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.

• First, try opening up a different web page, like Google or Yahoo. If they come up, then the problem lies not with you, but with your website. Just wait a little while for them to fix the problem. <br /> • Try unplugging your network cable from your computer and plugging it back in. Make sure that you get a link light on the back of your computer to let you know it’s connected properly. Everyone tells you to check the cables, but even if they’re connected, it could be a loose connection. Actually unplugging it and then plugging it back in could very well make it a solid connection again. <br /> • Reboot everything. First shutdown your computer and unplug the power from your router and your cable or DSL modem. Then wait a few minutes (that’s minutes, not seconds). Power up your cable or DSL modem first. Wait a few more minutes. Then power up your router. Wait a few minutes more. Then turn on your computer. Although it sounds ridiculously over simple, this actually fixes the problem about 75% of the time! <br /> • Try unplugging your computer from the router and plugging it straight to the back of the modem. This will definitively tell you if your router is causing the problem or not. <br /> • If you’ve got two computers hooked up, make sure you try both computers. If the problem is only with one computer, then again you’ve isolated the broken device. <br /> • You should also try running a spyware scan or try using a different browser like Mozilla Firefox. There are a number of malware out there that hijack your browser and won’t let you surf the web even if your Internet connection is okay. <br /> • If you’re feeling confident about your computer skills, then “ipconfig”, “ping”, and “tracert” are a troubleshooter’s best friend. Just do a Google search on how to use them, what to look for, and most importantly, how to interpret the results. If you go through all of this and it still doesn’t work, then yes, it may be time to call in a specialist, but you’ll have made his or her job that much easier. Think how good it would feel to get your Internet connection up and running without having to call one.

Step 1 – Register for an account Begin by clicking on the “Register” tab on the left hand side of the page, which allows you to enter your personal information. Create a user ID and password, which hides your own personal information from other users and also keeps track of all your buying and selling. Once entered, eBay will send a confirmation email. Sign-in to your account and you are ready to begin buying, bidding, and selling. Step 2 – How to read the auction details Every item on eBay has a unique auction detail page, which contains information such as an item tracking number, starting bid, “buy it now” price, time auction is ending, shipping costs, where the seller is willing to ship, item location, history of bids, and payment details. The “Meet the Seller” feature allows you to view seller feedback and rankings. It is important to investigate the seller you are buying an item from. My recommendation is to only deal with sellers who have 99%+ positive feedback. Also, typically the longer a seller has been a member of the eBay community, the more reputable he/she will be. Lastly, avoid participating in transactions without using PayPal and always understand what a seller’s terms and conditions are going to be before bidding on an item. Step 3 – How to pay for items you’ve won Click on the “Pay Now” option, making sure the seller is using PayPal. You can register for a PayPal account at HYPERLINK "http://www.paypal.com" www.paypal.com, which offers fraud protection and is linked directly to your bank account or credit card. PayPal is the safest way to conduct e-commerce, as if your purchased item doesn’t arrive within 30 days, PayPal will refund your money and will go directly after the seller for not fulfilling the sale. Step 4 – How to sell Always start by searching for comparable items before you list your own in order to determine an accurate market price. To do so, click on the “Completed Listings” to determine auction closing prices from the past 90 days. The “Sell One Similar to This” option will automatically fill in a lot of an item’s basic description, based on similar items recently sold on eBay. Sellers should include additional descriptors of the on-sale item, using standard text or by downloading html code. As a seller, you are allowed to upload one photo for free, and is recommended, as most buyers expect to see at least one photo. Sellers will also be charged a percentage of the final sale price as a commission to eBay. As an added word of advice, statistics show that eBay closes the most auctions on Sunday, so a good idea would be to begin a seven day auction on a Sunday. Lastly, once your item is listed, it would be a good idea to search for your listed item to see what your listing looks like from a buyer’s perspective.