Xerox Phaser 6130
This spring I bought myself a new toy (ahem) professional office support device - a Xerox Phaser 6130 color laser printer. I LOVE IT!!!! It duplexes, it makes booklets (2 pages per side), it is super fast, great pictures, and relatively low in cost to operate. I was fed up with ink jet printers that never seemed to give me the value for the ink. Xerox even goes so far as to calculate what your costs are per sheet depending on color content.
4Inkjets.com
Anyway, the one downside to the printer is toner - FOUR toner cartridges at MRP of about $85 each. So I did some research and found “4InkJets.com” and found they had outstanding reviews and quite a following for ink and toner refills. They sell a fully compatible cartridge (I think they are either the OEM or have direct connection to the factory as they truly are identical) for $39.99 - that’s a savings of $45 each right there. And if you add your 10% off cashbaq coupon, it becomes $35.99. If you order 2 you don’t have to pay for shipping (over $50) which would normally run about $8 anywhere. They have been exceptional in service to me. Only once was something backordered, but only for a couple of days. These toners have a life cycle of 2500 for the black and 2000 for the color ones. I don’t think my inkject printer came anywhere near that number of prints before they’d crap out on me.
Cashbaq.com
While researching toners I stumbled upon a cool little site that handles online rebates. I’ve always been annoyed by rebates that you have snail mail in. This is all handled electronically when you start your journey as cashbaq and use one of their many coupons for online stores. I was a little skeptical at first, but it didn’t cost me anthing except my email addres which they don’t spam. They have coupons for hundreds of online stores ranging from 5% off to free shipping to much larger. That is cool in itself, but the real selling point is that this is a rebate center. In the example of 4inkject they collect 20% rebate from each sale and offer 10% off coupons. So in our toner situation. The price is $39.99 which gets knocked down to $35.99 because of the cashbaq coupon. Then in about 3 months you will receive a cashbaq check in your paypal account. In this case 20% rebate. So if I include the 20% rebate in my costing decision each cartridge costs me just $28.79. So about the same if not cheaper than my office jet ever was.
It really works, and you totally forget about it until one day you get an email saying that they have deposited money in you paypal account. They even start you off with a $5 credit to your account and focus. So far I’ve received 2 rebate payments this year.
Target Center in a crowd of late 40-50yr olds and their children on occasion tonight’s Journey concert was opened by Cheap Trick who is probably best known for the opening song to That 70s Show. They opened with that and dragged audience through a painstaking 10-12 songs that most of the audience never heard before or wished they would forget quickly. They did play another oldy but goody “I want you to want me” to close and then followed with a six song encore when one was clearly not asked for. They ended and ended and ended. I finally pulled out the Palm Sudoku to pass the time.
To add to the misery were the terrible attempts at humor by one of the guitarists. These guys were with the wrong audience. At one point the was a reference to us (we Minnesotans) being ecited about the presidential visit which landed flat of course. When he mis-interpretted our lack of interest as not understanding - he tried to clarify that he was speaking of the Republican National Convention held in our twin city two weeks ago. The Boos nearly shook the stage. Tough call if the booing was for cheap trick or the RNC. Unfazed he stumbled over find the angst. RNC. Then proceded playing another five unwanted encore songs.
I am passionate about responsible business practices. Not only have I been actively studying, practicing, teaching, and coaching on it my own businesses for the past 20 years, but these experiences were built on top of a foundation of being raised by a family of responsible business owners for the first 20 years of my life. Responsible business is smart business.
These days I have come to say that “green business is smart business™” because green business is about responsible business and conscious capitalism. It recognizes the interconnected and complex self-adapting nature of the systems in which business operates.
Having said this, whenever I get into a discussion about responsible business, green business, or conscious capitalism inevitably Milton Friedman and Adam Smith are brought up as counter arguments. These men were brilliant and spoke in a language of their respective era. And that language issue is critical to understanding and communicating about green business, responsible business, and conscious capitalism. (more…)
In researching (RED) I came across this excellent little film/story.
Filmmaker Armen Evrensel’s winning film from the (RED) Vision Showcase at the Vail Film Festival. Binty illustrates the (RED) themes: “Be a Good-Looking Samaritan” and “We Are The People We’ve Been Waiting For.”
After the umpteen time of seeing an “inspi(RED)” tee shirt I decided to go look into what it was all about. At first I assumed it was a Best Buy thing considering it seemed that everyone I met that worked there was wearing one only to find out that that it was actually a Gap thing. So I went off looking at The Gap to find the answer and was impressed not only by the project but the scope of it. They have partnered with the world’s most iconic brands (Hallmark, Apple, Gap, Dell) to produce (RED) products.
(RED) was created by Bono and Bobby Shriver, Chairman of DATA to raise awareness and money for The Global Fund by teaming up with the world’s most iconic brands to produce (PRODUCT)RED branded products. A percentage of each (PRODUCT)RED product sold is given to The Global Fund. The money helps women and children affected by HIV/AIDS in Africa.
All funds generated by sales of (PRODUCT) RED products (aka (RED) money) will support Global Fund-financed programs that positively impact the lives of women and children affected by HIV/AIDS in Africa. (RED) money provides access to education, nutrition, counseling, medical services, and the two pills a day they need to help stay alive. This includes programs in countries such as Rwanda, which has a proven track record and ambitious targets. For example, in the past two years, Rwanda has increased the number of people receiving treatments for HIV/AIDS ten-fold.
Be inspi(RED), be uncenso(RED), be ado(RED), be chee(RED).
At long last, after nearly seven years of waiting, I have successfully secured the domain name conversationcircles.com - the more logical domain for a website dedicated to learning about conversation circles. I even confused myself when verbally sharing the link with people. Now I no longer have to worry. Both links will take you there.
In honor of the new domain, I have updated the website, migrated it to a Wordpress architecture, and moved servers to obtain faster service.
Check it out and if you’ve never taken a look at my first video on conversation circles - watch it there!
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