Technology Guides

While this all-in-one printer is not new it definitely looks like it and can handle it. Released back in late 2006, it was on the cusp of it’s time with Wi-Fi capabilities and is still being sold to this day. Capable of faxing, scanning, copying, and obviously printing photos and other types of projects. Pre-programmed into its hard drive are “Printable School Papers” which is an extremely nice touch for a family with kids in school. Things you can print out is graph paper, notebook paper and task checklist. The buttons are easy to read and press but the LCD screen is slow, which makes scrolling through many of your memory devices a bit of a hassle when printing off of them. With the way memory cards are going it would take ages to scroll through the whole thing.

A key disadvantage I found with this printer was the start-up time from being turned off to ready to print. I would almost peg it at 3 minutes. This might not mean anything to users who leave there printer on all the time but I myself like to turn it off as much as possible. Once up and running though, the printer will scan, copy, and print fairly fast. Obviously you won’t be getting office printer speeds, but for making copies here and there, it’s absolutely convenient. With quick buttons to push “Black Copy”, “Colour Copy” it makes tasks that much easier.
It also comes in an attractive package with unique and cool storage places for photo paper(seperate photo storage) and regular size paper. It is also able to connect to PictBridge capable cameras on top of the SD-MMC/CF/MS/DUO/XD cards supported.
Connecting the printer to your wireless network is very easy but it does require you to reconnect if for some reason the signal is lost for a second even after you’ve entered the password.
Why do we get a printer though? We get it for its reliability and for its convenience and quality for a quick photo print. It should by any means replace you going to the store and getting your digital photos or you going to Kinkos to get a professional print. A home printer should allow you flexibility to print quickly, efficiently, and make sure its done right. This printer does that and should be given a damn good chance when you look at purchasing a new printer.

Popularity: 7% [?]

A good friend of mine at CutEdge let me in on a secret, or I just went to his site and read a couple articles. I enjoyed them and took him up on his offerings to join Adrive and MediaMaster.

“For the couple of days I’ve been using ADrive, I’ve been able to access it 24/7, both at school when I need data and at home when I do the homework.”

When I first went to the site, I was impressed just like any new website that is recommended to me by my good friend at CutEdge and I was equally impressed by the services it offered. ADrive gives us internet users, the chance to own an account that will hold up to 50GB of files, with no fee whatsoever. With no hesitation I clicked the Join Now link and started to register. I entered my usual information but was surprised, yet relieved to learn that my password was not sufficient enough. My password had to be at least 8 characters long, contain a capital letter, and have at least 1 numerical key. Now some people might say this is a pain the butt, but most dually note that this is a hug security feature. The internet is a scary place and ADrive is doing the best to keep it as safe as possible. After registering and logging in, I browsed away, only to come back to this drab screen. I asked myself if a popup came up, but quickly discovered there was no pop-up and it was the website I had been eagerly awaiting, ADrive. The utility of this site though is great and because of its basic design, the ease of use is apparent. Most file uploaders only let you upload one file at a time, but this one let me upload about 150 photos at a rate of 45-65kb/s. It was a long wait but it didn’t slow down my computer at all.

This is a great program because as it’s slogan states, “Your Music, Anywhere”. It’s the perfect slogan as users can upload music to the website and play them from any other computer with an internet connection. Setup is easy and with no downloads necessary. They have an uploader but it works all on the internet and uploads at relatively decent speeds. By no means is it speedy as one song took around 5min to upload a 4300kb file with only 5 files set to upload. The more you add to the task, the slower it operates and slows down your computer. One thing I love about this site is the album art. Offered on iTunes and Windows Media Player, MediaMaster is by far the best at it. If it gets anything about the album wrong, you can change it, entering in a different artist, album name, and lets you select a different album art based on that info.

I noticed a few drawbacks at first to actually playing the songs. I couldn’t figure out why, when I double-clicked the track, it wouldn’t play. I am a little impatient so within a couple seconds, I double-clicked another track. Little did I know that this site is streaming the music to you and it takes a little bit of time to load it. Wait approximately 5sec and the music will start playing. Another quirk I noticed when you select an album, it shows you all the songs on that album, but bolds the one you uploaded. This can get a little annoying but gives you a quick reference to the albums track list. Finally, I must say that the experience is great and I’m extremely happy with the quality of the service. The music stream is constant and does not provide any interruptions and it does it all with a nice clean interface.

Popularity: 8% [?]

LCD Monitors have become more popular just last year and now the 22-inch segment is the best buy. They are much less priced than 24-inch screens and usually, less than a $100 upgrade from a 19 or 20 inch screen. HP, ViewSonic, and Samsung all offer great looking packages in this size category.

The ViewSonic entry is surprisingly good looking except for the speakers which dull it down a bit. It has more of a bang for your buck coming in at a reasonable $319US. It is not offered in a physical store but you can buy it from a number of online retailers. The graphics, text, and DVD quality are all very good and it comes with analog and digital inputs. It has multiple adjustments and 5ms of response time and 700:1 contrast ratio.

HP offers a brilliant package with good looks and good features for a small premium over the ViewSonic at $330US. The surprising thing is there is a huge difference between the Canadian price and the American price. HP Canada offers the very same monitor for $450 but luckily I stumbled upon an even cheaper price offered by Office Depot at $400. The difference between the HP and Viewsonic is the text quality which goes to the ViewSonic but it makes up in contrast ratio (1000:1) and features. It looks like an HP product which is not surprsing because they are known for there aesthetics. The w2207 combines style and practicality with USB ports, pivoting panel, and EasyClip. Easy Clip is a feature on this monitor that will allow you to add different accessories alongside your monitor including a webcam, picture frame, and a flower vase.

Finally, Samsung has come out with the SyncMaster 2232GW. It’s a name you’d think you’d hear from an infomercial. It brings it’s ‘A’ game though with great graphics, text and DVD quality. It surpasses all the other monitors in terms of processing power with 3000:1 contrast ratio and 2ms response time but lacks in ergonomics with only tilt adjustment. It’s priced a bit higher versus the ViewSonic and HP with a pricetag of $360 US from Circuit City and it is not sold in Canada unless you want to ship it from Samsung.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Many companies have been trying to copy and beat the iPhone but this is the first true competitor in my mind. Although the looks are not the best, the internal statistics blow away the iPhone any day. Due for release on November 4, 2007, Sprint is readying for a huge release that will determine whether it catches up to AT&T or stays behind them. So how does the HTC Touch stack up against the Apple iPhone?

Unlike Apple’s iPhone, the HTC Touch will be working on Sprints fastest network and it supports corporate email. A huge plus to this touch phone is the processor. So not only will it operate on a faster network which was a huge deal when the iPhone first came out, but it will also be fast when not using the network.

Also it has been released in Canada under Rogers and Bell Canada. My only worry is why would people buy it from Bell? It’s a business-like phone and business people travel to other countries making it immobile if it were under a CDMA network.

Popularity: 7% [?]

All the major phone manufacturers are all abuzz about creating an iPhone killer much like the digital music industry was trying to create an iPod killer. Now Microsoft might have finally succeeded at doing that with the new generation Zune as it’s currently hard to find in many US retailers. But that’s not the story for today. Today I am here to report on the Blackberry 9000 which is supposed to be an iPhone killer.

RIM is one of the only big name brands yet to come out with some sort of response to Apple’s iPhone. Now that is all about to change. Jim Balsille, co-CEO of RIM, and the most publicized out of the RIM top shots, has slowly been changing the direction of the company to a more consumerist market rather than the business one. With the huge success of the Blackberry Pearl, it only makes sense that they make this step to produce a product to match and beat the iPhone.

Popularity: 23% [?]