The HP LaserJet blog by Vince Ferraro : Printer Mgt

HP's CloudPrint Device Advances Printing Through a Mobile Phone

Tac Anderson — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 19:23:00 GMT

Yes - you heard me right. Printing through a mobile phone. How do I do that?

I wanted to take a few minutes to share with you an experimental/beta service that allows users to share, store, and print documents easily using your mobile phone.

It is called CloudPrint and it was developed by HP Labs. Perhaps you don't always carry around your laptop, but probably always carry around your mobile phone. Perhaps you received an e-mail on your Blackberry or browsed an interesting article on the web? If you could only print it instead of viewing it on that tiny mobile phone screen!

In the past, you would have tried to figure out how to email a copy of the document to your notebook or synch up you phone to another mobile device. And forget about trying to directly print from a mobile phone directly to a printer (although hp has developed some phone-specific solutions for Nokia).

With CloudPrint, you can take your mobile phone to any networked printer and "print" your documents. There is no need to synch up - just receive them from the "Internet Cloud" and print them to a local printer. There are several interesting use models:

Print email attachments, data or Web pages from your mobile device. Send what you want to print to the CloudPrint virtual print server. The server stores a copy and sends an SMS to your device with a reference ID. When you enter the code on the CloudPrint site, the server converts your data to a PDF, ready to print.
Print documents stored on the CloudPrint virtual server. Before you travel, download the CloudPrint driver to your PC and save files to the server. The server sends your laptop or mobile device a unique code for each file. When you're on the road, enter the code to CloudPrint, and you're ready to print.
Can't find a printer? CloudPrint’s online Find a Printer service can help you locate one nearby. The service also lets you print files – even vacation photos you shoot with your camera phone –back to your home or office printer (I am sure the boss will like that) or that of a friend.

Go ahead and give the service a try an tell me what you think.

Vince Ferraro

HP's New Strategy and Portfolio of Environmental Solutions

Anonymous — Thu, 22 May 2008 12:47:00 GMT

I wanted to post this entry today because I am excited that HP's Imaging and Printing Group is making some significant announcements around their portfolio of environmental printing solutions. HP today unveiled a series of products, tools, services and initiatives that help customers minimize their environmental impact when it comes to imaging and printing.

We believe these Eco Solutions are industry-leading and in many cases, represent significant improvements of our products and solutions on many environmental fronts. HP has always cared about green issues and the environment. In fact, most large companies want to look green - to cover themselves with a green flag. However, I believe HP has gone further than most because we can point to really tangible things we have implemented or are in the process of implementing.

Here are some of the key announcements:

HP Eco Highlights The company’s is debuting new HP Eco Highlights label on two LaserJet printers. The new label from HP makes it easy for customers to identify HP products with environmental attributes-

HP LaserJet P4015x,
LaserJet P4515x, and
LaserJet P4515xm (the P4515xm is EMEA only) as well as the
HP Deskjet D2545.

These new LaserJet products and the Deskjet will be the FIRST HP products to include the new Eco Highlights label. It makes it easy for customers to identify HP products with environmentally preferable features and will be used company-wide across all products segments. The Eco Highlights label will appear in places where customers typically look for information on HP’s offerings, such as packaging, the Web and data sheets.

HP Printer Auto-on/Auto-off

This is HP's next breakthrough in Instant-On technology. The printer powers off on its own after inactivity (using less than one watt of power) and powers back on when it senses activity

HP Carbon Footprint Calculator for printing

This calculator allows customers to compare the carbon footprint of their existing printer fleet to newer models to understand how they can reduce their carbon footprint on the environment. The calculator looks at printer energy and paper use, the carbon impact of usage and energy spend based on geography. Look for it online towards the end of June or contact our sales team to work with you to build out some estimated costs.

Clear Packaging Design

On high-end HP LaserJet printers HP will, on average, cut the volume of packaging materials in half. HP is the first in the technology industry to apply this method to printing products which eliminates the need for an outer corrugated box and extensive foam packaging. The outer plastic is made from the same recyclable materials as plastic milk jugs, and customers will have less packaging to manage when they receive their products. HP will use it to ship recently introduced products such as the HP LaserJet M5035x MFP.

HP Paper Policy

Building on its legacy of environmental leadership, HP is pledging to reduce the environmental impact of the papers that the company buys, uses, and sells by establishing one of the most comprehensive paper policies in the industry – spanning both papers sold to customers and those used by HP in packaging, collateral and office-printing.

With some of these enhancements, we have goals to improve the overall energy efficiency of HP's ink and laser printing products by 40% by 2011 and to surpass 250 million cumulative HP inkjet and LaserJet cartridges recycled in 2008, thereby helping the company reach its goal of recovering two billion pounds of computing and printing equipment by 2010.

HP’s Imaging and Printing Group is enabling enterprise customers to save power and paper. HP has helped several Fortune 500 customers see up to a 30 percent reduction in their carbon footprint using technologies such as the HP Carbon Footprint Calculator, Instant-on Technology, duplexing, Universal Print Driver, pull printing technologies and Web Jetadmin. HP IPG is the first business to roll out offerings under the company-wide Eco Solutions program, a collection of eco-conscious products, solutions and services.

More information about the company’s work in relation to the environment is available at www.hp.com/environment. The full press release of this announcement can be found at www.hp.com/go/ecosolutions.

I would like to hear from you on ways you money to print in a more environmentally friendly way. How do you do it? Please share out your strategies and ideas. I welcome your thoughts.

Technorati Tags: HP,LaserJet,Environmental,Green,Packaging,Design,Printer,Paper,Web Jetadmin

HP's Enterprise Printing Launch Breaks New Ground

Anonymous — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 19:57:00 GMT

HP today announced a very broad expansion of its imaging and printing portfolio for large businesses. Our latest offerings help enterprises simplify their imaging and printing environments and improve workflows to reduce costs and enhance productivity, all with an eye towards security.

The new HP offerings include:

1-Six HP LaserJet printers,
2-An enterprise-class scanner for document capture,
3-Three access control printing solutions,
4-Four printing services
5-An accreditation, certification and test program for HP’s software solution development partners.

These new printer and MFP products and solutions are focused on the "managed" print environment. When we talk about "managed" environments, what we are really saying is the device maintainer is an IT department or equivalent organization.

HP is investing a lot in this space because we believe printers and printer-based MFP's provide a superior, more cost-effective total cost of ownership alternative to copier-based products that are still used in many offices today. In addition with printer-based MFP products, there is an improvement in manageability of devices and an enhancement of paper-based workflow solutions.

With workflow solutions, we believe they can be better automated to increase accuracy and productivity while reducing costs. Our strategy is that with printer-based products, we can better enable the following things:

1. Optimize Infrastructure - Gain visibility and control. Create a cost effective, reliable and secure printing and imaging environment.

2. Manage Environment - Free up your IT resources with efficient printing and imaging management tools and services

3. Improve Workflow - transform document-intensive workflows and information management with end-to-end solutions and services

My team and I are excited because these products have been in the product development process for some time and are being announced today. It is a birthday of sorts.

Technorati Tags: HP LaserJet,Enterprise,Printing,IT,Security,Product Launch

From Old DOS Apps to USB Printers

Anonymous — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 19:51:00 GMT

Greetings from a wet San Diego and I wish a Happy New Year to all of my readers! This week's blog entry is going to tackle a topic I hear about from time to time here at HP. This is in regards to printing from Microsoft DOS applications on newer USB-connected printers running in a Windows environment. This means most of us in today's printing environment. I will not bore you with all of the technical details on why this is challenging. For those of you who dare to remember (and will admit to it), printers of times past had parallel or proprietary interfaces (like the old HPIB or Greensheet) versus the more common USB interface today. Most printer vendors still provide at least a few printers that have parallel interfaces.Also, DOS printers printed from DOS applications running mostly on DOS OS. So the question is, how do you print DOS applications in Windows with a USB interface?

For those of you that have the issue, PC World ran an article about it some time ago. There is a print utility out there called DOS Printer that claims to be able to print from DOS applications under Windows.

There are plenty of links out there on various configurations, hardware, and software that will help you print from DOS applications with more recent printers running Windows.

I can't claim that any of these will work for any specific printer, but the resources are out there. If you have a way that works for you and would like to share it, please post it to the blog and share your experiences with the rest of us. I would like to hear from you.

Getting Information on LaserJet Compatible Toner, Paper and Accessories

Anonymous — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 15:36:00 GMT

I often get questioned on supplies and paper compatibility for LaserJet printers from businesses that print a lot of their own marketing material.

I admit it can be confusing. We introduce so many new printers every year, keeping things up to date is a challenge, even for hp! I thought these guides would help many of our customers select ink, toner, paper, and accessories for their printers. The charts are applicable to LaserJet and our inkjet printer product lines.

Find the right toner and ink for your printer: HP Supplies

Use this guide to find the right paper for your project

Accessories for many of our LaserJet products are available here.

Drop me a line and let me know if this was helpful.

HP LaserJet Technical Comments

Anonymous — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 16:33:00 GMT

Dear readers, I’d like to take a moment this week to clarify any issues around technical questions that might be posted as comments on this blog. This is in response to a mention in NETWORKWORLD that refers to my blog. While they list hp blogs as “Cream of the Crop”, this article included the following quote:

“Some companies aren't as comfortable responding to customer complaints in a blog. HP LaserJet blogger Vince Ferraro answered numerous questions in July about printing problems that occurred when HP equipment was used on Microsoft Windows Vista. His blog posting, however, spurred HP to change its policy about responding to comments about product problems. The blogger now is prohibited from responding directly to comments that can be handled by customer service.”

Well, first I just want you to know that I did not get the corporate paddle to my backside. All is well in hp's blogosphere. I think there is a genuine concern that executive blogs don't turn into product support blogs and I agree with that approach. I have responded directly to many of the technical questions on my blog. I think it is important to provide responses to specific issues and these responses tended to be to those questions that a number of customers seemed to have in common. For instance, in realizing that many people were going to experience problems when trying to print from the Microsoft Vista operating system, I posted the following series:

Laser Printing Problems using Microsoft Windows Vista

Microsoft Vista Printing Problems and the new HP UPD 4.0 Solution

One More Time: Vista Imaging & Printing Help

Soon after the 4^th posting in this series, hp published an HP Blogging Code of Conduct, which included the following statement, “Because our blogs focus on material of general interest to all our readers, we ask that you direct customer support inquiries through our traditional customer service channels or use our IT resource center forums. Using these channels will allow you to get your issues to experienced HP support representatives in a timely manner“. This was not to say that you couldn’t register comments to hp blogs (and that I couldn't respond), but rather, that you would probably be better served by directly accessing the support resources designed to answer your questions.

This is especially true as about half of the technical questions entered as comments to my blog have been on devices other than LaserJets. While I’ve captured all of your technical comments and forwarded them to technical folks, over half of all these comments didn’t enter valid email addresses. Going forward, please feel free to leave comments on whatever you like, including technical questions, and I’ll make sure they are treated appropriately. However, you’ll probably get the most immediate responses to your support questions by going directly to customer service or IT forums.

Moving forward, I will selectively respond to broad class questions/issues with LaserJet printers, if I think the information will help you and improve your satisfaction with our products in a timely way.

HP LaserJets and Blog Action Day

Anonymous — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 15:16:00 GMT

2007 Blog Action Day is upon us (don’t worry if this didn’t make your calendar)! I’m writing a post to support this effort because I feel very strongly about two aspects of Blog Action Day. One is that hp and I care deeply about the environment and making our LaserJet devices as environmentally friendly as possible. I also appreciate the way that Blog Action Day is going about this effort. In true Web 2.0 fashion, they aren’t pushing a particular environmental agenda, rather they’re simply encouraging people to blog on environmental issues in their own way. So that is what I want to do today.

In the past, I’ve posted blogs on a number of environmental issues as they relate to HP LaserJets. I’ve also opened my blog up to guest bloggers on green-related subjects in order to go into greater detail on particular topics, as in:

Turn your HP LaserJets Green--a comparative piece on how you can make using LaserJets work with the environment
Earth Day Celebrations and HP LaserJets--synopsis of hp Earth Day activities and those particularly related to LaserJets
HP Responds to Australian Printer Study--where I pointed you to hp's initial reaction to an office environmental study
HP LaserJets help keep you Business in the Green--a guest blog by Dave Lobato on particular LaserJet environmental aspects
Xerox Solid Ink: Reality vs. The Hype--clarification of the relative benefits of these two technologies, with an emphasis on the energy savings from using laser printing in your office environment
The HP Page Cost Calculator: MFPs vs. Copiers--a guest blog by Tara Tackett on how using the Page Cost Calculator can help you make printing decisions that conserve your resources

I hope you agree that these efforts reflect some of the key aspects of following an environmentally conscious LaserJet effort. There is collectively more for hp to do in this area, but I believe hp LaserJet printers have some of the best environmental capabilities in the industry. We want to “walk the talk” on environmental issues--I’m particularly interested in how we can help our customers go greener in their office environments (look for more in this vein going forward).

At the same time, I'm going to expose you to vendors that say they're environmentally-oriented, but have more fluff than substance in their environmental programs and the products they sell. Doing one thing really well and saying you have the best environmental program is not what this is about. There need to be many, collective company initiatives working together to drive meaningful change in the industry. I feel that hp is on the right path, but there's more to do.

At last count, there were over 15,000 blogs registered to participate in the Blog Action Day 2007 net event. This is much like a get out the vote drive, where the important aspect is not persuading people of the efficacy of your opinion, rather, the key is to simply be involved. This is much like my approach to blogging, where I don’t try to push HP LaserJets on you, but rather, I like to talk about industry issues and let my guest bloggers and comment posters freely promote their points of view. If there are particular environmental topics around LaserJets that you’d like to discuss, please let me know and I’ll field your comment either directly or through a posting (if there are enough similar comments).

Xerox Solid Ink—Reality vs. The Hype

Anonymous — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 13:58:00 GMT

Xerox’s announcement on September 24^th, 2007, may have some customers taking a look at Solid Ink technology for their color business printing requirements. We hope customers take a close look at the technology, and the history of Solid Ink vs. Color Laser or business-focused inkjet devices and make an informed decision about which technologies are the best.

It’s important to consider that Xerox acquired Solid Ink technology when they purchased Tektronix in January of 2000. In the 1980’s, Solid Ink printers had captured an early niche in the graphics departments as proofing devices. Graphic artists liked the 11”X17” format and glossy, vibrant colors that solid ink offered. And, at the time, the nascent inkjet technology business was just emerging. Inkjet was delivering only 180 dpi on special paper. Color laser printers were not commercially feasible back then. We dreamed of someday selling a Color LaserJet printer for $1,000. Today, of course, the technology is much less expensive—HP Color LaserJet printers start at just $299.

But as the technology matured and color printing spread into other parts of the office, color laser became the dominant technology of choice. There were significant differences in the needs of the office users vs. the graphics department. (hp also has strong offerings for the Graphic Arts). Office users needed permanent output that could be handled, copied, annotated and archived. Permanence was especially important in contracts, legal documents, purchase agreements, proposals, etc. Solid Ink technology could not match color laser/dry toner technology in these areas. Also, color laser technology was able to deliver sharper text quality which was also critical in high-value business documents.

General office users also needed fast output. Again, Solid Ink technology had some drawbacks compared to color laser, many of which are documented in this side by side comparison. If a Solid Ink device is turned off, or if nozzles clog, there is up to a 12.5 minute delay to cycle the printer. A color laser printer can be power cycled in less than two minutes. This was another key advantage for color laser.

In addition, color laser technology provided simplicity at print time for users. With HP Color LaserJets users get best print quality in default mode. There’s no need to go into the print driver and fiddle with settings. But with Solid Ink technology, there was a dramatic relationship between quality and performance. If you wanted fastest performance you'd get a draft quality and printing would slow down to a fraction of the maximum print speed for highest quality. This extra complexity was an additional disadvantage for Solid Ink in the office. Users and helpdesks preferred the simplicity of the color laser user model–file print and great output without performance penalties, and no need to change settings in the print driver.

And the Solid Ink devices did not earn an Energy Star approval. They used 4 to 5 times the amount of power as color laser printers. Xerox created some special bundles that were Energy Star compliant, but the top-selling Solid Ink models were not and are still not Energy Star products. This was another reason to go with Color Laser technology.

Solid Ink technology maintained a niche with early adopters and graphics departments, but never experienced the mainstream adoption in the general office because it had fundamental shortcomings that make it inferior to color laser technology. As office color printing boomed, color laser technology boomed and became the de-facto technology standard and hp was, and still is, the leading vendor. Today, additional investments are being made in inkjet printing, like hp’s Officejet Pro and Edgeline Technology, that allow business quality results from inkjet printers tuned to SMB and Enterprise applications and customer needs. The result--as of 2007, Solid Ink technology is used in less than 5% of color laser class printer applications.

Will Xerox’s recent announcement change things? There’s a new pricing strategy-–more expensive printers and cheaper supplies. But has the technology changed? I don’t think so. Solid Ink still has inferior permanence to color laser/dry toner. Color Laser still warms up in 2 minutes (from Power Off, while printing much faster from Powersave Mode, using Instant-on Technology) vs. 12.5 minutes for Solid Ink. Solid ink still requires significant delays for best print quality and solid ink printers still use 4 to 5 times the power.

I wouldn’t be distracted by new cost per page claims from Xerox. This is a defensive competitive play—one that Xerox seems more comfortable initiating than something that is truly new and innovative. A while back, I wrote about how Xerox responded to hp’s hugely successful printer-based MFP. From a technology standpoint, nothing has changed.

Raising the price of the printers and dropping cost-per-page is an alternative business model not unlike what Kodak is trying to do with consumer inkjet printing. What is really important is Total Cost per Page (TCPP)—where you look at hardware prices, cost per page, up time, support costs, down time, etc., to derive the real cost of printing. Stick with the right technology for office color printing, color laser.

HP LaserJets help keep your Business in the Green

Anonymous — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 18:22:00 GMT

You might have heard how “Green” actions affect IT as in “HP CEO Hurd Says Green “Enhances” IT Price and Performance” in InformationWeek’s CIO blog. This week, I’m turning the blog entry over to a key member of my LaserJet Marketing Team to discuss “Green” issues and how they relate to hp’s LaserJet business. While we’ve discussed related subjects in “Turn your LaserJets Green” and “Earth Day Celebrations and HP LaserJets”—Dave Lobato now presents 10 LaserJet-specific ideas for making your business Greener (the following is from Dave Lobato, HP LaserJet Marketing):

“Want to cut the carbon footprint of you printing equipment, supplies more than half? One of our large enterprise customers did, maybe you can too. While this Customer would rather remain unrecognized for this effort (I will say that they are a large company with approximately 100,000 employees)—such relative savings are available to your organization as well.

Operating a green business is not only good for the environment but good for your business' bottom line because conserving resources and cutting down on waste saves money. Currently over 80% of enterprise customers evaluate environmental performance as part of the purchasing decision (from internal HP report on Global Environmental Market Trends). The good news is that whether you run a home-based business or a multi-site enterprise, there are a number of simple things you can do to run an environmentally-friendly business.

Here are our top ten easy-to-implement ideas for running a green business that you can put into practice right now to make your office a more environmentally-friendly place:

1. Conserve Energy--turn off equipment when it's not being used. Turning off equipment during "off" business hours can save up to 66% of their normal power consumption. Also, these HP LaserJet tools can help you conserve:

HP’s Web Jetadmin helps you manage your fleet by presetting sleep and wake modes so your equipment doesn't consume power during evenings, over weekends and holidays.
Use HP’s printing devices with Instant-on Technology. Not only will you get your first page out in just a few seconds, but this technology can use up to 50% less energy.

2. Produce double-sided documents whenever possible. Internal studies show companies can achieve at least a 25% savings by setting duplex as a standard:

Utilize HP’s Universal Print Driver in your environment to set duplex as the printing default. Users can opt out of duplex mode when printing items that require single-sided printing.

3. Reduce fax-related paper waste by using digital images that can be captured and sent directly from a scanner or computer without requiring a printed hard copy:

Utilize HP scanners, digital MFPs and digital sending software to capture and send images through the workflow process, reducing the need for paper and supplies.

4. Recycle--Choose suppliers who take back packaging, supplies and hardware for reuse:

HP’s industry-leading Planet Partners program, established in 1991, allows free and convenient return and recycling of toner and ink cartridges. More than 106 million HP LaserJet print cartridges have been returned and recycled since 1991. If you laid these cartridges end to end, starting at the equator, you would circle 85% of the circumference of the earth.
Also, for a small fee, hp will take back and properly dispose of any vendor's hardware, in most countries. To date, this program has taken back over 1 billion pounds of equipment.

5. Detoxify--Many offices have toxic substances, such as used batteries and copier toner, on hand. Talk to suppliers about alternatives to toxics and make sure you properly dispose of the ones you can't avoid using:

Utilize HP’s desktop MFP’s with Instant-on Copy which uses LED copy technology instead of a fluorescent tube. This technology saves energy and reduces the hazardous particles found in fluorescent tubes.
All HP LaserJet printing products are now RoHS compliant, meaning all lead-based materials have been removed as of July 2006.
Using HP’s chemically-grown toner is more environmentally-friendly than competitive alternatives.
Recycle hardware and supplies through HP Planet Partners program (see above).
Use media with recycled content--HP Recycled Paper, for instance, reduces build-up of dust particles and is designed to run on all office equipment.

6. Utilize energy efficient products in your environment. Choosing the right product
for the environment can help reduce your overall Total Cost of Ownership (TCO):

HP works very closely with ENERGY STAR® to ensure our products are optimized to meet and exceed energy consumption levels.

7. Buy green--Tell suppliers that you're interested in sustainable products and set specific goals for buying recycled, refurbished or used. Make the environment, and not just price, a factor when purchasing:

HP has been the tech industry’s environmental leader for decades. Our Design for Environment strategy informs our operations, R&D investments, customer solutions, and relationships with our supply chain partners. This results in a comprehensive set of business decisions that are good for our customers, good for business and good for the planet. With our broad portfolio and extensive partner relationships–HP can more effectively reduce our carbon footprint, limit waste and recycle more responsibly than our competitors.

8. Use a Balanced Deployment Model--Using a model where selective desktop, centralized workgroup and data center printing exists will reduce your overall power consumption and supplies costs.

9. Get employees involved--Create a team to lead the company's eco-efforts and determine where you can have the biggest impact for the least amount of money
going green is something each and every person in the organization is responsible for. Set specific programs, owners, and metrics and periodically review your progress.

10. Communicate--Inform suppliers and customers about your efforts. And get in touch with local regulatory agencies, many of which offer financial incentives to businesses that make progress on local, state or municipal green initiatives.

Going green doesn't necessarily require a radical makeover. A series of small steps--many of which don't cost a dime--can add up to a new way of doing business.”

Please feel free to leave any comments about this blog or related Imaging & Printing subjects and I’ll make sure Dave gets them. I would also be interested in hearing about your ideas of how to make printing more green or specific actions you have taken in your businesses . . .

-Vince

HP Responds to Australian Printer Study

Anonymous — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 19:24:00 GMT

I know many of you have heard of a study that was published earlier this week by the Queensland University of Technology. The report findings suggested that ultrafine particle (UFP) emissions from laser printing systems (hp included) are associated with special health risks–and that these risks are comparable to the health risk of inhaling second hand smoke from cigarettes. We take the safety of our products very seriously and I believe we build products that are safe and meet all relevant environmental standards and emissions limits. This issue is being actively looked into at the highest levels within hp’s imaging and printing business.

Below is HP’s statement on this topic:

“After a preliminary review of the Queensland University of Technology research on particle emission characteristics of office printers, HP does not agree with its conclusion or some of the bold claims the authors have made recently in press reports.

HP stands behind the safety of its products. Testing of ultrafine particles is a very new scientific discipline. There are no indications that ultrafine particle (UFP) emissions from laser printing systems are associated with special health risks. Currently, the nature and chemical composition of such particles–whether from a laser printer or from a toaster–cannot be accurately characterized by analytical technology.

However, many experts believe that many of the UFPs found in common household and office products are not discrete solid particles, but may be condensation products or small droplets created during thermal processes. HP agrees more testing in this area is needed, which is why we’ve been active with two of the world’s leading independent authorities on this subject: Air Quality Sciences in the United States and the Wilhelm-Klauditz Institute in Germany.

Vigorous tests are an integral part of HP’s research and development and its strict quality-control procedures. HP LaserJet printing systems, original HP print cartridges and papers are tested for dust release and possible material emissions and are compliant with all applicable international health and safety requirements. In addition to meeting or exceeding these guidelines, HP’s design criteria for its laser printing systems incorporate guidelines from both the Blue Angel Program in Germany and the Greenguard Program in the United States.

Based on our own testing, HP knows that many variables can affect the outcome of tests for ultrafine particle emissions. Although HP is not aware of all of the specific methodologies used in the Queensland study, based on what we’ve seen in the report–as well as our own work in this area–we do not believe there is a link between printer emissions and any public health risk. Specifically, HP does not see an association between printer use by customers and negative health effects for volatile organic compounds, ozone or dust. While we recognize ultrafine, fine, and coarse particles are emitted from printing systems, these levels are consistently below recognized occupational exposure limits.

HP hopes to learn more from the study authors about how products were chosen for the study, how ranges were determined given no standards exist, and many other factors that could have influenced the results.Customer choice is important to us at HP and we know our customers do their homework–whether it’s about print quality, price or safety–before making purchasing decisions. As we continue to look at the facts around printer emissions, we found this perspective from Berkeley Lab interesting and maybe you will, too.”

One More Time: Vista Imaging & Printing Help

Anonymous — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 13:20:00 GMT

I’ve received many comments in the last few weeks on problems people are having with Microsoft Vista. Being a “Printer Pundit” (I’d prefer “Printer Protagonist”), most of these comments have been around problems people are having with imaging and printing within their newly-adopted Vista Operating System. We’ve discussed this subject in the past, most notably in a number of previous blog postings:

“Laser Printing Problems using Microsoft Windows Vista”—where I lay out some of the problems that people are having when they apply Vista to legacy printing devices (all new HP LaserJet devices ship with Vista-compatible print drivers)

“New HP Universal Print Driver solves Vista Printing Problem for LaserJets"— describing how the HP Universal Print Driver (UPD) enables the deployment of Vista-compatible print drivers throughout your enterprise
“Microsoft Vista Printing Problems and the new HP UPD 4.0 Solution”—providing an updated view on the benefits of deploying the UPD as we roll-out the latest iteration

Since I posted these blogs, hp has changed the policy on responding to customer comments that have a customer support aspect.This policy now reads:

“Because our blogs focus on material of general interest to all our readers, we ask that you direct customer support inquiries through our traditional customer service channels or use our IT resource center forums. Using these channels will allow you to get your issues to experienced HP support representatives in a timely manner.”

While I’ve received a number of comments on customer support issues with particular printing devices (split pretty evenly between laser and ink-based devices)—I won’t be able to publish and respond directly to those comments related to LaserJets. However, I am keeping track of them in order to have a sense for what you’re experiencing and also bringing them to the attention of my product development organization which develops software drivers.

I recently reviewed our progress on delivering updated Vista-compatible drivers, for a list of which LaserJet devices are supported, please visit this page. While we were able to update most of the drivers for the 134 different LaserJet devices under consideration, some of these are still being developed. Fortunately, for most of the Vista-compatible LaserJet drivers still under development, the UPD 4.0 delivers a solution that can be deployed today for many printers.

Transitioning support to a new Microsoft OS is challenging for vendors and users, we are working hard to give customers a user experience in Vista which meets or exceeds that of previous operating systems. Believe it or not, the driver development for Vista is much improved over the roll to Windows XP, even though Microsoft has continuously modified Vista throughout this process. Feel free to let me know your general experience in deploying Vista and how it relates to Imaging & Printing. For technical questions about particular printers, HP Customer Service will be a more expedient choice.

Printing your Marketing Materials In-house

Anonymous — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 20:51:00 GMT

Last week’s blog, “HP’s Nor Rae Spohn on Print 2.0” featured a podcast in which Nor- Rae described the changing role of printing for our SMB customers. In this discussion, Nor Rae described some of the specialized products and services that will help you publish marketing materials in-house (we call this In-house Marketing or IHM). This week, I want to describe some of these IHM resources in greater detail so you can get a feel for how they can immediately add value to your small business marketing and printing efforts.

The place to start your investigation is the HP Color printing center, which is essentially your portal for hp’s IHM resources. In the HP Color printing center, you’ll find a number of tools, templates, links to partners services (like stock photos, SMB blogs), and training that will help you create marketing collateral to improve the effectiveness in your own products and services—from creating (or refreshing) your brand identity, through applying this to marketing materials (business cards, brochures, etc.); to figuring out the best way to print. While I’ve discussed branding and marketing material creation in a previous blog, I’d like to expound on how you can use HP Color LaserJets and business inkjet printers and the tools on the portal to print in ways that save you time and money, while giving you the flexibility to print what you want, when you want.

On the lower-right nav-bar of the Color printing center, in the “Produce” section is a link to HP Marketing Resources software. Upon downloading this new, free software, you’ll find the HP Print Cost Estimator to be a very useful tool to estimate the cost for printing one or two-sided marketing materials on your Color LaserJet device. You’ll also gain info. that will help you compare the estimated cost for printing that same document at an external print-service provider. In most cases, you’ll find that it is more cost effective, and timely, to print in-house on your Color LaserJet for print runs up to 2,000 sheets--and much better for printing smaller runs. In many cases, the cost savings of printing in-house allows you to justify the cost of the printer in a very short amount of time. And that is money you can take to the bank! Check back to this web site often, we will be refreshing the software to broaden the number of printers that are supported—including business inkjets.

I think you’ll also want to use the HP Print View Software, which will help you optimize printer settings before you hit the “print” button. With this new software, you can change your printer settings and immediately see how changes affect your materials with a print view of the final output. Then, when you know you’ve optimized the settings (and you’ve already determined that it is better to print this run on your LaserJet)—you can hit “print” directly from within the software. Then you’ll have printed pieces that are optimized for cost and attractiveness, all when you want them.

You’ll find this whole process very easy and more than a little interesting. The key thing to keep in-mind is that, by using these software tools, you’ll ultimately be saving time and money, while you regain more control of your marketing process. You won’t be dependent on a printer’s schedule and having to print large runs that often have to be scrapped due to changes or come with exorbitant set up charges. You can also print short runs, customizing them for particular proposals, customers or events—making your communications pieces more effective.

And like other hp software solutions like Web JetAdmin and Universal Print Driver, these new software applications are absolutely free! Please feel free to let me know your experiences in using HP In-House Marketing Resource Center . . .

HP Web Jetadmin 10.0 = Better Print Management

Anonymous — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 21:01:00 GMT

I’ve blogged on how our market-leading print management software, HP Web Jetadmin, has reached an important milestone in celebrating its anniversary of 10 years in the market. That posting included noting the unveiling of HP Web Jetadmin 10.0, as the newest iteration of HP Web Jetadmin. HP Web Jetadmin 10.0 is available as of today, Wednesday, June 20^th, and I think you’ll find it a considerable improvement over earlier versions. As I blow out the birthday candles on my virtual birthday cake, I want to comment on the new capability and features of this new software.

If your organization has more than a few Imaging & Printing (I&P) devices, you may have previously looked into printer management software solutions. If your environment has fewer than 30 devices and limited IT management resources, you might consider hp’s Easy Printer Care solution. If you have more devices than this and have dedicated IT management resources, you likely found that HP Web Jetadmin sets the “industry standard.” for managing devices on a network. As you’ll find in this HP Web Jetadmin 10.0 “sneak peek” from Industry Analysts, others recognize the value that “WebJet” delivers as well.

One of the biggest updates from HP Web Jetadmin 8.1 is that “WebJet 10” makes use of SQL Server, which has made the installation process even smoother. There’s also a Version 8.1 to 10.0 migration tool (so you don’t lose your settings, if you’ve already standardized on 8.1)! HP Web Jetadmin 10.0 also has been tested extensively with Microsoft Vista, which should help centrally-manage some of the printing challenges faced when deploying this OS.

The WebJet 10 installation process is completely automated--I&P device discovery on your network is really quite fast. WebJet 10 also automatically finds I&P devices that are connected directly to PCs on your network, whereas this used to require a plug-in. Other integral functionality that used to require plug-ins include: enhanced Report Generation, HP device Storage Manager, Authentication Manager and HP Driver Pre-configuration.

You can use the Report Generation tool to gain a handle on how many pages are being printed on which devices. This will be very important when the copier vendors show up, promising low cost per page when you print an absurdly high page count. You’ll likely find that, if you actually reached the high page counts the copier reps suggested, that it would make more sense to outsource those volumes, while keeping the rest of the print volume with networked, printer-based MFPs and single function printers deployed, in a distributed way, within your work teams.

If you’ve used Web Jetadmin previously, or are familiar with Microsoft Outlook, the new user interface (UI) will be quite intuitive. Screens are also customizable, as is the generation of ad hoc reports. We’ve also improved the administration capabilities of WebJet 10, taking user and group permissions from Windows’ Active Directory Services and LDAP—saving you lots of time if you’ve already set-up authentication and groups.

As Industry Analysts suggests, “if you’re already a Version 8.1 user, you will want to upgrade quickly to this new version." If you’re new to Web Jetadmin (or print management software entirely), you might want to download it for testing. Either way, I think you’ll find that print management has come a long way in the last decade.

I think you are going to like Web JetAdmin 10.0 and I would love to hear from you on ways we can improve our printer management solutions in the future . . .

HP Web Jetadmin—Better Print Management for over 10 years

Anonymous — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 14:11:00 GMT

There was a lot of great buzz around Edgeline Technology last week, as in my blog on “HP Edgeline Technology—Raising the Bar for HP MFPs”. Amidst all of that (and perhaps lost in the shadow of the big Edgeline announcement (no pun intended)), HP had another important announcement around the introduction of HP Web Jetadmin 10.0 printer fleet management software. With the “Webjet 10” introduction, HP reached an important milestone—the industry’s leading print management tool, is celebrating it’s 10^th Anniversary. While you might not have noticed champagne corks popping in the blogosphere—HP Web Jetadmin has come of age as the most important print management tool in the industry.

First, a little background. In November, 1996, HP developed Jetadmin software to manage its first networked printers. Jetadmin really took off when it evolved to become HP Web Jetadmin, a printer fleet management application designed for the web. We created HP Web Jetadmin when web browsers were just becoming pervasive (think Netscape). The following link is to an interesting podcast interview with two of the original engineers on HP Web Jetadmin as they reflect on ten years of development history for this software solution.

As HP has continued to lead the way in fleet management best-practices, HP Web Jetadmin has become the leading print management software with 75% market share among Enterprise and Large businesses that use a printer fleet management solutions. HP Web Jetadmin is downloaded about 290,000 times per month, as it helps companies reduce total cost of ownership and increases end-user productivity. Your IT staff will appreciate the easy access to HP Instant Support and enhanced reports using the Report Generation capabilities.

HP Web Jetadmin provides best-practice proactive fleet management across your spectrum of needs. This includes installation/configuration, problem resolution, proactive management, security, as well as reporting and optimization. The new HP Web Jetadmin 10.0 will also have enhanced ease of use, performance and security capabilities. And Web Jetadmin also has plug-in capability with third party applications, like Capella's MegaTrack job accounting solution, so the software is expandable to meet your unique printer requirements.

As color use becomes more pervasive, HP Web Jetadmin also helps manage color usage by monitoring and managing access to color. In particular, you can control who prints or copies in color, as well as specifying what kind of documents can be printed in color, even what time of day or day of week users can print color. So much for those after-hours soccer team flyers and Christmas cards! By the way did I tell you the best part of this story? It’s free. You pay nothing, nada, zip for the industry’s leading printer fleet management solution.

If you’d like to download HP Web Jetadmin Version 10.0, please visit this link on April 30th.To learn how to better manage your printers using HP Web Jetadmin Version 10, you might want to take the online Introduction to HP Web Jetadmin course.

Please feel free to post a comment on your experiences with HP Web Jetadmin . . .

Taking it Easy (a printer management perspective)

Anonymous — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 19:26:00 GMT

Ever consider how much time is spent messing with digital devices? You know what I’m talking about. Almost everywhere you go there are people manipulating their iPods, laptops, cellphones. Digital products are great when everything is seamlessly set up, otherwise they can be maddening. The same holds true for managing printers on a network and getting the most out of them. This is why we’ve developed HP Easy Printer Care Software 2.0 – to keep HP laser printers up and running ,without the need to have a PhD in networking or connectivity.

I’ve mentioned how HP Web Jetadmin helps enterprises manage printers over their network in a previous blog. HP Easy Printer Care Software 2.0 (EPC 2.0) is similar to HP Web Jetadmin designed for the small and micro business with up to 15 HP laser printers. EPC 2.0 delivers:

Effortless laser printer upkeep

Protection for your color printing investment

Simple, consolidated supplies replenishment

All in one easy to use interface—which is now compatible with Internet Explorer 7!

Upon loading, HP EPC 2.0 automatically discovers HP printers on your network. You then gain access to consolidated status, supplies ordering and usage reporting capabilities. You’re also backed-up with HP Instant Support and built-in software updates.

You can also track color printing usage to optimize your color printing investment. While color adds remarkably to the readability and persuasiveness of documents, the office manager often wants to make sure that color isn’t used inappropriately. EPC 2.0 delivers printer usage reports, so you can be proactive in making the most of your business’ investment in color printing.

And who wants to go around to each printer individually when it runs out of supplies and then re-order just for that device? With EPC 2.0, reordering supplies is easy, fast and accurate. One person can view the supplies status for all HP printing devices and make an order for all printer supplies at once, before the printers run out—so printers don’t become a work-flow bottleneck. You can even re-order online via HP SureSupply from a choice of resellers or directly from HP.

With HP Easy Printer Care 2.0, you’re going to want to KISS your printer--Keeping It Supplied Simply . . .