It is always a pain in the neck when you run out of ink while printing a very important document – on a deadline. When everything fails, make sure you keep your cool and you know what to do next. Don’t worry! You’ll have that paper in your boss’ or professor’s desk in time – even if you run out of ink.
Undoubtedly, computer parts and accessories cost a lot. And you usually don’t realize when these parts would reach the end of their lifespan, so be sure you are prepared. Running out of ink is not a funny situation, not when you have a deadline for a paper. And buying a refill in the middle of the night is not exactly a fun thing to do. Now, you’d probably ask, “How do I keep my cool?” Here’s how: Know about ink refilling and do it yourself!
Ink refilling is popular nowadays, that it has even given birth to lots of ink-refilling stations. But that would mean another expense to you too, although it might be cheaper compared to buying a new ink cartridge. You can actually do the refilling yourself provided you have the materials and the knowledge how to do it.
Anybody who can read a manual would surely be able to get on with the task. Below is the list of what you should have and what you should do when refilling your own ink cartridge. Remember, keep your cool and don’t panic!
A place with a close access to running water is the best place to do the refilling. This is so as not to smear ink on furniture, other things most especially important documents.
The amount of ink to be refilled varies on the size of the cartridge. The cartridge states how many milliliters (ml.) of ink it can hold.
In your ink-refilling kit, a syringe is provided to draw the ink (of any color) to refill the empty (or near empty) cartridge. Along with it are bottles of ink of different colors, a bottle of cleaning solution especially designed for the sensitive parts of the cartridge and a user’s manual. Refer to the manual on how to properly inject the ink to the cartridge.
To transfer the ink from the syringe into the cartridge, there must be a very tiny hole (the size of the tip of a ball point pen) poked on top of the cartridge, near the label. Insert the needle of the syringe and slowly, very slowly inject the ink into the cartridge. It is necessary to do this process very slowly so that the ink would not form foam and the bubbles would prevent it from printing.
The newly created holes need not be sealed after refilling, as it would look like the other “breather” holes on top of the cartridge.
Left over ink inside the syringe can be returned to its original bottle. The syringe must be properly washed before using for another color. It is also preferable to use different syringes for different colors.
To make sure ink is not dripping out of the sponge, turn the cartridge upside down. Replace the cartridge back in the printer cradle, totally cleaned up. Run test print to see changes and to clear and clean any printing problems.
Few important things to remember:
It would be best to refill a near-empty cartridge than a totally empty one as dried up ink might cause clogging.
It would be best to let refilled ink cartridge stand overnight to let the newly injected ink even out.
It would be best to poke a tiny hole on top of the cartridge with UTMOST care so as not to cause a crack which will completely make it useless. Even a very thin crack might cause the newly refilled ink to dry up no sooner that when you put it in.
It would be best to inspect the cartridges to be refilled because there are some ink cartridges that say “Single Use Only”, and refilling it might cause damage to the printer especially when the ink injected is not the same with the previous content of the cartridge. Worse, when found out, the one who refilled it (you or some commercial refilling station) could face charges.
It would be best to check the cartridge (especially the newer models) for the green chip that keeps track of the levels of the ink. Its memory can be reset so as to be able to check the level of the cartridge with the newly-injected ink or when it is necessary to refill “again” before it has completely run out of ink.
Kamis, 08 Januari 2009
What Do You Do When Your Printer Runs Out of Ink and You Have a Rush Printing Job?
Home Wireless Network Security Issues
Running a business from home has its advantages, including no commute, a more accommodating work schedule, fresh coffee and home-cooked meals at any time you want.
But running a business from home using a home wireless local area network (WLAN) with your computer may lead to thievery of confidential information and hacker or virus penetration unless proper actions are taken. As WLANs send information back and forth over radio waves, someone with the right type of receiver in your immediate area could be picking up the transmission, thus acquiring access to your computer.
Here is a list of things that you should consider as a result of implementing a home wireless network setup used your business:
Viruses could be loaded onto your laptop which could be transferred to the company's network when you go back to work.
Up to 75 per cent of home wireless network WLAN users do not have standard security features installed, and 20 per cent are left completely open as default configurations and are not secured, but are made for the users to have their network up and running ASAP.
It is recommended that home wireless network router/access point system setups be always done though a wired client.
Always change the default administrative password on your home wireless network router/access points to a secured password.
Enable at least 128-bit WEP encryption on both card and access point. Change your WEP keys periodically. If equipment does not support at least 128-bit WEP encryption, consider replacing it. Although there are security issues with WEP, it represents minimum level of security, and it should be enabled.
Change the default SSID on your router/access point to a hard to guess name. Setup your computer device to connect to this SSID by default.
Setup router/access points so as to not broadcast the SSID. The same SSID needs to be setup on the client side manually. This feature may not be available on all equipment.
Setup your home wireless network router to block anonymous internet requests or pings.
On each computer having a wireless network card, network connection properties should be configured to allow connection to Access Point Networks Only. Computer to computer (peer to peer) connections should not be allowed.
Enable MAC filtering. Deny connection to wireless network for unspecified MAC addresses. MAC or physical addresses are accessible through your computer device wireless network connection setup and they are physically written on network cards. When adding new wireless cards / computer to the network, their MAC addresses should be registered with the router /access point.
Your home wireless network router should have firewall features enabled and demilitarized zone (DMZ) feature disabled. Periodically test your hardware and personal firewalls using Shields Up test available at http://www.grc.com. All computers should have a properly configured personal firewall in addition to a hardware firewall.
Update router/access point firmware when new versions become available.
Locate router/access points away from strangers so they cannot reset the router/access point to default settings. Also, locate router/access points in the middle of the building rather than near windows to limit signal coverage outside the building.
You should know that nothing is 100%. While none of the actions suggested above will provide full 100% protection, countermeasures do exist that will help. The good collection of suggested preventative actions contained herein can help you deter an intruder trying to access your home wireless network. This deterrant then makes other insecure networks easier targets for the intruder to persue.
Inkjet Printers – The Benefits For You
There are several different types of printers on the market today, but the inkjet printer is the dominant force. This is largely to do with inkjet printers being the more affordable option while still being able to produce a good quality output.
It may interest you to know that printer manufacturers do not actually make any profit or sometimes very little profit on the printers they sell. At first this probably sounds crazy, but is a well used business model that can be seen in practice in many other industries. This type of business practice was first used by Gillette to sell its razor blades. The reason the printer companies sell you the printers at a loss is that they aim to make their profits by selling you the ink for the printer. The printer companies have a huge mark up on the ink cartridges. This also explains why they are so keen to discourage consumers from buying replica ink cartridges.
How they work
The vast majority of home inkjet printers will use a thermal inkjet. Inkjet ink cartridges are pretty ingenious examples of modern technology in action. Without getting too technical lets take a look at how they actually work. Within the ink cartridge will be a series of electrically heated chambers. Ink is dispelled from the ink cartridge as an electric current is passed through the heating elements. This process causes a droplet of ink to be forced from the ink cartridge and onto the paper, with any surplus ink being sucked back into the chamber. This process is replicated many times over at high speed in order to print your chosen documents.
The thermal inkjet method is not the only method used. There are two other designs of called piezoelectric ink jets and continuous ink jet. These designs tend to be seen in more industrial or commercial printers.
Advantages
Ink jet printers are a fantastic invention. They are able to provide consumers with high quality prints at a very reasonable price. Do you remember the old dot matrix and daisywheel printers? If you do you will surely remember the amount of noise they used to make and the standard of print. In comparison ink jet printers are much quieter and also produce much higher quality. You can buy an inkjet printer that will produce photo quality picture prints, something that would have been impossible with a dot matrix!
Disadvantages
As we previously mentioned one drawback of the ink jet printer is the cost of printer cartridges, which can be quite expensive. The design of the ink cartridges does also mean that they are prone to clogging. As the ink used is water soluble it is also important to avoid even small amounts of water coming into contact with your finished document, as this will easily cause smudging. Another disadvantage is the possibility of an affect called bleeding. This is when the ink is carried side ways and results in a smudged document.
Consumer Tips
Buy non-branded ink cartridges. These are often less than half the price of the printer manufacturers ink cartridges, but just as good.
Buy an ink refill kit. This is another cheap way of buying ink, although you should only refill your ink cartridges a few times.
Buy your ink over the internet as you will find some fantastic offers.
Selasa, 06 Januari 2009
ATA vs. SATA Hard Drives
The last few years have witnessed some exhilarating developments in the manufacturing of hard drives with the introduction of larger caches, quicker spindle speeds, greater data transmission speeds, and better reliability.
ATA hard drives (generally known an IDE drives) are the hard drive type mainly used by most end user computers. Introduced in 1986, the ATA standard has seen many modifications to improve the size and speed of the hard drive which it can support. ATA-7, unleashed in 2001, can maintain data transfer rates up 133MB/sec.ATA-7 is thought to be the last model for the parallel ATA standard.
In the year 2000, hard drive manufacturers came up with a new hard drive standard called Serial ATA, most popularly SATA. The SATA hard drives overcame all the limitation of ATA such as electromagnetic interference (EMI), signal timing, and other data integrity issues. Within no time, SATA has become the basic standard for most computer users.
The following description elaborates on the differences between ATA and SATA.
Advanced Technology Attachment (ATA) is based on a 16 bit parallel interface and is generally used to control computer hard drives. Whereas, Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) is a single bit serial advancement of the Parallel ATA. SATA hard drives can easily be distinguished from ATA hard drives by the unique power and data connections used on the back of the hard drives.
When comparing ATA against SATA, SATA hard drives have performance benefits which set them apart from ATA hard drives. SATA drives are more suitable to install and draws less power. Another noted characteristic of SATA is the higher bandwidth that is possible. The latest models of ATA hard drives offer the highest data transfer rate of 133 MB/second. While the current SATA standard can provide data transfer of up to 150 MB/second.
According to Seagate, the performance of SATA drives over ATA drives can currently be expected to be about 5%. The developments in SATA technology will surely improve on that. The future of SATA bears great interest in computer users, the 600 MB/second SATA hard drives are expected around the year 2007, which will provide outstanding speed and performance.
When making a comparison of ATA hard drives and SATA hard drives, you may find SATA drives to cost more, but when considering the overall benefits of SATA drives over ATAs, it is worth spending a few extra dollars for SATA hard drives.
In short, the latest SATA hard drives provide noteworthy benefits over ATA hard drives when considering power consumption, convenience, and performance. Experts are in the process of creating more powerful SATA hard drives which will surely help hard drive developments to keep pace with other key system products to improve the overall performance of a computer system.
Check http://harddriveusa.com for additional resources on hard drives.
Computer Security – It’s Bigger Than Spyware And Viruses
Computer security, in basic terms means keeping your computer and the data that’s in it safe and secure. More of our personal data is stored in or accessed from our computer, now more than ever before. Yet most people lack even the basic understanding of how to keep their computers safe and secure. By following just a few simple rules you can dramatically improve the overall security of your computer.
The first thing to understand is what exactly it means to be connected to the internet. Your computer connected to the internet is similar to your house in many ways. There are many ways into your house. Windows, doors, etc. The more windows and doors you have, the more ways someone has into your house. An open door doesn’t necessarily mean you are going to be robbed, but it does improve the chances. Complicating matters, the ones that you think are locked, may not be because the lock is faulty or even the door itself may have an as of yet undiscovered flaw that would allow an intruder easy access to your home.
Your computer has many windows and doors, not all of which are locked. New flaws are being found everyday, often with the fix not coming until days after. Just like you wouldn’t leave your front door unlocked, you shouldn’t leave your computer wide open either. The first two things we will discuss to help with this task are installation of a quality firewall and regularly updating your installed software.
Updating your software is becoming easier these days, especially your Operating System. We don’t have the time here to go into detail about the many ways to update the many software packages you may have or use, but generally speaking the software manufacturer will provide you a way to do this automatically via the internet. A good example of this is the Microsoft Windows Update feature. Be sure to get the updates for everything installed on your computer, nothing is too trivial.
There are two basic types of firewalls and both perform the same functions. One is hardware the other is software. A hardware firewall is probably included in your router if you are using one, while you may or may not have a software firewall installed. To continue our house analogy, a firewall is like building a wall and gate around your home and giving the guard at the gate instructions on who to let in and out. While this does give a great deal of protection, it is not all that is required. Someone may know a way around or under your wall, or even be able to coerce the guard into letting them in.
You yourself may unwittingly allow someone in. This could happen by simply opening an email or even simply surfing the net. Spyware, viruses, trojans and the like are ever more adept in their methods of fooling you and your guards. Emails may come from a trusted friend containing a dangerous virus without them even knowing it. This is where the next layer of protection comes in, anti-virus software.
Anti-virus software is a large category these days. Often these packages come as “suites” including a firewall and Spyware scanner. While most of these programs are very effective in their promised tasks, it is not wise to be lulled into a false sense of security by them. They are simply one layer in what should be a multi tiered protection plan for you and your computer. One last important note about anti virus software is to be sure that it updates on a regular basis. New threats come out daily so check its updates manually to be sure they have happened.
Back to our house analogy, we now have all of our windows, doors and other entry ways locked and fully updated. We have a wall around our house with a guard at the gate and we have software scanning everything that comes in past the gate. Sounds pretty good, but there’s one last security hole we need to address, you.
A large percentage of infections are caused by the computer user themselves. The internet is an ever changing place that requires it’s users to be educated about its use. I’m not suggesting that you need to be a computer expert to simply read your email. I am however suggesting that you take some time to educate yourself on some of the dangers that pop up everyday, and the precautions to take in order to avoid them.
In summary, your computer is a powerful machine connected to one of the greatest things ever invented, the internet. This vast resource can be a dangerous place if you are not properly prepared and informed. Regular software updates, a good firewall, anti virus software and a little education are the basics in computer security. Having and understanding these basics will make your computer safer, more secure and more enjoyable.
Windows Vista - What To Look Foward To
Perhaps you have heard about the next new version of Microsoft Windows, called Vista? The Vista operating system has many promises to one great, stable and dynamic operating system. Not only will this operating system have the .Net framework built into the core of the operating system it will also feature some other key communications, user interface and security breakthroughs.
For instance Vista will utilize the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) which will greatly increase the aesthetic value of each application. Perhaps you may be familiar with a website developed with Flash animation software. Now picture the same type of functionality and aesthetics however instead of being restricted to a website format having the freedom to develop the interface so it is a true Windows application. Further, this WPF will allow for much easier and faster deployments of these applications through the use of "one click deployment" technology. If you are familiar with the updater application block and the BITS service then you are already familiar with innovation. However, instead of being some cumbersome application block you will be able to easily deploy these applications with just a few clicks from your development environment.
Secondly the Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) will provide a secure and reliable messaging platform which will allow for a new era in the creativity of application developers. This WCF will bring in a new time when true service oriented applications will become commonplace. This will make it much easier to connect businesses to each other and their customers.
The in built security mechanisms will make for a much more secure platform as well. Since this operating system is built around the .Net framework Code Access Security will be much easier to enforce and maintain. Code access security is when the author of the program can specify exactly what the program is allowed to do based upon the role of the user who is accessing the software. This will allow for a much finer grained security mechanism which will make software much more trustworthy by the end user.
Another feature of Vista is called SuperFetch. SuperFetch seems to be a caching mechanism for frequently used files so that the end user experiences fast response times and is not hindered by the background tasks that the operating system is performing. This will greatly speed up and perhaps cause less system crashes thereby making the OS much more stable.
One other great feature of Vista is its use of the sidebar and gadgets. Gadgets are small programs that either you or someone else has created that performs some frequently used task such as viewing the latest weather or traffic information from your desktop. Now this might seem to be a small feature but I am sure the general public will eat this feature up and it is one place where some new innovative software inventions might take place. It might even make managing your life that much easier.
Perhaps the best feature of Vista is its new ability to easily search through and organize your files for later retrieval. I cannot tell you how many times I have had to search my own hard drive for a file that I knew I created but could not remember where I stored it.
Let's face it Windows XP and Windows 2000 are by now old fashioned. The public needs a new operating system simply because the other's are beginning to show their age. It is time for an upgrade.
Why Easy To Use Software Is Putting You At Risk
Can Easy To Use Software Also Be Secure
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Anyone who has been working with computers for a long time will have noticed that mainstream operating systems and applications have become easier to use over the years (supposedly). Tasks that use to be complex procedures and required experienced professional to do can now be done at the push of a button. For instance, setting up an Active Directory domain in Windows 2000 or higher can now be done by a wizard leading even the most novice technical person to believe they can "securely" setup the operating environment. This is actually quite far from the truth. Half the time this procedure fails because DNS does not configure properly or security permissions are relaxed because the end user cannot perform a specific function.
If It's Easy To Develop, Is It Also Secure
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One of the reasons why operating systems and applications "appear" to be easier to work with then they use to is developers have created procedures and reusable objects to take care of all the complex tasks for you. For instance, back in the old days when I started as a developer using assembly language and c/c++, I had to write pretty much all the code myself. Now everything is visually driven, with millions of lines of code already written for you. All you have to do is create the framework for your application and the development environment and compiler adds all the other complex stuff for you. Who wrote this other code? How can you be sure it is secure. Basically, you have no idea and there is no easy way to answer this question.
Secure Environments Don't Exist Well With Complexity
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The reality is it may look easier on the surface but the complexity of the backend software can be incredible. And guess what, secure environments do not coexist well with complexity. This is one of the reasons there are so many opportunities for hackers, viruses, and malware to attack your computers. How many bugs are in the Microsoft Operating System? I can almost guarantee that no one really knows for sure, not even Microsoft developers. However, I can tell you that there are thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of bugs, holes, and security weaknesses in mainstream systems and applications just waiting to be uncovered and maliciously exploited.
How Reliable and Secure are Complex Systems?
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Let's draw a comparison between the world of software and security with that of the space program. Scientists at NASA have know for years that the space shuttle is one of the most complex systems in the world. With miles of wiring, incredible mechanical functions, millions of lines of operating system and application code, and failsafe systems to protect failsafe systems, and even more failsafe systems to protect other systems. Systems like the space shuttle need to perform consistently, cost effectively, and have high Mean-Time-Between-Failure(MTBF).
All in all the space shuttle has a good record. One thing it is not though is cost effective and consistent. Every time there is a launch different issues crop up that cause delays. In a few circumstances, even the most basic components of this complex system, like "O" rings, have sadly resulted in a fatal outcome. Why are things like this missed? Are they just not on the radar screen because all the other complexities of the system demand so much attention? There are million different variables I'm sure. The fact is, NASA scientists know they need to work on developing less complex systems to achieve their objectives.
This same principal of reducing complexity to increase security, performance, and decrease failures really does apply to the world of computers and networking. Ever time I here associates of mine talk about incredibly complex systems they design for clients and how hard they were to implement I cringe. How in the world are people suppose to cost effectively and reliably manage such things. In some cases it's almost impossible. Just ask any organization how many versions or different brands of intrusion detection systems they have been through. As them how many times the have had infections by virus and malware because of poorly developed software or applications. Or, if they have ever had a breach in security because the developer of a specific system was driven by ease of use and inadvertently put in place a piece of helpful code that was also helpful to a hacker.
Can I Write A Document Without A Potential Security Problem Please
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Just a few days ago I was thinking about something as simple as Microsoft Word. I use MS-Word all the time, every day in fact. Do you know how powerful this application really is? Microsoft Word can do all kinds of complex tasks like math, algorithms, graphing, trend analysis, crazy font and graphic effects, link to external data including databases, and execute web based functions.
Do you know what I use it for, to write documents. nothing crazy or complex, at least most of the time. Wouldn't it be interesting that when you first installed or configured Microsoft Word, there was an option for installing only a bare bones version of the core product. I mean, really stripped down so there was not much to it. You can do this to a degree, but all the shared application components are still there. Almost every computer I have compromised during security assessments has had MS-Word installed on it. I can't tell you how many times I have used this applications ability to do all kinds of complex tasks to compromise the system and other systems further. We'll leave the details of this for another article though.
Conclusion
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Here's the bottom line. The more complex systems get, typically in the name of ease of use for end users, the more opportunity for failure, compromise, and infection increases. There are ways of making things easy to use, perform well, and provide a wide variety of function and still decrease complexity and maintain security. It just takes a little longer to develop and more thought of security. You might think that a large part of the blame for complex insecure software should fall on the shoulders of the developers. But the reality is it is us, the end users and consumers that are partially to blame. We want software that is bigger, faster, can do just about everything, and we want it fast. We don't have time to wait for it to be developed in a secure manner, do we?
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Original URL (The Web version of the article)
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http://www.defendingthenet.com/NewsLetters/WhyEasyToUseSoftwareIsPuttingYouAtRisk.htm