Stupid Human tricks

Bob La Londe · Jul 11, 2005

Last week I tried to get my invoicing done on Thursday so I could go fishing
on Friday. No such luck. I spent the whole afternoon tackling a takeover.
Programming and testing was no big deal, and the add-ons the customer
purchased made it worth while.

Friday I headed into the office bright and early thinking I would crank them
out and get it going. First thing I did was load up a bunch of envelopes in
the ol' high (relatively) speed inkjet and set it to print them while I
finished invoicing. It trashed more envelopes than it printed. Oh, well.
Sent the envelope job to the older printer on the network, and it printed
them ok. 2-3 at a time between paper jams. Grrrrrr.....

Thinking to save my self a bunch of time in the future I headed over to the
office supply store to buy a new printer. I bought a nice fast laser
printer. Spent a half an hour getting it loaded on the network so all the
computers could use it, and ran a test page from each machine. Cool. I
loaded a stack of window envelopes in the tray and sent a print job to run
off a hundred envelopes.... oops. Not a good idea. It melted the window
in a dozen envelopes before I could get it shut off. LOL.

Spent the rest of the day printing my envelopes in the old inkjet at slower
than crud speeds and unjammed it every few envelopes. I think it actually
felt sorry for me, because by the end it was running 30-40 envelopes between
jams.

Oh, well. You gotta love this planned obsolescence.

--
The Security Consultant
Bob La Londe - Owner
849 S Ave C
Yuma, Az 85364

(928)782-9765 ofc
(928)782-7873 fax

Crash Gordon® · Jul 11, 2005

Much easier to just print labels...not as pretty though.

Actually...MUCH easier to use window envelopes that fit your invoices!...no envelope printing at all that way!!

| Last week I tried to get my invoicing done on Thursday so I could go fishing
| on Friday. No such luck. I spent the whole afternoon tackling a takeover.
| Programming and testing was no big deal, and the add-ons the customer
| purchased made it worth while.
|
| Friday I headed into the office bright and early thinking I would crank them
| out and get it going. First thing I did was load up a bunch of envelopes in
| the ol' high (relatively) speed inkjet and set it to print them while I
| finished invoicing. It trashed more envelopes than it printed. Oh, well.
| Sent the envelope job to the older printer on the network, and it printed
| them ok. 2-3 at a time between paper jams. Grrrrrr.....
|
| Thinking to save my self a bunch of time in the future I headed over to the
| office supply store to buy a new printer. I bought a nice fast laser
| printer. Spent a half an hour getting it loaded on the network so all the
| computers could use it, and ran a test page from each machine. Cool. I
| loaded a stack of window envelopes in the tray and sent a print job to run
| off a hundred envelopes.... oops. Not a good idea. It melted the window
| in a dozen envelopes before I could get it shut off. LOL.
|
| Spent the rest of the day printing my envelopes in the old inkjet at slower
| than crud speeds and unjammed it every few envelopes. I think it actually
| felt sorry for me, because by the end it was running 30-40 envelopes between
| jams.
|
| Oh, well. You gotta love this planned obsolescence.
|
|
|
|
|
| --
| The Security Consultant
| Bob La Londe - Owner
| 849 S Ave C
| Yuma, Az 85364
|
| (928)782-9765 ofc
| (928)782-7873 fax
|
|

alarman · Jul 11, 2005

Bob La Londe said:
Last week I tried to get my invoicing done on Thursday so I could go fishing
on Friday. No such luck. I spent the whole afternoon tackling a takeover.
Programming and testing was no big deal, and the add-ons the customer
purchased made it worth while.

Friday I headed into the office bright and early thinking I would crank them
out and get it going. First thing I did was load up a bunch of envelopes in
the ol' high (relatively) speed inkjet and set it to print them while I
finished invoicing. It trashed more envelopes than it printed. Oh, well.
Sent the envelope job to the older printer on the network, and it printed
them ok. 2-3 at a time between paper jams. Grrrrrr.....

Thinking to save my self a bunch of time in the future I headed over to the
office supply store to buy a new printer. I bought a nice fast laser
printer. Spent a half an hour getting it loaded on the network so all the
computers could use it, and ran a test page from each machine. Cool. I
loaded a stack of window envelopes in the tray and sent a print job to run
off a hundred envelopes.... oops. Not a good idea. It melted the window
in a dozen envelopes before I could get it shut off. LOL.

Hey, Bob
Why are you printing window envelopes??
js

Jim · Jul 11, 2005

Bob said:
Last week I tried to get my invoicing done on Thursday so I could go fishing
on Friday. No such luck. I spent the whole afternoon tackling a takeover.
Programming and testing was no big deal, and the add-ons the customer
purchased made it worth while.

Friday I headed into the office bright and early thinking I would crank them
out and get it going. First thing I did was load up a bunch of envelopes in
the ol' high (relatively) speed inkjet and set it to print them while I
finished invoicing. It trashed more envelopes than it printed. Oh, well.
Sent the envelope job to the older printer on the network, and it printed
them ok. 2-3 at a time between paper jams. Grrrrrr.....

Thinking to save my self a bunch of time in the future I headed over to the
office supply store to buy a new printer. I bought a nice fast laser
printer. Spent a half an hour getting it loaded on the network so all the
computers could use it, and ran a test page from each machine. Cool. I
loaded a stack of window envelopes in the tray and sent a print job to run
off a hundred envelopes.... oops. Not a good idea. It melted the window
in a dozen envelopes before I could get it shut off. LOL.

Spent the rest of the day printing my envelopes in the old inkjet at slower
than crud speeds and unjammed it every few envelopes. I think it actually
felt sorry for me, because by the end it was running 30-40 envelopes between
jams.

Oh, well. You gotta love this planned obsolescence.

I have to say that I also went through all that too, only it was years
and years ago, before there were relatively inexpensive printers that
would print on envelopes. I went through the whole lable thing, getting
lables on wrong envelopes. Putting bills in wrong envelopes. Trying
pre-enclosed bills on tractor feed paper, for use with an impact
printer. When the ink jets came down in price and their envelope
printing capabilities SUPPOSEDLY was perfected, I tried that. And all
of this was simply to avoid having to pay, what I considered, the
exorbitant amount they charge for double window envelopes. Well
............. now I know why they charge so much. I think it's actually
not because it cost that much more to make them than regular envelopes.
It's because they know damn well that no one has got a good way to
reliably print on plain envelopes, with out often wasting more than you
get out of a good run and that lables are too labor intensive and too
many mix-ups occur.

If I hadn't gone though all that, I would really begrudge the amount
they get for the double window envelopes .......... but not now.

Well .......... maybe I still begrudge it ........... a little bit
......

Bob La Londe · Jul 11, 2005

alarman said:
envelopes

Hey, Bob
Why are you printing window envelopes??
js

Pretty little logo and return address on envelope. Worked great for a long
time, but alas the expensive high speed inkjet is dying. Still handles
plain paper ok, but it won't handle anything else well anymore. I can use
it for invoicing, except this new laser does that so much faster.

Bob La Londe · Jul 11, 2005

Jim said:
I have to say that I also went through all that too, only it was years
and years ago, before there were relatively inexpensive printers that
would print on envelopes. I went through the whole lable thing, getting
lables on wrong envelopes. Putting bills in wrong envelopes. Trying
pre-enclosed bills on tractor feed paper, for use with an impact
printer. When the ink jets came down in price and their envelope
printing capabilities SUPPOSEDLY was perfected, I tried that. And all
of this was simply to avoid having to pay, what I considered, the
exorbitant amount they charge for double window envelopes. Well
............ now I know why they charge so much. I think it's actually
not because it cost that much more to make them than regular envelopes.
It's because they know damn well that no one has got a good way to
reliably print on plain envelopes, with out often wasting more than you
get out of a good run and that lables are too labor intensive and too
many mix-ups occur.

If I hadn't gone though all that, I would really begrudge the amount
they get for the double window envelopes .......... but not now.

Well .......... maybe I still begrudge it ........... a little bit
.....

Yeah, I may just break down and buy those exorbitant little double window
invoice envelopes. Fortunately with Quick Books its easy enough to redesign
my invoices to show properly.

In the past I just print envelopes in the background while doing invoicing.
Sadly this time it took me almost two full days to get my monthly invoicing
done. Usually it takes me less than one. I guess 8 hrs at 75/hr I didn't
save much... LOL

Actually I was finally getting around to integrating all those accounts I
picked up when I bought out Desert Alarm two years ago. Until Friday I was
letting the CS bill them as DA had done. I'm sure that accounted for some
of my lost time (but not no stinking 8 or 9 hours worth.)

Jim · Jul 11, 2005

Bob said:
Yeah, I may just break down and buy those exorbitant little double window
invoice envelopes. Fortunately with Quick Books its easy enough to redesign
my invoices to show properly.

In the past I just print envelopes in the background while doing invoicing.
Sadly this time it took me almost two full days to get my monthly invoicing
done. Usually it takes me less than one. I guess 8 hrs at 75/hr I didn't
save much... LOL

Actually I was finally getting around to integrating all those accounts I
picked up when I bought out Desert Alarm two years ago. Until Friday I was
letting the CS bill them as DA had done. I'm sure that accounted for some
of my lost time (but not no stinking 8 or 9 hours worth.)

Especially when, all the while you're swearing and grumbling, you can
hear the bass calling you, all the way from the lake.

Jim Rojas · Jul 11, 2005

I use double window envelopes I buy from Walmart.

Jim Rojas

Bob Worthy · Jul 11, 2005

alarman said:
Hey, Bob
Why are you printing window envelopes??
js

Return address??

Roberto · Jul 11, 2005

I bought me a Brother HL1440 laser printer. It won't print the address in
the proper orientation on any envelope. It insists on printing the address
sideways. Mickeysoft told me to edit the registry value. I've done that with
every number from 0 - 9 and it doesn't make any difference. I've
reconfigured it in the software, downloaded the latest drivers and am
convinced I need a new printer. Brother has no tech support and doesn't
answer their e-mail. The bad part is, this printer is on mickeysoft's
compatible hardware list, so pretty much the list is meaningless. Remember
when we had DOS and everything worked, or if it didn't you could tweak it so
it would work.

Bob

Jim · Jul 11, 2005

Jim said:
I use double window envelopes I buy from Walmart.

Jim Rojas

Don't know how much the prices would vary from area to area but I'm
paying $36.00/$38.00 per 500 from Staples. Office Max is about the
same. In the past, I've looked on line and with shipping, even from the
discount houses, it all winds up just a few dollars different. Haven't
checked on line lately or Walmarts either. I just think they're going
to remain at that price until someone comes out with a more convenient
method to lable envelopes and co-ordinate it with the contents.

I started out with lables, when I first started. Something always got
screwed up with a mailing or trying to print just a few lables because
some got screwed up or something.

The all-enclosed invoice with the tractor fed paper was pretty costly
also but it sure was convenient. But now you can't get a tractor feed
impact printer, that'll print clearly through all the copies
anymore..... for a reasonable price... that is. I had a Toshiba pin
printer that I think would have printed through a piece of cardboard.
Printer cost $2000.00 back in the 80's. It was 130 column wide. Just
threw it out about a year or so ago. No one had parts to repair the
print head, anymore. In all that time, the only thing to fail on it was
the print head ...... once in the 90's. By the time it went again, they
didn't make parts for it anymore. Thing weighed about 40 pounds.
Shoulda bought a spare print head for it, I guess.

Anyway, the all enclosed invoice got too expensive, so that's when I
went to ink jet, which didn't work for me. Then back to the impact
printer with double window envelopes. Now, laser with double window
envelopes........ which is more expensive than the impact printer what
with toner supplies, paper and all. Impact printer had real inexpensive
ribbon and inexpensive tractor feed paper.

I put it out on top of the garbage can by the curb for pick up and
couldn't keep my self from watching them "just throw it in the back of
their damn ol truck, like a piece of garbage" "Sniff sniff" I though
maybe they'd just sort of, kind of ... ya know ... "place" it .......
Ya know what I mean? But they just THREW IT! "Sniff" Every once in a
while, I come across an old ribbon cartridge or a piece of the edging
from the tractor feed paper an ...... an ..... SNIFF ......

OHHHHH God! I'LL JUST NEVER FORGIVE THEM!

.....JUST LEAVE ME ALONE .......I DONT WANNA TALK ABOUT IT ANYMORE!
LEAVE ME ALONE ... I SAID ...... DON'T, DON'T ........ JUST LEAVE ME
BE....

I .. I'LL BE ALRIGHT IN A LITTLE WHILE. SNIFFFFFFFF!

Bob Worthy · Jul 11, 2005

Is anyone sending out addressed return envelopes with their billing? I have
request from customers but am wondering what others are doing, if anything.

alarman · Jul 11, 2005

Bob Worthy said:
Return address??

I guess.
The envelopes I use have two windows, one for the return address.
js

Jim Rojas · Jul 11, 2005

Box of 80 double window envelopes is under $4 at Wallymart.

Jim Rojas

Jim Rojas · Jul 11, 2005

I use to do it...then they will ask you to provide a stamp as well..

Jim Rojas

Crash Gordon® · Jul 11, 2005

You suffering from IPSS? Impact Printer Separation Syndrome. Do you need a good support group? Hang in there man...you'll make it through.

|
|
| Jim Rojas wrote:
| > I use double window envelopes I buy from Walmart.
| >
| > Jim Rojas
| >
| >
|
|
| Don't know how much the prices would vary from area to area but I'm
| paying $36.00/$38.00 per 500 from Staples. Office Max is about the
| same. In the past, I've looked on line and with shipping, even from the
| discount houses, it all winds up just a few dollars different. Haven't
| checked on line lately or Walmarts either. I just think they're going
| to remain at that price until someone comes out with a more convenient
| method to lable envelopes and co-ordinate it with the contents.
|
| I started out with lables, when I first started. Something always got
| screwed up with a mailing or trying to print just a few lables because
| some got screwed up or something.
|
| The all-enclosed invoice with the tractor fed paper was pretty costly
| also but it sure was convenient. But now you can't get a tractor feed
| impact printer, that'll print clearly through all the copies
| anymore..... for a reasonable price... that is. I had a Toshiba pin
| printer that I think would have printed through a piece of cardboard.
| Printer cost $2000.00 back in the 80's. It was 130 column wide. Just
| threw it out about a year or so ago. No one had parts to repair the
| print head, anymore. In all that time, the only thing to fail on it was
| the print head ...... once in the 90's. By the time it went again, they
| didn't make parts for it anymore. Thing weighed about 40 pounds.
| Shoulda bought a spare print head for it, I guess.
|
| Anyway, the all enclosed invoice got too expensive, so that's when I
| went to ink jet, which didn't work for me. Then back to the impact
| printer with double window envelopes. Now, laser with double window
| envelopes........ which is more expensive than the impact printer what
| with toner supplies, paper and all. Impact printer had real inexpensive
| ribbon and inexpensive tractor feed paper.
|
| I put it out on top of the garbage can by the curb for pick up and
| couldn't keep my self from watching them "just throw it in the back of
| their damn ol truck, like a piece of garbage" "Sniff sniff" I though
| maybe they'd just sort of, kind of ... ya know ... "place" it .......
| Ya know what I mean? But they just THREW IT! "Sniff" Every once in a
| while, I come across an old ribbon cartridge or a piece of the edging
| from the tractor feed paper an ...... an ..... SNIFF ......
|
| OHHHHH God! I'LL JUST NEVER FORGIVE THEM!
|
| ....JUST LEAVE ME ALONE .......I DONT WANNA TALK ABOUT IT ANYMORE!
| LEAVE ME ALONE ... I SAID ...... DON'T, DON'T ........ JUST LEAVE ME
| BE....
|
| I .. I'LL BE ALRIGHT IN A LITTLE WHILE. SNIFFFFFFFF!
|

Crash Gordon® · Jul 11, 2005

Bob Worthy · Jul 11, 2005

alarman said:
I guess.
The envelopes I use have two windows, one for the return address.
js

I use those as well. Have you seen a problem with returned mail because the
Post Office scanning machine is not picking up the right zip code. It seems
that I get some back and the PO bar code on the bottom of the envelope has
my zip code rather than the zip code for the customer. The PO told me that
the scanner looks at the last line. I noticed that if the invoice isn't
folded exactly, sometimes the ATTN: line will appear in the window. The PO
manager told me that was the problem so it is picking up my zip or is that a
line of crap? I am using the double window, one over the other.

alarman · Jul 11, 2005

Bob Worthy said:
Is anyone sending out addressed return envelopes with their billing? I have
request from customers but am wondering what others are doing, if

anything.

I'm using these guys:
http://www.formsdirect.com/

I use the #949 2-window envelope, and the #E-R6 return, which has a
detachable flap for my customers to write-in call list changes and comments.
js

Bob Worthy · Jul 11, 2005

Jim Rojas said:
Box of 80 double window envelopes is under $4 at Wallymart.

Jim Rojas

$26 for 500 at the Office Max store. That is about the same. Sometimes I
catch a sale and stock up.

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