Windows Browser Choice is here

February 25th, 2010

As of 1st March Windows XP, Vista and 7 users will receive an update which prompts them to choose a browser…a change of pace for Microsoft, who used to force people into using their own Internet Explorer by default. The software will install a desktop icon and if your are using Windows 7 and IE is your default browser, it will unpin it from the taskbar. If the software is not started by the user, it will run the first time IE is loaded after updating, and will present users with a dialogue box with the choice. The choices will be Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer 8, Opera or Apple Safari. After choosing one, the software will then install it automatically and set it as default…removing the need to manually download and install a new browser, which not all users are comfortable with doing.

Windows Browser Choice

Users are now offered an automatic choice of browser

This all comes after a landmark ruling by the European Commission, stating that locking Windows users into using IE was unfair. It has been largely welcomed in the IT community, especially among web designers who are tired of accommodating for IE’s lack of support for industry standards, especially CSS 3 and HTML5. While these are still un-ratified and experimental, most other browsers have started implementing them and many developers and users feel that IE is behind.  Along with this news, there is mounting pressure on the UK government to phase out support for IE6, which is now outdated (first released in 2001) and insecure. Google has announced it will stop support for it on 1st March, and many other companies and governments are following suit.  Our advice? Use anything other than IE. Chrome, Firefox, Operaa and Safari are all good, secure and up-to-date browsers with their own strong points.  Our personal favourite is Chrome but this is a matter of preference. If you really really do insist on making your browsing experience insecure and inefficient by using a browser that is riddled with holes and cannot display many websites properly, then by all means stick with IE. But at least upgrade it to IE 8, which is the lesser of all the IE evils. Anyone using IE6 will soon find themselves in the dark.

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Xerox Phaser 8550 – Media Sciences Compatible Solid Ink

February 23rd, 2010

Compatible Xerox Phaser 8550 solid ink sticks manufactured by Media Sciences are now available from Ink & Media Ltd. These are extremely high quality and very competitively priced offering exceptional value for money. Not only that Media Sciences compatible Xerox Phaser solid ink sticks are backed by their comprehensive warranty.

Xerox Phaser 8550 Solid Ink

Xerox Phaser 8550 Solid Ink

Media Sciences Solid Ink Sticks for the Xerox Phaser 8550 Give You

  • Brilliant Colour
  • Exceptional Value
  • Free Technical Support
  • 100% Risk Free
  • Full Protection Warranty
  • Meets or Exceeds The Original Manufacturers Product Quality and Coverage.

We always supply our customers what is the best value for money when it comes to printer supplies. This is not necessarily the cheapest available if it is an inferior or sub standard product that affects the quality of printing and page coverage. Media Sciences solid ink is as good as the OEM and offers genuine savings allowing you to buy with confidence.

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Review of the Canon IP1900 inkjet printer

February 16th, 2010

Those looking for an incredibly affordable printer will love this model. The price has dropped 70% since it was originally launched just a short time ago.The printer is designed for home users and it uses a two-cartridge system which is unusual for Canon. The print speed clocks in at around 13 pages per minute for the single colour print jobs in normal mode. Colour printing runs around eight pages, also in normal mode. It also has photo printing capabilities and it takes about 60 seconds to print a 4X6” print. Most owners of this printer report being pleased with its functionality despite how basic it is. It is not comparable to many of the fancy-pants printers on the market today, but considering the price of around £30, there can hardly be many complaints. The printer is stylish all decked out in black and some believe that gives it a higher-end appearance.

Also making it appear sleek is the lack of an output tray, but make sure you have it set on a table or desk that has space to catch your papers. It is a small printer, so if you are working in a compact space, it would still be ideal, even though you need a surface to catch the printing output.The rear paper tray of the machine folds down onto the front cover and the manual control features include only two buttons: one for undoing paper jams and feeding, and the on/off switch.

Canon IP1900 inkjet cartridges are priced reasonably for ink cartridges, around £15 per cartridge, but when you consider this is half of the cost of the printer, it seems a bit expensive. Re-manufactured ink is available for a bit less, but the £5 or so savings is hardly worth a trip across town to avoid the name-brand variety.

All in all, this is a great bargain printer. You will not be able to use it for big print jobs and the cost of the Canon IP1900 inkjet cartridges may add up over time, but if you want a quality new printer for a low price, give it a shot.

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Why we switched from Norton Anti-Virus to Kaspersky Internet Security

February 9th, 2010

We had been using Norton Internet Security from Symantec for a good 5 years or so. It seemed to do its job; it kept us virus free. But we have recently learned that there is a difference between your virus protection keeping you virus free and your virus protection simply never reporting any issues. It was renewal time and instead of paying blindly for Norton again, we thought we’d do our research. Kaspersky Internet Security is the recommendation we kept receiving, so we thought we’d give it a go. At 5 licenses for the full Kaspersky package for £40,  it didn’t exactly break the bank so we were quite pleased before we’d even installed it. It was the first scan after installation where Kaspersky proved itself, and was the moment we lost faith in Norton forever.

Kaspersky at it's finest

5 years of Norton; 1 hour of Kaspersky

This screen shot shows the report that was returned from the Kaspersky scan on one of our machines. How’s that for a total number of malicious items? 343 viruses and trojans, and 2 items of riskware. No-one knows how long they have been there, or what damage they could have caused. Norton, which ran a scheduled scan and was kept fully up-to-date, never found a thing.  This was just the tip of the iceberg. 2 other machines reported over 200 items. The rest had no less than 20. Now we aren’t saying that Kaspersky is perfect; no virus protection is. They all have pros and cons and all will detect threats that others miss. But compared to Norton, it’s the best thing since sliced bread in our opinion. People of the world, share your virus experiences and lets rid the world of virus protection that does more harm than good.

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Printer Solid Ink Guide

February 8th, 2010

Printer solid ink is used instead of liquid ink in special printers which melt wax based ink and spray it on to the paper.  The technology was first developed by Tektronix in the 1980’s . printer-solid-inkXerox bought out the company in early 2000 and launched its own range of solid ink printers. The latest models today are the Xerox Phaser 8500, Xerox Phaser 8550, and the Xerox Phaser 8860.

Solid Ink Printers have several advantages over conventional inkjet and laser toner printers these are.

Ease of Use – very easy to use some laser printers can be more complex

Fast Printing – Solid ink printers  are the fastest colour printers in there class.

Environmentally friendly – requiring significantly fewer supplies and maintenance items compared to laser technology.

Wide Range of Paper – Solid ink printers are less sensitive than laser printers when it comes to paper thickness and quality therefore print on a wider range of paper.

Compatible Supplies – Over 30% in savings can be made when compared to Xerox branded solid ink sticks. Media Sciences solid ink is backed by a comprehensive warranty and is the informed customer’s choice as the premium quality price alternative.

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The History of Brother Printers

February 5th, 2010

Founded by Kanekichi Yasui back in 1908, Brother started out as a Japanese sewing company. That’s right, a sewing company. However the company was not known as Brother International Corporation as it is today. Instead the company was under the name Yasui Sewing Maching Co. and a few years later the company was renamed Yasui Brothers’ Sewing Machine Co. Even after succeeding in mass-production of domestic sewing machines the company again changed names becoming Nippon Sewing Machine Manufacturing Co. in 1934.

By 1954, Brother International Corporation, as they are now called, became established as a successful exporting company overseas. Their success was followed by many years of expansion and advances into other fields such as knitting machines and home electric appliances. However, the Brother that we know of today really came into view in 1971, when they launched the world’s first high-speed dot-matrix printer

Soon to follow were the electronic typewriters in 1985 in which the focus began to shift toward more business oriented products and devices. As Brother progressed through the twentieth century we even see the addition of telecommunication equipment and electronic stationary as part of their production line. Despite such changes in direction, the company continued to produce sewing machines under various subsidiaries.

Driven by growth, Brother began producing multi-function devices in 2003. Recently expanding into countries such as China, Brother is still at the head of printer sales. Over many years Brother has produced a variety of products such as machine tools, typewriter, label printers, fax machines, and other computer related products. Recently in 2008 the company celebrated their first 100 years of business. Today the Brother Printer Company is as big a name as many of its contemporaries in the market like HP, Canon, and numerous others.

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Canon IP4200 Inkjet Printer Review

February 4th, 2010

Canon Pixma IP4200 Printer
The Canon IP4200 Inkjet printer is a budget friendly printer that, best of all, offers budget friendly ink cartridges. If you are searching for a printer that can print text and images on two sides of paper, this may be the right printer for you. The printer is a four-color inkjet, and it can alternate between different paper stock. It is a great printer for the amateur photographer or the scrapbook enthusiast. The printer has the ability to easily switch between different paper stocks due to its dual paper trays, and you can print photos with or without borders.  These print trays are capable of holding up to 300 sheets of paper.

Set up for the printer is easy, so if this is your first home printer, or you are a computer novice, you will not be frustrated with this product. Basic set up includes installing the USB cable to your computer and downloading the appropriate driver. If you are planning to use it for photograph printing – and you should! – be sure to install the optional photo organizing and editing software.

A frustration some may have with the printing capabilities is switching between trays. When working on a print job, it may be easy to send your project to the wrong print tray, resulting in text printed on photo paper or photos printed on regular paper stock. When you are first using the printer, it will be easier to focus on print destination, but once you are used to the printer, it is easier to make mistakes without thinking. Remember to keep this special feature in mind and watch out for mistakes so you do not waste photo paper stock. A great feature can become a nuisance quickly if you waste expensive photo paper!

The printer is of the four-color variety with 9,600 X 400 dpi color resolution. The Canon ChromoLife 100-ink system is supposed to resist fading for up to three decades, if you use Canon photo paper and keep the photo behind glass. The photo paper is reasonably priced at £3.00 – £6.00 for glossy or matte paper. If you keep your photos in an album with plastic protective sheeting, Canon claims they will last up to 100 years. This is great news for scrapbook buffs who want to preserve memories for future generations. The printer also has the ability to print on transparencies, envelopes, and letterhead quality stock.

The printer is user friendly and offers page setup options that include size and oritentation, background and watermark, and number of copies. You also have effects options like optimization, noise reduction, contrast adjustment, and sepia coloring. Your settings can be saved so no need for readjustment is needed from one project to the next. Color balance can be auto adjusted or you can do it manually, and if you prefer to print most jobs in grayscale, it requires only a checkbox before printing.

If you are worried about keeping tabs on the maintenance needs of your printer, there are options to make it simpler. You can check printhead alignment, bottom-plate cleaning, and nozzle checks and cleaning. A monitoring system notifies users when the Canon Ip4200 inkjet cartridges begin to run dry. From the drop-down menu, you can choose the paper type and print tray, continuous feed from both trays, and you can make choices for print type including draft, standard, and high-quality. There is also a custom setting with features like diffusion, dithered, or auto half-toning.

Ink refills are available for the very reasonable cost of between £6.00 and £14.00. You can purchase them in bulk for even greater savings. If you are looking for a simple, user-friendly printer that will not break the bank when it comes to replacing it with Canon Ip 4200 inkjet cartridges, give this printer a shot. Whether you are working from home or designing family scrapbooks, you will not be disappointed.

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Xerox Phaser 8500 – Media Sciences Compatible Solid Ink

February 3rd, 2010

Ink and Media Ltd are pleased to announce that we now supply compatible Xerox Phaser 8500 solid ink sticks manufactured by Media Sciences. Media Sciences compatible ink sticks for the  Xerox Phaser 8500 are without doubt a genuine alternative to using Xerox branded solid ink.

Xerox Phaser 8500 Solid Ink

Xerox Phaser 8500 Solid Ink

Media Sciences Solid Ink Sticks for the Xerox Phaser 8500 Give You

  • Brilliant Colour
  • Exceptional Value
  • Free Technical Support
  • 100% Risk Free
  • Full Protection Warranty
  • Meets or Exceeds The Original Manufacturers Product Quality and Coverage.

Buying your solid from Ink & Media you are guaranteed low prices and free delivery from the printer cartridge specialists. We constantly strive to lower the cost of printing and are the webs favourite specialist solid ink retailer.

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The Great Ink Cartridge Conspiracy

February 2nd, 2010

A few years ago in 2007, a Boston man filed a class action lawsuit against the Staples office store in the United States. He accused them of colluding with Hewlett Packard to keep ink cartridge prices high. The lawsuit alleged that HP paid Staples $100 million in market development funds to refrain from selling less expensive third party cartridges. The ink cartridges that were a generic Staples brand are no longer sold in their stores. This forces the hand of the consumer to replace their cartridges with the most expensive manufacturer’s option.

Since printer companies make the bulk of their money with cartridge replacement as opposed to printer sales, companies do everything in their power to push cartridge sales. Some consumers have reported purchasing a new printer just to avoid the cost of expensive printer cartridges. Companies realize this and fluctuate the cost of the cartridges in order to effect consumer behavior.

The ultimate goal of the printer company is to lock consumers into purchasing the products from the manufacturer. If the accusation against Staples and HP is true, eliminating other options from the market is a great way to ensure consumers purchase the one option available to them. Some printer companies have gone even further in ensuring that their printers will lock a consumer into one brand of ink.

These companies are installing chips in their printers that enable only one type of printer cartridge to operate in the printer. These chips disable third party ink cartridges, making them useless. Some ink company representatives say this type of jockeying for market share is common. Many consumers believe it violates anti-trust laws.

HP continues to deny its involvement in anticompetitive practices. They are also accused of giving Staples a cut of each cartridge the store sells. Obviously, this would encourage salespeople to push HP cartridges over all other options. If salespeople can not be trusted to do so, Staples would need to take further measures to eliminate the competition for HP. If the arrangement were found to be true, it would seem as if Staples were working in conjunction with HP to defeat all competition.

There are ways to avoid the high cost of manufacturer printing ink. It may require a bit of research, but if you choose a printer that does not include the exclusivity chip, you can purchase refurbished cartridges or third party cartridges. There is some risk involved with either of these choices, but there are now enough reputable options that if you look hard enough, you can easily find a safe, inexpensive alternative.

Printer ink can be one of the most costly expenses a small business faces. Even those using a printer at home for personal use may find that it is one of their more expensive office expenses. If you are concerned that companies like HP and Staples are abusing their power, consider your third party ink options. This may be the most cost-effective measures a printer owner can take to fill their printing needs.

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Solid Ink is Environmentally Friendly

January 28th, 2010

Solid ink colors: true, vibrant…and earth-friendly.

Solid ink’s cartridge-free design and minimal packaging, its nearly waste-free printing process and its safe, toxin-free solid ink sticks make it a very environmentally-conscious way to print.solid-ink-earth-friendly

Less consumables means less to throw away.

When a laser printer runs out of toner, you are left with big, bulky print cartridges that need to be disposed of. Not to mention other replaceables such as fusers and imaging units.

Solid ink printers use compact solid ink sticks with no cartridges. So when you run out of ink, there’s nothing left to throw away. And because the ink sticks are so small, there’s also less packaging to recycle. The only other replaceable unit is a maintenance roller. This lasts for tens of thousands of pages, so it only needs to be replaced a few times in the life of the printer.

“Over the 4 year life of a typical cartridge-based toner printer, the waste generated amounts to 450 lbs. A Xerox solid ink printer produces only 23 lbs. of waste!”

Save valuable real estate.

Besides drastically reduced landfill waste, Solid ink’s cartridge-free design and minimal packaging also means less energy used during manufacturing and less storage space for better transportation efficiency and fewer delivery trucks on the road — saving you shipping costs while benefiting the environment. Solid ink packages are small enough to fit in your desk drawer, saving your work environment too. There’s no need to take up an entire cabinet with printer supplies.

“A Xerox solid ink printer produces only 23 lbs. of waste!”

Multiple functions use less power.

When you choose a solid ink MFP, it does the work of several stand-alone office products (printer, copier, scanner and fax) while consuming less electricity.

More ways to save with solid ink

Efficient use of paper Standard features like automatic two-sided printing and copying and N-up printing fit more output onto a single sheet, saving time, trees and money.

Save more with free software With every Xerox solid ink printer or MFP you buy, you can download GreenPrint™ software for free. It automatically highlights and removes unwanted pages — like that last page with just a URL, banner ad, logo, or legal jargon — prior to printing. A reporting feature keeps track of the pages and money you’ve saved.

Scan to save paper The email and scan-to-fi le capabilities on solid ink MFPs replace the need to mail hardcopy documents, reducing paper inventories and minimizing the energy required to deliver documents by air or ground transportation.

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