Should you buy an inkjet or a laser printer? Often people buying a new printer are confused about whether to buy a laser printer or inkjet printer. The short answer is it depends on what you’ll be using it for, and how much you’ll be using it.

Inkjet printers have a lower initial purchase cost but cost more to run because the ink is more expensive when measured on a per page basis. Laser printers cost more but their running costs are lower and they have a better print quality because in general they have a higher resolution (expressed in dots per inch – dpi).

If you want to print photos at home however, you are best to choose a photo quality inkjet printer.

Inkjets are great for home use and for photo printing. Lasers are good for high-volume applications, like offices, or for applications that need high print quality.

Inkjet printers transfer tiny droplets of ink directly to the page. A laser printer creates an electrostatic pattern on a drum that attracts ink powder that is subsequently fused onto the paper. This is more complex technology so means a higher price than for an inkjet printer.

If you examine the same page printed on both a laser printer and an inkjet, you will be able to see that the characters on the laser printer produced page are sharper. That said however, inkjet printers are getting better all the time in terms of the sharpness of printed characters.

Another aspect to consider is how heavily you will be using a printer. Printer manufacturers express the durability of a printer in terms of duty cycle in pages per month.

For example, a typical laser printer will be capable of a duty cycle up to 7,000 pages a month while a typical entry level inkjet printer is capable of up to 500 pages per month.

Some of the more recent inkjets provide excellent color clarity and brightness, and are very well suited for printing photographs.

While inkjet printers themselves are cheaper, their ink is more expensive per page printed. Ink cartridges need to be replaced fairly often if you print a lot, especially if you’re printing pictures or photos.

The manufacturer’s stated pages per cartridge measurements are very much dependent on what you printing. They are based on only a small percentage of the page actually being covered in ink.

Toner cartridges for laser printers have a higher unit price than inkjet cartridges, but have a higher capacity so that the cost per page is lower for lasers.

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If you have an Iphone, firstly congratulations-it’s been very tough to get hold of one, especially in the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, and secondly, have you ever wondered how to get a good music collection onto it?

If you have, you will be glad to know that essentially there are two main sources for your music (unlike the lucky Zune owners, Iphone owners aren’t able to transfer songs directly with their friends). The best way to get an absolutely huge selection of songs into your Iphone is by downloading them from the internet, and the other, slightly less cool way is to simply transfer your existing cd collection onto the iphone. This is ok, but it just means the same old songs for you.

Using either method will mean you need a computer, and if you plan to use the internet you’ll obviously need some kind of internet connection, and to transfer from CD you will need some ripping software-this is just a fancy name for a program that records music from your CD and saves in into Windows as a file so you can then do what you like with it. It’s pretty fast as well, so it’s not like you have to play the whole CD through or anything, it will usually take a couple of minutes tops.

Once you have the songs you want to transfer stored on your computer, it’s simply a case of connecting the Iphone to the computer and letting Itunes sync with it, which should then store all the new stuff onto the Iphone. Simple huh?

Downloading songs from the internet is a little more complicated, but then it’s worth it as you’ll be getting a lot of new music. The main thing to take into account is that you want to stay very aware of how secure your computer system is. Iphones and Ipods etc are very popular, and the hackers and other unsavory characters know it only too well. There are a few sites around which will claim to offer all kinds of free music and downloads etc, only to give you downloads that are infected with trojans/viruses etc. For this reason you need to be very careful what kind of site you are using.

You’ll find that there are some sites out there that will give you real free downloads for your Iphone, but they certainly take some finding. A useful way of spotting them is to expect to play a nominal fee to get your membership. It’s something like $50 or so for life, which may seem steep but it usually gives you totally unlimited downloads, so offers good value in the long run.

Once you manage to get a few downloads, you can just transfer them to your Iphone using the Itunes program.

This article should have given you a real understanding of how to find and put music onto your Iphone.