An Easy Way to Build a Home Network

If you have more than one computer at home, you are probably better off connecting them or networking them together to use the same resources and receive the same Internet connection.  A home network is very easy to build.  Here are some tips.

There are two main types of home networks, wired and wireless.  While wired home networks are popular, but they require you to run wires from one computer to another.  You might have to drill holes in a wall or run wire under the carpet. 

If you don't want cords running all over the place, you can easily get rid of them with a wireless home network.  Wireless home networks are extremely simple to set up.  You only need a wireless router and a wireless networking card for each additional computer, you would like to hook up.  Most wireless networks can send and receive data lightning fast at megabytes per second. 

Wireless networks are extremely inexpensive, you can hook up a few computers for less than $200.  The great part of wireless networks is that all computers on the wireless network can use the same Internet or other resources such as a scanning machine and printer.  So if you are looking for a great way to share data and resources among your home computer, choose to build a home network.

More information is available at http://www.home-00.info

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Comparing Inkjet and Lazer Printer

In the early days there was a vast difference between an inkjet printer and its laser version but with time the difference has narrowed down to point where it is sometimes difficult to differentiate between the two. Most individuals continue to use the Inkjet printers, as they are less expensive and nearly all of them are colour capable. The quality of the inkjet printers has improved over time and now there is not a huge difference in printing quality with the Laser printers. It?s therefore that small or home business can use an inkjet printer without having to worry about documents looking unclear or looking cheap.

The laser printer is capable of printing much faster and usually produces better quality image, it is far more expensive as compared to the Inkjet version. Laser printers are usually used for black printing but there are colour laser printers available now.

Having pointed that out, it is also useful to note that the general rule of the thumb for printers is the lesser the cost of the printer, the more expensive, the running cost?. This could however depend on the volume of printing the printer is being used for. If the printing volume were minimal, it would be more cost effective to use an inkjet printer. It is very easy to get carried away by the initial price of an inkjet printer but people buying them are often not aware that the running cost of the machine would play a huge part and should be factored into the decision making.

This would be better understood with an example. Let us consider a Canon i320 colour bubble jet printer. It usually does not cost more than ?30 obviously subject to the discounts applicable at your store. The cost of a cartridge is usually in the ?10 range and on an average it prints 170 pages. Even if you print as few as 7 pages a day that work out to 2100 pages over the year. This in turn work out to an annual expense of about ?135.  The amount one spends on cartridges is about 4 times the price of the printer in the first year that itself. This is the reason the subsequent expenditure needs to be considered while buying a printer.

Inkjet printers come with some added problems that need to be looked at considered.

1.    To begin with they are not as fast as the Laser printers. This is one reason why Inkjet printers are not recommended when printing needs to be done in large volumes.
2.    They are known to throw up cartridge error messages even though the cartridges might be working just fine. This is not to say that Inkjet printers are always problematic but these are just a few errors that do crop up once in a while.
3.    The print cans also start going haywire sometimes and it may start printing in endless loops.
4.    It is often difficult to minimize and regulate the amount of ink being used in the Inkjet printers.
5.    There is a difference in quality of an Inkjet print and a laser print. Often the laser print is of better quality.

It is therefore that the laser printers sales have taken of in a very big way in spite of being a more expensive buy.

However, in comparison to the laser printers, there are a few positives about the inkjet printers, which are more suitable to the requirements of a small or home business where they do not need to print as many in terms of volumes.

Colour laser printers have been around for sometime but they were frightfully expensive a few years ago. A recent study found that last year nearly 1.85 million colour laser printers were sold, a substantial growth from the previous year. Many offices are going in for the colour page printers. This is however not recommended if you do not need to print fliers or brochures in large volumes consistently.

There are a few other advantages that come with a laser printer, for example:

1.    Using a duplex unit: This would enable the user to print back to back. This is particularly useful for creating brochures and leaflets.
2.    Add a paper drawer: This would reduce the number of user interventions and in turn reduces the printer errors
3.    Assigning different paper trays for different drafts prints different documents without messing about with the tray each time.
4.    An Ethernet or a wireless network card can be added to the printer to attach it to a network. This functionality can be availed in the laser printer.

This is just to outline the benefits of using each kind of printer. This is aimed at helping the user to weigh the pros and the cons before buying a printer.

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