THE NEWS IN PRINT

Clogging of print heads is a perennial problem; so far, no major printer manufacturer has been able to find a way to avert drying of ink at the opening of the ink cartridge. Usually, serious clogs happen if the printer is left idle for a long time.

Print heads are not necessarily a part of the printer. In fact, manufacturers such as HP and Lexmark have built the print heads on the ink cartridges while others like Xerox, Epson and Canon have an inbuilt print head on the printer. Print heads embedded onto the printer are usually harder to clean owing to lack of space.

If you are facing a severe clog on your print head, try to run the print head cleaning cycle which is a part of the printer software 3-5 times. Do not try and print a test page after each print head cleaning cycle; you probably end up wasting ink. If you see improvements in the prints post print head cleaning cycle, let your printer cool down for a few minutes before you attempt the next cycle. This would ensure that the ink spurting out would do the job while it sits idle.

If unsuccessful after print head cleaning, purchase a professional print head cleaner such as E.K.S. I am not sure which stores would store them across UK but is definitely available on Ebay. Apply some of this liquid on a cleaning towel and rub it across the print head. If the printer head is hidden or non-accessible, switch on the printer, and while the print head starts moving towards the center, switch it off. Most print heads are movable in this condition. Applying this liquid should most definitely do the trick.

A homemade cleaner solution can also be employed. Mix distilled water and ammonia in equal amounts which contains properties of a cleaner.

If you have warranty on your printer, don’t waste your time unclogging the print head, just send it across. If not on warranty, employing a professional to do the job is just not worth it.

Printers can be hooked onto a network system in several ways. Some printers come integrated with network sockets which allow them to be plugged to your router just like a computer. Latest printers come with the wireless technology that enables it to get connected to a network wirelessly.

Many home printers come with a standard USB offering. These printers can be connected to a computer through the USB port.

If a home printer needs to be connected to a network, there are a few options. The first one involves purchasing a print server which is a connector that converts USB into Ethernet that can seamlessly be connected to a router (wired or wireless) just like a network printer.

The easier/common approach is to share the printer through a computer. In essence, the printer will be connected to a computer and gets hooked onto the network through the computer.

For connecting a printer to the network through a computer, use the File and Printer Sharing tool included with Windows. Enable file and printer sharing and right click on any folder in My Computer and select Sharing and Security from the menu. Now, click the network setup wizard link, and work through the pages that follow, being sure to assign the PC a short and memorable name, enter a workgroup name, and then choose to enable file and printer sharing on the sixth page.

At the completion of the wizard, the printer should be shared. Now, right click on the printer and choose sharing. This will open a new tab that allows you to change the printer’s shared name and to enable or disable sharing.

If you have to deal with Vista, choose to add a printer then select Add a network, wireless or Bluetooth printer. The shared printer should appear, ready to be selected.

Evidence of tattooing has been traced back some 10,000 years ago in Japan, making it one of the oldest forms of artistic expression. Today, it’s more popular than ever to get a little ink somewhere on your body, especially for the younger crowd. A 2007 study by the Pew Research Center found that 36% of adults aged 18-25 had at least one tattoo - that’s over 1 out of every 3 people! Getting some permanent ink tattooed on the body is becoming more and more of an accepted form of artistic expression in almost every metropolitan area across the globe.

For some people, tattoo art is more than just going to a tattoo parlour to get a tiny tattoo of a flower in some inconspicuous place of the body: it’s much more of an elaborate art form than that. These people have come up with some of the most creative and most amazing tattoo designs ever. Some are funny looking, some are extravagant, others are just plain strange, but one thing’s for sure, they’re all extremely cool ways that people express themselves with just a little bit of ink and a needle!

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Canon has unveiled a new multi-function printer in Pixma MP480 which is slated to be a perfect blend of performance and convenience. The printer contains few interesting and unique features and its printing quality is incomparable, as always. The printer is capable of printing, scanning and copying.

The colour cartridge contains a 4-colour ink system based on ChromaLife technology. All the colour inks are packaged into one unit, so it might not work in the user’s favour as the whole unit needs to be replaced if one ink runs out.

The printing speed is excellent at 20ppm for black and 16ppm for colour. Photo printing speed is decent at 45 seconds per photograph.

Other external features include a 1.8” TFT screen for previewing before printing. The printer also has the ability to keep the paper output tray closed when not printing and opens automatically when printing begins.

MP480 can work sans PC through the memory card reader located on the front side of the printer. It can also receive printing inputs from a camera phone through integrated Bluetooth technology.

Pixma MP480 is estimated to cost around £50 in the market. The quality it offers along with the range of features is worth every penny.

This is the age of computers and the web. If you believe that people are moving away from using paper, you could just be wrong. Lifehacker has listed ten tools/devices/call-it-whatever-you-need that can be created from paper and a printer.

For a simple and arduous task of note taking in college, this creator has developed printable templates based on Cornell’s method that breaks down sentences into workable concepts and items. So, students can take print-outs of the template and start taking notes seamlessly and efficiently.

Another hack that tickled my right brain is the foldable mini pocket organizer. PocketMod is a freeware that creates slick-looking printouts you fold a few times into a mini-organizer. The end result is simply amazing considering all the fields (daily/weekly/monthly planners, a calendar, RSS feeds, notes, or anything) you can enter into it.

If you have anything up your sleeve, let us know.

Though the latest printers offer fast printing speed, it is often the case that time required to open the application followed by the file to be printed takes considerable time. There is a shortcut in Windows that can enable us to print documents without opening any applications. We are not printing post script documents, just normal documents that we use on a daily basis.

First, we will need to create a shortcut on your desktop for your printer. Open the printers folder (Start -> Printers and Faxes) and drag your printer icon onto the desktop. A shortcut will be automatically created on your desktop.

Now, drag and drop the files that you wish to print, onto your printer shortcut. This will automatically print your documents without the actual application opening up provided you have the required application installed.

Ps: A small illustration - You would need Microsoft Word to print .doc documents. With MS Word not installed on your system, you would not be able to print .doc documents even if you drop the files onto the shortcut on the desktop.

Also Read: Print Word Documents without Opening Them (Mac)

There is more than a fine line when we print in an economy mode over high quality mode. The number of configurations that needs to be changed is multiple and switching back-and-forth might seem like pain in the wrong place. There is a tweak to take care of this annoying situation.

You would probably want to save ink and hence use draft/economy mode for taking printouts which are internal. The manufacturer’s listing of modes as high quality, standard and economical are merely superficial and there is more than meets the eye.

The economy mode is not the best economical option. The manufacturer provides options under Custom mode that provides several modes of printing quality gradations. Make sure that you browse through the Custom mode to set the most economical solution for your internal printouts.

Go to the Printers section under Control Panel for Windows OS. Right click on the current printer and hit Properties. Hit the advanced tab and click on Printing Defaults. The (economical) configuration changes made for economy mode is saved as default. Now, rename the current printer to identify the economy mode configuration.

Now, install your printer again under the default name. Change the configuration modes as required (probably standard or high quality) and save configurations and rename printer as desired.

While printing, select the printer based on the mode required. This trick will help you save loads of time if you are switching between different quality prints.

The economy is on the decline and even those businesses which are doing well are starting to look for ways to cut back on costs. Whether you’re a solo entrepreneur, a busy corporate professional or the owner of a small business, you could certainly benefit from keeping more money in your own pockets and sending less out the door to pay for the services your career requires. One of the easiest areas of life in which you can start cutting costs today is in communications. There are free VoIP (including mobile VoIP) services, free online fax options and free conference calling tools out there which can help to slash your communication bills and get you started on you way to putting more money in the bank.

VoIP technology is an increasingly popular method being used by people who are interested in cutting down the costs of their phone calls. It has traditionally been used to lower the costs of international calling but can now be used to save money on all different types of calls. As mobile VoIP has grown in popularity, it has also become a popular option for people who are interested in streamlining their productivity by easily moving their calls from the office to their home to their mobile phones. In the end, it is not only the immediate cost savings that lets VoIP save you money but also the fact that this productivity equals time saved which in turn equals money saved.

The savvy consumer will want to look at free VoIP, free mobile VoIP and free VoIP platforms in order to find the right service or set of services to keep calls free. Here is a closer look at some of those options.

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Your old printer is completely worthless; why not do what these guys did and entertain yourself by attacking it? Just think of all of those times that it drove you to the brink of insanity with paper jams, low ink jet cartridges and slow printing. Do you really want to show it the mercy of a recycling center? Of course not. You want to kick it, torch it, shoot it or find some other creative way to destroy the bane of your life!

You’ll have a difficult time being original though; the people who have come before you have set the bar high as they raged against their machines. Here are 25 ways to make that printer pay for what it put you through. Bookmark it should you ever need to vent your frustration!

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It can get pretty annoying to see maintenance messages appear on any printer; especially laser printers which needs to be maintained and conditioned periodically.

Here is a small set of actions to perform in order to remove the maintenance message(count) that appear on your HP multi-function laser printers:

1. Restart the printer
2. Press and hold the Select button which sets the memory count
3. Continue to hold until all the LEDs (three) on the top panel are lit up
4. Release the Select button
5. This brings in a new set of menu; use the up arrow navigation key to scroll up to New Maintenance Kit option
6. Hit the Select key to reset the maintenance count
7. New Maintenance message appears indicating that the maintenance count has been reset

The maintenance count reset operation works on HP LaserJet 4100MFP, 4101MFP, 4200, 4250, 4300, 4350 and 9000.

The above mentioned operations are to be performed if you are sure that the HP laser MFPs is well maintained; and just to remove the message and nothing more. If you are unsure about the status of maintenance, it is advised to get it checked by HP technicians.

Laser printers do need regular maintenances. Follow instructions as per the service manual provided by HP.