Empty Toner

Well my last entry was about how to solve the dreaded Empty Toner feeling. It is quite depressing - it signifies shelling out more cash on that little printing machine. Why do we have to print out everything - I cleverly bought a laser printer with a network card and connected it to all the PCs in the house.

My laser behemoth is uber-efficient (until the Empty Toner message appears) - but it takes 2 minutes to warm up and sounds like a Sopwith Camel starting up until it's ready to print.

I sit in my Office and hear the thing start up - 'chocks away fellas' , "stand back boys and girls" - a trifle irritating when

a) you didn't send anything to print
b) you're trying to concentrate on a pointless redesign of a DNS infrastructure
c) it's hot in your office and the printer makes it hotter.

Finally it finishes after beeping - empty toner at me again and making me press enter to continue.

At last my super fast laser printer leaps into action and prints out 120 copies in full photo-quality colour of Thomas the Tank Engine next to Gordon. briefly half way I toy with the idea of cancelling the print or whipping out the paper tray ( but I now what happens then!)

But no - Empty Toner it told me it will stop in minute - not bloody likely it had just enough toner to finsh the last blue smoke stack on Gordons beautiful engine - excuse me - arggggggggggggggggggggggg!

So now I really am in Empty Toner land - so back I go to my good friends at-Toner top up

I do wonder why those two engines really need so much colour - I mean what's wrong with black and white.

Welshgadgets,

How To Refill a Toner Cartridge

The art of how to refill a toner cartridge is lost in time - your friendly printer manufacturer doesn't want you to do this because you will upset their profits.

I used to go through stages 1-5 regularly.....

1) Swear at printer as the ink fades half way through your vital 200 page report.
2) Your laser printer beeps annoyingly reminding you to refill the toner cartridge.
3) You search desperately for the spare set you promised you'd buy (but didn't)
4) You search in mounting horror on the internet as you discover that to replace the toner cartridges is going to cost a fortune.
5) you realise why Lexmark where knocking £200 off this laser printer!
6) This time you visit Toner Topup
7) Speak with chap who seems to know an awful lot about refilling toners (and wonder if he gets asked to parties a lot)
8) Order kit with replacement ink for about 35% of cost of new cartidges
9) Next morning follow - How to Refill a Toner cartridge instructions.
10) Ten minutes later finish refilling the four cartridges.
10) Sucks to you Lexmark - back up and printing again.

Thanks Toner Top Up guys !!!
TonerTopup

Viral Blogging

For those who want to tap into the viral blogging craze this might be of interest.

I've just downloaded a report Ultimate
Viral Blogging System For Webmasters and have to say it looks pretty interesting to say the least. If you want to virally grow your web traffic, and boost your search engine rankings with a ton of backlinks, this report is definitely for you. I managed to get a free copy of the 50 page report, and you should be able to get it from the link above, but hurry as it's going to return to it's regular $67 price tag at any time!


welshgadgets

Acer 57157Z

I was in PC world the other day and heard another poor sap being talked into buying a £1100 laptop by a aherm PC world laptop expert. This old chap would take home his laptop and eventually get it onto the internet and browse the BBC and Times web sites. Few months later he might search for a holiday or type up a few notes.

And that's it - using approximately 2% of his laptops power and no the argument of future proofing doesn't work either - because the specs of laptops consistently rise.
A few years ago even the bottom of the range laptop would cost you about a grand.

If you only want to surf the web, send the odd email don't be suckered into buying something you don't need.

Thsi little machine from ACER is perfect for browsing the web and basic computing stuff - sure it's not tough enough to be lugged around trains, planes and offices - but if looked after and used to surf and type emails at home it's fine.

Acer 5715Z

A few years down the line it will be outdated and you can buy another one if need be - still saving hundreds of pounds !!

welshgadgets

Open Pandora - GPX2

Don't know if you've ever come across this but once upon a time there was a revolutionary handheld games machine called the GPX2. It ran on Linux and was about the same size as a PSP or DS the latest versions the FX200 even had a touch screen.

It had some fantastic games - ran a whole host of emulators to support SNES, arcade, Amiga,Atari, BBC, spectrum to name but a few and a whole host of converted roms. If you still missed playing ELite on yoru bbc you could load it up on an FX2 no problems.

http://gp2x.co.uk/

The FX2 deserved to be much more popular than it was - it still did pretty well - you could read books, play movies or surf t he web on it . Most programs could be loaded onto an SD card and run from there - loads of games available for free :)

Well it's now gone company have stopped manufacturing although you can probably still pick them up on Ebay ( you won't find mine there though!!)

The reason - a new hand held console - promising the most powerful handheld ever - backed by Opensource principles. It's name is Pandora - I'll tell you about it on this site soon.

welshgadgets

Panasonic TH37PX80B

If you're looking for a reasonably sized Plasma. It might be worth checking out
the Panasonic TH37PX80B. It's been reviewed by most of the experts and always seems rated - WhatHifi gave it 5 stars and said - wonderful images and great freeview 'stunning'

Sounds pretty good to me and if you're fussy about images it has to be plasma at the moment - especially as the price differences are negligible.

Panasonic don't seem to do much wrong anywhere at the moment - they even do the best breadmakers !!!

Welshgadgets

Bosch Rotak 43

Well risking being called Lawnmower man (do you remember that film - rather strange I thought!)

I found out my friend has the upgraded version of the Bosch Rotak 40 which I own the Bosch Rotak 43 .

So I thought I'd have a quick go to check - hmm this is definitely a sign of getting old - I should be borrowing money, drugs or women not lawnmowers !!!

No real surprises it's pretty much like my Bosch Rotak 40 but instead of a power lead it has two Lion batteries. apparently they last about 20 minutes each depending on the grass. It's quite a lot more money but not having to dance around a wire makes it way easier - you could mow a huge lawn with 20 minutes of battery power and you can pop the spare battery in when required.

I'm impressed quite a bit more money so I need to offload my rotak 40 first - my garage is beginning to look like a museum of grass cutting devices


Welshgadget

Bosch Rotak 40

Lawnmowers - can't stand them. First the problem that apart from a day or two after mowing your lawn never looks perfect (while mine doesn't), the second that getting my lawnmower out is such a pain.

It's a beast of a machine and I feel sure that if my house somehow spontaneously exploded amidst the wreckage my lawnmmower would survive. But it's still a pain and now it doesn't work because of a little rubber bulb all that metal and high craftmanship means it can't cut a single blade of grass !

But the good news for about 1/4 of the cost I bought a cheapish plastic lawnmower which weighs nothing and cuts the grass brilliantly,

Step up the Bosch rotak 40 - well worth a look.

And in fact it's so good I would have to say the one without the power lead is a worthwhile buy although it's a bit more expensive because of it's ermm ion battery power thing.

Bosch rotak 43

Welshgadgets