Category: Small-business computing

The year before last, I heard about Connecting Up from my former pastor in relation to cost-effective licensed copies of Windows 8. I did some online research on this not-for-profit organisation and found that it supplies technology to the non-profit organisations at prices that fit well within these organisations’ budgets so they are not making “bricks without straw” and ran an article about them on HomeNetworking01.info.

Subsequently, I had decided to organise an interview of some sort with Connecting Up to find out how they are approaching this goal and contacted Mathan Allington who is their Community Engagement Coordinator.

How are they providing cheaper IT resources?

A small church that can benefit from organisations like Connecting Up

One question I raised was how they are going about providing these organisations access to cost-effective technology. They supply refurbished recent-issue computer equipment along with hardware and software that is either donated or offered at a discount to non-profit organisations. This includes the ability to license a regular computer to Windows 8.1 Pro for AUD$10 per computer ex tax or a Dell Latitude E5510 (Intel Core i3 370M horsepower, 15” screen, 2Gb RAM, 160Gb hard disk, Windows 7 Pro) for AUD$235 ex tax. These are provided to organisations that are approved by Connecting Up or participating suppliers as non-profit organisations.

How are you approaching the non-profit organisations?

Another question that I raised was what kind of outreach was Connecting Up doing to expose themselves to the non-profit sector? They mainly engage in database-driven email marketing along with social-media-based campaigns such as some Facebook-based presences that they use to touch particular organisation groups. As well, they run events and training that are pitched at this sector.

For example, they run regular webinars with their membership and run face-to-face events on a reasonably-frequent basis as well as running blogs on their Website. They want to work on ways to reach more of the non-profit sector such as establishing presence at various conferences that these non-profit organisations run or attend.

When do non-profit organisations come to you for help?

Another question I raised was whether there was difficulty in encouraging a non-profit organisation to think towards newer technology especially when they are running with older technology that they see as being “good enough”. Mathan and I reckoned that the time that these organisations consider themselves in need is when they are seeking newer equipment that is to replace current equipment that is about to break.

Conclusion

What I have gained from this interview is that Connecting Up is making an effort to make sure that a group of organisations who are normally at risk of using inappropriate resources for their information and communications technology are able to benefit from appropriate resources without it placing a significant dent in their cashflow.

This is an updated version of the article I had published in February 2012

Most small organisations such as micro-businesses and other small businesses will place an expectation on desktop-style computer printers to be used as an “organisational short-run printing press”.

HP OfficeJet Pro 8600 Series – a desktop multifunction printer that has been pitched as something that can turn out flyers and brochures

This expectation has been brought around through the availability of software with varying levels of desktop-publishing functionality at prices most people and small business can afford. This ranges from software in a typical office-software package offering elementary desktop publishing functionality like Microsoft Word and PowerPoint, through to dedicated mid-tier desktop publishing software of the Microsoft Publisher class that is at a price most people can afford and is easy to understand.

The same expectation has been underscored by the various printer manufacturers with their recent desktop-printer designs, especially with the high-end business models of their product range like HP’s OfficeJet Pro lineup. Here, they are bringing printing abilities, output speeds and document quality associated with workgroup-grade freestanding printers to this class of printer with such examples as Brother offering business-grade desktop inkjet multifunctions that can turn out A3 documents.

It has been underscored in the advertising that these printer manufacturers provide and is more evident with Websites and, especially, TV commercials that are run on prime-time TV which reaches most consumers more easily. Examples include a recent Canon TV commercial for their PIXMA printers, HP’s website for their OfficeJet Pro inkjet printers highlighting their prowess with turning out brochures, or Brother underscoring their business printers’ prowess with desktop publishing through a series of TV commercials.

What features does it need to have?

High-yield printing

The printer should have separate colour ink cartridges and be able to accept high-yield cartridges

It should be feasible for customers to purchase high-yield ink or toner cartridges as an option for the printer alongside the standard-yield cartridges. Some vendors like Brother are known to offer “super-high-yield” cartridges for some of their printers alongside the high-yield and standard-yield cartridges. This is more important for inkjet machines because the ink cartridges are typically very small and aren’t able to hold a lot of ink.

It is worth noting that most of the equipment pitched at business users like the HP OfficeJet Pro 8600 will typically have the larger-capacity ink or toner cartridges even for their standard-yield variants and have a higher duty cycle therefore being able to do this kind of work.

Another direction that high-yield ink or toner supply is taking is in the form of tank-equipped printers instantiated by the Epson EcoTank approach. Here, the printers are equipped with high-capacity tanks and the user manually adds ink to these printers’ tanks to replenish them. Brother even uses the tank approach with very high-capacity cartridges in order to combine the best of both worlds and simplify how you manage your printer.

As well, you should prefer to use an inkjet printer that uses individually-replaceable ink tanks for each colour. These printers also become more cost-effective to run because you only need to replace the colours that you run out of when you run out of them.

The print mechanism has to be able to support large print runs without failing mid-job. This includes having it perform advanced printing functionalities like auto-duplex or use of anciliary trays. It also has to work reliably with jobs that are based around media other than regular paper.

Automatic duplexing

This brings me to automatic duplexing. An increasing number of home-office printers and small-business printers are being equipped with an automatic duplex mechanism so that the unit can print on both sides of the paper. This is usually to permit you to save paper but people may find this function useful for turning out booklets, brochures, greeting cards and the like where they want to print on both sides of the paper. For that matter, most of these printers have a “booklet printing” function built in to their driver software where they can use the duplex functionality to turn out booklets such as a four-page booklet on one sheet of paper. Similarly, automatic duplexing may come in handy for making flyers and signage that is to be seen on both sides such as a sign that is fixed to a window, or a sign used in a freestanding sign holder.

A Brother desktop printer that can print on A3 paper

A common problem with some of these mechanisms is that they don’t print to the narrow edge of Letter or A4 paper during a duplex print run especially if the paper size determined in the driver software or print job doesn’t match the paper in the printer. The problem has been more so with most Hewlett-Packard inkjet printers except the OfficeJet Pro 8600, which was pitched as a brochure-printing machine. This can cause problems with registration shifting or a requirement to have large margins on the document. Some Canon printers such as the PIXMA MX-870 have improved automatic duplex mechanisms that can work to the edge of the paper.

In the same case, you may find that some automatic duplexers in the home or small-business printer class may have problems with page registration. That is where the page is lined up properly on both sides of the paper and can be of concern if you are turning out work like luggage tags, door hangers or bookmarks where it is critical to have the back of the document lined up with the front of the document. You can work around this by allowing a margin on both sides of the design.

Another problem is that there is a time penalty of up to 15 seconds per page with inkjet printers when they use automatic duplexing with this happening when the front side of the document is being printed. This is to allow the ink to dry on the front side of the paper before the printer draws the paper in to print on the back and is being reduced with newer equipment that uses quick-drying ink. As well, the automatic duplexing cycle is even being optimised to slowly retract the document in to the printer after the first side is printed so the printer can start the other side sooner.

Another limitation that I have found with automatic duplexers is that they don’t handle card stock or similar paper easily because they have to turn the paper around one or more rollers. Here, you may have to use manual duplexing where you reinsert the work in the machine with the other side facing the print head to print it double-sided.

Something yet to be seen for automatic duplexing in the context of desktop publishing and presentation-grade printing is the availability of coated paper that is coated on both sides of the sheet alongside duplexer mechanisms that can handle such paper.

Issues concerning use of the printer

Special printing media requirements

Plastic-based media

Plastic-based media like overhead-projector transparencies, back-print film and vinyl stickers / decals have special requirements when it comes to printing them on your printer.

They range from being able to “hold” ink that is sprayed on to them by the inkjet process or passing through a heat-based printing process such as the xerographic process used in laser and LED printers.

Laser printers and special media

Brother HL-L8350CDW colour laser printer

If you use a laser printer, you need to use laser-optimised media for plastic-based media and stickers. This is because the printed documents have to pass through “fuser rollers” that are heated at a very high temperature in order to melt the toner on to the media. This can be a problem with the adhesive and plastic backing associated with stickers or the plastic media melting inside the machine and causing damage that is costly in both money and serviceability terms.

It also can extend to glossy or silk-look “presentation / brochure” paper which uses some form of glazing to provide the sheen, and this can cause problems with different printers.

So you have to use special media that is designed for laser-printer or xerographic photocopier use. This media is designed to work at very high temperatures so it can pass through the hot fuser rollers without damaging the printer.  Some of the media that is made by particular printer manufacturers is designed for the printers made by that manufacturer and, in some cases, printers based on a certain print-engine type. This is due to the manufacturer knowing the operating temperature for the printers in question.

But there are some kinds of special media that is made by third parties and pitched at a range of printers offered by many different manufacturers. Some of these also may be available under the private labels that different stationers and office-supply stores use. For example, Avery make a large range of laser labels that are compatible with most laser printers that are in circulation nowadays.

Inkjet-compliant plastic media

To get best results out of inkjet printers with plastic media, you have to use inkjet-optimised plastic media that has a rough surface on the printed side. This is to catch the droplets left by the inkjet printer as part of its printing process and avoid the ink smearing over the medium as it passes through the printer or is handled by the user.

As well, you will need to set the printer’s driver software to work with “overhead transparencies” or “back print film” when you print to plastic media. This is to allow the printer to optimise its printing process for the media such as slowing the print-head action so as to make sure the ink ends up properly on the medium.

When you load the media, you have to make sure that the rough “printing” side faces the print head as it feeds through the printer. This may be harder to understand with Hewlett-Packard and Brother printers because they use a U-shaped paper-feed path and eject the printed document above the paper storage trays. Here, you would have to put the media in with the rough side facing down when loading the printer.

Card stock, art board and similarly-thick media

“Manual-bypass” special media tray in a colour laser printer

Another medium that may prove itself to be difficult for desktop printers is art board, card stock and similarly-thick papers. Most of these papers can cause problems with printers that implement any paper path that has a U-turn in it like most desktop printers.

Here, you may have to use a “straight-through” paper path on them for these papers to work properly and use manual duplexing if you are printing on both sides. Most inkjet multifunction printers have a rear-mounted multifunction tray where you load this paper while laser printers will require you to use a “manual bypass” tray or slot at the front as the loading tray and have a drop-down door at the rear as the output tray.

Increasingly, budget and some midrange printers will have a limit on the number of sheets of paper that you can load through this way with some of them even requiring you to load one sheet at a time in to the printer.  This can be an inconvenience to you if you are turning out multiple copies of the same document.

Use your printer or outsource your printing for that print run

HP LaserJet Pro 400 Series colour laser printer

The main question that a lot of users will end up asking will be whether to have the print runs made by an outside printing house or print the documents with their printer. Some of you may prefer to outsource your printing rather than use your printer especially with public-facing documents like brochures and flyers. This is because the print shop that you use has better equipment than what you would have and it is increasingly true of large office-supply chains like Office Depot, Officeworks or Staples who provide on-site printing and copying facilities.

I have talked with two men who pastor churches with medium-sized congregations about this issue through the time I was reviewing the Brother MFC-J5720DW desktop inkjet multifunction printer. This is a class of user who could be tempted to use one of these printers to turn out flyers and tracts as a way to make the offering dollar go further. One of these men, who happens to be my pastor, raised the issue of output quality from outsourced work versus work turned out on one of these printers and remarked that the outsourced work is of much better quality. The other pastor raised the fact that these printers wouldn’t work well for turning out large print runs like what would be expected for promoting an upcoming special event at the church.

Brother MFC-J6720DW A3 desktop inkjet multifunction printer

One factor to consider is how many copies you will be eventually needing for your design. If you are turning out up to 20 to 40 copies of your design at a time, you can get by with using your machine. If you end up running more than that, you would need to outsource your printing. This is because of the cost of ink and paper involved in the large print runs, the costs associated with the wear and tear on your machine and the time it takes to run the large print jobs on the typical home-office or small-business printer. This last factor will be of importance with fax-enabled printers serving as fax machines that have to be ready to receive faxes or printers that are required to turn out hard copy as part of business processes.

Another factor worth considering is how often your design is likely to change. This also includes situations where you want to adopt a “print-as-needed” policy such as to run a small-enough quantity of flyers for an appearance like a house inspection. If the design is likely to change frequently or be suited to an occasion, you may have to use your printer for the short runs or outsource larger runs to a print shop that supports quick-turnaround printing such as a copy shop that relies on inkjet or xerographic technology or a printing house that uses digital presses.

Examples of this may include a café, restaurant or bar turning out menus or drinks lists that are centred around particular food and drink specials, a church or funeral home turning out an order-of-service for a particular occasion or an estate agent or auctioneer running flyers about the property that they are auctionning to hand out to customers.

Other factors worth considering include the printing cost per copy if you are intending to use a premium paper stock like coated paper, glossy paper or art board when you are wanting that special look for your public-facing documents.It also includes using finished-document page sizes and forms that are out of the ordinary document-paper sizes like A4 or Letter.  Here, you may have to factor in any extra handling that you our your staff may have to do for manual duplexing or cutting to small sizes.

It is worth knowing that your machine would keep its worth in the equation as part of the design-approval process before you commit to having them printed. This is where you would be turning out proofs so you are sure they are what you want them to be; or to turn out short “test-runs” to assess the effectiveness of a design.

Your printer can also complement the print shop you use for outsourced printing by being able to provide short supplementary print runs of the final document on request. Here, you may want to:

• do a preview run which you would give to special customers or partners while the main print run is being turned out;
• turn out a short “infill run” of the documents when you find that you have run short of copies and you don’t want to commit to another large print run due to cost or turnaround-time reasons; or
• want to keep some copies on hand and ready to distribute so you can get your campaign off the ground without waiting for the printing to be finished especially if you find that your print job has been delayed for some reason.

Conclusion

Here, small businesses can consider the use of a desktop printer as the “small-business printing press” if they know what their machine is capable of and they are using the right media for the job. This includes whether to work it hard on a large print job or assign the job to the local print shop.

Updates:

7 February 2020: This document has been updated to cater for the high-capacity tank-based inkjet printers that are now on the market.

Article – From the horse’s mouth

InFocus

Press Release

Product Page

IN118HDa (3000 lumens, standard throw (104.6” / 2.7m distance for a 70” / 1.8m image), USD$649)

IN118HDSTa (2700 lumens, short throw (34” / 0.9m distance for a 70” / 1.8m image), USD$749)

My Comments

A small church that runs on a hairline budget

InFocus have released two new cost-effective projectors that are pitched at small businesses and non-profit organisations who are thinking of equipment that is cheap to buy and run. Here, the applications I think of would be something like a projector that is used in a café, bar or similar place for showing TV or video content from a Blu-Ray player or pay-TV set-top box, or a projector used in a small church to show song lyrics and video content during worship.

These units run with a 15000:1 contrast ratio and 3000 ANSI lumens for the standard-throw IN118HDa model or 2700 lumens for the short-throw model. They both will have a 10,000 hour lamp life if used on the “Eco Blank” mode and are operated properly.

What impresses me about them is that they implement a 16:9 native aspect ratio with Full HD resolution which satisfies their use with currently-issued video and computer equipment along with currently-produced video content.

The main connection on these projectors is an HDMI 1.4 socket which is a connection type that is being expected of currently-issued video and computer equipment. There are also the legacy connection types like the VGA connection and component, S-Video or composite video connections. The projector has its own amplifier and speakers for the legacy audio connection and a built-in digital-analogue audio converter for the HDMI connection. This latter option comes in to its own with achieving a simplified setup if you have a stereo amplifier and speakers or a PA system located near the screen because you can connect the amplifier to the projector’s audio output and run one HDMI cable between your laptop and the projector.

Personally, I would like to see these units implement the HDMI-CEC functionality so as to allow a person to use the projector’s remote controller to navigate content held on suitably-equipped consumer video equipment like most of the Blu-Ray players.

But what I see of this is the ability to provide projectors that can work with today’s video content and equipment at reasonable prices for this kind of user group.

Article

HP’s BYOD service protects mobile devices and PCs | PC World

Small businesses now have the ability to manage their smartphones and tablets like their big brethren

From the horse’s mouth

Hewlett-Packard

HP Touchpoint Manager

Product Page

My Comments

A trend that is coming to reality is the concept of “Bring Your Own Device” where employees are bringing in their own computing devices to use as part of their work. This is working alongside the concept of “mobile-first” computing where business computing is primarily focused around client devices that use mobile operating devices.

But these setups require the use of a management system to protect the integrity and security of the business data. Typically a lot of this software was costly, hard-to-use, and only suitable for large businesses which had an integral IT department.

But HP have answered this problem by releasing a Web-based remote-device-management system that is expressly pitched at small and medium businesses. Here, they focus the pricing on affordability for businesses and organisations with up to 500 staff with starting costs of US$2 per month for a basic setup and US$10 per month for a more advanced system.

This system can work with devices that are based on Windows, iOS or Android operating platforms and don’t yet support Blackberry or Macintosh platforms.  The baseline functionality includes a user and devices list and the ability to check on the state of the device’s battery and secondary storage. Pay more and you could benefit from features like finding lost devices, resetting passwords or wiping data remotely on these lost devices. There is functionality like the ability to restrict access to the data if the device is outside a particular location.

Another benefit that HP clawed for in the design of this software is for it to be “radically” easy to use, typically to cater for the small business or organisation where one person effectively is the “chief cook and bottle-washer”. Here, they implement a simplified user interface which is centred around a Web-based dashboard to make it easier to “get at what you want”.

There are some other gaping holes in the functionality like lack of geofencing and data backup but these may be offered later on either as extra functions for different levels of service or as options you can “buy on”. As well, HP even are integrating this service in to their current lineup of business-grade laptops like the Elitebook range. In this particular range, there is the ability for the computers to provide geographic location even if they are turned off.

What I like of this is the way HP has provided an easy-to-manage secure BYOD device management solution that is focused towards the small business or community organisation.

Article

Replace Your Outdated Windows XP File Server With Network Attached Storage | Lifehacker

My Comments

ASUSTor AS-204TE 4-bay NAS – “Data central” for a small business

Some of you who run small businesses may be trying to get that last bit of mileage out of that beige-coloured “white-box” computer that is running as a file server. Typically the old computer may be running Windows XP Professional as its operating system which is approaching end-of-life and you may find that many components, especially the mechanical ones, are starting to wear down.

Today’s small-business desktop NAS units are about the size of half a loaf of bread for small units or the size of a large toaster or a toaster-oven for the larger units, and are built from the ground up to work as data servers for a small workload. They are even engineered to be able to run reliably for a long time without issues concerning overheating or vibration. As well, most of today’s small-business NAS units are even optimised to run the fans and hard disks on an as-needed basis to allow for quiet operation and reduced energy needs.

Although the news article focuses on Synology equipment, it can hold true of similar devices offered by QNAP, WD, Seagate, NETGEAR ReadyNAS, ASUSTor and the like. Most of these are increasingly running multipurpose operating environments that the manufacturers build on Linux or, in some cases, licensing Windows Server 2012 Essentials Edition from Microsoft. As well, they have a lot of the essential server applications like database servers, Web servers and the like that you can install from the vendor along with the essential file servers and can even work with Microsoft ActiveDirectory setups. This can make for some small-business NAS systems that can be truly multifunctional like some properly set-up file servers.

Western Digital Sentinel DS-5100 Windows Server NAS

The advice about considering a NAS as an upgrade path for your small-business’s old “white-box” file-server computer may not apply to those of you who have a lot invested in this style of “regular-computer-based” server system, especially where an application server is concerned, and have kept it up to date with new hardware and software. But it can be of use for those of us who are heading towards a more efficient computer setup for the small office..

Article

US judge makes Avaya give access to maintenance commands on some PBXes | PC World

My Comments

A recent US District Court (New Jersey) ruling was handed down requiring Avaya to expose maintenance commands for their business phone systems after the jury who heard an antitrust case concerning this company found that they unlawfully prevented maintenance access to these systems for their owners or independent third-party service contractors.

This case was about who can perform repair or maintenance work on IT systems especially where they are becoming more software-defined. The article even mentioned that this is heading out beyond the IT scene towards the maintenance of cars, “white-goods” and similar products especially as more of them have their functionality driven by software.

For example, I know of two friends who have had technicians look at their 30-plus-year-old ovens and the technicians have preferred to keep them going rather than replace them with newer ovens. This is because of issues like continual availability of parts for these stoves and the way that they can be repaired.

Here, it was about who can continue to perform service on the equipment concerned and the availability of the equipment’s owner to gain access to independent experts to keep it going. I see this also opening up doors for third-parties to continue to offer innovative software or other solutions that enhance the equipment or shape it to a user’s needs. This will extend to encouraging the implementation of “open-frame” designs for hardware and software which will push forward a culture of a level playing field and, in some cases, a longer service life for equipment.

New desktop comptuer at church

As I had mentioned in a previous article, I had moved to a new church congregation and, a few services later, my new pastor had approached me for advice about specifying a new computer for the church. This was because the then-existing computer that was being used to show the song lyrics during worship and to sometimes show video material during a service or similar church event was nearly on its way out.

A risk I often identify with non-profit organisations of any size is where they could end up buying capital equipment that is undersized for their needs or is very likely to fail too frequently. They are also likely to fall for purchasing mistakes where they buy from a vendor who offers the goods for cheap but doesn’t offer good-quality after-sales service and support. In a lot of cases, these organisations are likely to source goods from a “friend of a friend” or “my friend’s boss” where they are not likely to get the best deal and this can place a toll on friendships and relationships.

Identifying the application

I identified that this computer is to be used for AV playout during services and other church activities. One activity that this church also engaged in very regularly is a concert outreach with band members playing the appropriate Christian songs as part of this concert. In these concerts, it would earn its keep with playing out video material or backing tracks for the performances.

These requirements placed an emphasis on multimedia work thus requiring a computer that can handle this kind of work very smoothly. As well, we were moving towards a newer media-playout practice which is to handle file-based media that is provided on a “transfer now, play later” method. This means that the pastor or one of the church elders can receive the media via an Internet path or create the media themselves at home and transfer it to a USB stick to take to church. Then they copy it to the computer’s hard disk for playback and work from the file that is on the hard disk when the time comes to play the material.

The existing system was an orthodox “tower-style” white-box desktop computer that was running Windows XP but was underperforming for today’s requirements due to small RAM and hard-disk space. This is connected to a local screen at the sound desk for cue/monitor purposes as well as a “front-of-house” video projector for the congregation to see the material.

For that matter, a “white-box” computer is a computer, typically a desktop computer, that is built by a value-added reseller or independent computer store using components that the reseller purchases. This can be a custom-built system or a package that is available “off-the-rack” for a known price like this computer.. It was infact the way most small businesses and home users bought their personal desktop computers since the 1990s.

What can benefit this application

For this application, I have identified certain key features that are important. These are increased processor capability and speed along with a dedicated graphics subsystem so as to allow the system to work with the local monitor and the projector in a highly responsive way.

As well, I placed importance on a computer having as much RAM and hard-disk capacity as the church can afford with the minimum being 4Gb RAM and 750Gb to 1 Terabyte hard disk capacity. One of the computer dealer also recommended in to their quote the use of a solid-state drive which can give the computer some speed especially when loading the software such as during startup.

I made sure that the computer came with a legitimately-licensed copy of Windows 7 so that most of those in the AV ministry don’t need to learn new skills if Windows 8.1 was in place. This was assuming that most of the people were operating computers running Windows 7 on their home network or at work.

Obtain competitive quotes

Before any money changed hands, I made sure that the church obtained quotes from a few different vendors. This has an advantage of knowing how much a computer system of this standard was to cost and it also allowed for the pastor to use these quotes as a bargaining tool to get the best value for money.

I made sure that the vendors we had on our shortlist had a local “bricks-and-mortar” storefront because of the issue of service and support. Here, we would be able to talk with the vendor rather than an offshore call centre if the machine did break down. It also allows one of the church elders to put the computer in their car and take it to the store if it needed repairs.

The kind of vendors we went for were national computer-store chains or independent computer stores who were able to build a system to the specifications or have one that was already built. For that matter,smaller independent or local computer vendors are likely to supply a “shop-built” white-box system for better value with local support.

The new system in place

We purchased a small “white-box” system to the specification, installed the necessary software on to it such as EasiSlides and set it up for use in the church. As I was worshipping God through the first Sunday morning service after the computer was installed, I had noticed that there was very little “lag” with the song-lyrics display.

There were still a few issues with the operators getting used to Windows 7 on the new computer after being used to handling Windows XP on the previous computer which I found out after that service and is something that I notice when one is confronted with new equipment.

Conclusion

As I had mentioned in my previous article about purchasing technology for a small business or community organisation, it is important to spend some time “doing your homework” when purchasing the technology. This is to make sure you are buying the equipment that represents the best value for money and can serve you in the long run.

In this case, it involved defining a set of baseline specifications that you won’t go below along with a price range that suits your budget, then seeking different quotes on systems that meet the baseline specifications from a few different vendors for the best price within your range before buying the actual equipment. As well, placing importance on vendors with a local physical shopfront allows for one to be able to obtain prompt service and support if the equipment malfunctions.