The Latest Anything With Computers

Archive for May, 2010

Buying a printer is a one time cost, but since printer ink cartridges need to be bought on a regular basis, the cost of operating the printer and maintaining it in proper condition can add up. Each ‘print’ command, however small, makes your printer use ink, but with some easy tips, you can actually save a lot of ink and use a cartridge for a longer period than usual.

1) Print only what is necessary

Let’s begin with economising. Most often, we end up making unnecessary printouts and in the process waste precious ink. For instance, you might need to print only a small portion of a web page instead of the whole page. Instead of simply printing the whole page, complete with its heavy graphics etc, be specific on what you want to have in hard copy and print only that portion.

Text always consumes less ink compared to graphics or images. If textual information is all that you need then you can make sure that you don’t print the graphics and images. If it is a web page you need to save in a printed form, check for its print version. If there is no print version, you can copy and paste the text in a word document and take a printout of that.

Also try to do a bit of planning and double check what you are printing before hitting the print button.

2) Go for a quick print preview

Most branded printers such as HP, Canon, Dell, Epson or any other printer come with a printer driver which has a very useful print preview function. With this function, you can have a prior preview of the copy you want to take a print out of.

This function is especially handy when you are directly taking the print out from the Internet. At times, what you see on a site is totally different as compared to the printed version. A quick preview can help to get the printout of the material that you specifically want.

3) Make sure the power is turned off

Just as you never switch off your computer without properly shutting it down, the same rule applies to your printer too. If you don’t shut down the printer properly, the print heads will remain directly exposed to air causing the ink to dry in the nozzles which, in turn, could affect the quality of printing adversely. Make it a habit to check the position of the print heads before cutting off the power.

4) Use good software

There are various ink saving software options available online. These software applications are designed to reduce the consumption of your printer ink. With these applications, you can get good quality printout copies with less ink consumption even during high resolution printing.

5) Use printer ink cartridges smartly

If you don’t do printing regularly, run a small printing test at least once a week, to avoid the ink cartridges from drying up. This little precaution will help you to increase the life of the cartridge.

6) Never expose your printer to extreme temperatures

Too much variation in room temperature is bad for printer ink cartridges. You must avoid keeping your printer in too hot or too cold a temperature as the cartridges can dry up. For lasting printer performance, make sure the room has a normal and stable temperature.

With these small but important tips, your printer ink cartridges will get a longer life. It is easy to buy good quality printer ink cartridges at excellent prices from online shops.

Using internet fax service is an easy way to send and receive fax messages over the internet. Online fax services provide great advantages to its subscribers at affordable rates. By subscribing to internet fax services a customer can send and receive fax messages from anywhere at any time – what one need is a computer, an internet connection and an email ID.

Nowadays there are several companies offering web faxing services. Most of these companies provide a paid service and a free service. The difference between these two is that if a customer needs to utilize all the features of an online fax service he/she need to subscribe for a paid fax messaging service. Free services are offered with various limitations such as only receiving faxes or sending a limited number of faxes.

Using internet fax services is quite easy, the technology is similar to email services to a certain extend. To start using web fax services, first you need to subscribe with an internet fax service provider. The service provide assigns you a unique internet fax number. Same as email ID, this is the address to which other users can send in their fax messages. The subscriber also has to create an email id in the service provider domain, in order to send and receive faxes. This is where the users are supposed to type their messages and it is where the incoming fax messages will be delivered by the service provider. Once the user sent the fax message, the message will be dispatched to the service provider’s server, where it is converted into a suitable file format before eventually forwarding it to the recipient’s mail box or fax machine, whichever is applicable.

The advantages of using web faxing are that the users can send and receive as many faxes simultaneously or send all faxes instantly. Another major advantage is that, the there is no complexity of a conventional fax machine and those never-ending paper jams. The technology is quick and even cheaper than traditional fax messaging. So why spending time and energy with the traditional fax machine – subscribe for an online fax service now!