If It Prints, I'll Let You Know

Nowadays, Epson Seiko printers can be seen all over the world, from offices in China to households in the United States of America. Epson Seiko dominates a fair share of the printing solutions market. It first started as a watch manufacturing company. They became renowned due to their quartz timers, which made them really popular in the Asian market for several decades. Things changed thanks to the task assigned to them during the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games.

After the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games, Epson Seiko started manufacturing electronic printers. From a company known as special watchmakers, Epson Seiko became printers with their production of the EP-101. Then in the 1990’s, their piezoelectric crystal technology allowed them to revolutionize the creation of printers.

By 1994, Epson Seiko started mass-producing printers that casual consumers can afford. They even released a high-resolution printer that allowed photographers and picture enthusiasts to print without spending much cash.

From watchmakers to printing solutions magnate, Epson Seiko dominates the industry.

For full version of this article, please visit “How did Epson Seiko Start in Printer Business?”

There may be inconveniences in store for professionals who do quite a bit of traveling and consumers who routinely purchase electronics gadgets online. Perhaps in line with recent attempts at breaching airline security, the U.S. Department of Transportation is thinking about instituting even tougher rules surrounding small battery-powered devices and batteries themselves that are shipped by air or brought along when traveling by air.

A feature on PC World shared that early this year, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) had revealed that they would like to remove the current exceptions being applied to small lithium cells and batteries – generally defined as those that have capacities of less than 100 watt-hours. A typical laptop battery will have a capacity of between 60 to 80 watt-hours.

The PHMSA justified their proposal by saying that changing the rules will “force vendors and transport companies to use stronger packaging and cut down on the number of accidents.”

Jim Oberstar, Minnesota Democratic Representative and chairman for House Transportation and Infrastructure, was quoted with the following statement: “Under existing regulations, a flight crew may not be made aware of a pallet containing thousands of lithium batteries on board the aircraft, yet a five-pound package of flammable paint or dry ice would be subject to the full scope of the regulations.”

If a change does take place, defibrillators, iPads and battery-powered hearing aids will be affected. Travelers will no longer be allowed to keep extra alkaline or rechargeable nickel-metal-hydride (NiMH) batteries in luggage that they check-in.

You have finally gotten tired of lugging a fully-loaded laptop around – or rushing back to your dorm room each time you need to type something up. So what is a bedraggled university student or a backache-suffering professional on the go to do? Get a Netbook, of course.

So it’s cheap and cannot do as much as your high powered laptop, but if you’re just taking notes for class or going away for a two-day trip, then a Netbook can definitely come in handy. Gaming will not be one of the uses that a Netbook will be great at – but if you’re bored out of your mind in an airport lounge, it would be nice to have a choice of games to choose from as you bide your time.

CNET’s Dan Ackerman shares a compilation of games that can be played on a Netbook, which we are in turn sharing with you.

Gabriel Knight: Sins of Fathers. The central character in this game is a detective-turned-paranormal-investigator. This particular game is the first in what is considered as a classic adventure game series. It works well with the small screen and low resolution of a Netbook.

Alien vs. Predator Classic 2000. This game may be a decade old, but it still is considered as a game worth playing. This version has been “tweaked” to run on modern PCs, and players can choose to assume the character of a human, an alien or a predator.

Duke Nukem 3D. Again, another classic, but for some gamers there is still nothing like old-school. This one is said to provide “tons of great one-liners and pop culture in-jokes.”

In the real world, one factor that is used as a gauge for when you have arrived is when even the bigwigs want to be like you. This fact may be subject to argument, but we could not think of a better analogy when we read various reports sharing that Google’s Gmail is off to try and challenge Facebook and provide what it can offer.

A feature on USA Today shares that Google will be beefing the Gmail application up with social media tools that are unmistakably Facebook-esque. Among these are the incorporation of photo and video sharing within Gmail as well as a tool that can be used to provide status updates. There will reportedly be a press conference at the Google headquarters in Mountain View, California, where the new features will be presented.

At this time, Google still reigns supreme as far as visitor traffic is concerned. It is hailed as the “number one most visited website” by measurement service ComScore Media Metrix, with 173 million visitors from the US alone in December. This figure marks a 16% increase from the site’s performance the same period the previous year.

Facebook, however, is catching up. It placed as number four among the most visited sites in December with 111.8 million visitors. Their rate of increase from December of the previous year, however, is more significant: the increase was at 105%.

Google is reportedly realizing the significance of social media and is now trying to add social-media oriented services. Analyst Greg Sterling commented, though, that Facebook can never take away the “search” crown from Google – which is what Google is best known for anyway.

1. 1. Keep Your Printer Clean and Working: Inkjet printer require a little bit of extra effort to keep them running smoothly. Never let your printer sit without use for more than a week! Start up the printer and print at least one picture or document each week to make sure that it keeps running smoothly. This means you’ll be making sure that the nozzles are clear.  Once a month or so use the printer’s print head cleaning and print head alignment utilities as well.

1. 2. Use the Name Brand Ink: Tempting as the price on another company may be the ink produced by and for your printer’s company is actually specifically designed to work in your printer. Those refill kits just don’t have the same quality and consistency of color that the name brand offers. If you want a quality picture you’ll have to stick by the company your printer uses.

1. Print Settings are Vital: Before you try printing out the picture you’ll need to be sure all of the print setting match up to what you’re looking to get. This means verifying that the ink and paper setting are correct (color or black ink and paper size settings), the right side of the photo paper is up (photo paper has two sides one only one of which will properly absorb the ink properly and create the right print.) It’s also important to verify that the settings are going to match up to the quality of your print material. For premium paper you’ll want it to be set on high quality settings.

1. The Right Paper is Everything: Plain paper just isn’t able to provide a quality portrait that you’ll be able to keep. Paper of this type absorbs the ink in a fashion that leaves the colors looking washed out, you lose fine details, and sharpness becomes less clear. Instead use a high quality photo paper that will match up to your printer’s settings. Keep in mind this also means deciding if you want matte or glossy paper for your print as well. Glossy paper has a shiny quality and produces a visual quality that stands out but can also be reflective, smudge, and create glare in sunlit areas. Matte isn’t quite as sharp as glossy but it can help you evade some of the negative issues of the glossy.

1. Be Sure of the Picture’s Ability to be Increased in Size: There are certain limits as to how large a picture can be before the quality of a print is diminished. In order for a picture to turn out right you’ll need it to be at least 200 dpi and if you want it to be high quality you’ll need it to be closer to 300 dpi. In simpler terms if you need to sort out how the largest size you can divide the pictures pixel size by 200 or 300 for high quality shots.