Hardware Upgrade Tip of the Day #13



*1. ALL-IN-ONE OFFICE GEAR          
  
HP's latest multipurpose office appliance is called the LaserJet 
1100a. It prints (up to eight pages per minute), scans (at 600 
dots per inch), and copies documents (even if your PC is turned 
off). The 1100a costs $499. Read more at  

http://www.hp.com/printers/lj1100/1100a.html


*2. SMARTMEDIA READER          
  
Hagiwara Sys-Com U.S. offers a SmartMedia card reader that 
attaches to your PC via a USB port. SmartMedia cards are 
currently used as storage for digital cameras. Hagiwara's 
FlashGate reader will make it easier to save and transfer images 
from a camera to a desktop or notebook. Visit Hagiwara at  

http://www.hscus.com


*3. CABLE MODEMS FOR BUSINESS          
  
@Home Networks at 

http://work.home.net 

now offers the @Work Remote service that allows businesses to pay 
for employees' telecommuting over high-speed cable modems. The 
service comes for a flat fee and includes no usage fees.


*4. PRINTER TIPS (PART 1 OF 3)          
  
How many times a week do you get stuck reloading your printer's 
paper tray? Small office printers generally come with fairly 
small paper trays but offer larger ones as options. It can be an 
extra chunk of change you hadn't expected, but if you do decide 
on a larger tray, go for the biggest you can afford. Minolta, for 
example, offers a huge 2,500-page model for the PageWorks 25 for 
an additional $1,099. Read more at 

http://www.minoltaprinters.com


*5. PRINTER TIPS (PART 2 OF 3)          
  
When shopping for a printer, most of us get caught up in print 
quality and print speed. While these are important factors in a 
printer purchase, they are certainly not the only concern. Always 
remember that replacing toner and other consumables, as well as 
clearing paper jams, will be regular activities. So, take a look 
under the hood. Some printers are designed well on the inside and 
some are not. Does your hand fit where it needs to? Are the 
internal levers flimsy or solid? Do the covers swing open easily 
or does it feel like you're prying open a can of soup? A few 
minutes spent examining printer internals could save you months 
(if not years) of office anguish.


*6. PRINTER TIPS (PART 3 OF 3)          
  
How fast is your printer? If you bought one recently, you can 
probably recite the pages-per-minute (ppm) number that the vendor 
(or salesperson) touted. Unfortunately, that number doesn't mean 
much. There is no standard for printer speed testing, so vendors 
come up with their own recipes for the calculation, and you can 
be certain the rating has almost nothing to do with the 
performance you'll see in your office. If possible, see a 
prospective printer in action with the type of documents you 
normally produce, before you buy. Watching a demo, rather than 
reading a vendor Web site, will give you a much better sense of a 
printer's actual speed.


*7. WIRELESS CONNECTION BETWEEN BUILDINGS          
  
Are you trying to span the distance between two buildings with 
your wireless LAN? If so, you'll most likely need antennas to 
help pick up the weak signal transmission. Maxtech offers a 
selection of wireless LAN antennas that can be mounted indoors 
or outdoors. Learn more at 

http://www.maxtech.com


*8. WIRELESS LAN PRODUCTS AREN'T ALL ABOUT THE HOME          
  
There's a lot of excitement surrounding the home-network category 
of products that include phone line-based, electrical 
power-based, and wireless solutions. But don't let this 
excitement draw your attention away from new wireless office LAN 
products. This fall, 3Com and other players will introduce 
new-technology wireless LAN products that will ramp up wireless 
connection speeds to 11 Mbps or higher. These products won't 
likely be as easy to install as home-network products, but they 
will still provide increased flexibility in 
office-network architecture.


*9. MULTIPLY AND CONQUER WITH PRINTERS          
  
In this fast-paced high-tech world, it's still a good idea to 
periodically consider low-tech solutions to your problems. You 
could save yourself some real time and money--and still get all 
your work done.  

For example, printer sharing remains one of the top desires for 
small offices--even those offices that have no networking between 
PCs. But think about the fact that the desire to share printers 
arose at a time when printers, particularly color inkjet 
printers, were very expensive. It made sense to try to share them 
among several people and PCs. Now, though, we can find color 
inkjet printers for less than $100 apiece from companies like 
Lexmark, Canon, Apollo, and others. At this price, a reasonable 
cost-saving alternative to printer sharing might be printer 
non-sharing. Depending on the configuration of your office, you 
might save money and time by purchasing more than one printer and 
attaching them to PCs where they are needed.


*10. PERIPHERALS FOR YOUR SET-TOP BOX          
  
Here's a message for set-top box newbies, from those who have 
used products like WebTV for some time: Make sure any set-top box 
you buy has a printer port and that it supports a printer you 
have or plan to buy. Without a printer, using your set-top box is 
like peering through the window of a perpetually closed candy 
store--you can never walk away with the goods. A printer lets you 
make a hardcopy of that new recipe, product instruction sheet, 
online article, or e-mail from the grandkids.
