OkiPrintMyRide : All About Computer, Printer and Buying Guide

What a Bargain

September 6, 2019James13Leave a comment

It’s not very often that I snare a bargain but I can very enthusiastically say that this time, I did.

My HP printer, copier, scanner had been playing up for months. It was a sad saga of frustration, rage and near violence. Yes, I admit it, I very nearly threw it out the window: before the window was opened. Every time I tried to print something out, I had problems. I’d go through the procedure, File, Print, get the box up, tell it how many pages to print, what size to print and GO! Nothing! I’d wait. And wait, watching the flashing light on the printer telling me it was out of paper. It wasn’t, there was half a ream in it. Wait. Go and make a cup of tea. Take the paper out and put it back in. Try again, File, Print, etc, etc. GO! Wait.

Blinking light telling me it was out of paper. GRRRR!

Go to Control Panel, Printers, double click on my printer. AH! Jobs in the queue. The very ones I’d tried to print. Highlight ‘Resume Printing’ and enter. Wait. Wait. Nothing. Highlight ‘cancel all printing’ to try again. Wouldn’t cancel! Still the same list. Unplug the printer. Wait ten minutes. Another cup of tea. Plug the printer back in. Wait for it to settle. Go back to the document. Go through the routine. File, Print, etc, etc. GO! Nothing. Wait. Nothing but a blinking light, No paper. Wait. Go to Control Panel, Printers. Click on my printer. Double click, Jobs in the queue. Same jobs plus the one I tried to do a moment ago. Resume Printing. Nothing. Stop, Shut down the computer and the printer, mouthing obscenities. Unplug them both. Wife shouts, ‘You’re blood pressure must be through the roof.’ Snarl as I go out the garden. Wait half an hour. Go and cut the lawn, seething in anger.

Rage

Cutting the lawn helps, calms me down. Wife looks at me as I come back inside. ‘That computer was the worst thing you ever brought in this house.’

Tell me about it! Plug it all back in again and boot up. Back to the document. The ‘no paper’ light is at it again. Grit my teeth, go back to control panel, printers, jobs in line. Same jobs. ‘Resume Printing,’ Clicks, bangs whirring noise! It’s working! Yes! I kneel on the floor and kow tow to it, ‘Oh, great one, thank you for blessing me with your presence.’ It proceeds to print the whole list of jobs. But I don’t want three copies of the damned thing, I only want one. It takes no notice of my rantings and will not allow me to print what I want. I end up knee deep in paper as it churns out the whole queue. I’m dancing in rage when my wife comes in the room. ‘Is that a war dance or are you just practising for Strictly Come Dancing?’ I collapse in a gibbering heap, throwing pages in the air and frothing at the mouth.

Buy a new one.

Nothing for it! Get on ebay and find a new printer, copier, scanner. Hundreds on there. Work down the list. What! A brand new one, boxed, guaranteed, going for £5. It’s a Canon Pixma MP 140. This can’t be right! A new printer, copier, scanner for £5.($7) Yes It is! I buy it and it’s an all singing, all dancing one. What a bargain. OK, the shipping was £12 ($17), but hey, it came within two days. The cartridges were refurbished ones, guaranteed and only £10 ($14) for the two.

MakerBot Replicator 2 Desktop – 3D Printer For Bed Surface

July 4, 2019James13Leave a comment

MakerBot Replicator 2 Desktop 3D Printer is a very impressive printer as it has a couple of features that have been highly rated by its users. The fact that it is a fast and affordable 3D printer which can be used to make professional quality objects and models makes it great to use by anyone looking to 3D print for fun, or to even make a business out of it. Additionally, operating this particular printer requires little to no knowledge on 3D printing before purchasing one, as users can learn everything from the manual as the instructions are very well explained and not hard to understand at all.

Additionally, the fact that it is extremely precise makes this printer great to use in just about all of the circumstances that a 3D printer may be put in. Without further ado, the performance and ease of use of the MakerBot Replicator 2 Desktop 3D Printer are known to be great.

Performance

The MakerBot Replicator 2 Desktop 3D Printer is a 4^th generation printer that has been acclaimed as one of the, if not the best on the market. Leaving aside the fact that it is coated with steel, solid and it looks great, it also offers performance unlike other 3D printers which are available on the market. As the MakerBot Replicator 2 Desktop 3D Printer can print in a 100-micron layer resolution, it is great for users to go from a first draft to an object that doesn’t need any finishing as the printer is able to get everything done from the start to finish.

Another interesting feature related to its performance is the fact that bigger professional quality models can be built using this printer. Additionally, it is also capable of printing more than one thing at once, so that users can work on more projects at the same time, or even start building new ones before the old ones are finished.

The technology that this printer uses is of the best kind and is known as fused filament fabrication. With this in mind, the printer can be trusted to complete even the smallest details while remaining ready to print at any time during the day. In general, the printer’s performance is of high quality as it has many features which cannot be found in other 3D printers. Together with this, it is also reliable as many users have specified until now. Using the MakerBot Replicator 2 Desktop 3D Printer is sure to make a person’s or a company’s interest in 3D printing evolve and create more and more models and objects on a daily basis, as 3D printing is sure not to get old for the time being.

Ease of use

By knowing how to operate the software, how to put the materials needed for the print in the printer together with how to operate it, just about anyone can 3D print models. After a user gathers up all the materials and initiates the software, the printer can start to do its job. It is good to remember that the time it takes the MakerBot Replicator 2 Desktop 3D Printer to print an object depends on how many objects it is working on at the same time, along with the materials used and the complexity of the models which are being printed out.

Usability

This printer can be used to make objects that can be used directly, you can make 3d Objects like building, cartoon character, print beautiful patterns for mattress cover easily and more

Noise

Until now, no complaints have been made related to any noise disturbance being caused by the MakerBot Replicator 2 Desktop 3D Printer. It is known to be silent and it only requires attention when a print begins and when it is finished.

Atom 330 Dual Core Review

June 24, 2019June 24, 2019James13Leave a comment

Atom 330 dual core processors are made by Intel, and are basically two of the single Diamondville N270 cores. They are often found in nettops, where power consumption is of little priority, but they pop up in netbooks just as well. Whether they’re worth it or not is up to your own decision.

An Atom 330 is basically two N270 cores slapped together in the same package, which means there is two of everything. There are two 26mm2 die size 47 million transistor computing cores clocked at 1.6GHz, 512 KB L2 cache per core, and 2.5W TDP per core as well. The total construction consumes 5 watts under typical heavy load, which makes it more of a desktop processor for thin clients than a mobile processor for ultra portables.

Benchmarks show that these processors are unfortunately not twice as fast as a single core variation, even in optimized applications. The reason for this is unknown, but the fact is that they are about 30-50% faster than an N270. We know that an N270 is about as fast as a Pentium M (dothan) core clocked at half of N270’s native speed. It makes the single core atom perform a 1M super pi calculation in 1 minute 40 seconds, where a 3GHz Core 2 Duo processor would have finished in 20 seconds.

The 330 is just as fast in single core applications, and there are many of those. Games are great examples, they’re often using just one core, which makes the 330 just as fast in most games as the N270. Or just as slow, it depends on your mood. What they’re truly exceptional at is multi thread task handling. If you often find yourself with 30 tabs open in your favorite browser, you’ll find that a dual core processor gets things done more quickly in these situations.

Manufacturers often opt for stronger graphics cores to go with the central processing unit, which is not an honor of the processor itself, but the overall configuration. These graphic cores are often from Nvidia, who make the ION platform. With applications that take advantage of the extra computing power lying in the graphic adapter calculations get really snappy.

Video playback, for example benefits from them, which makes the configuration able to play 1080p. In netbooks these chips also allow for an HDMI connector to put HD on the big screen. If you were thinking about getting a netbook with Atom 330 dual core processor, think again. They’re not as fast as you’d expect looking at the price tag, and the claimed 4 hours battery life you’d often see is not the performance on expects from a light-weight ultra portable computer either. For nettops, these CPUs are the way to go.

Brother MFC-5890CN A3 Printer – A Cheap All-Rounder

May 2, 2019James13Leave a comment

Brother releasing MFC-5890CN has achieved something quite remarkable with its. Everything needed in the small office is in this printer, A3, A4 printing, scanning and fax functionalities as well. A3 scanning was left out so if you’d like to do that often, the bigger version of the model is a better choice. Quite a multi-purpose machine, as it prints in both B&W and color modes too.

The unit itself can be called compact, but that doesn’t mean you can put it into your backpack after work. It’s just smaller than similar printers with similar capabilities on the market, and I have to say there are not that many that can do everything this printer can. It is equipped with USB 2.0 connectivity to be able to print from digital cameras or thumb drives without a computer and reads SD, CF and MMC cards for the same reason. An RJ-45 ethernet connector makes operation in network printer mode possible.

There are four different cartridges installed with all the pros and cons of the technology. These cartridges are easy to replace one by one after use, there is no need to throw out a half full casing only because the black tint is empty. It also takes some more space than a single cartridge system, but it definitely produces less waste.

The paper tray can take up to 150 sheets of paper and the device prints away at an agonizingly slow 10 pages per minute or 6 in color mode. Brother is one of the manufacturers that measure their printers’ official performance assuming draft mode. I don’t know if you print a lot in draft but I don’t really find myself doing that a lot. The official numbers are 35 pages in black and white or 28 in color.

This printer has no remarkable features, nor it is the fastest printer on earth. The print quality is not the best either, color mode pages are vivid, filled, while text mode prints are only decent with a strange fragile look to the letters. Under magnifier glass the cause is easily spotted, the lines are a bit thin causing the serifs to almost fall off of letters. Maybe it has to warm up before starting to produce proper quality papers, maybe it’s inherent from used technology, I don’t know. Scans are done in good quality both from the flatbed and the 50 pages document feeder on the top.

Brother has done nothing extraordinary other printers can’t do. Some of the features are almost weak, but I’d like to add, that this is a very cheap A3 printer model, and that’s the great thing about it. It does everything for only $180.

3D Printers: What is the hype about?

March 31, 2019James13Leave a comment

The world of technology and science is expanding and changing exponentially. Futuristic inventions that were talked about for generations have arrived. Telephones you could carry around with you, computers in every home, and the ability to see your family when you talked to them on the phone.

That future has arrived, and the things of science fiction are a reality. Printers have evolved from the mimeograph machine, with a roller and purple ink, to electric copiers, with black ink that didn’t smell funny. Now they collate, staple, print photographs and send faxes. Enter the world of 3D printers and pens. No paper or ink required.

What is 3D printing?

In a normal printing process, information is fed to a printer, via computer generated instructions. Ink is laid onto paper, and your 2D document is generated. With a 3D printer, an object is scanned or created in a CAD (Computer Aided Design) program. The object is then divided into .15mm thick slices, hundreds of one dimensional layers. Each layer is a set of instructions that are fed into the 3D printer.

A layer of powdered polymer is distributed evenly across a platform. Infrared lasers scan across the layer creating the pattern from the first layer of instructions. The laser melts the polymer. A second layer of powder is applied, crystallizing the materials. The process is repeated until the object has been completed. The excess powder is removed, and the completed object emerges.

What can be made with a 3D printer?

With a 3D printer, a company can design and create their own prototypes. Something that looks good on paper may not actually look as nice, or work as well, in reality. By creating a prototype, a manufacturer can look at a physical representation of their final product, and make changes to their products. The cost associated with prototypes and new product development can be greatly reduced with the purchase of an affordable 3d printer.

In the world of kitchen appliance, the manufacturers can develop new kitchen appliance, print the sample products before the real products released to the market, they can make a new design on various products including electric kettles, teapots, cookware sets, microwave ovens, gas stove and more from their computer with ease..

In the world of science, archaeologists can use the 3D printer to recreate artifacts, dinosaur bones and fossils. Forensic science can recreate objects destroyed at a crime scene, enabling them to reconstruct what may have happened. Crime television and their fictional experiments meet forensic pathologists using 3D modeling.

In modern medicine, they are using layers of living tissue to recreate organs and body parts. Organ printing, or Computer Aided Tissue Layering is in development. One day, in the very near future, a limb will be regenerated with help from 3D printers. The applications are endless limited only by the imagination.