ie8 fix

toner

Free Windows utility lowers your printing costs

Quick housekeeping note: I'm traveling tomorrow, so I won't have another deal for you until Monday. See you then!

Tired of burning through pricey ink and toner cartridges? PretonSaver Home promises to cut these consumable costs by up to 70 percent. Best of all, it's free. (Note: You can use the previous link to download the program, but click here to go to Preton's site and register for the activation code.)

This Windows-only utility works its ink-saving magic by removing overlapping pixels (of which there are many, apparently) from the printed page, thus reducing ink consumption. … Read more

Porous nanotube 'forests' catch cancer cells

Researchers from Harvard and MIT have designed a microfluidic device that uses porous "forests" of carbon nanotubes to detect individual cancer cells or viruses such as HIV in a blood sample.

Harvard's Mehmet Toner, MIT's Brian Wardle and colleagues improved upon a device developed four years ago that had forests of silicon posts to detect target cells.

By making the posts out of porous carbon nanotubes, which are cylinders of carbon atoms, and attaching various antibodies to them, sample fluid can flow through and around the "trees," increasing the chances of detection.

The antibodies will bond to targets chemically, but the device also works mechanically by trapping particles depending on the distance between the trees. The forest has 10 billion to 100 billion carbon nanotubes per square centimeter, and is 99 percent air. … Read more

The right font can save you money

Psst...want to save some money on printing? Try Century Gothic.

Hit by the high prices of inkjet and toner cartridges, we're all looking for ways to shave some bucks off the cost of printing. New data from Printer.com found that because different fonts use different amounts of ink to print, using the right font could save you as much as 31 percent off your inkjet and toner cartridge expenses.

Printer.com, a Dutch company that compares printers and their costs, recently put its theory to the test. The company set up two printers--a Canon inkjet and a … Read more

See how GreenPrint can help save paper

GreenPrint World scans print jobs before they hit the page to make them as tree-friendly as possible. It creates a print filter, intercepting your print jobs before they reach the spooler and checking them against a list of preset but adjustable criteria. You can have it grab by the number of lines on a page, for example.

In this First Look video, we'll show you how the program can help you prevent wasteful print jobs--and how it could be even better.

Laser printer acquitted of all charges, relieved after 15-month trial

On this episode of "When Laser Printers Attack," it turns out your laser printer is not guilty of releasing noxious particles into the air, as previously reported by this Australian health alert (PDF) last year. The report claimed that some laser printers sporadically spew certain "toner-like" particles that pose the same amount of health hazard as cigarettes. As it turns out, laser printers hardly release any of these noxious chemicals into the air and it's perfectly safe to use one without wearing a Hazmat suit.

The good scientists at the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft applied research institute just … Read more

Are you a perpetrator of workplace printer abuse?

According to a new survey released today, about 60 percent of the Canadian workforce is making personal use of their office printer.

The survey, conducted by Angus Reid Strategies for Samsung Electronics revealed that a large majority of Canadians who work in offices with high volume laser printers aren't using them for memos and work-related e-mails, but rather for personal letters, color photos, and even *gasp* resumes! The study breaks down the percentage of people that print out random documents:

I think it's safe to assume that the reason for all this work-printer abuse is because of the … Read more

Best Mac software of 2007

The year 2007 might be one of the biggest years for Apple in recent memory. Certainly a lot of great products have been released over the years, but none had the anticipation or the media fervor as did the iPhone. The new iPod Touch, the release of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, and the funny Mac vs. PC ads we're seeing these days only added to the hype with more people starting to "Think different" than ever before. With Macworld just around the corner and promises of new Mac hardware on the horizon, the future of … Read more

'iLift' takes aim at cellulite

Call us cynical, but we put this item in the same category as the "HairMax LaserComb" and the "Zeno" zit zapper. The latest gadget that claims to improve personal appearance is the "iLift," an electronic device that promises to combat the ravages of time where it counts--on the face and cellulite, to name just two perennial problem spots.

The secret formula involves some combination of ions and infrared rays that can be adjusted with four programs, according to the product literature, attacking bacteria while improving circulation and speeding up skin metabolism. All for less … Read more

A pain-relieving gadget (we're told)

If LED bulbs can improve health and fight depression, then why can't the "LifeMax TENS Machine" relieve pain and tone the body?

That's the claim of this handy device from U.K. company Maplin Electronics, which says the wonder gadget is "fully approved and certificated" (though by whom, we don't know). Whatever it does, it can be adjusted in "12 pre-set programs" and "2-channel user-defined programs for individual needs." We're sold!

And in case you were wondering: Red Ferret informs us that TENS stands for "Transcutaneous Electrical … Read more