Office Equipment

It’s coming up on a year since I joined the ranks of the self-employed and I realized last month that it was high time for me to get some general office essentials and set up a few things to help me run my business more effeciently.

  • Got voice mail (instead of an answering machine)
  • Got some decent phones (decided to get a system with a base and additional handsets)
  • Got a flatbed copier/fax/printer (HP 6110)
  • Got a bunch of misc. office supplies

Still on the list:

  • Business cards – I had them designed but Illustrator ate the file. 🙁 It won’t take long to redo the design. I’ll be getting them from GotPrint, their prices are really good and I saw a sample card that looked quite nice.
  • Automated backups of my local machine and server. This is coming along too, I’ll have more on it later.
  • Network enable printing on the HP 6110

With the contract gig I’m working on now, I need to invoice the company as well as send in an expense report with receipts, etc. My digital office wasn’t really set up for paperwork, and there are times when you need to print, copy and mail things. I’d been going to a local store to make copies of all this stuff when I needed to and it was really inconvenient. I love being able to run a quick copy of something I’m mailing off.1

I’ve really been pleased with the HP 6110. My initial plan was to buy a laser MFC, but at less than half the price I decided I could make do with the ink jet. After reading some reviews, I decided to go with an HP and found the 6110 at Costco. One reason I decided to go with this machine instead of one of the higher priced (or newer) models was the fact that the ink was a lot cheaper than the ink for the other models. I got some decent, mid-grade paper and the output is really good – a lot better than I expected.

The machine is relatively quiet and fast. Though it doesn’t hold as much paper as I’d like, it has a shorter footprint which makes it fit nicely on my office shelves. I had no problem hooking it up to my Mac directly.

My current wireless router is built into my dsl modem, but I’ve also got an AirPort Extreme base station that I think I can use to network enable the printing capabilities of the HP 6110. I’m hoping I can configure the AirPort base station as a repeater and plug the printer into the USB port. Seems like kind of a waste to have both wireless bases broadcasting within 5 feet of each other, but oh well.

  1. Like the rebate forms I finally got around to filling out the other day. [up]