I’m sort of glad D-Link is under appreciated, as it has kept their prices pretty reasonable as well.
I’ve only a few of their components in the main home system at this point, but have had great luck over the years (business class as well as home level) with their products. Hope they can keep that up.
Looking in to tech for a fax upgrade. I know it is a bit crazy but a number of folks still use fax machines. So far, I see two likely options for my own setup :
Very few if any of the online services seem to offer a local to me (Columbia, MO) phone number possibility, so for a hosted option that rather narrows it down to a toll-free number. Fine in principle, but any use of a toll free number is bound to effectively cost more per page received; any business must pass costs along. Who wants to pay that for the largely junk faxes we tend to receive?
As others have mentioned, the ability to preview faxes (preferably as .pdf files) is a sure bonus. I would never mind having them simply emailed to me; that’s what lots of “cloud” space for all sorts of data is all about. Leveraging this investment I already have would be nice, An added bonus would be viewing them on the go, even if I couldn’t necessarily print out (selected) pages.
What would be truly keen would be a tiny widget box, with analog in and out phone jacks like those dial-up modems had. USB2 speed should be plenty (even though USB3 looms . . .) on the hardware side. If there are single chip GPS solutions that (minus antenna) fit within standard sized wrist watches, how much logic space is needed for a 33.6k “Super G3″ option external to a computer? Ideally, the device should draw low enough power to be powered solely from the USB (or firewire) port. Leaning USB, since I’m thinking low cost, ubiquitous device; 10/100 ethernet would be another option of course, in a slightly larger, LAN-friendly box.
Software side, linux / OSX / Win drivers in 32 and 64 bit flavors. Ability to integrate with the target operating system and standard features introduced years ago, such as an usable printer driver (print from any application to a fax). Since I’m imagining no large memory amount on the USB widget, a computer would have to be available to receive the faxes with software. That software could have format options of perhaps PNG / jpg graphics or .pdf file. Possibilities for delivery could be save to disk, and email (input your smtp info and authorizations, etc.) Now you are back to having a local copy available, plus a copy archived off to your (remote) Google Apps email . . .
Panasonic looks to have had an interesting twist, though it’s definitely not what I’m looking for. One Google search bit that may help in the future . . .
You gather the idea. Any reader recommendations welcomed, willing to consider all options for my low-usage fax desires at this point I do already have a nice laser printer and scanner set up again here, so bonus points for the least amount of materials / expense
And as always, if you have any great review articles you’ve found, please don’t hesitate to comment. Share your knowledge
So far at least, it has exceeded my expectations. Since even the home network has long been gigabit copper Ethernet, I decided to go the wired network route. Call me a curmudgeon, but even though the wireless network setup was trivial I just really don’t have a need at present to put my documents out over the wireless, so I won’t; wireless B/G mode is disabled for the printer for now. I can see that being handy if you wanted to power the printer in another room, however; mo cabling needed! (I have no idea if the wireless mode, assuming full strength / max speed G mode, would limit the output speed of 23 ppm or not)
Setup was a breeze, installing a standard Ethernet cable into the printers 10/100 port on the rear side. (which is where the USB cable input is, if so inclined). Note to buyer : neither cable included, so plan appropriately so you are not stranded / charged shipping or tax for something small.
(side note : since my D-link switch has automatic crossover capability, I did test the printer out of curiosity with an old crossover cable relic; worked fine, though I suspect the printer had nothing to do with it)
I have not tested the USB mode, so I can’t comment there. I suspect it works pretty well, since many folks would choose that method of connection. I do like that it’s capable of that, should I ever need it.
I did read the quick install manual thoroughly before even opening the drum / toner pack. Leisurely installation of cables, drum / toner, and untaping the top feed holder was about 5 minutes worth; checking out the paper tray, fanning the ole stack of 250 sheets, and installing was maybe another 3. Have to adjust all of the widgets in the tray, just to see what sizes are possible, y’know.
I printed the built-in test page, as the manual noted it would no longer be available via a single touch button once the first print job was sent from the computer. Check; it was in the highest resolution mode, and included graphics and font text designed to show off how well it prints. It worked; the print quality was truly outstanding, much better than much higher priced office workgroup lasers from only a couple of years ago.
Just to be contrary, I of course skipped 100% of the driver disk that came with the Brother. I’ve been running Windows 7 RTM, Ultimate 64 for a few weeks, and of course having that popular conversation with a number of vendors : “We’ll support that new OS once the final version ships”. Well, this is the final version, even if it’s not on retailers shelves for a bit. Early adopters – always have to be prepared for this
I did make sure in my research that the HL-2170W was Vista 64 compatible, a strong indicator that it would work (more or less) under Win7 64 bit. I let Windows look for the printer, and it found it via two interfaces : the built in web interface, and the “standard” printer interface. Being somewhat old fashioned there I suppose, I went with the standard.
Installed fine. Tested fine via the Windows Test Page print job many of you are familiar with. Another page to the home recycle bin. I set the sleep time via the web interface, for example http://172.30.100.5/ to one minute. The large glowing led power button can be set to dim significantly or turn off when sleeping; I chose to dim it, so I’d know the print had power still. (I print so little that it and the scanner are on an external surge suppressor, on the filter-only side of the UPS; makes it easy to leave both powered down 100% instead of sleeping, considering my very low use there)
The speed is pretty much on with their 23 page per minute claim; timed output from hitting “print” on the computer, to a sleeping printer was measured at 14 seconds until the page started emerging. I consider that plenty good for my own home office needs.
It was simple to set the resolution way down to 300 dpi from their highest default, and to set toner saver on. I’m not trying to impress with the output, and the visual difference to me takes pretty close looking.
I’m impressed, and so far feel this is a great printer for the money. No more dried out inkjet bits, and I really don’t need the capability or expense of color. Since it has enterprise type page count for the printer, as well as the current drum and toner cartridges, we’ll see how many pages we get out of the starter “1000 page” toner cartridge that’s included with it. I predict it’ll be a while before I report back here.
I also like the detailed reporting that appears to be available via http://www.php-web-statistik.de/ – I’m looking for the ability to host all of this locally on my own mysql instances, of course, to avoid having data elsewhere that may go down / away for some reason.
The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. -H.P. Lovecraft
Freedom has no barcode. -J.G. Ballard
RELIGION, n. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable. -Ambrose Bierce
There is something to be learned from a rainstorm. When meeting with a sudden shower, you try not to get wet and run quickly along the road. But doing such things as passing under the eaves of houses, you still get wet. When you are resolved from the beginning, you will not be perplexed, though you still get the same soaking. This understanding extends to everything. -Yamamoto Tsunetomo
Who then is free? The wise man, who is lord over himself, whom neither poverty, or death, nor bonds affright, who bravely defies his passions, and scorns ambition, who in himself is whole and rounded, so that nothing outside can rest on the polished surface, and against whom Fortune in her onset is ever defeated. -Horace
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Who will watch the watchers? -Juvenal
It takes a very long time to become young. -Pablo Picasso
It was also time to drop the the old inkjet beast off at the component recycler; wanted to make the most of any drive over there. After considerable research I chose a good home black and white laser printer :
Figuring conservatively (getting 80% of rated service on toner / drum, etc.) and rounding up (to more expensive) it looks to work out to about 3.1 cents per page, for the hardware side of things, over the cost-effective life of the printer before recycling it. (the drum is too expensive; at 12k sheets, it’s less expensive to recycle and start again; of course, 12k will likely never happen for me, hah).
Add paper costs (obtained locally) of another .9 cents for nice, jam-resistant in the past “internal use quality” paper, about 4 cents a page. Costs go down with “more enterprise grade” hardware, but up-front costs sure rise. I will manually duplex the tiny amount of printouts I need per month, since it’s a rare day that I actually print a page. I just got tired of inkjet “tech” drying out, and in my limited experience this isn’t a factor with lasers.
2.5W (1.4W Standby) – USB power only, no power converter or cable needed. one wire, yup.
I know that’s geekdom, but that’s pretty cool for the scan device to be using a whopping 2.5 watts while actively scanning in documents, etc. Even though I went for the first one, and will leave it unplugged when not in use (the vast majority of the time) the efficiency of the standard one is intriguing.
One thing many neglect : a true benefit of running your hard disks as FDE / Full Disk Encryption is that when you are done, there should be nothing to erase; the data is useless without your high-quality key.
Excerpt :
We discussed the importance of backing up the data stored on your computer’s hard drive in a previous story. But what happens if your computer is lost or stolen? Notebooks are particularly vulnerable. A thoroughly executed back-up plan will alleviate data loss, but do you want strangers perusing the highly personal information you’ve stored on that machine? We didn’t think so; that’s why we put together this guide to keeping your electronic data secure.
First, we’ll take you through the process of encrypting the data on your hard drive, so that you can use passwords to control who can see it. And since no computer lasts forever, we’ll show you how to scrub your hard drive so that no one will ever be able to retrieve anything from it when you decide it’s time to put it out to pasture.
Of course, I’ve enjoying watching many a hard drive scrub, and then sleep with the fishes. Commercial hard drive shredding is a fun day at the office
RT @securitypro2009: PHPSecInfo – Security Information About PHP Environment | Web … http://bit.ly/NYyHb
PHP Security Consortium (PHPSC) is an international group of PHP experts dedicated to promoting secure programming practices within the PHP community. Members of the PHPSC seek to educate PHP developers about security through a variety of resources, including documentation, tools, and standards. You can read the PHP Security Guide they have published.
