Worth its weight in gold
You are almost certainly aware that the inkjet printer is in fact not so much a printer as an ink-dispensing machine that links your bank balance directly to the printer manufacturer's revenue line. There's a magic ingredient in the chemical formula of that ink that makes it more costly, by weight, than gold and by volume, more expensive than the finest French perfume.
But there's no better way to print photographic prints, and a good one will do a excellent job on documents and office graphics. The prudent person will take great care to select an economical model. The HP OfficeJet Pro K5400 printer is arguably the best compromise between quality and price. It produces decent photo prints, although by no means the best available, but it's reasonably fast, and its text and graphics capabilities are excellent. It's in a class of its own, however, when it comes to economy.
You'll get better photo output if you increase the ink volume settings under the print driver's Properties / Advanced tab, which will (sigh) make it more expensive than the $200 or so it's likely to cost you.
Price: around $200.
Peacekeeping forces at work
It's a great place, the internet, full of information and opportunities. Alas, it's also the digital world's equivalent of Baghdad. Left unprotected, the average PC is at best only minutes away from being hijacked, and turned into a mindless criminal that uses your bandwidth to serve up spam and viruses to the world, and / or reports your sensitive financial information to the Russian mafia. A good software firewall is essential. A Sydney-based company, Tall Emu, has developed a personal firewall for Windows PCs that is regarded by an increasing number of experts as the No.1 performer.
Despite additional layers of security, Online Armor is near idiot-proof to install and run, and it adds invaluable functions such as a banking mode, which locks out all but known secure financial sites when you're doing your online transactions. It detects keystroke loggers, which can lurk in the background memorising your account numbers and passwords, and it can knock out the nasties that try to infiltrate your system via compromised websites. The free version is pretty good, but for a little bit extra*, you get some worthwhile features. Another version bundles the Kaspersky anti-virus package, but that program can cause serious delays when downloading updates, so it doesn't meet Inspector Gadget's standards.
Price: *$US39.95
A phone with sparkle
You're going to need all your level-headed, hype-resistant, financially responsible instincts to resist the siren call of Apple's iPhone when the long-awaited 3G version is released in this country (real soon now), but don't give in until you've looked at the HTC Diamond Touch. HTC has been making mobile phones for longer than Apple has been making iPods, let alone iPhones, and its new 3D interface, TouchFLO 3D, uses a similar finger-sensitive interface to contacts, messaging, email, photos, music, and weather; and, let's not forget what you're really buying it for, the phone.
The Diamond Touch is thinner than the iPhone and handles the most desirable connectivity acronyms: WCDMA/HSPA: 900/2100MHz; HSDPA 7.2 Mbps and HSUPA. It includes Bluetooth and 802.11b/g WiFi. The underlying Windows Mobile 6.1 professional operating system also gives you push email capabilities. There's 4GB of internal storage, a 3.2MP camera, and a 2.8-inch VGA touch screen. The battery gives you up to four hours' talk time and 300 hours of stand-by (100 with push email turned on).
Price: around $1099.
Technology on wheels
It's time you abandoned your concept of the car as a, well, car, and began to think of it instead as a well-appointed technology suite. If you've installed the Azentek Atlas CPC-1000, you could regard it as a four-wheel portable computer. Officially, the Atlas CPC-1000 is an 'in-dash double-din radio replacement package', but that doesn't do justice to what's in the package.
Your replacement radio has a 1.83Ghz Intel Core Duo processor, a 120GB hard drive, 1GM of RAM (upgradeable to 2GB), and DVD-ROM and CD-RW drive, all powered by Windows Vista. There's a 6.5-inch touch-screen monitor, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, internal amplifier, Composite and DVI video output with Dolby Digital 5.1 sound, and microphones with noise and echo cancellation, and there's also an AM / FM tuner. It's also HD and satellite-radio-ready, if, and when, we get them here. There's an internal SiRFstarIII GPS navigation receiver with external antenna to get you back on track if you happen to drift off-course while listening to the entertainment, which, when you're driving, Inspector Gadget fervently hopes doesn't include watching DVD movies.
Price: around $3500.
Reference: July 2008, volume 78:03, p. 78
