It’s that time of year when we find ourselves buzzing around from place to place spending time with family and friends, and standing in store lines shopping for the perfect gift for a special someone. The holidays bring genuine feel good moments to our calendar with a special aura surrounding it. We all feel it, whether we admit and submit to it, or not.

While it’s fun to get lost in the joy and spirit of the holiday season, it’s also important to take a second and dwell on people that aren’t celebrating with the same good will and fortune as some of us. It’s important to make an effort to add a degree of comfort or monetary donation to a cause that relies on the generosity of those able to contribute and aid in a particular cause’s continued existence.  Whether you’re donating to the local food pantry, clothes and blankets to the local shelter, money to aid in the aftermath of tragedy, or scientific research to help extinguish disease, anything we can do as human beings to help others is a deed that should not be taken for granted.

There is much truth to the cliché statement, “Every little bit helps”. It does. Every cent raised for whatever the cause is a cent unforeseen before. Every cent does make a difference.

This year when you crack open your mailbox and find a Coast to Coast holiday greeting card in your stack of mail, let it be known that this is no ordinary card. 100% of the proceeds collected from the purchase of these cards are given to the American Cancer Society in an effort to finally secure a cure for this horrific disease. This is our way of giving back and letting those in need know that we care and we’re thinking about them. It’s easy to lose focus in the midst of celebration, but Coast to Coast is making a conscious effort in the fight for a cure.

What are you doing to support others this holiday season? If you are involved in a specific charity, help to spread the word and let us know! If you’re not sure where to donate, visit the charitable links below.

http://www.causes.com

http://www1.networkforgood.org

http://www.razoo.com

http://www.charitynavigator.org

The tag “Made in the U.S.A.” goes beyond merely being a feel-good sentiment to spread around liberally like candy to children on Halloween. It’s as much to make you feel good about the products you’re buying as it is to make you feel bad about the ones that boast the name of another country on the “made in” label. Such products work against the vitalization of the American economy, and American tradition.

Supporting products that are made in the United States makes good economic sense/cents. With our economy in a state of serious flux, and in danger of plummeting even further, it’s more important than ever to keep your business within the States on all fronts. Not only are you purchasing something that was produced by the people you share this country with, you’re also supporting those same workers, and the economic infrastructure of the country. By recycling funds in our own companies we’re strengthening our place as an economic world power, and we’re creating jobs. Thousands of them. Why scatter our hard earned dollars abroad when it generally holds no benefit to those building lives on American soil?

You’re hard pressed to hear an argument detesting the notion that American made products are generally of a much higher quality that those of our counterparts. Sure, on the shelves they may look like they’re slightly more expensive. The old saying, “you get what you pay for” is all you need to recount when you’re comparing prices. You can buy that other product on the shelf, but chances are you’ll be replacing it far more often than you would if you purchased the American made version. In many cases, you’ll never have to replace the latter. Quality over quantity. In the end, it’s quality that will be the entity saving you the most money.

At Coast to Coast Computer Products, Inc.™, we’re proud to be a technology vendor founded in the United States, providing products and services to fellow Americans for over 26 years. Our Diamond Series™ line of toner cartridges adopts the “Made in the U.S.A.” tag. Each cartridge is manufactured in the United States, providing the quality you’d expect, as well as jobs for our neighbors, and a self-sufficient economic boost that keeps our hard earned currency in the States. Try it out, we guarantee you’ll not only love the product, but you’ll also feel good it came from a facility nearby, rather than from afar. It’s a sentiment we can all feel good about.

Toner and ink cartridges – we live in a world where we can’t live without them. There was a time when men used to carve their documented accounts into clay, stone, or wood. Can you imagine being the person who had to mass produce these accounts to pass out copies to the village? (Not that this happened – let’s just use the idea as a visual.) Yikes. No thanks.

Fast forward to 2607 B.C. when the first known instance of ink was introduced to man – and even still, the thought of creating multiple copies of any written testament seems like a daunting and impossible task given the means we have to quickly reproduce documents today.

It wasn’t until 1939 (A.D.) that we started to see a print trend that is more in line of what we’re used to current day. It was here that a man named Charles Carlson developed the print technology known as Electrography, which was adopted by print giant Xerox, and promptly served as the framework for a print revolution that changed the face of document reproduction for the rest of time. As prices dropped from approximately $20,000 (really) to less than $100 for today’s printing units, home printing became big business, and easy for families to attain. Desktop publishing is now as much a part of everyday life as putting a toothbrush to your teeth is. It’s not something we put too much thought into – it’s just ultimately there; in our homes, at our disposal, whenever we need it.

The biggest issue with this transition is the amount of waste our toner and ink cartridges are creating. Their detriment to our environment is devastating and in the excitement of change, we lost the ability to look out into the future for a second. We forgot about one of our oldest adopted skills: Foresight.

We live in a time where we’re trying to rewind for a second and get back to our roots as much as possible (without completely compromising any of the comforts we’ve grown accustomed too). We’re in the middle of what could be referred to as the “green revolution”. Recycling has been pushed wholeheartedly upon us and once a week, you’re hard pressed to find a house that doesn’t have a recycling bin out on the curb for a truck to come, pick up and deliver to the proper recycling plant. Things like plastic and glass bottles, cans, newspapers, magazines, cardboard, etc., are finding their way back into the production stream in some facet. It’s good practice really. Why keep harvesting raw material, when we can reuse and repurpose packaging that we’re finished with, but could still very much serve a purpose?

Print cartridges are no different. We need to make it a part of our psyche to make the effort to keep these units out of our landfills. Currently it is shown that approximately 375 million cartridges find their ways into our landfills. There are some startling stats representing the breakdown there which you can (and should) research for yourself. The long and short of it is this: A general print cartridge takes as much as 1,000 years to decompose. That’s ludicrous. When you make an effort to recycle these same cartridges, which can still very much be refilled and/or repurposed, you’re doing a world of good for the environment and in turn, our children’s futures. You help by reducing air and water pollution that is emanated from landfills, and the incineration/manufacturing of print and toner cartridges. You’re conserving natural resources and saving them for a better served purpose. And of course, you’re clearly saving energy. You recycle your empty soup can, so why not your printer cartridge. It’s easy. And at the end of the day, the price tag you can place on saving just a little piece of our environment for our future generations is indeed priceless.

We here at Coast to Coast Computer Products, Inc. welcome you to our new blog and to the idea of being a well educated and conscious consumer. Check back with us often for tips and strategies on running effective print environments, product reviews, “best of” lists, current specials and ways you can save yourself time, money and a little piece of our environment at the same time. Thank you for joining us!