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The KeyScan KS810 looks like a standard keyboard at a glance: But there’s a sheet-fed scanner lets you insert documents for imaging into a slot in the upper right portion of the device. Documents are fed through the imaging circuitry, located secretly under your right hand, and they come out from the bottom of the device (small documents, like business cards will pop back out the top). That’s quite unique huh.

With slightly larger than a normal keyboard, the KeyScan KS810 scans media up to 8.5 inches wide and 30 inches long at a maximum resolution of 600 dpi (dot per inch). Software, including OCR capabilities, included in the box; once you setup everything installed and running you’ll have all what you need to make scans reasonably easily and with minimal difficulties. While the software lacks polish and could use some user interface help, it largely works as advertised, and can even be set to scan docs to PDF or to email without even having to push a single button. It’s quite handy, especially considering you don’t even need to go away from your keyboard to do the scanning job, and the resulting scans looked very good as they did on a flatbed multifunction printer or scanner.
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Shock no. 4: Toshiba New Gen. Re-writable Printer: Do you always buy a new set of blank papers for every printing job? If yes, now you don’t have to buy it again! We have a new generation printer for you!

A giant company: Toshiba has now come up with a printer that allows you to use the same paper up to 500 times. The only problem is that it is a very special paper that comes at a very special price.
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Laptop computers helped the desk-bound to combine productivity with mobility. Now, busy people can do even more on the move with the advent of Wi-Fi printing, according to the experts from Lexmark(1).

Wireless computing has become much more commonplace recently with the adoption of laptops, but many people still are not reaping the benefits of Wi-Fi printing. That’s because wireless solutions for the home have been costly to buy and complicated to install and use – until now.

Lexmark’s new line of wireless printers is both affordable and easy for any customer to install, putting the power of wireless within reach for more people than ever before. Families who have cut the cord between their computers and their printers can be more productive. Besides the freedom to print wherever they work best in their home, wireless printers enable multiple users to print to the same device. And, with wireless all-in-one printers, users can print, fax, scan and access media card slots all wirelessly.

 [eminimall type="" products="lexmark printer"]

Going wireless
Need to know how to set up wireless printing? You might be surprised at how easy it is. You need:

• A wireless-enabled computer. Many computers made over the last three years are already wireless capable, or they can operate wirelessly with adapters.

• A wireless router. This will serve as your Wi-Fi access point, the hub of your network.

• Broadband Internet access. While you can use your wireless router without any Internet access at all, or use dial-up, experts agree that there’s real value in accessing online content via DSL or cable and making it available to every computer in your house. The cost of doing so, like with the hardware, has dropped dramatically in the past several years.

• A wireless all-in-one printer. By combining printing, scanning, copying and faxing, these all-in-one printers save time and money.  One easily installed device centrally located in the house makes it easier to share.

When you set up your network using the wireless router, you’ll need to identify that network on each of your wireless computers and during the installation process for your Lexmark wireless printers or all-in-one devices. You’ll be asked about your service set identifier (SSID), which is basically the name of your network. Don’t forget to consider the security of your network early in your decision process.

• Common security types for networks include WEP, WPA and WPA2, and there is usually also an option for no security. At a minimum, you should look for WPA or WPA2 security and follow the manufacturer’s instructions to encrypt your signal and set your own password. A password isn’t mandatory, but if you don’t use one, it’s far easier for others to access your network, and potentially your computer.

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This is not an easy question to answer because there are so many options out there, so before we can start to answer your question we need to ask you some questions.What will you use the printer for, is it:

Purely for home use, kids homework etc.
For printing high quality photos
For small office use – mainly documents, but with some requirement for colour- For office or business use [high speed documents]

1. For home use

Needs to be easy to use and low cost to run, so that you can afford to print off those school projects and loads of web page information without having to take out a second mortgage. DO NOT BUY HP, Lexmark or Dell. These manufacturers all use an ink cartridge with a built in print head, but also use a method which puts three different colours all in one cartridge – when one colour is run out the cartridge is finished. Epson, Canon and Brother all use a technology where the print head is built into the printer, so as you finish one colour you just replace that ink tank – a much cheaper option immediately. These days, I would recommend looking for a Multi-Function device, that is a printer that is also a scanner, copier and printer all in one. Basically one machine will print documents from your PC, but will also allow you to scan documents back into the PC again and Photo Copy documents whenever you need them. All of the major manufacturers offer these types of machines so costs are very competitive, the thing you need to know is the cost of owning and using them.

When you start looking at the cost of ink cartridges the immediate thing that jumps out is the price differential between original and compatible or refilled cartridges. For home use the compatible/refilled cartridges are more than adequate for purpose. Compatible cartridges are manufactured by third party manufacturers and are generally significantly cheaper than the Manufacturers original cartridges.

So, we need a Multi-Function printer, made by Epson, Canon or Brother and we now get down to personal preference. For ease of use and ease availability of competitively priced ink cartridges, I personally recommend Brother products – my daughter at University has one and is delighted with the results.

This also fulfills the requirements for No 3 – Small office/Home office use; one device in a small footprint which will fulfill three requirements – once again Brother wins out in my opinion.

So I have covered options 1 and 3 above, next number 2 photo printing;

There are two different types of photo printers, Canon ,Samsung and Kodak produce 4 x 6? photo printers, which use a ribbon technique called dye sublimation printing. These produce a very high quality print which is equivalent to or better than that produced by traditional silver halide photo processing in shops etc, the drawback is that you are limited to the sizes that you can print and it can also be expensive.

Your other option is an inkjet printer. To be able to print high quality photos you must have at least six colours available, and some of the top end printers now use up to 10 different colour cartridges. Using these inks and good quality inkjet photo paper, the output you can achieve is breathtaking and in many cases better than traditional methods of outputting photos. Which one to choose is a really difficult question and probably revolves more around your personal preferences and the thickness of your wallet than anything else. My own personal preference is for the new Canon Pixma printers, results achieved with their new Chromalife 100 inks are stunning, the inks are guaranteed for up to 100 years (with some caveats!) and they are using semiconductor manufacturing technology for the print heads which enables the printers to produce superb output every time.

Finally number 4, office use.

With the advent of Colour Laser printers for under ?200 there is no argument – go for a colour laser. These days they are small footprint, usually networkable and the toner used is a Chemical toner which will give outstanding results. They will print faster than an inkjet printer, the cost per page is less than an inkjet printer and they are much more robust than an inkjet printer. We also offer compatible toner cartridges for a large range of laser toners, so the running costs are significantly reduced. The biggest issue we found using these printers here at Stinkyink Towers was they were a bit fussy about the quality of the paper we were putting through them. We can’t get away with the very cheapest 80gsm copier paper, but still use an 80gsm laserjet paper which goes through all of our machines very happily and causes us no problems at all. If you can afford it look at the Multi-Function machines, again up to 4 applications in one small(ish) footprint. We have an HP MFP(Multi Function Printer) which includes a fax, Network printer, scanner and copier all in one machine and is reasonable to run

In summary then, for home/small office use get hold of a Brother Multi Function inkjet printer, cheap and easy to use and run. For High Quality Photo Printing you won’t go far wrong with one of the new Canon Pixma Photo printers and finally for Office use a colour laser or MFP device

I hope that this distillation of our collective wisdom is of use, if you need any more information please feel free to give us a call.

By: Dimi Petrova