PC Tips
September 20, 2010 – 3:50 pmFollowing a Wordpress upgrade, I've added a new help page on "PC Tips" (see link in header). This post also gives you a chance to comment on the topic.
Following a Wordpress upgrade, I've added a new help page on "PC Tips" (see link in header). This post also gives you a chance to comment on the topic.
Imported Printers
September 20, 2010 – 3:49 pmFollowing a Wordpress upgrade, I've checked over the help page on "Import Printers" (see link in header). This post also gives you a chance to comment on the topic.
Computer Monitors
September 20, 2010 – 3:48 pmFollowing a Wordpress upgrade, I've checked over the help page on "Computer Monitors" (see link in header). This post also gives you a chance to comment on the topic.
Canon Printers
September 20, 2010 – 3:47 pmFollowing a Wordpress upgrade, I've checked over the help page on "Canon Printers" (see link in header). This post also gives you a chance to comment on the topic.
Bubblejet printer inks
September 20, 2010 – 3:45 pmFollowing a Wordpress upgrade, I've checked over the help page on "Bubblejet Printer Inks" (see link in header). This post also gives you a chance to comment on the topic.
Hewlett-Packard bubblejet print error indication
December 22, 2007 – 6:41 pmI use a little Hewlett-Packard bubble-jet printer at work (don't remember the number and now it's the Xmas hols...) It sometimes plays up with the green and orange lights flashing alternately and the print halts. When re-started it ejects the paper and then the same happens again. Tried changing the black & colour ink tank/heads but this didn't consistently cure the problem. Leaving it off for a while sometimes helped. I suspect that this behaviour means it detects some component as over-heating or jamming.
Inkjet “efficiency”
August 19, 2007 – 6:10 pmThe “efficiency†of an inkjet printer is the proportion of ink that gets onto the paper. This depends on the detail design of the printer. Printers with separate ink tanks are known to use much more ink than those which have combined ink/print head cartridges, as in the former the head has to last much longer and requires more cleaning to remove stray dust and air bubbles which might get into the system when the ink tanks are taken out. Separate tank designs have efficiencies around 50-60%, while combined cartridge designs have efficiencies up to around 95%. So which is cheaper to run? There is no clear winner, as the higher cost of integral head/ink tank units balances out the greater efficiency, and the varying costs of manufacturer\'s recommended papers is a further factor..
Edible Printing
August 19, 2007 – 6:08 pmYes, you can print on edible paper using edible colour inks in an inkjet printer, and then stick the paper on your cakes and such. You can't re-use the printer for ordinary printing, as you mustn't mix the edible and non-edible inks, for obvious reasons. The edible ink is a third-party ink. I've encountered a few of these jobs which came in for head blockage problems (no surprise there then).
Ink absorber full/waste ink tank full
August 19, 2007 – 6:06 pmThis message comes up in two steps with Canon bubblejet printers. First there is a warning, then the printer refuses to work at all. What has happened is that the software has determined that sufficient head cleaning/purging has taken place to fill the waste ink absorber with waste ink. [It also means that you have spent rather a lot of money on ink, and that you may have used the printer more than was altogether prudent for a home/small office machine.] This problem can not be solved by the user. You must take or send it to a service centre, where a technician will remove the old ink absorber, clean up any internal ink mess (a job seemingly made much more difficult and messy if the customer has been using cheap non-original inks) and enter a reset code to clear the "ink absorber full" condition. [With some printers, no internal cleaning at all was ...
Print Quality
August 19, 2007 – 6:02 pmPrint quality: There is more to getting good quality prints than putting some ink cartridges in the printer and grabbing a handful of paper. This is particularly important when printing photos. Manufacturers recommend that you use their original ink, that you use their brand of paper, or other recommended paper, and that you use the correct paper settings in the printer driver. Now what does the last item mean? (Find Paper Settings for your printer) If you explore the settings in your printer driver (Start/Printers and faxes/right click on the relevant icon, find Properties). Somewhere in here under preferences, page Setup or suchlike you should find the paper settings, typically with a drop-down list of “Plain paper†followed by a lot of other varieties from the manufacturer's recommended paper list. If you don't, or can't, select the paper you are actually using, the print profile applied to the paper will be wrong and the results ...