to go looking for that information. Colorful, attractive signage located right in the neighborhood will catch the right eyes.

You Can’t Block A Brochure

Even if you don’t use one yourself, you probably know someone who has an ad blocker installed on their browser. That’s the problem with digital ads; they’re fairly easy to ignore, click past, or even eliminate from your online experience in the first place.

Not so with printed materials like brochures, flyers, or billboards. Take a direct-mail postcard, for example. You probably receive a few of these each week, but you don’t automatically dump them in the recycling bin.

“Sure I do,” you say. “I look to see what it is, and then I chuck it.”

You look to see what it is.

Once the postcard is in your hand, or the billboard is right in front of you on an otherwise empty stretch of road, you’re going to read it. Whether the message is interesting to you is another matter, of course, but it’s much harder to ignore a printed ad than one made of bits and bytes.

The fact that you have to look at it, before deciding what to do next, makes it effective.

Get Effective Advertising

Whether you need a banner, a business card, or a brochure mailing, contact Hackworth to learn just how effective advertising in print form can be.

The post Here’s Why Print Advertising Is Still So Effective appeared first on Hackworth.

A recession can, counter intuitively, present tremendous opportunities in many more areas. The end of a recession can be, conversely, fraught with unanticipated perils. Here are 8 potential threats and what you can do about them right now, during the slow season for most businesses.

1. You LOOK like you’ve been through a recession. In fact you’ve been through the longest and deepest financial crisis our country has faced since the 1930s. But that’s no excuse for presenting yourself badly. If your store looks dated and rundown because signs and posters are faded or if your service vehicles have no graphics or those they do have are peeling or faded, you’re giving an immediate advantage to any competitor that looks better. Your potential customers aren’t going to forgive you for looking terrible because times are hard. On the contrary, when you allow your business to look bad, they wonder if you’re going to be around or if you’re professional.

In short, they are less likely to trust you and less likely to buy from you. Full disclosure, I put this at the top of the list because my company solves these kinds of problems for our clients. But that doesn’t make it any less true that how you present yourself is one of the most important things to consider in driving sales. Fix this now. It’s quick, relatively inexpensive and a smart provider (ahem) can get you terrific bang for your buck.

2. Your PR has slipped. Hey when things get bad, lots of businesses make the mistake of turtling up to ride it out. If that’s you, you haven’t had a lot to crow about the last few years. Here’s the good news: you made it. Press coverage of the economy and the economic impacts on business has been getting more positive. The media wants feel-good stories about business right now and if you’re still here you are one of those stories. Figure out what made your story special and go tell it.

For instance, Hackworth is in an industry that saw two-thirds of its member firms go under from 2009-2013. We read the tea leaves before the recession really hit and began changing our business ahead of time. While 2 out of 3 of our colleagues went out of business or sold out, we added new products, made major equipment purchases and bought other businesses, keeping their people employed and their customers well served. Whatever your special story is, tell it to everyone you can. If you can get stories in the press, great! If not, make sure your sales and marketing people, collateral, and social media presence are ringing the bell. This is where you re-establish your credibility and show you are pros who are in it for the long haul.

3. Your marketing isn’t up to the challenge of winning in a growth period. One of the first things that gets cut in hard times is the marketing and advertising budget. This is especially true in my home market, which is notorious for giving professional marketing short shrift. Your administrative assistant may be a whiz at sending out mailers, scheduling events, and updating the Facebook page, but to consider those tasks “marketing” is like equating changing a tire with designing a Formula 1 racer. I’m not knocking the thousands of admins who have stepped and expanded their roles to help their firms get through a crisis unprecedented in our lifetimes. Without them, even the marginal marketing done the last few years would not have happened and more companies would have gone down.

You should absolutely keep these people involved and help them to continue to grow their skills and pay as their just due for helping you get through it. But these people and your business need and deserve more than the basics. You should also immediately get the highest level of professional marketing help you can afford, in-source or outsource, and increase your marketing budget to the limits that can responsibly increase it. Then, before you spend one dime beyond already budgeted expenditures, put that pro help to work building a plan that will win. If you’re aggressive you should be able to have the pieces in place in a matter of weeks and then, with sales and fulfillment on board, go kick the legs out from under your competitors.

4. You aren’t able to handle the business. I had a boss that liked to say that more business than you can handle is “a nice problem to have.” You know what’s nicer? Getting out ahead of a situation so it doesn’t become a problem. I’ve learned that one of the biggest things you can do to turn a “nice problem” into “no problem” is communicate across your organization. Your production or service people need to know, right now, that you’re going to get busier both because of the economy and because of the steps you’re taking as their leadership. They need to be clearing the decks of anything they’ve left hanging around and looking for any and every way to boost efficiency.

Even more importantly, your sales people need to be regularly updated on realistic fulfillment times so they don’t over promise and cause you to under deliver. This is one of the biggest stressors you can imagine when business is taking off. It leads to all sorts of juggling of work and priorities and too often it leads to hurt feelings on the team and dropping the customer’s ball. If you communicate relevant info early and often your various sub-teams will be one team, on the same game plan to make things better. They will EXPECT things to get better and that boost in morale will be invaluable in improving your fortunes. Failure to do this will lead to a downward spiral of blame and shame that may cause you to miss out on the upturn in part or totally.

5. You’ve fallen behind on tech. We made the decision to be the tech leader in our market and lines almost six years ago now, and we’ve done that consistently throughout the interim. Sometimes it was with big capital purchases, sometimes it was through acquisition, and sometimes it has been through strategic partnerships. The bad news, if you’re not the tech leader, is that there can only be one tech leader in your world. The good news is that, even if you fell behind during the recession, you can use many of the same strategies to catch up that your competition may have used to get ahead. Look first at what your clients need.

Second, figure out how to get it for them—new equipment, outsourcing, simply improving operations with better processes or different people.

Third, go sell them the improvements they’ve already asked you for. You can adjust these changes to fit your budget. Go as big as you’re comfortable with and make sure that you don’t blow your budget. Strategic partnerships and outsourcing are great ways to start closing the tech gap with minimal upfront cost and they let you confirm that the market you perceive is really there before you write the really big checks. Also, search the web for force multipliers such as project management tools, CRMs and collaborative software. If you can improve your tech in these areas, you improve your whole business. The web based solutions developers are many and they are engaged in something of a price war. This is great news for business, especially small business.

6. You’re going to lose important clients. Whether because your sales force isn’t on point or because your chief rival (or somebody you never heard of) took these pitfalls more seriously than you did, you may come in one day and find a major piece of your revenue has jumped into someone else’s pocket. If your company tends to deal in “one and done” transactions, meaning you constantly have to beat the other guy to get ever more new customers, then your exposure here is primarily in marketing and advertising and being able to serve customers better than anyone else and earn their referrals.

Essentially this whole list is important but you need to give special attention to marketing and handling the increase in business.If you have a repeat client business, this whole list is important, but you also need to be proactive in retaining those key accounts. You need to identify them, make sure you have the best possible person servicing them, and then be sure they are getting that service. Their rep needs to be in front of them before the other guy comes calling and very soon after so you can make your case for maintaining the relationship and rebut the other guys’ arguments for dumping you. If that sounds like a lot of management of your sales force and a lot of grinding it out in the field, just ponder what it would do to your business if your #1 client didn’t call you back this year.

7. You lose a key person and it’s your fault. The recession is great for getting premium talent on the cheap and you did, and you feel pretty good about it. Well don’t. That high end rainmaker that’s getting a mid-level paycheck? It’s even money she’ll burn the rest of her vacation days and be gone-zo before you know what hit you. Worst case scenario, you’re in one of the states where your no-compete is difficult or impossible to enforce (Virginia is about in the center on this scale) and she both stops producing business for you and takes business from you. Best case, you lose her sales skills, any new revenue she would have brought in, the rapport and trust with her clients, and she goes into the broader community feeling like you got over on her (because you did) and has nothing good to say about your firm.Head this off now. Most employees, if they’re comfortable, are motivated far less by money than benefits, respect, autonomy, and power. You obviously want to pay a competitive wage. If you don’t and you can, do that first. If you can be at the top of the local scale for the real difference makers in your organization, consider doing that second. It makes the sale a lot harder for the poachers that will come sniffing around soon.

Can you add an additional percent match to the 401k, absorb a little more of the healthcare premium, or add a vacation day across the board? See what it costs you and think about it. These are small gestures that make real differences to employees. Before making any changes to benefits, do check with your attorney, just to be safe. Show respect for your people—always. Don’t manage more than you need to and if you can make flex time or remote working happen, do it yesterday. If you haven’t started this already you are far behind the curve in modern employee relations and it WILL cost you good people.

Lastly, but probably most important after fair pay, you need to get your flight risks more deeply engaged in the business. One approach is to figure out what gets their motor running and let them put that passion to work on projects for your company. You’ll have to work with them to manage their time and duties. You don’t want something they enjoy to become a chore they work on after hours; you want it to be a regular part of the job that helps the business. Another approach is to put them in charge of a function or team and make it their baby to raise. If you set them up for success and fulfillment, they will become much more sticky with your organization.

8. You think you’re doing great! Well there’s doing a lot better than last year and there’s doing as well as you could. If things get better without a lot of extra work, or even pain in your organization, that can feel really good. What you have to worry about is that your competitors are on this same rising tide and they may well be working hard and making the tough choices instead of coasting. You may see your immediate revenues go up without ever realizing that your competitive position is being eroded irretrievably. The temptation to watch the money flow in and take a breath, relax a little, is human nature and understandable after what we’ve all been through. The leaders with the grit to keep driving as the economy recovers are the ones who will be on top in the long run. Cowboy up.

That’s not everything you’ll have to face as times improve but these are some of the big ones to watch out for and address now, at the front end, while most businesses are in their slow season and still trying to catch their breath from the last few years. Good job on making it this far and go get ‘em.

Drew Little is the Director of Corporate Development at Hackworth & TGS in Chesapeake, VA you can contact him at 757-646-5612 or dlittle@hackworth.co.

The post 8 Potential Threats for Small Businesses in 2015 appeared first on Hackworth.

What are Reprographics?

A combination of “reproduction” and “graphics”, reprographics are reproductions using photography or xerography. Most people see reprographics in catalogs and archives, but it is also heavily used in the architectural, construction and engineering fields. Today, large format printing has advanced far enough along to include this particular reproduction effort in its field. The future of this technology has raised serious speculations which very well may change how so many fields are currently operating.

Reprographics & Color

The use of large format color printing has allowed this particular field to be expanded into new areas and augment the ones that it currently serves. For example, the representation of buildings, infrastructure and details in municipal plans can be more efficiently represented by color printing. It’s use can help reduce the cost of construction dramatically.

In addition, the speed in which such data can be recreated and used has allowed for greater access to the technology and different applications as well. With data coming from smart appliances, nanotechnology-empowered surfaces and many other sources, the future of reprographics is certainly impressive. Basically, surfaces with nanotechnology will be able to tell maintenance departments about the condition and what is needed to keep the area clean. For instance, fire departments may access nanotechnology for the floor plans of a building that is consumed in smoke and know where to go when checking all locations. However, the possibilities do not end there.

Europe and the Future of Reprographics

Until recently, it was largely in the hands of US firms, but today European companies have worked very hard to elevate the status of their businesses in order to properly compete. Currently, the annual sales of these particular firms alone approaches $100 million and will no doubt go up in the future.

This means that the future is likely to be very robust as these smaller firms are more likely to grasp new technologies and use them in more creative ways.

The Advent of 3D Printing

One of the most exciting aspects of the reprographics industry is the advancement of 3D printing. The architectural, construction and engineering fields are taking advantage of 3D printing techniques which provides a great deal of flexibility and potential. Imagine ordering online and then printing up the product in your home instead of waiting for it to be delivered? It is simply amazing just how far this large format printing process can reach when the right materials are available.

There are other areas which are now benefiting from this technology and will no doubt grow in the future. Memjet printers are one that people are looking at while the expansion of this technology on the internet is another. Social media outlets allow for the rapid spread of information which means that reprographics will continue to evolve, particularly in how it is shared with the world.

The post The Future of Reprographics appeared first on Hackworth.

What is a 3D printer and how does it work?

Basically, a 3D printer is similar to a normal printer except that it layers atoms on top of each other to produce/create three dimensional objects. Sounds magic, right? But that’s exactly what it does. Creating 3D prototypes of various designs produced by engineers and other experts.

This technology was not invented overnight. It took many a years before the first successful prototype was made with the help of a 3D printer. Though this technology requires much more time to evolve completely, many organizations have already started using it to create may astounding things. There are a few instances where this technology has made remarkable contributions, especially, in the medical field where it has been able to save lives of many people. This provides us with a hint as to how 3D printing can change the world.

Want more?

Following are a few examples which show us how exactly a 3D printer can change the world.

No need for the prototypes anymore!!

The continued development in the field of 3D technology has led to numerous developments. In the past, 3D printing made use of cheap materials such as plastic to produce the prototypes of the real parts that were to be manufactured at a later date. Today, this technology has developed to create the original machine parts using the same raw material that is used in manufacturing them, without the need of creating any prototypes. This became possible with the companies like the 3D Systems, which first started designing the original parts, instead of prototypes, with radically new materials.

This led to a host of companies that started to manufacture nanocomposites, blends of different plastics, and blends of different powdered metals that have the capacity to mimic original metals such as steel. This paved the way to create mechanical parts that can be directly used in the machines. For example, companies like Jaguar have already started using this technology for rapid product development.

Dental Industry

Recently, the dental industry seems to have adapted the 3D printing technology much quicker than any other medical field. The main reason for this is the precision of a 3D printer in creating dental related prototypes.

In the past, if you were in the need of dental crowns for your teeth, you were asked to bite into the clay to produce a mould of your teeth. Later, a dentist, with the help of the clay impression, created your dental crowns by hand. It could take weeks to complete this and get fixed on to your teeth. Today, with the use of 3D technology, making dental crowns is made as easy as taking a normal printout on a Xerox machine.

Prosthetic Limbs and Devices

Many people are interested in this technology and its potential to change the face of medical industry as it pertains to manufacturing artificial limbs. In the past, prosthetic limbs and devices only came in general sizes and people used to struggle to make them fit. Today, custom made prosthetic limbs and devices are available that can cater to wide variety of physically challenged people. 

With help of CAD technology, a 3D printer can be used to manufacture the limbs of a person per an individual’s requirements. This is revolutionary as no two people are alike.

Point and Click!!

With the innovation of instant CAD files along with the latest developments in the field of 3D printer, a company known as FARO Technologies has created a hand held laser that is capable of creating miracles.

When you point the handheld laser to an object it instantaneously creates CAD files of the object. It then sends them to the 3D printer, which produces prototypes of the object. A user can can reproduce the prototype of whichever object you want just by pointing the handheld laser at it.

3D Printers for Home

Many people believe that one day 3D printers will become a household requirement.  In the future we could be be using it for many needs that will be save a lot of time and money.

No, there is no need for you to break the bank to own one of these machines. Although these machines were sold for as much as $100,000 in the past, today there are models available for a few hundred dollars. As the technology progresses the printers will become more affordable even as they improve in quality.

Why would someone need one of these in their home?  You could create objects such as cutlery, toys, curtain rings, dinner plates and many more with the help of 3D printing. It could ultimately save you a significant amount of time and money when you consider time spent travelling to stores for shopping.

Many argue that in future there will be no more parcel services and courier packages arriving to your homes. “Why is this so?” you may ask. It’s simple. In the future, there will be no need for you to click on the “buy now” button to order the things you may want or need. Instead you will be using the “print now” option.

The post Futuristic 3D Printers – A Step-Up Revolution In Printing Technology appeared first on Hackworth.

Analysis of crime scenes and witness reports can be more of an art than a science. One problem is that witnesses may not recall a face clearly, and investigators can run the risk of sending the wrong suspect behind bars if they rely too heavily on this kind of evidence. However, new technology promises to change that.

Mark Shriver and colleagues from Pennsylvania State University have spent months gathering 3D images and DNA of hundreds of volunteers. Over time, they managed to plot over 7,000 facial points of reference, which have been fed in to software that links similarities between facial features, DNA, race, and gender.

The team found that only 20 genes with 24 variants proved to be “reliable indicators” of facial shapes — and by using 3D printing, human heads with resemblance to the volunteers were created based on their DNA. In future, if there is DNA at a crime scene, it is possible that suspect’s faces can be printed from it, and witness reports may be less of a factor in proving a crime.

3D Printed Clothing

The N12 bikini is the first ready-to-wear garment produced purely through 3D printing technology. Designed by Continuum fashion, in cooperation with the Shapeways 3D Printing online printing store, the N-12 is composed of tiny nylon disks that hook together. Each component — including the strap, cups, and halter — are printed and sold separately, amounting to roughly $300 to own one for yourself once you snap each part together.

Make Your Own Musical Instruments

3D printing can supply us with medical devices, guns, and vehicle parts, but it can also include the musical realm. Two examples: One, the Dreaming Pipes project on Kickstarter, wants to allow 3D printing enthusiasts to create their own set of bagpipes at home. Considering the cost of traditional models, such a scheme could bring more pipe players into the fold. Secondly, the ATOM 3D printed guitar is on sale. Inspired by Les Paul, the bodies are fully printed from nylon, and each feature a wooden inner core. The guitars are dyed to order, and each one will cost you $3,500.

A Food 3D Printer

Natural Machines has launched the “Foodini 3D food printer” via a Kickstarter campaign. The Foodini Printer comes with empty capsules, which the user fills with whatever foods they wish. By using the printer’s touchscreen display, you choose the shape and settings you want in order to create your dish. There are also pre-programmed recipes for dishes, including pumpkin gnocchi, pizza, burgers and cookies. The point of the invention is to remove the hassle of cooking, but also toencourage you to use fresh food rather than sticking to pre-packaged food.

3D Printed Meats

The future production of food is likely to be a problem as the human population expands and so do our meat requirements. Scientists are trying to create test-tube burger meat in labs to prepare for the potential crisis, and the Thiel Foundation has awarded Modern Meadow funds to try and create bio-printed meat to satisfy the human need for protein. Modern Meadow wants to use 3D printing to create synthetic meat in a less resource-hungry manner.

The post Unusual Uses For 3D Printing appeared first on Hackworth.

NASA has contracted with technology start-up Made in Space to build the printer. “Imagine an astronaut needing to make a life-or-death repair on the International Space Station,” said Aaron Kemmer, the company’s chief executive. “Rather than hoping that the necessary parts and tools are on the station already, what if the parts could be 3D printed when they needed them?”

“If you want to be adaptable, you have to be able to design and manufacture on the fly, and that’s where 3D printing in space comes in,” said Dave Korsmeyer, director of engineering at NASA’s Ames Research Center.

3D printing technology has come along in leaps and bounds since the concept was first demonstrated. Commercial sales of 3D printers have grown considerably, and some retail for very low prices. Industrial 3D printers cost many thousands of dollars and produce amazingly good items.  However, all of these printers were constructed to operate (unsurprisingly) on planet Earth.

NASA intends to send a microwave-sized 3D printer to the ISS in 2014. Both NASA and Made in Space have some challenges to resolve if NASA wants to ship a printer that works successfully.

Launch into orbit

If anyone has ever watched the launch of a large rocket, he or she will be aware that it is the most dangerous part of the mission.  The rocket accelerates quickly to produce high G-forces in the payload area and there can be considerable shaking. Anything sent to the ISS – people, experiments, a new printer – has to be capable of surviving into orbit.

Lack of gravity

3D printing was developed on the surface of the Earth where gravity rules. In space, inside the ISS, there is no noticeable gravity. The 3D printer has to be designed so that it does not depend upon gravity for positioning its mechanism or the work-in-progress.

Materials used for producing parts

Most 3D printing uses one or other of various types of plastic in a spool form. The printer unspools the plastic and melts it to form a sequence of very thin layers on the printing station. However, the requirements on the ISS are that metal parts have to be manufactured.  Laser-melted titanium and nickel-chromium powders are to be used to build strong components.

So this 3D printer, the size of a microwave oven, will be able to produce useful tools and vital spare parts. Instead of waiting weeks for a spare, the ISS inhabitants will be able to print one in minutes (according to NASA).

The post NASA Plans to Print Space Station Spare Parts – In Space! appeared first on Hackworth.

The Increasing Number Of 3-D Printing Services

About a month ago, the UPS Store—a nationwide franchise of over 4,300 locations—announced that they would start putting 3-D printers in their stores. The current locations are a bit limited, but this was the first big push by a large chain store to make 3-D printing available to a large number of people.

Prices for 3-D printing are still variable, but they mostly depend on how much material your design uses. The material spool used by the Stratasys 3-D printers in the UPS Stores costs $150 for a 30 cubic inch spool. That’s $150 for roughly a pint of material, which makes 3-D printing expensive—put not as expensive as it would be if you also had to pay for the Stratasys printer, which has a base cost of over $20,000.

3-D Printers And Maker Spaces

The printers available in the UPS Store are mid-range business 3-D printers, but there are cheaper printers with cheaper material costs available too. A great place to find these are maker spaces, local organizations (usually co-ops) which buy equipment and then let members use it for a monthly or annual membership fee.

Most mid-sized or larger U.S. cities have at least one maker space with between two dozen pieces of equipment and hundreds of pieces of equipment. 3-D printers and laser engravers are reported to be some of the most popular pieces of equipment at maker spaces across the country.

Maker spaces also often offer introductory classes to 3-D printing even to non-members, giving you a chance to learn about 3-D printing for free or for a very low cost (and, of course, giving you a chance to sign up for a regular maker space subscription once you get hooked).

Free 3-D Printing

As 3-D printers draw more and more attention, some businesses are using them as promotional tools. Once such business is the always marketing savvy Microsoft. Microsoft has teamed up with MakerBot, a company which produces a home-style 3-D printer for less than $3,000, to create what it calls the MakerBot Experience.

Like the maker space classes, the MakerBot Experience is a chance to learn about 3-D printers and get some hands-on experience. Unlike the community classes, Microsoft and MakerBot are subsidizing their demo, so there’s a good chance that you’ll come home with a free (but small) 3-D printed object. (Tiny action figures seem to be the most popular.)

The MakerBot Experience is available in select Microsoft Stores, but even if you miss your opportunity to attend it, you can be sure more and more businesses will be using 3-D printing demonstrations to help get potential customers in the store. And as 3-D printing takes off, you can also expect to see more established businesses like The UPS Store offer 3-D printing on business-quality printers.

The post How To Get Started With 3-D Printing Without Spending A Fortune appeared first on Hackworth.

When you print pictures of Mt. Rushmore, that’s not a big deal. But when you’re printing your tax forms or other confidential documents, it can be a bit scary.

Wireless Printing Is The Same As Wired Printing—Just Without The Cord

All printers have a printer control language. We talked about PostScript, the most popular printer control language, in a previous post, but there are a few dozen other highly popular printer languages. (Each printer manufacturer typically has two or three variants of their own language.)

These printer control languages were mostly developed in the day when your computer connected directly to your printer or to your company’s wired network. They included some security, but that security focused on keeping down costs by preventing unauthorized users from using expensive printers.

When printers went wireless, printer manufacturers saved money by continuing to use the same printer control languages they used for wired networking. But wireless is different from wired networking in one very important way: anyone with a wireless card can pick up the signals transmitted by any other nearby wireless card.

Improvements In Wireless Security

Printers weren’t the only type of device which was adapted to wireless networking without thought of security. Pretty much every software and hardware system from the late 1990s found itself adapted to wireless networking by the mid-2000s. This created a whole rash of security problems.

Network security engineers realized how difficult it would be to go in and fix all of these problems. For example, securing wireless printers would require updating the firmware and drivers for every single wireless printer on the market. That might be possible, but doing the same thing for network file storage devices, email servers, local area directories, and hundreds of other services would be practically impossible.

So they found another solution—they created a way to encrypt all data sent over wireless connections. The first attempt at doing this was called Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) because it offered the same level of privacy as physically wiring your devices together. Unfortunately, WEP had some major faults which made it a security failure.

Today, most wireless devices support Wifi Protected Access (WPA, also called WPA2) which offers a level of encryption which is extremely difficult to break when used correctly.

Making Sure All Of Your Devices Use WPA

If you want to make sure hackers can’t save copies of the documents you print, you must make sure all of the devices involved in printing use WPA. That means:

1. Your router must have WPA turned on.
2. Every computer you plan to use to print must use WPA.
3. Your printer must use WPA.

Each router is a little bit different, so check your router’s manual to learn how to turn on WPA. If your router is more than five years old, it may not support WPA—if that’s the case, you’ll either have to accept that hackers can read you documents if they want to or you’ll have to buy a newer router.

Once WPA is turned on, the other devices in your home or office should be unable to connect until they’re configured to use WPA. Windows Vista and above and Mac OSX 10.5 (Leopard) and above, plus all recent versions of Linux, Android, and iOS all make connecting to WPA routers easy.

Most wireless printers from the last five years should also support WPA, although you’ll have to read your printer manual to configure it.

Once you have all of your devices configured to print using WPA, you can relax knowing that you’re printing securely.

Need help with your business’s IT related needs? Call our IT Specialists at 757-545-7675.

The post Is Wireless Printing Secure? appeared first on Hackworth.

What makes postscript so special that these printers all support it natively?

Postscript And Vector Graphics

Printers print using dots to create images the same basic way the pixels in your computer monitor create images. Some image file formats reflect this by creating a bitmap, a map which describes what color to use for each bit (pixel or dot) in the image. This works well if your monitor or printer has the same number of pixels or dots as the image.

But when the bitmap has 72 pixels per inch (a common computer monitor resolution prior to high definition) how should your printer print it at 300 or 600 dots per inch (common printer resolutions)?

The answer is vector images. Instead of describing where each pixel or dot goes, vector images use constructs which look a lot like your high school geometry. To draw a line, a vector image doesn’t define which pixels to fill; it simply specifies the start point of the line and the end point of the line.

When your monitor or printer reads the vector image, it can turn the line definition into a specific series of pixels or dots, maintaining near-perfect quality at any resolution.

Postscript is a file format created to make it easy for computers to create vector images. To help computers quickly define complex operations, it also included a computer programming language which could be used to move or repeat objects without having to redefine them.

How Postscript Became Popular

To develop and sell postscript, its two lead programmers founded a company, Adobe Systems. You may have heard of them. But postscript’s real breakthrough came thanks to a suggestion made by someone else you may have heard of: Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple Computer.

Around the time Adobe began to sell Postscript for describing computer graphics, Apple was about to produce its first laser printer, the LaserWriter. Jobs suggested to Adobe that postscript would work very well as a printer language, so Adobe made a few changes and the LaserWriter became the first printer to use postscript.

Because the LaserWriter was powered by postscript, the LaserWriter could print higher quality documents than all of its competition, making the LaserWriter the most successful printer of its day by a long shot and solidifying postscript’s reputation as necessary for high-quality graphics. Most laser printers which followed the LaserWriter used postscript as well, until cheap laser printers dropped in price so much that it became too expensive to pay Adobe for postscript licensing fees. Cheap printers instead used Windows or Mac to convert postscript files into bitmap images and then print the images.

High-end printers, however, still use postscript directly to help ensure maximum quality and because many high-end desktop publishing programs still expect to print postscript.

Post-Postscript

As a complete programming language, postscript has some flaws. One of them is that programs aren’t always safe—they can contain viruses and bugs. Postscript viruses can’t infect your computer, but they can use up all of the CPU and memory on your computer (or your printer) until you close the postscript file or turn off your printer. (This is annoying but not really dangerous.)

Another problem with programs is that you have to run the whole program in order to get to the parts at the end. So to display the last page of a 300-page document, a computer needs to internally display all 299 preceding pages, which makes postscript files seem slow.

Adobe addressed these problems with the Portable Document Format (PDF) which is very similar to postscript but removes the programming parts and adds in some other features. Most programs today which create PDFs actually generate postscript and then convert it into a PDF. Conversely, many printers which directly print PDFs actually translate the PDFs back into postscript and print the postscript.

Although postscript will celebrate its 30th anniversary in 2014, it’s still the predominant language for high-end printers and shows no signs of being replaced.

The post What Is Postscript And Why Do Almost All High-End Printers Support It? appeared first on Hackworth.

Printer manuals and those instructions which come with toner cartridges say not to do this. But is that just because they want to sell you more toner, or is there an actual reason you shouldn’t shake toner cartridges?

The answer is: it depends.

When It’s (Mostly) Safe To Shake Toner Cartridges

Most home and small office printers use a combination toner cartridge. The cartridge holds more than just toner—it also contains the imaging drum and developer. The imaging drum creates a static electric version of your image and the developer statically charges tiny amounts of your toner and applies it to the charged parts of the drum. Then the imaging drum rolls over a sheet a paper, transferring the image onto it.

When you replace your combination toner cartridge, you also replace the imaging drum and the developer. This is important if you plan to shake your toner cartridge because using the developer when you’re low on toner can damage it—but you don’t really need to worry about damage if you’re going to replace it in a few days anyway when you get your new toner cartridge.

Of course, if you’ve ever shaken a toner cartridge, you probably know about the other risk—toner might leak out of the cartridge. Toner powder is extremely fine—individual grains can be from 12 to 5 micrometers (microns) in diameter, making them act like dust. They can get on your clothes, in your eyes, or in your lungs if you inhale them.

• Toner on your clothes should be washed off with a cold rinse cycle. Toner is designed to be permanently melted into paper, so you definitely want to avoid exposing your clothes to anything hot—like the summer sun—until you get the toner washed off.
• Toner in your eyes can quickly dry out your eyes, creating potential damage if left untreated. Common toner is just plastic or wax, so it isn’t toxic to the eye, but you should wash it out with cold water immediately to prevent dry eye damage.
• Toner in your lungs is a real problem. If you inhale toner, it’s a lot like inhaling dust, so you’ll start coughing immediately. The toner will stick to the inside surface of your lungs and inhibit the ability of your body to absorb oxygen. In the unlikely situation you inhale a major amount of toner, call 911 for immediate treatment. Toner is not toxic, so as long as you get over your initial bout of coughing, your body will remove the remainder from your lungs on its own. (But seek treatment if you have lingering concerns.)

To avoid problems without putting on safety glasses or otherwise looking like a dork, simply inhale, hold the toner away from you, turn your face in the other direction, shake, turn back slowly, and start breathing normally again once you verify that there’s no toner hanging in the air.

When It’s Never Safe To Shake Toner Cartridges

Large high-volume laser printers have a separate imaging drum and developer, and the toner cartridge is often just a transparent or translucent plastic bottle. You never want to shake the toner bottle.

Although shaking the toner bottle isn’t any less safe to your health than shaking a home or small office toner cartridge, if your printer runs out of toner because you tried extending the life of your bottle, your developer could break. High-volume laser printers have expensive developers, so it could cost you a few hundred dollars for a new developer and a few hundred dollars for the service tech to replace it. That’s too much cost for the benefit of printing an extra few dozen pages.

In short, with a normal home or office laser printer, shake safely. If your printer is the size of a desk or larger; don’t shake at all.

The post Is It Safe To Extend Toner Cartridge Life By Shaking And Replacing? appeared first on Hackworth.

As with any business, it is vitally important that you are constantly looking to expand your range of customers. Getting referred is ok for a while, usually when starting out but as a long term marketing strategy you have to be a little bit smarter with your methods of advertising. You need to keep getting your name out in the public domain and seen by others. The best way for this to happen is to have signs created and placed where there is either a lot of vehicle or foot traffic.

Cost Effective Marketing

Printing signage is a cost effective way of promoting your business. You initial outlay may well involve getting a graphic designer to come up with a great looking, head turning sign and then you will have to find a company to create the actual sign for you. You may well choose to start with a small number of sign to see how you get on and then increase how many you use as your business grows. The best thing about using signs is that you own them. There are no ongoing costs each month that you will have to pay.

Location, Location, Location

When using signs to promote your business, you will have to find places for them to be seen. There may well be a number of free sites for you to use, such as on your property or vehicle. However, there are a number of places which may well charge for you to place your sign on their property. Be smart with your signs and try to keep your costs as low as possible.

Design Is Important

When printing signage for your business you will need to think carefully about what you want your potential customers to see. If you have a head turning logo and an attractive this will all be for nothing if you fail to include contact details, phone number of website address for people to get in touch with you. A graphic designer who specializes in printing signage will be able to go through a number of designs and options for you. Ensure that you use a reputable designer who has a proven track record in printing signage before committing yourself. Design a winning sign now and you can generate lots of new leads for your business.

If you need help with your signage and graphic design, contact our professionals in the Color Department: 757-545-7675 or color@hackworth.co.

The post What to Remember When Printing Signage for Your Business appeared first on Hackworth.

Why Printers Store Your Data

Here’s a fun trick: print a multipage document to your USB or Wireless printer. After it starts printing, gently pull out the USB cord or disconnect your computer from the wireless network. In most cases, the document will keep printing, indicating your printer is printing it from its memory instead of from the computer directly. This is a feature common to almost all modern printers.

Printer manufactures didn’t design this feature because they wanted to serve people who trip over their cords or have bad wifi; they added memory to printers for three reasons:

1. To make printers print a little faster. Memory lets a printer accept the document from the computer as fast as its connection allows, so even if the computer slows down later (maybe because you decided to play a game), the printing won’t slow down.
2. Most modern color printers work by combining together different colors of ink in a marvelously complicated process. To make this work as well as possible, each printer has a sophisticated printing language which describes how the document should look. Modern printing languages are almost all almost programming languages so the computer can exert full control over how the printer works, but to run a computer program, the printer needs to load the entire program into its memory before it can start running (and printing) any of it.
3. In addition, many modern printers support more than one printing language. For example, high-quality printers designed for business tend to support not just their own native language (usually called PCL, or Printer Command Language) but also Adobe Postscript (PS), which actually is a programming language widely used for even non-printing tasks, such as being the language Mac OSX uses to display 2-D windows.

Where Printers Store Your Data And What To Do About It

Similar to computers, printers have both volatile memory (like computer RAM) which gets lost when you turn the printer off and non-volatile memory (like computer hard drives) which sticks around until it’s deleted.

The volatile memory isn’t an issue unless you need to worry about the police suddenly raiding you house. To purge volatile memory, just unplug your printer for 60 seconds or more.

Non-volatile memory is what you need to worry about if you just printed a confidential document. Printers tend to use their memory as what programmers call a circular buffer: data gets written in each sequential part of the memory until it gets to the end and then it starts at the beginning again, seeming to go in a circle.

So if you just printed a scanned copy of all your credit cards and now you want to sell your printer on eBay, you need to print enough non-confidential documents to use up the whole circular buffer. On business printers with non-volatile memory measured in gigabytes, this can take a long time. On home printers, you can usually just print 5 to 10 complicated documents, such as pictures or anything else besides plain text.

Oh, and there’s a nifty trick which can save you lots of ink: keep your old ink cartridges. When you need to clear out your printer’s memory, take out your full ink cartridges, put in the old cartridges, tell the printer to stop complaining about low ink, and print as many pages with as much color in them as you need to clear the memory. Then put your full ink cartridges back in so you can print like normal. It’s kind of a pain, but it can save you $10 or more in ink costs each time you clear your printer memory.

The post Could Your Printer Be A Security Risk Because It Saves A Copy Of Your Data? appeared first on Hackworth.

How to make printing more eco-friendly

Generally, a person or a company inclined to green printing should follow few basic rules to see a substantial change in the printing process. Firstly, the person should use the best available eco-friendly paper for the purpose of printing, and then reduce the use of chemical ink and the release of toxic chemicals into the environment. Also, shift to using soy or other vegetable-based inks, which do not require an excess of toxic solvents. The solvents actually cause more harm than to the environment than the paint itself. It is also very important to inform and educate others about the advantages and necessity to shift to eco-friendly printing practices, over conventional methods.

There are various techniques, which present a unique mix of conventional methods and modern practices in printing. Some of the printing techniques that are discussed below will help you produce beautiful printing results that are eco-friendly.

• Offset Printing: This type of printing uses oil based colors, which repel water, to produce real life images that are comparable in quality and longevity to the usually used chemical paints. Texts and images will be photo-engraved on an aluminum plate, and they are rolled over by the paint rollers. This efficiently distributes the ink over the aluminum plate. Then the images obtained on the plate are transferred to a rubber sheet, which is then applied to paper, and is pressed to obtain a long-lasting image.

• Digital Printing: This technique does not use plates to press ink onto a sheet. In digital printing the ink is not absorbed onto the surface of the paper, the ink instead spreads onto the paper to make a distinct layer. This is precisely the reason why the resultant prints obtained through digital printing are richer, and do not fade easily with time. Digital printing, when adopted in eco-friendly settings, uses completely recyclable paper and water-soluble ‘green’ paint.

• Water-less Printing: The conventional lithographic printing process causes the maximum harm to nature. However, water-less printing method eliminates the usual lithographic printing process, which causes considerably less harm to the environment. This process essentially removes water or the dampening process from the printing method. Water-less printing uses modern non-invasive chemicals and mechanical methods to print the colors on the sheet. The mechanical method here uses a unique temperature control system, and a silicon rubber coated sheet. This combination transfers the color onto the paper.

The Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs), which are either present in the runoff water from the printing press or present in the fumes, are the main cause of environmental pollution in printing. They are not only hazardous to human beings, but also to the flora and fauna around us. It has been scientifically proven that a green printing press emits 80% or less VOC into the environment, which is reason enough to switch to a healthy and eco-friendly printing method.

The post Techniques Used in Eco-Friendly Printing appeared first on Hackworth.

A company that discusses their recycling practices away from printing is a company customers can trust. Companies that use water coolers reduce the amount of disposed plastic bottles per day. Machines (like computers or printers) should switch to sleep mode soon after ceasing use. Companies should also promote the shutdown of equipment after each work day is finished. Using a printer that is versatile and will allow outdoor and indoor applications can be useful for environmentally conscious customers. Printers that can produce outdoor signage with water based latex inks at high durability and achieve high quality results is a trust worthy company.

Client branding requirements should be no problem for any green printing company. Water based latex inks do not fade fast compared to typical non-environmentally friendly inks. Indoor signage applications should be no problem whether they are for exhibitions or decorations. Whether the indoor or outdoor media is recycled paper, coated, or fabric a green printing company should have no problem. Even vehicle wraps should be no problem for some companies though the ink may have to be coated with some environmentally safe protectant. The right green printing company deals with the most environmentally sound products.

Green printing companies have a lot of options when it comes to equipment. Most green equipment offers ease of use with printers that do not need to be attended to. Many printers have automatic troubleshooting maintenance settings which allow the users to breathe a little easier. Many of the components of these environmentally safe machines are simple replacement if necessary instead of requiring the user to call a service professional and waste gas and pollute the environment in that way. High quality images are consistent with optical sensors equipped in most environmentally friendly printers.

There are many ways that a company can implement green printing strategies. If the environment is a priority for you and your business insure that you partner with a like-minded print provider.

The post What to Look for in a Green Printing Company appeared first on Hackworth.

An HP Designjet wide format printer is great for professional graphics and technical drawings. The printer delivers exceptional quality renderings regardless of the use. HP Designjet printers are highly reliable and user friendly. They can print detailed maps, precision schematics and photographic reproductions of professional quality.

A KIP wide format printer provides digital printing solutions for architectural, engineering and manufacturing establishments. KIP is a dependable, efficient and high quality performance. KIP has award winning models of wide format design which render imaging technologies well and enhance the operations of every piece of the KIP printing or scanning system catalog.

A Canon wide format printer offers a brand name to be trusted for technical documents as well as general use. Canon gives professional printers more options than they have before. The company has a long history of being the industry standard and particularly color Canon inkjet printers have been used for generations. Specifically the Canon imagePROGRAF color printer serves general purpose printing as well as more technical documents.

An Océ wide format printer is a world leader in printing technical documents, copying, plotting and scanning. Océ’s wide format printers offer the advanced reprographic capabilities required by companies all over the world. Océ has numerous models able to handle wide format printing up to 60” wide and any length.

Choosing the right wide format printer also involves choosing the right ink. Water based ink is most often used, despite the misnomer. Most often it is not water that carries the ink but another fluid. Dye ink has a high color selection, but fades easier in UV radiation. UV resistant ink stands up to UV radiation, but tends to have duller colors. Once you’ve made your decision, Hackworth can fulfill your ink supply needs. Just visit our online store or call and speak with Dave, 757-545-7675.

For a free analysis of your wide format printing needs contact your Regional Manager. Steve, Ralph and Dave can answer any question you might have concerning choosing the correct printing solution for your business.

The post Which wide format printer is the right one? appeared first on Hackworth.

However, volume discounts have real powerful for both the producer and the savvy consumer when well understood and properly used by both parties.

For the producer it is all about hedging costs. Often volume discounts are explained as savings being passed along by a seller who has made a large purchase himself. This is a “middleman effect” and doesn’t really do anything to explain where the savings come from. The real savings in production come from two areas. The first is being able to predict volume and make better decisions with regard labor, capital expenditure, and other cost drivers. The second is the allocation of fixed or sunk costs. These are costs you are going to pay regardless of your sales volume or anything else and you divide them by your unit sales forecast to get a cost per unit (it’s usually more complicated than this but we don’t want to get to far into the weeds here). Once you surpass that forecast number those costs are no longer deducted from the sales price of each unit, meaning you have greater profit and/or pricing flexibility  from that point onward. This is the sort of calculation at the root of virtually every sale you see. Even clearance sales at retailers which are designed to recapture those sunk costs work on this principle at their core. Volume discounting is just another type of sale designed to leverage the finite nature of fixed costs.

Typically, a volume discount program hinges on some combination of two ideas. The first is that low volume (essentially retail) sales will generate the revenue needed to cover fixed costs so that volume sales only have to cover variable costs (material and additional labor costs for instance). The other idea about volume pricing is that all items are volume priced but sold at such volume that the fixed costs are reduced to a very small portion of total cost that is easily absorbed. This second mechanism is
most like the idea behind volume retailers. It can be very successful, as with Wal-Mart, or very risky, as with K-Mart. Of course these companies have many other factors at play with regard to their success but it is a handy way to think about how the discounting of an entire product line would work.

If the seller can reasonably project a volume of unit sales and then spread their fixed costs across those units it becomes a powerful determinant in the final price of a unit, especially in a competitive marketplace. The volume discount, no matter how it is applied, can be a critical tool in hitting projected volumes and even allowing a firm to increase the volume of those projections.
For instance if a firm sells at retail 100 widgets this year at a fixed cost of 1 and they expect  to sell 100 next year, their fixed cost will remain the same at best. However if that same firm can sell 20 more units and their fixed cost goes up 10%, their fixed cost actually drops over 8%. Therefore, it is in their best interest to sell those 20 items at a volume price  to ensure the savings across all 120 widgets. In other words a greatly reduced or even loss-leading price on some items makes all others more profitable. Understanding this is important for both the producer and the sharp consumer that is buying in sufficient volume to affect the producer’s fixed cost calculations. The producer has to know what volume matters to his fixed costs and the consumer needs to understand that if they are one of these large volume buyers, their low price sale increases the profitability of other high priced sales. A caveat for both, sufficiently high volume can actually flip the balance of the producer’s business costs and lead to real losses on high volume transactions. No matter how big the dollar amount is, it is critical that the producer understand his cost equations and the underlying reasoning of his projections and that she be willing to walk away when the numbers don’t add up in her favor. The buyer needs to also be aware that there is a point where the deal is too big (or the discount too deep) to work and that they could see a valued supplier walk away if they bargain too hard or if they push for deeper discounts on very low margin goods or services.

For the purchaser the price savings are the obvious objective, but if the product goes to waste that’s another cost they’re paying. It’s important when you buy in volume to make sure that what you’re buying isn’t going to lose its value as it sits, waiting for you to use it. If you buy five heads of lettuce for the price of four but two turn brown in the crisper, you’re a head of lettuce worse off than you would have been buying them as needed. This is also true of things like electronics which become obsolete over time. To hedge against this, buyers can often agree to buy a set quantity of an item or category of items and have them delivered over time, in lots or as needed. The logistics costs may cut into the savings some but if you’ve worked a good deal you’ll still come out ahead. An example would be Hackworth’s High Volume Printing Program.

Many of our clients’ work is, in a way, perishable because the designs and messages they need to convey aren’t consistent over long periods. They may use 10,000 square feet of printing over a year but no more than a few hundred feet of any one message. If they had to buy all 10,000 with the same message it would be a huge waste and they would lose money. However, thanks to the digital, on-demand world which printing now occupies, we can change the out put on the fly without principally affecting our costs. As long as we know the client is going to purchase 10,000 square feet over a given period, the content is immaterial to our cost. We can enter the appropriate cost variables into the spreadsheet algebra and generate a price that reflects the volume of the purchase.

When looking for a discount program or selling one it is important to look for a win-win. A good volume arrangement is a partnership with two equal partners. In such a partnership the client gets a great deal but no so great that their valued supplier goes under, or worse, limps along unable to give the client the best service, product, or new innovations because they have given away their future just to bring in a check. From  the producer side, the goal should be not just to cut a good deal today but to offer a coherent volume program that enhances your overall business. You should remain competitive in service, technology, and quality as well as price in order to be a valued partner in the long term and still be around for your other customers, your employees, and everyone who counts on you. If a competitor is “giving it away”, check your math and make sure he doesn’t know something you don’t. If you’re sure you are on the right track then be patient and the other guy’s rush into the price gutter will sort him out over time as his quality, service, and ability to adapt to changing conditions suffer.

For more information on Hackworth’s volume discount program contact Drew at 757-284-6856 or dlittle@hackworthrepro.com.

The post Volume Discounts Should be a Win-Win Situation appeared first on Hackworth.

It is assumed that the printer usage in the company is just the cost of doing business. Nevertheless, it is an opportunity for substantial savings not only in supplies, ink and toner but also break/fix issues and a company’s man hours.

IT research and analysis company, Quocirca, pointed out in their whitepaper Managed print services: An SMB priority that “escalating print costs and demand on IT resources drive the need for managed print services.”

The whitepaper had this to say, as well:

“Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs), like larger enterprises, depend on printing for a variety of business activities. Even the smallest office needs a fast, reliable, cost-effective printer capable of professional output. Yet SMBs are faced with limited resources and expertise when it comes to the common tasks of dealing with printer problems and ordering supplies. Today, the vast majority of SMBs purchase their printer or MFP separately to supplies such as ink and toner, with most purchasing these on an ad-hoc transactional basis. Printers can place a huge administrative and support burden on staff, which diverts them from their core activities.

The solution is to use a managed print service (MPS), which combines hardware, service and supplies into a service based on a cost-per-page. A leasing model provides predictable costs as spend is moved from capital to operational expenditure, whilst automatic supplies delivery and meter reads lower the need to stockpile supplies and eliminate time-consuming manual tasks.”

Aside from not having to deal with the challenge of managing printer maintenance, MPS also impacts employee productivity, as well. Quocirca found data to support this:

“Unplanned printer downtime can have a serious impact on any business that relies on printing for business critical activities – whether it is printing out business reports, sales and marketing collateral or just content needed to be read in order to support a business decision. Device failure can be caused by paper jams, paper/ink/toner running out or more serious problems that require a service call. All require manual intervention and so hinder staff productivity. Indeed, device availability and printer functioning problems are rated as the most common problems that impact SMB employee productivity.”

For more information on how Managed Print Services can benefit your small or medium business call us at 757-545-7675.

The post Managed Print Services works for small & medium businesses appeared first on Hackworth.

Convenient, On-The-Go Productivity

KIP Cloud Printing Apps are engineered for remote print submission environments. Whether you’re using an iPhone, iPad, PC, Mac, Laptop, or USB, KIP Web Apps simplify convenience printing from any web browser using your favorite email provider.

• Use any web connected mobile device
• No learning curve, no training
• Submit print ready files via Email attachments
• Optional keywords for expanded flexibility

KIP Cloud Printing delivers the ability to Email files to a KIP systems for immediate or future viewing and printing. Simple key words can be used in the email body to specify printing instructions for each job set or file, helping mobile users to stay productive.

KIP Cloud Scan & Copy

The post KIP Cloud Printing Apps appeared first on Hackworth.

The food drive was a great success. Christopher Academy alone recieved 3 tons of food! School officials said many people drove by, saw the banner, turned around to donate food!

The popular home makeover show was in Hampton Roads the first week of February to build the Hill-Burdette family a new home. Over the last 15 years, Beverly Hill has fostered 35 children and helped many in the community by making meals and delivering necessities to those in need.

The entire project was a great success and Hackworth was delighted to be apart of it. Visit The Pilot Online to see video and photos of the house reveal. Move that bus!

The post Hackworth Donates Banner and House Plans to Extreme Makeover appeared first on Hackworth.

The current trend in the reprographics industry  is to aggressively compete for business on price alone. And prices aren’t just low, in some cases they’re nonsensical. In our industry we are seeing prices per square foot that barely cover the cost of the paper that the drawings are printed on. How can that be? Well, either the printers doing this are so desperate for cash flow that they’re willing to mortgage their future to make it through today, or you, the clients, are not really paying that unbelievably low price.

Years ago some repro shops started charging delivery charges to offset costs without having to quote higher rates. While we never did this at Hackworth, the practice caught on quickly with the vast majority of our competitors. Once you have a delivery charge a pick up charge just seems natural. The pick up charge served a couple of purposes initially. First, it increased revenue without ostensibly raising prices. Second it pushed clients to send jobs online. Using an FTP site is a huge increase in efficiency for both parties and was probably the best reason to charge for pick-up. We don’t charge this one either, preferring to educate clients about the benefits to their operation instead of coercing them with fees pAbout a year ago we saw something that turned out to be the beginning of a flood of these “soft” charges. Gas prices went to $4 a gallon locally and more in many markets. For an industry that absolutely depends on its ability to deliver to clients as needed rather than on predictable routes and schedules, this was a tremendous blow. The dilemma most of our competitors faced was predictable, though evidently not predicted. They had already begun charging pick up and delivery charges when the costs of those activities were relatively low in order to keep up the appearance of charging a lower price. When those costs skyrocketed they either had to raise the price or the fees or they had to come up with another revenue stream. On top of the pick up and delivery fees that were already being charged, the “Fuel Surcharge” was added. Of course fuel prices have been cut almost in half over the last year, but we’re still seeing fuel charges on competitor’s invoices.

Beginning late last year the amount of printing work in the marketplace fell off. Up to that point we had seen a few very
questionable price quotes from other companies. Once the recession really took hold we began to see below cost pricing throughout the segment. It didn’t take us long to realize that this was made possible by the ever more creative fees coming out of competing shops.

Several clients and prospects were good enough to share competitor invoices withus and we saw an astounding proliferation of fees. There are “upload fees” of as much as $20 per job. So if you avoid a pick up fee and fuel surcharge and save the printer those costs by going electronic, you’re rewarded with a $20 per order hit for using a service that costs the printer next to nothing. There’s the bindery fee for stapled sets. This starts at $.25 and goes up from there to $1 or more; for two staples
without which the job is loose and incomplete and a piece of paper with printer’s marketing information on it. For jobs that are picked up to be printed we’re seeing scanning charges of up to $2 per page. You give them the job at whatever price you were quoted and in order to do the work they have to scan the pages which incurs an extra charge. Saving the best for last though, there’s also the “Quality Control Fee”. One would think that if anything were included in the price it would be the best effort to do the job properly. Sadly that is not the case. When I first heard of this fee of as much as $15 per order it struck me as so
odd that I had to suppress a laugh. When the client added that the first time he was charged this fee the job was in fact wrong, I did laugh a little.

Even worse these fees aren’t just being charged to clients getting favorable pricing. I’ve seen clients of other firms who were
paying as much as three times the loss leading price of that firm and also paying the fees. It also isn’t true that firms that don’t charge the fees charge a higher rate. We did an assessment for one client who was paying about 20% more than we were prepared to charge as well as the fees. Even if this client had been paying 20% less than our price, they would have to print at least 1100 square feet on every order just to break even form the additional cost of fees.

There are many reasons to pick one printer over another and currently price is a big one. Just make sure the price you’re paying is the one you were quoted. If you pull out a couple of invoices and a calculator you can learn pretty quickly what you’re really paying. If it’s not what you were quoted then you have every right to demand that your quote be honored. And don’t
let a sales person tell you that these fees are an industry standard. Yes the fees are becoming more common but you can find printers who will give you honest and up front pricing. In fact, if you’re reading this either you’ve found us or we’ve found you.

The post Hard Truths About ‘Soft’ Fees appeared first on Hackworth.

Please contact Steve Kirnan or Corey Wilt to schedule an onsite visit. This may involve upgrading the software to the latest version. There is no charge to set up this new service unless you need to upgrade the controller hardware or operating system. Please call us at 757-545-7675 so we can find out what version of software you are running. This can only be set up on certain models of KIPs.

If you are in need of a new KIP printer please contact your local Regional Sales Manager:  Steve Linton – Central/Southeast Virginia at 804.937.3127; and Ralph Austin in Northern/Western Virginia at 703.216.9346.

The post New KIP Software Updates Meter Reading Automatically appeared first on Hackworth.

However, When you print your Adobe PDF files on devices equipped with true Adobe PostScript Level 2 or Adobe PostScript 3 printing technology:

• Your files will print correctly, with the highest quality and with optimal performance.
• Misprints and reprints virtually disappear because PDF files are more reliable than their PostScript counterparts.
• If you have an Adobe PostScript 3 device, you may be able to bring direct PDF printing to your workflow. With direct PDF printing, devices can receive and print PDF files without printing through an application. The device accepts a PDF file and processes it as easily as if it had received a PostScript file. This time-saving feature removes an unnecessary step and increases job productivity.
• Having a next-generation Adobe PostScript 3 printing device guarantees that you are ready for the transition to the digital workflow of the future.

For more printer information contact your Regional Manager.

The post Do I need a PostScript Printer to Print a PDF file? appeared first on Hackworth.