Terrance Iwamoto is the the President & CEO of Mr. Ink Plus, Inc. In 2005, he was named one of the top 50 technology leaders in Hawaii at the annual Technology Industry Awards. If you have not figured it out yet – printer companies make all of their money from ink and not from printers. As the saying goes, “nothing comes for free,” this is especially true with printers. Many consumers start using their printers because it came free with their computer or because it was sold dirt cheap. Many consumers also find out that a factory cartridge can approach the cost of a printer itself. As you can see, printer companies are practically giving away their printers so they can make hundreds of dollars in ink replacement cartridges, and if you are stuck with the wrong printer, you will end up paying hundreds of dollars in ink replacement cartridges. A smart decision would be to change printers to one that can make your ink dollars stretch. You can actually start saving money immediately by switching to a printer that has separate color cartridges. If your colors are in an all-in-one cartridge, such as a Tri-Color Cartridge, you'll have to replace it when one color is exhausted. The advantages of having a printer with separate color cartridges would save big dollars. Example: imagine printing a photo of a person swimming in the ocean with a clear blue sky in the background. When actually printing the photo, guess which color will be exhausted first? You got that right; the Cyan (blue) color will run out first. In the case of a Tri-Color Cartridge you will end up throwing away the cartridge even though you still have a sufficient amount of Magenta and Yellow (what a waste). On the other hand, if you had separate color cartridges you will only need to replace the Cyan color and continue to use the Magenta and Yellow colors until they are depleted. The printer quality default setting is also aggravating. In most cases, you can use a low-quality (or "draft") mode. That uses less ink. Printer companies usually set their equipment to default to the highest quality. Of course, they want you to waste ink! So, set the default to the lowest quality. Click Start>>Printers and Faxes. Right-click your printer and select Printing Preferences. Select the Paper/Quality tab. Under Quality Settings, click Draft. Under Color, click Black & White. No sense in burning through your color ink unnecessarily. You can switch back to high quality and color printing when needed. Let's say you have an important letter in Word, which includes a color picture. You would click File>>Print. Click Properties and the Paper/Quality tab. Make your changes and click OK>>OK. That changes the settings on a one-time basis.