How the Type of Office Equipment Affects Your Expenses

Remember when you had to run to Kinko’s to send a fax or make a copy? Neither do I. Now a days it’s more of the norm to have all the necessary machines in your office; but what has become even more of a norm is the all-in-one machine. You know the ones which can fax, copy, scan, and print. The all-in-ones are not cheap, but for the number of functions you get, they are cheap enough and will actual save you money in the end. For smaller business that may not have that luxury, here is some advice. Understand, while the individual copier, printer etc. equipment itself may not seem too pricey, replacing the accessories is what drives your expenses up the wall. When purchasing your equipment pay close attention to the prices of ink or any other items which may need to be replaced during the life of the product. As a college student, I remember printing off paper after paper after paper and seemed like every other day I was running out of ink. $30 every couple of weeks for ink can really make a dent into a college student’s wallet. If you use specific fonts such as Times New Roman or Century Gothic you can help reduce you printer’s ink usage by about 30%.

Written by: Craila Nixon

So perhaps you’ve heard, but incase you haven’t, Anheuser-Busch is endorsing a new campaign, and I believe the slogan is “Grow One. Save a Million”. Unfortunately, only men can participate in the fun, but all you have to do is stop shaving for a while. By doing this, you are saving water that you would normally use to shave. The purpose of this campaign is to promote water conservation for World Environment Day on June 5. The brewery has also pledged to donate a large sum of money to help support watershed conservation projects in each of the 12 brewery cities in the U.S., including St. Louis. I learned of this campaign by visiting bizjournals.com, so please go to the website to get more information on this topic. If you accept the Anheuser-Busch, we would love to see what you come up with!

Written by: Jen Ebenrick

There are many little things you can do to not only save money on bills by adjusting things in your home but also help save the environment. If you are looking for ways to conserve energy within your home, I have a tip for you that you may or may not have thought of. According to our friends at www.seql.org, you can wrap your water heater in an insulated blanket to conserve energy. The idea behind this is that your water heater won’t have to work as hard because it will be surrounded by a source of heat. Let us know if you have tried this or any other tricks to conserve energy around your home!

Written by: Jen Ebenrick

What to do when you need a logo in black & white but are only given a color file

What do you do when you need a black & white logo for print but your client only gives you a colored eps version?  You could take it into Photoshop and convert it to grayscale and save it as a TIFF, but then you get that annoying white background.  Here is an easy alternative (note: this is explained as for Mac users).  Open the file in Illustrator and go to Save As; change the name of the file to indicate it’s the black & white version (ex.- walgreenslogo-b&w).  While you have the Save As dialog box open, select the format to save in as PDF.  Save the file.  Open your new file in Preview.  Again you’re going to go the Save As option.  Keep the name of the file the same, but go to the options under Quartz Filter and select Gray Tone.  Save and overwrite the file.  Last step is to go back to Illustrator and open the file again.  Save As one last time, as an eps file, and you’re done!  You now have a quality black & white version of your logo to work with.

By – Meredith

7 Tips to save on gas

Your car can often times seem like a necessary evil.  It may get you where you want to go, but you have to deal with bad traffic, aggressive drivers, and there always seems to be something wrong mechanically.  All of those things can lead to lower gas mileage, which means more money out of your pocket.  So, here are some tips to cut down the amount you spend on gas:

•    Your gas mileage gets better as you go faster, until you reach about 60 mph, and after that, for every 5 mph faster, you end up paying about 24 cents per gallon more.  So, hit that cruise control on the highway.

•    Relax.  Aggressive driving (read: quick acceleration, hard breaking, speeding, and swerving) is not just dangerous to yourself and other drivers, it can cut your mileage by about 5% in the city, and a whopping 33% on the highway.

•    Turn that air-conditioning off! Running the A/C, especially with the windows open (or even just cracked!) can cut your mileage significantly.  HOWEVER:  at speeds over 55 mph, leaving your windows down means your car is less aerodynamic, so your gas mileage drops.  If you’re on the highway and cruising along, you can improve your mileage by as much as 20% by rolling up the windows and turning the A/C on a bit.

•    Don’t idle your car.  Ever.  In winter, it takes about a minute for an older car’s engine to warm up.  If you have a new car, you don’t need to bother idling in the morning unless you live in a particularly frigid place like North Dakota.

•    Make sure your car is in tune.  If something’s not working right, you’ll be a gas-guzzler, even if you’re driving a sedan.

•    Make sure your tires are fully pumped up.  Tires with low pressure are both dangerous and they’re bad for gas mileage.

•    Move your life back where it belongs: in your home, not in your car.  Extra stuff weighs down on a vehicle of any size, so the less junk you keep in your car, the less your engine has to work, and the better mileage you’ll get.

Of course, the best thing you can do for your wallet is to take public transportation, bike, or walk to your destination.  With urban sprawl, that’s not always possible, in which case, carpooling becomes a fantastic option.

Does anyone else have tips for saving on gas?  Have you tried any of these?  How well have they worked for you?

Written By – Erin

]]> http://trileafdesigns.com/blog/4-everything_environmental/3-carbon_footprint/6207/feed 0 http://trileafdesigns.com/blog/4-everything_environmental/4-leafy_tips/leafy-tips-ride-on-two-wheels-instead-of-four http://trileafdesigns.com/blog/4-everything_environmental/4-leafy_tips/leafy-tips-ride-on-two-wheels-instead-of-four#comments Fri, 04 Mar 2011 03:00:40 +0000 Jen Ebenrick http://trileafdesigns.com/blog/?p=5983 A Way of Travel That’s Better for Everyone For this next blog, I’d like to promote an old idea instead of suggesting a new one; one you probably come across every other day when you find yourself driving to work at 15 miles an hour behind a particular eco-friendly traveller. Yes, I’m talking about riding [...]]]>

A Way of Travel That’s Better for Everyone

For this next blog, I’d like to promote an old idea instead of suggesting a new one; one you probably come across every other day when you find yourself driving to work at 15 miles an hour behind a particular eco-friendly traveller. Yes, I’m talking about riding a bicycle. Although it seems to be growing increasingly in popularity, I still have yet to see more than one person riding their bikes on the streets at a time. Riding a bike from location to location has many more advantages than disadvantages. You save on gas money, you help prevent air pollution, you get great exercise and your conscience can rest easy because you know you’ve done so much good for yourself and others just in one trip. So I challenge you to be ambitious and choose to ride your bike when you’re heading somewhere that doesn’t require an automobile.

Written by: Jen Ebenrick

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