Category: Reviews

So school is coming, and that gives me an excuse to buy a new printer. Back in 2005 I was tired of feeding my inkjet printer new printer cartridges at nearly $70 a pop, so I bought a B&W Samsung Laser printer which has served us very well.  So far I’ve only had to refill it once.

Since 2005, colour laser printer prices have fallen steadily.  You can now pick up one around the $150 mark if you do a little shopping.  However, toner cartridges are still very expensive – and it almost makes sense to buy a new printer when you run out.  Of course laser printers are not immune to the same “starter” cartridge trick that is played with inkjet printers – giving you a fraction (1/2 or worse) the toner that a full refill would.

Based on my previous experience with refilling the Samsung, I was keen to get another refill compatible printer.  The Samsung CLP-135 can be found very cheaply, but the toner cartridge has a chip which prevents refills from working (this may change in the future).  The HP CP1518ni can be refilled, but requires reset chips which come as part of 0f the refill kit. (I’ll probably get my refill kit via eBay closer to when I need to refill the printer)

I purchased the CP1518ni from FutureShop.ca (free shipping over $39), unfortunately there are no more left at this price ($230) currently.  They also had the description incorrect, as it indicated that the unit came with only 1 toner (black) cartridge – the printer in fact had all 4 toners installed.  I was comfortable shopping with FS due to their easy return it to the brick and mortar store policy.

If you’re keen to pick one of these up, CostCo.ca has them for $250, and staples.ca has a similar (but not as good) sale on.  I’m a bit surprised that the US prices for the same printer are quite a bit higher (basically $400).  Rarely are Canadian prices for this type of thing better than US prices.  If you want to go cheaper, the HP CP1215 is similar but lacks the network interface and only has drivers for Windows.

Shipping was fast – ordered on Sunday, was here by Wednesday.  The printer itself is quite heavy (40lbs), and quite a bit larger (15.7 x 17.8 x 10.0 inches) than the B&W laser we have.   Setting it up was a breeze, as it is a network printer it just needed power and a net cable.  The software (driver) was Mac OSX compatible, and the printer advertises itself using Bonjour on the network.  I haven’t tried to print from Linux, but searching on the net seems to indicate it can be done without too much pain.

The first colour print was a full page photo onto regular paper.  If you haven’t seen a colour laser print out, then the best description is that it looks like a picture from the newspaper.  Jenn later printed out an activity chart (in colour) and that looked really good – and this is more typical of what I’d expect to print (think business graphics).  I’m sure school projects will end up looking sharp (and colourful).  Alison was very excited that we had a new printer, but we had to explain to her that the colour printer would not do the colouring of a B&W colouring page from the net.

Tool played the K-ROCK Centre in Kingston on Aug 4th.  The opening act was Tweak Bird – who managed to generate and impressive amount of sound with their 2 primary members (a 3rd joined them for a couple of songs on various ‘odd for a heavy metal band’ instruments: flute, sax).  If you want a sample of what they sounded like check out their MySpace page.

This was the 2nd time I’ve seen Tool in concert, and this was a very different experience than the last.  The 1st show I saw was in Ottawa at the Corel Centre, a much larger venue.  Also, this time we were in general admission (on the floor) vs. in seats.

The K-ROCK Centre has a concert capacity of 6500.  It was clear from the number of empty seats that this was not a sold out show, I’d guess it was somewhere under 6000 people. On the left is a picture I took before the opening act – it gives you a sense of how small this venue is and how close we were to the stage (this was 3/4 of the way back from the stage).  The general (floor) crowd did get more tightly packed once Tool took the stage, but we ended up standing closer (about 1/2 between the sound board and the stage) and there wasn’t a crazy crush around us.  To be able to see a band like Tool in such a small venue was pretty amazing.

Tweak Bird was LOUD.  Tool was LOUDER.  I was glad to have my earplugs, but don’t get me wrong – I expect a concert like this to be very loud.  Feeling the bassline inside your chest is part of the experience.  Tool put on a great concert.  For more, check out these reviews of the Toronto show.

Given the title, how could I not read this book?

I came across this book while browsing feedbooks using Stanza.  For the past couple of months I’ve been reading (free) eBooks almost exclusively.  At first I was using my NDS, and now my iPod Touch.  Primarily I’ve been reading material from the Baen Free Library, but lately I’ve moved over to feedbooks as they have a nice recommendation system which is how I found Roo’d.

I was hooked within the first few pages.  It was a fun and easy read, with plenty of actual technical jargon thrown in and for the most part the jargon was used in a way that made technical sense.  You do need to suspend disbelief a little with this story, and there are clearly areas where concepts from the Matrix and other popular sci-fi has been re-used and adapted.  It has a very similar feel to Little Brother, which is another eBook I’d highly recommend.

You can also purchase a hard copy of this book (paperback) from amazon.com.  I’m a little surprised by the somewhat hefty price tag on this, considering it is downloadable for free.  Still, it is nice to know you can get a ‘real book’ version of this – while I’ve been reading lots of eBooks, I still like real books.

For more information, check out the author’s website.