Book Reviews and Money Saving Tips

I mentioned in a previous blog I am on a vacation. I lugged an old Okidata 10ex laser along to leave in Florida. I figured once the drum needed changing, I would just recycle it. Since I have thee of them it would be no loss to abandon it. Since my laptop doesn’t have a parallel port I had to figure out how to hook up the laser to my laptop. I found a male USB to Female DB25 adapter at Buy.com for $8.97 with shipping which allowed me to plug my parallel cable into the laptop. I tested the connection before I left home and after fooling around a bit, I got it to work. I dragged the laser down here to Florida and set it up. If you are familiar with lasers then you know that moving them can be problematic. The older lasers had a tendency to bleed toner over the entire printer if tilted. I shrink wrapped the toner cartridge and covered the drum to insure I had no mess. That all worked, no mess. Sadly the rest of it didn’t go as well. The laser self tested just fine. The problem was I...

Sometimes your desk is just too crowded to stick your printer on it. Across the room there is plenty of space but it is such a pain in the butt running cables. There is a solution, trash your printer and buy a Bluetooth printer and add a Bluetooth card to your computer or continue to use your existing printer and add the Linksys WPSM54G Wireless-G USB Print Server. The Linksys Wireless-G Print Server with Multifunction Printer Support lets you connect a multifunction USB printer directly to your network, eliminating the need to dedicate a PC to print sharing chores. Using a Print Server frees up your "print share PC" so you don''t have to leave it on all the time. It also removes the printing bottleneck, and sets your PC free to do more useful work. The Print Server is compatible with most USB multifunction printers, and allows full access to printing, faxing, scanning, and copying functions. Like any print server, users on the network can print anytime. The other fun...

Here is a very cool tool for your favorite computer geek. It is a hard drive docking station. It is made by ThermalTake , part number N0028US, under $40.00 including free shipping at Amazon . You pop in SATA hard drives just like you pop your PDA into it’s docking cradle. My only beef is they only make it for SATA hard drives. I think a model for ATA hard drives would make a lot of sense since many of us have ATA hard drives just laying around not being used. How cool would it be to just be able to pop in those old hard drives as easily as a CD or DVD? Alas they only support SATA but it is still something to consider. This is not a paid post however if you do decide to buy it and go through the Amazon link I will get a commission. Specs: 2.5” & 3.5” USB SATA HDD Docking Station, Supports All 2.5” & 3.5” SATA Hard Drives up to 1.5 TB !! Supports All 2.5” & 3.5” SATA HDDs up to 1.5TB ! Hot-Swap Capability for Rapid Multi HDDs Access & Exchange Supports USB 2.0 Transfer Sp...