Posts filed under 'Computing'
December 1st, 2007
Hp printers are in maximum use all over the world. There are so many reasons. First of all the printers themselves are cheaper but performance is higher. They are easily available in varities of models and price range. Of course, they are user friendly also. If you are in trouble, they have so many service centres, so repairing them is not a troublesome job.
But, that is one side of the coin. The other side is that when you use an HP printer, suppose HP C6656 then mind that you purchased your printer once, but you will have to go on buying cartridges as long as you use your printer. But you may be aware of the price you will have to pay each time you buy a new hp printer cartridge
There are so many ways to save your cartridge cost. You may refill your cartridge, you may use remanufactured (once used, then cleaned and refilled, but working as good as new), equivalent OEM inkjet cartridges
Of course, the minimum cost is in case of refilling, but you will have to get the exact equivalent ink, expertise and knowhow of refilling and reinstalling the cartridge.
Then, you can go for remanufactured cartridges which are cheaper than the original HP cartridges, but performance is the same and these are easily available if you search the outlets or surf the net.
Just surf the net, compare the prices from different vendors and finally save some bucks still getting what you needed.
May 19th, 2007
An active firewall limits online access to a computer to only those who have proper authorization. A firewall is nothing but a virtual wall that separates a trusted environment (such as a corporate or home network) from an untrusted environment (such as the Internet). It controls and at the same time regulates the traffic between these trusted and untrusted. The trusted environment is protected from harmful activity by viruses, worms or intrusion attacks that may occur from the untrusted side.
So when you have such an environment of computers that exists either at your home or in your office, you should always be aware such that your computers are always protected from harmful activities by unintended persons so as to keep your machine in safe and sound health at the same tme keeping all your stored data safe and secure. To help you doing so, you should install a trusted firewall software on your machine. You may purchase it, but if it can be obtained free, then who wants to deflate his purse? So, try a very good free firewall that I got.
Comodo firewall is very robust and it comes with a well designed intrusion detection system as well. Comodo also supports internet connection sharing. Minus side of this firewall is that the IDS is initially rather talkative and this can unnecessarily alarm inexperienced users. Additionally, Comodo has been known to conflict with some other security products though more recent versions seem to be better in this respect. For the technically initiated this is an outstanding free product and an easy first choice. To install Comodo it requires Windows 2000 or XP SP2.
You can download it from http://www.personalfirewall.comodo.com/. Give it a try.
April 25th, 2007
The majority of home users print mainly text and rarely some photos. To achieve a good text quality a *real* 300×300 dpi is far enough. 600×600 makes sense only for vector/technical drawings or very complex fonts.
Epson started years ago fooling customers on the equation that “more dpi = more quality” (like Intel with the Mhz-race for the cpu) being sure that the normal customer doenst know what quality means in typographic terms. Nowadays we can all see that is impossible to buy a normal 300×300dpi inkjet to print for example just b/w text documents at low price (like an old Deskjet 500).
Marketing Research tells that customers now want the so called “photo” quality so that we’re now overcrowded by all these 2400dpi printers that have NO option to print for example in less than 600dpi.
–> Avoiding the possibility of using only b/w colors.
To push the user on throwing away more money as possible on inks a good method is to forbid him to print using only the black color.
This way is well known in low-end deskjets for example.
Using this trick the printer is programmed to use a “composite” black instead of pure pigmented black, or in other cases to request the mandatory presence of a working color cartridge even if we wanna print b/w.
–> Promising amazing quality but ONLY using HP paper.
This is maybe the only thing that technically makes sense.
Every printer in the world is programmed, tested and certified to achieve a “Gamut” gamma output on specific papers only.High-end models are very flexible about it and in many cases can be programmed by color experts to work good even on Epson paper for example.Low-end Deskjet are UNprogrammable, not because they suck but to avoid customers on using 3rd party papers and enslave them on buying only from his local HP dealer.
(note that HP paper is the most expensive and is in part made by Xerox). In this case using HP paper is the ONLY way to achieve decent results.
–> Forcing the printer to be INcompatible with standard inks
To avoid the customer buying refilled or 3rd party inks HP changes the size, the electronic and the ink chemical of the cartridges quite often, even in models that have similar specifications.Doing this is quite difficult for refiller companies to stay in business, because actually they’re just able to make inks for the old deskjets but not the new models.
–> Forcing inks to expire after a short date
This is one of the most offending and poisonous techniques.In many new high-end products like DesignJets apart all the tricks discussed before HP now puts a smart-chip on each cartridge, officially for a more accurate diagnostic.
–> While is it true that diagnostic is much improved and sharper, these results can be achieved even without a protected chip.
–> The cartridge will be “disabled” after a specific time date written on it , EVEN if full of ink so the user will have to buy a new one in ANY case, moreover, HP can then predict in advance how many $ can be sucked from a customer.
–> The smart-chip drives a sensor inside the cart to detect any movement in the amount of ink.
If we try to refill it for example the chip will detect that the ink amount is greatly increased and will mark the cartridge as FAIL, stop functioning, and requiring to buy a new one.
–> Forcing the Printhead to stop functioning avoiding “force-mode” options
In high-end products a sensor will take care of numbering the dead “nozzles” in a matrix. (nozzles are the holes from which the ink comes out). To avoid that customers use the same expensive print-head for too much time instead of buying a new one, the machine is programmed to detect how many nozzles are functioning (in a quite arbitrary way). When more than 30% of the nozzles are marked “dead” the machine will stop asking for a new printhead (lets say 200 euros) AVOIDING the possibility to “force” the machine to continue printing.
–> Avoiding Customization and Software Flexibility
In order to force the customer on buying the high-end versions of a product many printers come out “windoze-only” or “mac-only”.In some frequent cases they have only support for a specific OS version like W98 but not W2000 or XP trying to force the user to upgrade to a new machine. In many other cases the bundled driver is programmed to lock some useful functions like b/w-only, use of compatible papers etc, but unlocking this functions in the higher versions (that have normally the same hw board but with a different firmware).
–> PostScript sw RIP sold as Real PostScript
All the high-end LaserJets and DesignJets supports natively (–> built in the firmware) Adobe PostScript Level I/II/III. To do this HP must pay Adobe a small fee for each printer sold with PS3. In the low-end segment instead of embedding a real PS3 parser inside the printer they make the same machine with a horrible Software-PS3-Parser masqueraded as RIP, and selling the product as “PS3 Printer capable” (note the “capable” instead of “supported” or “built-in”).
–> Doing this way the driver will create a huge PCL file, send the file to the PS3 RIP that for a complex A3 color page can take no less than 20-30 minutes to process on a PIII 500. After that sends this monster file (can be even half a Gb if you use CADs etc) via LPT or USB. (and remember that low-end printers cannot mount network card).
–> In some cases the driver has bugs converting PCL to PS3 and there’s NO WAY to solve the issue except waiting for a new driver release that sometimes never comes. (like in the evil HP ColorPro series).
–> During the PS3 render the cpu is 100% used by the RIP and you have to wait ages to finish your work, and crashes are not rare even on Mac.
–> Making crap plastic chassis to save money on manufacturing
To make a printer cheap and let it look “consumer” and trendy, the first step is make a crap plastic chassis with poor-imitated Imac colors, instead of a good “old-school” LaserJet3-like rock-solid-chassis.
* Note that is clearly written in the proof of purchase that NO parts of the chassis are to be considered part of the warranty.
* Replacing plastic part is a huge waste of money on consumer product lines.
* Note also that no one ever read the proof of purchase.
–> Feature Creep
When a new product is designed it must satisfy the customer needs, based on Marketing research normally starting defining the most lucrous versions (high-end). Then when designing the SoHo and consumer version, based on the final budget and price the product will be mutilated of some important features.. In the majority of the cases if you open your cheap deskjet together with an high-end one and check whats inside you will see the same mainboard, similar mechanic, similar chips, memory etc. Often the ONLY things that really change are the chassis and the FIRMWARE.
–> The Firmware is responsible for example to limit the resolution to 1200×1200dpi or avoiding using b/w-only, connecting a network card (even if you got the socket well hidden inside) etc.
–> Other cases are the ones where the firmware is “locked” to receive only one printjob at once and only from one user at time, while the “high-end” version is unlocked and cost 4-5 times more.
–> To avoid that smart users can force a firmware upgrade to the high-end version the flash-updater program is locked to avoid this and download the firmware is often forbidden to users not subscribed to the online support where is checked their s/n and model.
March 2nd, 2007
e/pop Web Conferencing – secure, web, VoIP and video conferencing. This web conferencing software goes far beyond traditional conferencing services (PowerPoint, application and desktop sharing), to include audio (VoIP) and video conferencing, remote control, and a complete set of real-time controls over layouts, users and bandwidth – all as standard, built-in features of the product.
e/pop is available as on-premise software and hosted service. For distributed networks, on-premise installation provides IT managers with maximum control over routing, performance and security. For example, internal web conferencing company requirements can be met by installing the server behind the firewall, eliminating the need to route any traffic outside the company network. For conferencing between internal and external users, e/pop supports SSL/TLS, and even supports using the customers own certificate and/or PKI for the highest level of secure web conferencing available.
e/pop web conferencing software has no server prerequisites (other than the operating system and a static IP address), thereby dramatically reducing installation and maintenance time. According to PC Magazine (May 2004) , e/pop web conferencing installs in “5 minutes and 5 mouse clicks!” e/pop is covered by Wainhouse Research, Frost & Sullivan, Gartner, and many other research firms.
Multipoint Video Conferencing Software
e/pop is quickly becoming one of the most popular video conferencing solutions. Multiparty IP video conferencing is a standard feature in e/pop web conferencing, all the security, proxy and firewall compatibility, plus ease of installation and maintenance mentioned above apply. Many customers use e/pop for its video conferencing features alone. e/pop Internet video conferencing uses a browser-based client, and industry standard, off-the-shelf video conferencing equipment. This means you can conference with anyone with a (Windows) PC and an Internet connection, and it is far more cost effective than traditional, hardware-based point-to-point solutions.
Video Conferencing Case Studies, Applications and Commentaries
For your convenience, this site includes a brief video conferencing history page, along with commentary on the future of video conferencing. There are also commentaries on video conferencing in telemedicine, manufacturing, and specialty applications such as video arraignment and the latest industry topic, Cisco telepresence. This page includes video conferencing case studies, along with links to several articles on web and video conferencing. For general product information including screen shots, details on video codecs and recording formats, movies and clips (H263, MPGEG, MPEG4) , please visit video conferencing guides.
Read more here : http://www.wiredred.com/web-conferencing/
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