Old printer, new computer

Posted in: Printers, blog by Jack on 27 August 2009

If you’ve recently purchased a new computer you may have noticed that many manufacturers no longer install serial port or parallel port connectors. The hardware that requires these connectors is now several years old and has, in most cases, been replaced by USB connectors.

Older printers generally connected with a parallel connector. These cables and connectors only allowed for data transfer speeds of 50 kB/sec to 150 kB/sec. Compare this to the newest USB 2.0 standard which allows for transfer speeds of 480 Mbits/sec. The huge increase in speed is why most manufacturers have abandoned parallel ports and replaced them with multiple USB ports.

Another reason is the fact that many electronic devices today connect via USB. Cameras, scanners, cell phones; many peripheral devices connect with USB cables. It makes more sense from a manufacturing viewpoint to include multiple ports of a kind that can be used by many devices as opposed to making room for a port that only one or two devices still use.

So if you buy a computer today, whether laptop or desktop, it most likely will sport several USB 2.0 ports and no parallel or serial port.

But let’s say you have an older printer that still works, has a large ink supply and it’s a printer you’ve become accustomed to, but one that only has a parallel port connector. Does the fact your new computer has no parallel port connector mean that you have to go out and buy a new printer?

Not at all.

There are adapter cables available that have a standard USB plug on one end and a parallel connector on the other. These will let you connect your parallel port printer to any computer with an available USB port.

There is a downside to this. When combining standards, in this case USB and parallel, devices default to the speed of the slowest device. So while these cables offer the convenience of connecting a parallel port printer to a USB port, the data transfer speed will equal that of a parallel port connection. You won’t get USB 2.0 speeds with this connector. But in most cases the difference in speed won’t be noticeable to the average user. There will be a longer delay between sending a print job to the printer and the start of actual printing than you would get with a USB printer, but the delay shouldn’t be more than a few seconds longer.

To find these cables, search Google for “USB to parallel cable” or check with your local electronics store. They can cost anywhere from $13 to $90 depending on length, connector type and retailer.

When you buy a new printer, make sure it’s going to last

Posted in: Printers, blog by Jack on 10 August 2009

Jack Dunning, publisher of ComputorEdge Magazine, has posted an opinion piece intended for those of you who may be in the market for a new printer. He offers some valid points to consider. I encourage you to read the full article before you buy your next printer. Consider your present and future needs and buy a printer that can accomplish the tasks you want to perform without offering you functions you don’t need or want.

Printer manufacturers are motivated to build cheap printers because of the follow-on sales of printer ink and toner. Each manufacturer has its own proprietary inking/toner system that keeps its customers coming back for more. There are alternatives for refilling ink and toner cartridges, but there are still enough people who prefer to buy the HP or Epson label that it keeps these companies doing very well in the sale of printer supplies. If it weren’t for the ink and toner sales, printer manufacturers would be hard-pressed to provide such sophisticated equipment for such a low price.

If you’re in the market for a new printer, it may be worth the time to evaluate what you need—although it’s hard to make that argument when you can always get another printer for next to nothing. When I buy a new printer, I want it to last a long time. There are some key issues involved in the printer decision.

Inkjet Versus Laser

There are two basic types of printers on today’s market: inkjet printers and laser printers. Inkjet printers use inks (at least four or more colors) to generate high-quality full-color output. They are generally less expensive and slower than laser printers, and not built for high quantities of printing. The quality and reasonable price make inkjet printers desirable for most home uses.

Unless you do a great deal of printing (usually in an office environment), you may be best off buying an inkjet printer. The inkjet will give you more quality options, such as printing high-resolution photo images. Color laser printers are available, but they are a little more expensive ($300 and up), and the print quality does not compete with inkjet printers.

Laser printers use toner (similar to copiers) rather than ink. There are two reasons to prefer the laser printer for volume work. The first is speed. Laser printers are capable of greater speed (15 to 20 pages per minute). Inkjet printers claim similar speeds, but the reality is that when better-quality work is produced, the inkjets slow to a crawl.

The second reason for preferring a laser printer is because the per-copy cost will be much lower than that of an inkjet. While laser printers are more expensive than inkjets, they are very economical for high-volume output. Although toner cartridges cost more than ink, the number of copies generated by one toner cartridge makes the per-copy cost much lower.

The real question to ask before deciding between inkjet and laser printers is, how much printing are you going to do and at what quality level? Many people need to print only the occasional document or make a copy. If this is the case, then an inkjet will certainly suffice while offering quality output.

Make It a Network Printer

If you don’t have a network at home, then you will probably have no reason to network your printer. However, all you need is one more computer coming into your home (possibly a relative’s laptop), and you’ll find that they want to use your printer/scanner. You can share a printer attached to your computer over a network, but it’s much more convenient to share a network printer. As mentioned in network article “Cool Things to Do With Your Home Network,” you may suddenly find that you have a home network.

On a network, the printer can be used by any member of the network without a printer-host computer being powered up. The network printer can be placed anywhere in the house that’s convenient to the network. If you attach a printer to a computer with the USB port, your printer location will be limited by the USB cable length.

For these reasons, I look for a printer with network capabilities. Many printers come only with the USB port for hooking up directly to your computer. It’s true that if you hook up the printer directly to your computer you can share it over a network, but there may be a time in the future when an Ethernet (wired) or Wi-Fi (wireless) networked printer will come in handy. While printers with either the hardwired Ethernet connection and/or the 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi (wireless) may cost a little more, for me, the options are worth it.

People use their printers for a long time. The technology of scanning and printing does not change so rapidly that frequent replacement of printers is required. Spending a little more now to get either the Ethernet or Wi-Fi network capabilities (I would get both) could save you a couple of years down the road. Be sure to check the specifications on the printer. Many printers come only with a USB port for connecting to a computer. You should see the proper terminology for networking in the specification: Ethernet for cable connection and 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi for wireless.

If you decide to save a little money and get a USB-only printer, you can always add a print server (Ethernet or Wi-Fi) when you want to network the printer. A print server is a device that will make the printer network-capable.

When looking at printers, there are three major decisions and one option. Whether you pick an inkjet or laser printer depends on how much you will print and what quality output you need—inkjet for quality and laser for quantity. Getting a printer with a scanner is almost not a decision anymore, since most printers come with scanners—and they should. Even if you don’t need it now, I recommend that you get a printer that you can put on a network. A built-in fax machine is needed only if you interact with other fax machines on a daily basis. Otherwise, there are easier ways to send a fax without a fax machine.

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Laying cities and lives to e-waste

Posted in: blog, store by Jack on 4 August 2009

True, the economy is perhaps the greatest challenge facing our country. But there’s one aspect of our economy that is seldom addressed. Trash.

We are constantly encouraged to buy stuff. Buying stuff is supposed to make us happy, make us appear successful, justify our jobs. Ever hour on TV and in nearly every magazine we are deluged with advertising, exorting us to spend, spend, spend. Yet you can’t simply keep buying stuff without eventually having to throw some stuff away, even if it’s only the packaging your stuff came in.

I want to focus on electronic stuff. In many cases your new stuff is an upgrade to stuff you already have; a newer TV, a faster computer, a bigger monitor. You’ve finally given in to all the hype and bought yourself an iPhone. Now what do you do with your ancient cell phone (you know it’s ancient-all it can do is make phone calls)? No one on Craigslist wants it. You couldn’t get a single bid for it on eBay. Ah, what the heck, just toss it in the trash. The same scenario often plays out with monitors. You just got a sleek new 22″ widescreen LCD monitor, and now you have to find a new home for that 20th century monster CRT you’ve been using since AOL was a startup. All your friends are much cooler than you, they’ve been using LCDs for ages. None of them has any use for a 75 pound piece of dead technology. Once again Craigslist and eBay disappoint. Well, you know anything left out in the alley overnight disappears, so just park your old friend in the alley, or if your neighborhood is upscale, down the alley behind your neighbor’s house, and with any luck it will be gone before you leave for work the next morning.

OK, I’m using a touch of humor to make my point, but e-waste is deadly serious. Electronic trash is a world-wide concern. It is a problem that some nations attempt to solve by burdening other nations with their dangerous discards.

On the outskirts of Ghana’s biggest city sits a smoldering wasteland, a slum carved into the banks of the Korle Lagoon, one of the most polluted bodies of water on earth. The locals call it Sodom and Gomorrah.

Agbogbloshie has become one of the world’s digital dumping grounds, where the West’s electronic waste, or e-waste, piles up — hundreds of millions of tons of it each year.

When containers of old computers first began arriving in West Africa a few years ago, Ghanaians welcomed what they thought were donations to help bridge the digital divide. But soon exporters learned to exploit the loopholes by labeling junk computers “donations”…

“Some are from Germany and the U.K., and also from America,” he says, when asked where the equipment has come from. He sorts through them looking for working electronics that can be sold. He says that maybe 50 percent of the shipment is junk and the rest he will be able to salvage in some way.

E-waste generators are seldom malicious. We don’t carelessly abandon our discarded electronics with the intent to destroy another country or harm its kids. We just don’t think about it. We ignore the implications of our actions. We aren’t aware of what happens to our electronic trash nor do we want to know. We prefer ignorance. It’s such a massive problem and we feel so helpless to make any significant impact on it. Beside, our contribution to the problem is so small it hardly counts. I mean, it was only a hard drive we tossed in the trash.

As part of the investigation, one of the students buys a number of hard drives to see what is on them, secretly filming the transaction to avoid the seller’s suspicions.

The drives are purchased for the equivalent of US$35.

The students take the hard drives to Regent University in the Ghanaian capital and ask computer scientist Enoch Kwesi Messiah to help read what is on them.

Within minutes, he is scrolling through intimate details of people’s lives, files left behind by the hard drives’ original owners.

There is private financial data, too: credit card numbers, account information, records of online transactions the original owners may not have realized were even there.

“ I can get your bank numbers and I retrieve all your money from your accounts,” Messiah says. “If ever somebody gets your hard drive, he can get every information about you from the drive, no matter where it is hidden.”

That’s particularly a problem in a place like Ghana, which is listed by the U.S. State Department as one of the top sources of cyber crime in the world. And it’s not just individuals who are exposed. One of the drives the team has purchased contains a $22 million government contract.

It turns out the drive came from Northrop Grumman, one of America’s largest military contractors. And it contains details about sensitive, multi-million dollar U.S. government contracts. They also find contracts with the defense intelligence agency, NASA, even Homeland Security.

(Quotes courtesy of PBS’s Frontline)

If this issue does concern you or you’d like to know why it should, follow the above link to read the full story and view the episode of Frontline. Then do the planet a favor and learn more about responsible e-waste disposal in your area.

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