Monday, October 25, 2010

Technology Blogs

Technology blogs are very popular these days but they are not all the same. Some specialize in gadgets (such as cell phones,MP3 players,and Netbooks) other specialize in hardware(such as video cards, CPU's, Motherboards, etc..). and others just in general technology news.Here are some of my favorites.

Gadget Blogs

Gizmodo
Purported Nook Color Mock Up Appears On Barnes & Noble Website


Engadget
Nook Color revealed by overzealous screen protector?
Big story of today on both seems to be a possible leaked picture of the new touch screen color nook e-book reader mistakenly revealed when a screen protector for it was listed on Barns and Nobles web site.
Interesting but  I am sure the price will dampen my enthusiasm when it is finally reveled.

Hardware Blogs

Toms Hardware  
Android 3.0 Sample Tablets Available by Dec. '10 
 As the headline says Android sample tablets are expected to be released on Dec. 10 with some manufactures planning releases in January at CES.I am anxious to see how this competes with the iPad in both price and ability.

Anandtech 
Really didn't see much on Anandtech to interest to me.

General Technology Blogs
Boing Boing 
The last mystery of the blues: were Robert Johnson's recordings sped up?
I am a big Blues fan so this caught my attention.It  discusses whether the recordings of Robert Johnson had been sped up.

Amazon is going to finally allow book lending for e-books this interest me because I just bought a kindle.

These are some of the blogs that I check out hope you find something in them that interest you.







    

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Choosing a New Printer

When I started school this past summer I realized that I need a new printer.My old printer a had stopped feeding paper and I needed a printer at home to print my English assignments so I sat down and evaluated my wants and needs for a new printer,and this was my decision making process.

Wants and Needs

First I had to determine what my wants and needs were.

Do I Want a to Print Color?-Yes I wanted the ability to print color.
 Even though most of my printing would be text I wanted to be able to print color.

Do I Want a printer or do I Want a Multifunction Device?- I wanted a multifunction device.
While I would be printing most of the time I wanted the ability to also scan and copy documents.

Do I Need a Fast Printer? -No I did not need a very fast printer.
While fast is nice I was not going to be printing large documents or large  multiple copies of documents very often so speed was not that important.

Do I want Wireless Printing  Capability?- Maybe
Wireless capability would be a nice feature to have but it wasn't a necessity.

Do I want a Laser or an Inkjet Printer?- I would prefer a laser over and inkjet.
Laser printers generally have better resolution and lower operating cost than an Inkjet but have a higher initial cost.

What is my Budget?- I wanted to spend less than a $100 for my device.
It was possible I would have to spend more to get what I wanted but my goal was under a $100.

Prioritizing my List

So now I had to determine what as most important to me
Well my fist priority was the ability to print color,second was that it be a multifunction device,Third was my budget,fourth was laser or inkjet, fifth was wireless capability,and last was speed.
So my priority list was
  1. Color Printing
  2. Multifunction Device
  3. Budget
  4. Laser or Inkjet
  5. Wireless Capability
  6. Speed
 Decision Time


It quickly became clear that getting a color laser multifunction device anywhere near $100 was not going to be possible so question four was answered, it was going to be an inkjet,but which one?
In my case I got lucky I had just installed a multifunction device for a relative that seemed to meet all of my needs the Cannon MP 560 and it was only $89.99 on sale.  I did look at another printer the  Hp Photosmart e but it was $10 more expensive and it still uses the Tri-color ink tanks where the Cannon uses individual ink tanks. The advantage is that  you don't have to buy a whole cartridge just because one color is out, you can just replace the empty one which is cheaper.The Cannon printed over 9ppm in black and 6 ppm color so the speed was acceptable.It printed 9600 x 2400 dpi resolution in color and a 600 x 600 resolution in black, so the resolution was good, and it had built in wireless so my choice was the Cannon MP 560 and so far I have been satisfied with it.
Cannon MP560

HP Phtosmart