A Short Introduction to Blu Ray

Writen by Chuck Red

Blu ray is a next generation optical media format developed by the Blu ray disc association, a group of leading consumer electronics and technology companies such as Apple, Mitsubishi, Panasonic, Philips, Samsung, Sony, TDK to name, but a few.

The format was developed for high definition video, as well as storing large amounts of data. A single layer Blu ray disc can hold 25gb of data, which is the equivalent to over 2 hours of high definition television or more than 13 hours of standard definition television. There are also dual layer versions of Blu ray that can hold up to 50Gb of data.

While current optical media uses a red laser to read and write data, the new format uses a blue-violet laser instead. Despite the different type of lasers uses, Blu ray drives can be made backwards compatible.

The benefit of using a blue laser is that blue light has a shorter wavelength so that it can be focused on a smaller target area than a red light laser. This allows data to be packed in more densely allowing more space for data in the same sized physical space.

Blu ray is called Blu ray because it uses a blue light laser to write data onto the disc.

Blu ray is expected to replace VCRs and DVD players and recorders over the coming years because Blu ray offers so much more capacity. Although it will take time for Blu ray technology to be come wide spread because the cost of DVD drives and media is so much cheaper than Blu ray at this time.

Chuck Red runs several websites including http://blueraystore.co.uk and http://blueray-media.co.uk

Choosing a Computer Case

Writen by Matthew Thompson

ATXPowerSupplies.Com writes this article on “choosing the right computer case for your computer” to help you in your decision making process. There are literally thousands of computer cases on the market which sometimes makes choosing the right computer case quite a task.

First and foremost select a computer case that appeals to your personal tastes. Once you have found one that looks good to you then there are a few other attributes about computer cases that you should be aware of.

Does it have front USB? It almost doesn’t make sense to have a computer case without front usb. Front USB ports come in handy for hooking up digital cameras and downloading images. This enables you to avoid pulling the computer out to search for the usb ports in the back. Almost all motherboards have ports for front usb as well as rear usb. Other uses of front usb ports are: memory stick insertion, mp3 player docking, portable printer docking, and temporary networking between computers.

How does the motherboard install into the case? If possible try to find a case that has a removable backplane for mounting the motherboard. The backplane is able to be removed from the case to mount the motherboard. Using this method it is possible to install the motherboard out in the open where there is plenty of room to work. Installing a motherboard in a computer case without a removable backplane can be cramped. You also run the risk of cutting your hands on the surrounding case chassis. Of course, if the computer case is large then it may not be necessary for it to have a removable backplane. The removable backplane feature becomes more important if the computer case is small sized.

What form factor is your motherboard? There are several form factors that motherboards are usually manufactured. The major form factors are: Micro ATX, Full ATX (commonly referred to as ATX), and Extended ATX. Every computer case should denote which motherboard form factors it accepts. If the case doesn’t describe which motherboard form factors it accepts then it’s best to move on; you run the risk of buying a computer case that doesn’t fit your motherboard. Physical measurements of a motherboard are mostly unimportant. As long as the form factors of the case and motherboard match then you should have no problem with installation.

What size power supply does the computer case have? Ask yourself this important question because most companies that sell computer cases will include a small power supply that is, most of the time, too small for your application. Having an undersized power supply can lead to erratic computer operation, most often denoted by frequent rebooting. Most computer cases at ATXPowerSupplies come standard without a power supply. People have different needs so we provide the opportunity for the customer to add whichever size power supply they need in their case. Be sure to check out our article on choosing the right power supply for your computer.

How many device bays will your computer need? It is necessary to know how many 5.25″ and 3.5″ bays you’ll need in your computer case. If you’re installing four cdroms in your computer then it will be necessary to have a case with at least four 5.25″ bays. You’ll also need a certain number of 3.5″ bays. Floppy drives and hard drives fit into 3.5″ bays. For floppy drives the bays should be external, meaning that they are accessible from the outside of the computer case. Hard drives are mounted in the internal 3.5″ bays. The bottom line is to be sure you have enough bays for all of your devices.

Will the physical dimensions of the computer case fit into your location? Be sure to pick a computer case that fits inside whatever space you have designated for your computer. Pay close attention to the overall height, width, and depth.

Does your space provide for ample cooling of your computer? In most applications where the computer is set in open space the fans in the power supply and on the cpu are enough to cool the computer. In places such as cabinets you might want to add one or two fans to aid in the cooling process. Another application that might call for additional cooling fans is when overclocking of the processor is performed.

Check out our other article on how to install a front usb adapter.

Copyright 2005 Two Point Enterprise Matthew Thompson, webmaster http://www.ATXPowerSupplies.com

Understanding Flash Drives – What Is It?

Writen by Mike Singh

The flash drive was born in 1998 at IBM, as a floppy drive replacement for the ThinkPad line of products. Almost all people know what a floppy drive and a floppy disk is – but a larger percentage isn’t quite sure about the flash drive. Technically, it is a “NAND-type flash memory data storage devices integrated with a USB interface”. It is fairly new to technology, yet many computer literate people enjoy its small size, lightweight, removable and the fact that it’s rewritable. Another huge advantage is its memory capacity, ranging from 8 megabytes to 64 gigabytes – limited only by the densities of its current flash memory. Unfortunately, as its capacity moves up, so does the price. Almost all types of drive use the USB mass storage standard, supported by the modern operating systems, and most flash drives are active only when powdered by a USB computer connection. They require no other external power source or battery source.

There are several advantages of the USB flash drives as compared to the other portable storage devices, such as the floppy disks, Zip disks, and the CD-R/CD-RW discs – with the floppy disc as the most popular. The USB flash drive is much faster, definitely holds more data, and is more reliable due to their lack of moving parts. They ignore the scratches and dust that plagues any earlier forms of portable storage, such as compact discs or floppy disks. Their design means they often survive impacts, dropped, crushed, and washed with a load of clothing. Because of all of this, they are perfectly ideal for transporting personal data or work files from one place to another. The user also wants to use them for carrying around personal data that they can access in different places. Being available in 8MB, 16MB, 32MB, and 64MB, they were marketed as the true floppy killer.

If you are the athletic type, a runner or jogger, who likes to listen to the tunes during your workout you want to look into a flash drive player. Even if you have a hard drive player it is smart to own a flash drive player because you’ll want to take it running or jogging with you because the hard drive is bulkier (hence “hard” drive) and weighs more. It will skip and even break, where a flash drive is more comparable to the old school walkman players in its durability.

Next, most flash drive players come with neat little additions like a stopwatch or voice recorder. At first this may sound worthless or pointless to you, but sometimes a stopwatch can be handy while running and who hasn’t had a great idea while exercising only to have it escape during the cooling off process? A flash drive player will give you more extras while coming for a reduced price tag.

Another nice extra when buying a flash drive player is you almost always have an FM tuner included, meaning if you are tired of the music you downloaded you can listen to your favorite local station. Flash drive players give you this, along with what was mentioned above, for a reduced price tag. Most flash drive players go for as little as $59 and as much as $149 depending on the brand and the size.

Six percent of the internet usage in year 2000 U.S. will jump to 62% in 2010, due to music downloading and the use of data compression, quickly transferring music over the internet. Also, a corresponding rise of portable digital audio players, and digital cameras became very popular due to their smaller sizes and much reduced cost.

What You Should Know About Original VS Remanufactured Inkjet Cartridges

Writen by Joseph Mercado

Let’s face it; words aren’t cheap, especially when they are being printed from an ink jet printer. If a picture is worth a thousands words, well, time to get out your wallet.

Printer makers may sell their hardware for a pittance, but anyone who’s had to refill an ink jet printer knows that the ink is where Epson, Lexmark, and the like make their real money.

An OEM (original equipment manufacturer) black cartridge for a $100 Epson C80 color printer costs $32.99, a third of the price of the actual printer.

Ink for a wide format printer costs $47.50 per liter. If you take the ink that goes into an ink cartridge, it’s costing over $1,000 per liter.

They’re giving customers the printers, but they’re charging them a fortune for ink. Sensing opening, dozens of small companies now sell “compatible” or “remanufactured” cartridges for consumer ink jet printers at deep discounts over the official cartridges.

In the third party realm, there are three different ways to pump up your printer for pennies. Compatible cartridges are new boxes, often-built in China; the same Chinese manufacturers sold under U.S. brand names.

Remanufactured cartridges are official OEM (original equipment manufacturer) cartridges that are cleaned out, professionally refilled, and put back on sale.

For most HP printers, remanufactured cartridges are the only option because HP cartridges include patented print heads that are illegal for third parties to clone.

Last but not the best, there are refill kits, containing ink and needles for you to refill a cartridge on your own.

OEM (original equipment manufacturer) and third party cartridge manufacturers alike say consumers should stay away from refill kits if they are concerned with quality; professionally remanufactured cartridges are cleaned and sealed in a way you just can’t do at home unless you have a lot of garage space.

Throughout printer manufacturer’s defense, they claim to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into developing inks that work with an individual unit’s print heads, drivers, and paper.

Designed for flexibility, endurance and brightness, inks are complex chemicals, not just water and dye. Some cartridges include precision-made print heads.

Even the plastic ink tanks are specially designed to prevent inks from changing color over time.

This allows the consumer to enjoy the quality of the printouts, without having to be concerned about losing its color behind glass or even in a photo album. The objective here is to save you money in areas such as ink cartridges.

There will always remain the question on whether or not you should use genuine, remanufactured or compatible cartridges for your printer.

In a nutshell, here is the bottom line answer: If you own an Epson or Canon ink jet printer, and aren’t so concerned about quality, then compatible is your answer and key to saving money.

If quality is a priority, then you may want to consider genuine cartridges. If you own or plan on owning a HP or Lexmark ink jet printer, then you may want to stay away from remanufactured cartridges and spend the extra buck and use genuine cartridges.

This is because third party companies don’t seem to have it all together and never will due to HP & Lexmark’s strong patent on their print heads.

As a result, most third party companies aren’t willing to spend the finances in the quality ink that is preserved with chemicals to give the printout images that realistic life look.

The reason why remanufactured cartridges are so cheap is because the majority of HP & Lexmark remanufactured ink is diluted with water and alcohol along with dye based solutions and also fewer chemicals used within the ink.

The outside of third party packaging also keeps the costs low. Name brand companies brand their retail packaging for marketing purposes. The cartridge inside the box costs them pennies.

What do you think of that?

In description of, Joseph Mercado is known as The Internet Marketing Tyrant. He specializes in the consumable market involving studies on inkjet cartridges.

http://www.OemVsReman.com (launches Jan 5th)

Smart Card Operating System Development

Writen by Eric Wilhem

Smart card chip operating system (COS) has traditionally been designed with no specific application in mind. However, there are some standard functions which are always required ex: card authentication, terminal authentication, card-holder authentication, read and update access, secured read and updated access etc which are required by every application. This type of COS can be group under the category called general purpose COS. When used as a banking card, monetary value is stored in a file (purse file) protected by update and read access. The read and update access, card & terminal authentication are controlled by secret keys inside the POS terminal. The entire system security relies on the fact that the terminal is trusted.

In a general purpose COS, purse file is debited by letting the POS reads the value, debit the amount to be debited and update back into the file. For security reason, the access to the purse files must be ciphered with a session key. From the security point of view, the rule of need-of-know basis must apply. The POS terminal only required to debit the purse file. However, a general purpose COS will allow update access by the terminal. Thus inherently, the terminal has both debit and credit capability.

Although the terminal is trusted only to perform the debit function, the security design requirements must be very high because if the keys are compromised in a POS terminal, someone may be able to perform credit function based on the secrets inside a POS terminal. A payment COS, besides having read and updated access control for data files must also have credit and debit access for purse files. Thus, a merchant POS terminal only required to debit a banking card only need to know the debit key. Even if the secret in the POS terminal is compromised, no one is able to create money fraudulently. This is a major difference between a general purpose COS and a payment COS.

In a banking application, there may be a requirement to cater for substitute debit during the case whereby goods are rejected (substitute with zero debit amount) or an data entry error by the cashier (substitute debit by another value). A general purpose COS will make use of read and update access to the purse file to implement the substitute debit function, thus having the same security problem. A good payment chip operating system should be able to support this function. It must be noted that a substitute debit is not a credit function and must not implemented like the credit function, ie there is not need to prove the knowledge of the credit key in order to perform this function. Rather, it should rely on the capability of the POS terminal to prove that it is the terminal that performs the previous transaction in order to perform a substitute debit function. Although the substitute debit function may be a very useful feature, the smart card can only ensure that there is a secured mechanism of performing the substitute debit function. The POS terminal and the back-end host are also required to perform the complementary functions to ensure that this feature is implemented securely.

Depending on the weighting of risk and flexibility needed by the issuer, the issuer should be able to select if the substitute debit function is to be totally disabled, to allow only during the current session with the card before the card is pulled-out or can be done any time before another transaction is performed. It must be noted that not all chip operating system that claims to be delegated for payment application is able to support this function.

By the law of physics, if updating of data into a medium is interrupted, the data is corrupted, regardless of whether it is a tape, a disk or a smart card. A general purpose COS and even some payment COS can only detect that the purse file is corrupted. However, a cleverly designed payment COS is able to change a purse file via a dual backup incremental changes of the current and previous balance to always ensure that even if the card is pulled out any time during the update, the balance is not corrupted.

In a banking application, it is very important for the card to not only prove to the terminal that the amount is indeed debited from the card via a Card Debit Certificate (CDC), but also it is done by a particular terminal.

Therefore,

CDC = f(debit amount, terminal certificate, debit key)

The terminal certificate should be unique to a particular terminal and for every transactions. A general purpose COS and even some payment delegated COS is not able to do this.

The POS terminal must verifies the CDC to ensure that the debit command to the card is not intercepted from the card and a fake CDC returned to trick the terminal. But requiring the POS terminal to verify the CDC implies that if the secrets in the terminal are exposed, there may be a potential security problem. In order to prevent this potential security problem, the card must be able to produce a Card Signature Certificate (CSC) to sign the debit transaction with a key not found in the POS terminal. A general purpose COS and even some payment delegated COS is not able to do this.

Credit function is the most sensitive operation in the whole system. There are claims that a single DES operation can be broken easily, if one has lots of money ( 1 million $), very good knowledge of cryptography, a good hardware and semi-conductor ASIC designer to design an application specific IC to perform a DES computation in one clock cycle and have many of such chip in parallel process. Potentially, a double DES may be broken in the future. Thus a triple DES is recognised to be safe even in the future by the experts. Thus, the credit function must require a double or triple DES computation.

SMART CARD CHIP OPERATING SYSTEM SELECTION
It is not the intention of this paper to do a product comparison but to look at the banking card system highest security requirements – what they are, why is it necessary and what is the possible implication if it is not done in the way specified. These should then served as the evaluation criteria to see if there is any smart card command to perform the function. There are many levels of security :

- a layman cannot break the security
– an information technology personnel cannot break the security
– the equipment suppliers cannot break the security
– the system application programmers cannot break the security
– the system designer himself break the security

Also, not all smart cards have the same security. Even if the best security smart card is chosen, the system must also be designed to exercise all security features provided by the smart card and there must not be any weak points in the entire system, of which the smart card is only a very small part but the entire system key management and security architecture relies on.

Eric Wilhem
Banking and systems designer
Security in Banking
Encryption Schemes

Coaxial Cable – Definition and Uses for Communication

Writen by Kundan Upadhyaya

Coaxial cable is defined as two concentric wires, cylindrical in shape, separated by a dielectric of some type. One wire is the center conductor and the other is the outer conductor. A protective jacket covers these conductors. The protective jacket is then covered by an outer protective armor.

Coaxial cables are used as transmission lines and are constructed to provide protection against outside signal interference.

Coaxial cables are used primarily for CATV and other wide band and video application. Coaxial cable is called “coaxial” because it includes one physical channel that carries the signal surrounded (after a layer of insulation) by another concentric physical channel, both running along the same axis. The outer channel serves as a ground. Many of these cables or pairs of coaxial tubes can be placed in a single outer sheathing and, with repeaters, can carry information for a great distance.

Coaxial cabling is the primary type of cabling used by the cable television industry and is also widely used for computer networks such as Ethernet. Although more expensive than standard telephone wire, it is much less susceptible to interference and can carry much more data.

Most common coaxial cable impedances in use in various applications are 50 ohms and 75 ohms.

50 ohms cable is used in radio transmitter antenna connections, many measurement devices and in data communications (Ethernet).

75 ohms coaxial cable is used to carry video signals, TV antenna signals and digital audio signals.

There are also other impedances in use in some special applications (for example 93 ohms).

It is possible to build cables at other impedances, but those mentioned earlier are the standard ones that are easy to get. Different impedances have different characteristics. For maximum power handling, somewhere between 30 and 44 Ohms is the optimum. Impedance somewhere around 77 Ohms gives the lowest loss in a dielectric filled line. 93 Ohms cable gives low capacitance per foot.

It is practically very hard to find any coaxial cables with impedance much higher than that.

To know more about Coaxial cable you can visit http://www.cable-telindustries.com

Capitol Flag Displays

Writen by Jimmy Sturo

The Capitol Flag Program began in 1937, when a member of Congress asked that a flag be flown over the Capitol. The program now includes flags that are flown on national holidays and special events. Flags that are used to honor the work done by schools and civic organizations are also included in the Capitol flag program. Since these flags are always used to commemorate special events, they are considered to be unique and rare items.

A number of online companies and local shops offer Capitol flag displays. These displays are available in acrylic or glass with wood or metal bases. The transparent cases are semi-circular, pyramid and flat laid out shapes that allow a viewer to have an unobstructed view of the inlaid flag. The size of the flag determines the size of the display. A number of these artifacts are passed on as heirlooms. For this reason, the materials used to build the cases are sturdy and durable. A number of Capitol flag displays used in museums are specially tinted for added protection.

In recent times, the demand for Capitol flags has rapidly increased in comparison to supply, because many congressmen and senators order them to emphasize their state. The purchase price of Capitol flags includes flag costs, postage and handling charges and supplementary charges for set up. These high quality flags generally last for many years and come with a certificate of authenticity. The certificates provide a date and place detailing when and where flag was flown over the Capitol. In most cases, along with arranging Capitol flag displays, enthusiasts and collectors purchase a certificate case to go along with the flag.

A Guide To Bar Code Reader Downloads

Writen by Ewen Chia

Bar code readers have proven themselves to be essential tools in modern day business. Establishments, both big and small, have started to rely on bar code readers to make their operations quicker, more convenient, and more efficient. Yet, thousands are still interested to hop aboard the bar code bandwagon, but they don’t know much about the said technology. This article will discuss a variety of barcode reader downloads for every need.

Bar Code Reader Downloads For Beginners

If you’re itching to find out more about bar code readers and bar code technology in general, the World Wide Web is a good place to start. Cyberspace is home to thousands upon thousands of bar code reader downloads that could teach you the basics of this truly advantageous technology.

Almost every manufacturer offers a bar code reader download of a tutorial that would serve as an engaging introduction to bar codes and bar code readers. One such manufacturer, and one such website, is www.microscan.com where a bar code reader download entitled Bar Codes 101 can be acquired. The file is in .pdf format, which means that you could read it online. This bar code reader download would serve as a magnificent foreword to what should be a rewarding experience with bar codes and bar code readers.

Bar Code Reader Downloads For Updates

Bar code readers, of course, operate through a program that allows them to decode the encoded data. But bar code inscriptions change with the changing times. New needs emerge that necessitate new encoding procedures for bar codes. With new encodings, new decoding processes are required. This shouldn’t be taken to mean that you should throw away the bar code readers which you have previously purchased. You could always update their decoding software through the appropriate bar code reader download.

By updating your bar code reader software with the corresponding bar code reader download, you would be able to decrypt the latest inscriptions in bar codes. This would allow your bar code reader to keep up with the changing times.

Bar code readers seldom become obsolete, even with the influx of new models and technologies. With excellent support from the manufacturers, bar code reader downloads are always available to ensure that your bar code reader would serve you and your business for a long, long time.

Simply refer to your bar code reader’s manufacturer’s homepage for the corresponding update via bar code reader download.

Bar Code Reader Downloads For Extra Features

There are some bar code readers that can do more than just the usual expectations. PDA-type bar code readers, for example, are the rave these days, as a variety of applications can be obtained aside from the usual reading and decoding of bar codes. For them, support in the form of bar code reader downloads is essential to maximize the potentials of the said devices. Bar code reader downloads for these types include a plethora of amazing programs that range from entertainment to office applications.

Aside from their respective manufacturers, bar code reader downloads for this group of bar code readers can also be obtained from countless third parties that have tinkered with such technology to give you the most value for your reader.

Ewen Chia is the owner of BarCodeReader.info providing excellent bar code reader information, news plus completely *free* barcode fonts! ==> http://www.BarCodeReader.info

Video Card Guide – What You Should Know When Purchasing Video Cards

Writen by Donny Duncan

When choosing a video card, it is important to know what you’re going to be using it for.

The cheapest route is to find a Motherboard with one built into it. This is sufficient for most users. If you simply don’t want one built into your Motherboard, or can’t find one, pretty much any cheap video card will do for everyday use.

If you’re into gaming, there are a lot of factors that make a video card “gaming” quality.

Memory – Video cards have memory (RAM) built onto the card that it uses for its calculations. This is the primary selling gimmick when it comes to most video cards, but simply having a ton of memory on the card won’t make it fast, it also depends on what kind of memory it is, DDR currently being the best. Another factor in memory is how many bits it runs at, the higher the better.

Interface – The interface is the technology used on the card to connect it to the motherboard. The motherboard has to support the interface of the video card you’re using, or it simply won’t work. There are a lot of different types of interfaces now, from PCI, to AGP, PCI Express, and there are also different variations of AGP, like AGP 4x, AGP8x, etc. The AGP interfaces are usually backwards compatible, but they are not usually forward compatible, so you can put a 4x card into an 8x slot, but not vice versa. These are also never cross compatible, so you can not put a PCI Express card into a regular PCI slot, or into an AGP slot.

Interfaces also regulate how fast the card can be. PCI is the slowest, then AGP scaling up to the various versions of AGP, and the fastest currently being PCI Express, which is used on most of today’s high end video cards.

Other factors that you might want to consider that don’t necessarily have anything to do with speed:

Resolution – How large of a screen the video card can display on. If you have a very large screen, you’ll want a card that can display in a larger resolution.

Outputs – The kinds of connectors that the video card has to connect to a monitor. VGA is the most common, but is also the lowest quality. A lot of monitors, especially LCD monitors, support DVI now, which is a higher quality output. Some also have S-Video outputs, or possibly one of each, or multiples, which brings us to whether or not it can support multiple displays.

Multiple Display Support – Regulates whether or not the card can display to multiple monitors at once. Some cards will have multiple connectors of a single types, others will have several different types, it just depends on the card. While most cards with multiples of the same type will most likely support multiple monitors, the ones with several different types won’t necessarily support multiple monitors. Windows XP has built in support for stretching your screen across multiple monitors, so you just have to find a card that supports it.

——————————-
This article taken from Computer Discounts Guide – Video Card Guide. View the website for more helpful guides.

Donny Duncan, the author of Computer Discounts Guide has been in the computer field for over thirteen years.

How To Find Tech Support For Your Computer Printers

Writen by Alec Boyer

Computers are becoming commonplace in homes and offices around the world. The problem is that most people know so very little about their computers, that when something goes wrong, they do not know how to begin the troubleshooting process.

The ugly truth is that we could opt to call the technical support phone number that came with the computer, but you never really know what you are going to get at the other end of the phone. You could literally spend several hours just waiting to get to a technician, and then once you have the human on the line, there is just as good of a chance that they will not have a clue, as there is that they will find your solution.

I know this because I used to work in a computer technical support call center. You would be amazed who can pass as a technician! For most new hires, the only pre-qualifying knowledge that is necessary is being able to navigate the current Windows Operating System.

Management feels that if you can navigate Windows, then you can navigate the database to dig up a solution. The problem with this kind of thinking is that the person at the call center is often lost to find a solution that is not yet in the database.

Of course, all front line technicians have a help desk to call, but in my own experience, help desk posts were assigned based on politics and not technical knowledge. We ended up with some real idiots at our help desk. Call those people once or twice, and you will eventually decide that you stand a stronger chance to succeed on your own, than you would be able to accomplish going upstream in the support systems.

The Business of Printing Support

Fortunately, computer printers do not break that often. But when they do, troubleshooting can be a painful process.

There are some basics that you can cover to streamline the troubleshooting process.

Be forewarned that if you ever crack the case of your printer, you should make darn sure to disconnect the power source before you do so. Printers that are connected to a power supply can actually charge you up with enough current to kill you. Don’t take chances with your life.

Long before you get to the point of trying to crack the case to reach the internals, there are several troubleshooting steps you can take.

* Always check your power supply to see that you have a good, solid connection. I know that it seems the most logical step to take, but you might be surprised how often a powerless machine is discovered to be an unplugged machine.

* If the printer has power going to it, then turn off the machine and then turn it back on. Each printer has an internal brain in it. Removing power temporarily from the machine will force the computer chip inside of the printer to reset. Often times, this will solve any issues.

* Make sure that your printer cartridge is properly seated. Make sure the cartridge is in the printer the way that the manufacturer intended.

* Use the printer’s “self-test” feature. The manufacturer has included this to help you to eliminate common printing problems.

These four steps will help you to overcome the problems most commonly associated with printers.

For a complete breakdown of generic troubleshooting steps, the following URL points to the most comprehensive and easy-to-follow checklist I have seen: http://www.5starsupport.com/info/printer.htm

Drivers Are the Software Applications That Power Printers

A driver is the software package that enables your printer to communicate with your computer’s operating system, and vise versa.

The manufacturer of your printer sent out a software disc with the printer. On this disk, you can find the default driver for that printer.

As computing evolves, printer manufacturers upgrade their drivers to either improve the printer’s performance or to keep up with changing Operating Systems.

Of course, you could go to a website that has been established to give you a one-stop shop for finding hardware drivers online. A couple of the most common sites of this type are:

* http://www.windrivers.com

* http://www.driverguide.com

While these global sites are good, they don’t always deliver the most up-to-date drivers that are available from the manufacturer.

Here is an assortment of the Support / Driver Download URL’s for most of the major manufacturers:

Brother – http://www.brother.com/E-ftp/info/index.html

Canon – http://consumer.usa.canon.com/ir/controller?act=SiteMapAct&keycode=model&functionid=2&fcategoryid=205

Compaq – http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Product.jsp?taskId=110&prodTypeId=18972&prodCatId=236252

Dell – http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums?category.id=printers

Epson – http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/support/SupportIndex.jsp?expansion=1000000

Hewlett Packard – http://h20180.www2.hp.com/apps/Nav?h_pagetype=s-001&h_product=236252

IBM – http://www.printers.ibm.com/internet/wwsites.nsf/vwwebpublished/supportoverview_ww

Konica Minolta – http://printer.konicaminolta.com/support/index.html

Lexmark – http://support.lexmark.com/cgi-perl/selections.cgi?target=http://support.lexmark.com/cgi-perl/support.cgi

Okidata – http://my.okidata.com/home.nsf/solutions%26support?openframeset

Panasonic – http://www.panasonic.com/business/office/support/downl_drivers_printers.asp

Pitney Bowes – http://www.pb.com/cgi-bin/pb.dll/jsp/GlobalNavigation.do?moduleName=CustomerSupport

Samsung – http://samsungdp.com/eng/

Sharp – http://www.sharpusa.com/products/TypeWizard1/1,2230,18,00.html

Xerox / Tektronix – http://www.support.xerox.com/go/prodselect.asp?Xcntry=USA&metrics=HDR

The Unseen Printing Industry

Printers are cheap to replace as a general rule. If you have a printer whose transport motor failed, it might actually be cheaper to throw the printer in the trash and replace it with a new one. Sure, it might seem logical to buy a new motor and to replace the dead motor, but do compare pricing options first.

What most people fail to realize is that the printer companies are not making their money on manufacturing and selling printers. Sure, they do still make a profit when you buy your printer, but that is not the activity that keeps their stockholders happy.

When buying a printer, it really does make a lot of sense to compare the prices of replacement cartridges before you buy the printer. I bought a laser printer one time and was really excited about my new tool that is until I priced a replacement cartridge for it. $180 a pop for a remanufactured laser printer cartridge. Egad! That was more than I paid for the printer. I even bought a replacement printer for less money.

Sometimes, there is a challenge to find your printer toner cartridge at your local shopping center. With so many varieties of printers out there, most supply stores will not keep all of the various replacements on hand.

While it might make sense to go to the manufacturer website to buy replacement toner kits and cartridges, they generally charge a premium for those replacements. The manufacturer premiums can sometimes be as much as three times more expensive than what you can buy from a good third-party provider — even when that third-party provider bought the replacement from a middleman. It is just like the airline industry. It is often cheaper to buy your plane tickets from a travel company than from the airline itself.

With the printer currently sitting on my desk, I save $14-$17 on my color cartridge by buying my printer supplies from Toner-R Printing Supplies. By using this third-party provider, I save $14 against the manufacturer’s website, and I can save $17 against Wal-Mart’s prices. On the black toner cartridge, I still save money buying from http://www.tonerr.com. I can save $5 against buying the replacement from the manufacturer, and I can save $6 against buying from Wal-Mart. And, we have been trained to believe that Wal-Mart always has the best prices. Imagine that.

When it is time to buy a printer, never think that the manufacturer has your best interests at heart. They are in this business to make the most money they can, period.

Alec Boyer is a writer for the “Your Domain URL Random Page Generator” tool: http://www.yourdomainurl.com