Five hot iPod docking stations

The traditional home stereo is far from dead, but considering that many of us in our increasingly mobile culture are toting around an entire music collection in our pockets, shouldn’t we be able to play these tunes anywhere – without having to wear headphones?
When was the last time you saw a receiver, loudspeakers and 500 CDs in a bedroom? But if you add up how much time you spend here – relaxing before bed, getting ready for work, or with the case of university dorm rooms, living in this tight space – it makes sense to toss a compact speaker system designed for the almighty iPod or another MP3 player.
There’s no shortage of such devices these days, but the following are five of my favourites -- and a bonus item for those looking for a portable laser light show.
High-tech lullabies
Consider it a perfect bedside companion for iPod lovers. The TEAC SR-L200 Hi-Fi Table Radio ($129.99; http://www.teac.com/) lets you dock your player in a snug cradle on top of the unit that not only recharges your iPod’s battery but also lets you listen to music, podcasts and audio books through its crisp-sounding stereo speakers. Or you can set the alarm to play your favourite song. Available in white or black, this clock radio ships with connectors to fit all iPod models and also features an AM/FM tuner with station presets, snooze bar and backlit LCD screen. Also included is a small remote and optional auxiliary input (and cable) to connect a non-iPod based MP3 player.
Power to go
Whether it’s for your home, office, cottage or beach, the Logitech AudioStation Express ($99.99; http://www.logitech.com/) is a sleek and portable iPod speaker system. Plug it into an electrical socket or pop in six AA batteries for up to 10 hours of audio, and then use the wireless remote to crank it up to 80 watts of total power. Non-iPod MP3 players can also be used with the auxiliary input jack (though it won’t recharge the device). Have a TV nearby? Use the composite output option to watch your iPod’s video – be it camcorder footage, TV shows, movies, music videos or podcasts – on a big screen instead of the iPod’s 2.5-inch display.
Conversation piece
Perfect for kitchen countertops, family room tables or even bedroom dressers, the JBL Radial ($349.99; http://www.jbl.com/) is a unique-looking circular iPod docking station and 30-watt speaker system that sounds a good as it looks. Available in bone white or piano black, this stylish portable accessory fits all iPod types with swappable adaptors, supports other MP3 players and includes a video-out option to view photos or videos on a nearby television. The wireless remote uses RF (radio frequency) instead of IR (infrared), therefore you can control your tunes even from another room (up to 20 feet).
Bose SoundDock
This one’s my pick. They might not be new, but they’re still one of the best-sounding docking station speakers you could buy for your beloved iPod. Turn any room into a concert hall with Bose SoundDock Digital Music System ($399.99; http://www.bose.com/), which delivers powerful but clean, full-frequency performance out of its shielded speakers. As with other Bose products, it can be hard to pinpoint where the audio is actually coming from as it offers a spatial surround sound effect. Slip in any iPod with a dock connector on the bottom, press a button on the wireless remote and manage your music as you go about your business. Available in black or white.
Add some boom to your room
Music enthusiasts who spend time on the road may opt for this smart (and smart-looking) audio system from Altec Lansing. Similar to its stationary M602 product, the portable iM3 ($179.95; http://www.alteclansing.com/) looks like a teeny boom box and lets users insert their iPod, iPod nano or other MP3 player between two speakers (each housing 1-inch neodymium micro drivers) to fill the space with balanced sound. For iPod products, a wireless remote controls song navigation, power and volume, while the universal plug set offers adapters for various electrical outlets. No A/C plug in sight? No problem, the iM3 can run for roughly 24 hours on battery power.
Laserpod...and now for something completely different
The ‘60s gave us the lava lamp, but it’s all about laser light and LEDs in the ‘00s. Case in point – the Laserpod (US $89.95; http://www.firebox.com/) is a patented invention by UK light artist Chris Levine, whose work has lit up the band Massive Attack and high-profile fashion shows – though he might be best known for a celebrated hologram portrait of the Queen of England. The Laserpod uses three electronic lasers and three blue and purple LEDs (light emitting diodes), all projected through a crystal to create a dazzling light show throughout a room (best used in complete darkness). Turn on the Laserpod when you’ve got Pink Floyd cranked on a MP3 player docking station and you’ve got yourself one killer kaleidoscopic laser light show.

When audio worlds collide

Sometime—in the not so distant future, as you’ll see—we’ll all have some variation of a “smart” home. We’ll be able to detect noxious gases, keep track of food expiration dates, automate kitchen appliances and likely handle a bunch of stuff that hasn’t even been conceived yet. How we’ll operate a smart house is open to speculation. We may have touch/display screens or use voice commands or handheld controllers with high-resolution LCD screens. But one thing is clear: few of us will have enough spare change to purchase and install all the smart home ingredients for quite some time. That doesn’t mean we can’t get a taste of the technology today. If you’re nuts about your music, you’ve picked a hobby on the very forefront of the computer integration revolution. The goal? To move all that great digital music you’ve ripped from discs or downloaded from the Web out of your crummy computer audio setup and into your glorious living room entertainment system. If you want to keep it cheap, the most affordable idea is to simply burn a bunch of your tunes to a recordable CD and play them on an MP3-compatible disc player. But that’s so old school. A better idea might be a flash drive. An inexpensive 2GB flash drive can store hundreds of high bitrate MP3s. Copying files to and removing files from a flash drive is easy, and you can use the very same flash drive in a USB-equipped car deck. Of course, you’ll need something in your living room that’ll read the drive. Tight-budget options include the Philips DVP5960, an upconverting DVD player with a simple, built-in USB reader on its front panel. If online shopping is more your style, check out Oppo Digitals’ DV-970HD. But beware—not all drives are compatible with all devices. But what if you don’t need DVD capabilities or you want direct access to all the media files on your PC—not just the ones you can fit on a thumb drive? Now, that’s where things get interesting. Bridges and streams
Probably the least expensive way to “stream” media files direct from your PC is a product like the Sirocco Audio Bridge. Designed by BC’s own Sondigo, the Sirocco interfaces with the PC either wirelessly or via an Ethernet cable, and acts essentially like an external sound card. The primary advantage of this “sound card” system over its similarly-priced competition is that it more easily handles DRM-protected files. The bad news is that users can’t control their music remotely—they must return to the computer to make any adjustments to their playlist. Stepping up to the two hundred mark gets you into remote-controllable streaming. D-Link has been in the streaming game for some time now, with wireless devices such as the MediaLounge DSM-320 and DSM-520. But neither offer a built-in display (you need to switch on your TV for that), and there have been reports of uneven performance. A potentially better bet at the same price point is the near-ubiquitous Roku SoundBridge. The tube-shaped SoundBridge offers a built-in display, a simple setup, Internet Radio support and easy operation. But plunk down a few more bucks and you’re into Squeezebox territory. The third iteration of the original model, Slim Devices’ Squeezebox 3 is super stylish, Internet radio-capable and fitted with a big, legible display. It’s laden with features and lauded for its smooth streaming and open-source software that permits user customizations. Upping the digital media player ante is the soon-to-be-released Netgear EVA800. The unit supports a ton of codecs, streams some DRM content, handles high-definition playback of Windows Media Video 9 or MPEG-4 file formats up to today’s 1080p ceiling, and features two USB ports for portable storage devices and iPods. Expect to pay nearly $400 when it hits the market this spring. Big buck solutionsThose who require whole-house solutions may want to look at fully expandable systems such as the latest from Sonos. Getting rave user reviews, the Sonos ZonePlayer ZP80 handles most every type of file aside from certain DRM-encrypted content and does Internet radio too. It sets up its own proprietary network that avoids interference from external devices, thus allowing you to confidently plunk ZonePlayers all over the house. But the biggest lure may be its handheld remote, featuring a full colour, high-resolution, scrollable LCD screen that lets you see everything—including album art—up close and personal. A couple of ZonePlayers will set you back a cool grand. If you’re going to spend that kind of money, and in particular if you need to upgrade your ancient AV receiver too, you may want to investigate a shiny new streaming-capable receiver. Respected manufacturers such as Denon, Yamaha and Pioneer all offer receivers capable of pulling radio from the Internet and music from your hard drive. The Pioneer VSX-84TXSi has a USB port that allows you to connect your PC directly to the receiver and bypass the sound card entirely. Do your research beforehand though, because some models won’t work well into the future. One streaming-capable receiver that seems to have all the bases covered is the Onkyo TX-NR1000—though crazily pricey, it handles everything but the proverbial kitchen sink and features upgradeable (and sometimes replaceable) modules. But if you’re going to go that extent, why not simply put a PC in your living room? You’ll likely want to skip older “media center” PCs because they look like PCs (i.e. clunky), they’re controlled like PCs (i.e. clumsily), and they feature middle-of-the-road sound cards and electronics that just won’t do justice to your audio. Sony’s just-released VAIO XL3 Digital Living System is one of the better options. The XL3 looks like a traditional high-end A/V component, but with all the futuristic capabilities of a PC. It features a built-in Blu-ray player, memory card slot, dual USB ports, and, of course, integrated audio-video streaming. If Sony’s managed to eliminate the vibrations and other electronic interference that typically hamper PC audio, and if the internal sound card is up to snuff (those are big ifs), the XL3 could be a winner. Sound purists might do better with the new Onkyo HDC 1.0. Onkyo has refrained from juicing the HDC 1.0 with an internal power supply—thusly exorcising one of the main reasons behind inferior PC audio—but that means you’ll need to power the unit with external power such as Onkyo’s matching digital amp. The SE-90PCI sound card residing inside is a good one, but the non-Windows proprietary software may cause headaches. You’ll need to dump in the neighbourhood of $2500 for both the PC and its amp. Regardless of price, neither of these home entertainment PCs deals with the inherent problems of internally mounted sound converters. Audio engineers have long believed, and rightly so, that internal cards and their analog-to-digital converters are subject to the interference and noise put forth by other PC components such as hard drives, fans and network cards. Engineers deal with it by using sound cards with “breakout boxes,” such as M-Audio’s Delta series and Echo Audio’s Layla and Gina models. Consumers who are sticklers about their sound or regularly record/capture audio to add to their music or videos would be wise to explore this option. I’ll be your server todayMeanwhile, software giant Microsoft is finalizing work on a “whole home” project that’s sure to impact fans of sound and video. With its just-announced Windows Home Server, Microsoft wants you to buy into the idea that networking is essential and easier than ever. Rather than the typical peer-to-peer network that’s found in most multiple-PC households today, Windows Home Server works with hardware such as HP’s just announced MediaSmart Server (essentially a sophisticated, central data storage bin with expandable hard drive space) to deliver a true server-client network. Benefits include automated, touchless backups of all the data in all the connected devices and worldwide access to the Windows Home Server via a personalized Windows Live Internet account. Windows Home Server is not due until fall this year, but it may eventually alter the way we all do our computing and become a real boon to those who want to access their media from anywhere within their home. Of course, Windows Home Server will need some way to communicate with all those devices. Though a wireless network involves the least amount of invasiveness, it certainly isn’t the fastest way to move data, and it’s subject to external interference. But do you really want to go to all the trouble of running a web of Ethernet cable throughout every nook and cranny? Networking veterans Linksys and Netgear say you don’t necessarily have to.
Both the Linksys PLK200 PowerLine AV Ethernet Adapter Kit and the Netgear Powerline HD Ethernet Adapter operate on the principle that Ethernet is passé. Instead, they use your existing electrical system as a network, plugging into your AC outlets and piggybacking along with the current, so to speak. The downside is that you’ll still need to run a cable from each networked device to each powerline adaptor. The upside is that that’s the only wiring you’ll need to do.
Though powerline networking is nothing new, this new batch of powerline gear is faster and more reliable than previous iterations and thus a good alternative for those who need better throughput than a wireless network can provide. It's costly though, at $200-plus for a set of two adapters, and it's not as fast as good old Ethernet.

Land of the Giants

ALONG California’s mystical redwood coast, 1,000-year-old trees as much as four times the height of the Rockefeller Center Christmas spruce command rocky bluffs that overlook golden, frothy beaches. Many travelers in search of the California redwoods never venture beyond one of the southernmost groves, the gorgeous but often crowded Muir Woods, just outside of San Francisco. But a journey 300 miles farther north, through Redwood National Park and its surrounding state parks, plus outpost-like towns and the mountainous corner of southwestern Oregon, is one packed with rich rewards. California Travel GuideGo to the California Travel Guide »MultimediaInteractive FeatureMileposts: A Journey Through the Land of the Giants
Begin in Arcata, the Humboldt State University town that was founded by loggers. Today, it’s populated with dreadlocked hippies and is known, in these parts at least, for the high number of houses where marijuana is covertly grown. It’s also home to a minuscule airport and is a no-fuss place to rent a car, grab a fortifying granola breakfast and start your drive. You’ll be going mostly north, but first dip briefly south on Highway 101. You’ll pass through Arcata’s sister city of Eureka, whose historic district is a colorful jumble of refurbished Victorians, tiny boutiques and stunning inns, and then be on your way toward Humboldt Redwoods State Park.
MILE 35
AVENUE OF THE GIANTS
A 32-mile spur leads you off the highway and along a two-lane road (Route 254) originally built for stagecoaches in the 1880s. You’ll drive beneath a canopy of massive branches belonging to the giants themselves, averaging 200 feet tall and 500 years old here. Eight Auto Tour signs offer facts on some of the history of logging (which wiped out an estimated 96 percent of the original redwoods in California) and on local wildlife including the elusive, nocturnal flying squirrel.
MILE 85
TRINIDAD
Backtrack on Highway 101 to Arcata and then continue north to this tiny town of 400, where the bluffs will present you with your first elevated view of the Pacific coastline, slate gray and misty, its shore strewn with tangles of beach grass and smooth driftwood logs. Immerse yourself in the landscape by descending into the pocket of fog along the steep, scrub-oak shaded staircase near the white and cherry-red Trinidad Memorial Lighthouse (a replica of an 1871 structure), which leads you to a rocky, sheltered pocket of Trinidad Bay.
Heading back out of Trinidad, turn left off Main Street onto Patrick’s Point Drive and follow it north until, east of Patrick’s Point State Park, it ends at 101 North. You’ll wind past several sandy beaches and above ocean coves where sea lions gather to bark and howl, sending eerily mournful echoes up into the trees.
MILE 100
REDWOOD NATIONAL PARK
The approach on Highway 101 to the southern edge of the park whisks you through a dewy, lagoon-laced landscape made magical by fog-filtered light and the Sweet Tart-like scent of bursting wildflowers. You’ll quickly come through the fog (created almost daily in summer, when inland warmth clashes with the cool ocean’s morning air) to the Kuchel Visitor Center just outside of the tiny town of Orick.
Redwood National Park was created by Congress in 1968, and together with abutting state parks, makes up nearly 40,000 acres of ancient forest. “The draw among visitors is to see the tallest living things on the planet,” noted Jeff Denny, a National Park ranger stationed there, adding that the tallest known redwood is in this forest and stands 379 feet high (to protect the tree, rangers don’t divulge its location).
Before leaving the visitor center, pick up a free permit to hike into the awe-inspiring Tall Trees Grove, and a map to guide you there.
MILE 110
TALL TREES GROVE
A slow-going, 40-minute drive along a narrow gravel road takes you to the head of a mellow trail snaking down into a mossy, shady bowl that holds Douglas firs, rhododendrons and some of the tallest redwoods in the park. Small signs note redwoods with the black, burnt bark of century-old fire scars; “spiketops,” or treetops that died after too much exposure when their neighbors were logged; and an ancient streambed, a shallow ribbon of clear water and fist-size polished stones. The trees are so towering that it strains your neck to peer up at their tops, and only if you sit among them for a while, listening to the high-up branches blow and squeak in the breeze, can you truly begin to take in their immensity.
“Time, time as we dissect it in days and hours and minutes loses all meaning in a setting such as this,” wrote Philip Hyde and François Leydet in the Sierra Club’s “Last Redwoods,” excerpted in the Tall Trees Trail Guide available at the start of the hike. “... Here are trees that have already stood for a millennium or two — and still their lives will outlast yours a thousand years.” Return to 101 and drive a couple of miles north to Davison Road; turn left and continue to the parking lot at its terminus.
MILE 120
GOLD BLUFFS BEACH
This gem of a beachfront is a gorgeous spot to visit at the end of the day, when sunsets bathe the sand, surf and fields of beach grass in a gilded, otherworldly glow. You can pitch a tent and camp right on the beach or simply take the short and simple hike into deep Fern Canyon, where a 60-foot sheer ravine stands smothered in gigantic, bushy ferns. Near the beach, keep your eyes peeled for Roosevelt elk, which graze in the purple lupines.

Temples Where Gods Come to Life

THE god was ready for his night of conjugal bliss. The priests of the temple, muscular, shirtless men with white sarongs wrapped around their thighs, bore the god’s palanquin on their shoulders. They marched him slowly along a stone corridor shrouded in shadows to his consort’s shrine. Drumbeats echoed along the walls. Candles flickered outside the doorway to the shrine’s inner sanctum. There, Meenakshi, the fish-eyed goddess, awaited the embrace of her husband, Sundareshwarar, an incarnation of that most priapic of Indian gods, Shiva.India Travel GuideGo to the India Travel Guide »MultimediaSlide ShowIn Tamil Nadu, Gods Live in Stone Temples MapTamil Nadu
Along with hundreds of Indians clustered around the shrine entrance, I strained to get a glimpse of the statue of Sundareshwarar, but green cloths draped over the palanquin kept it hidden. Worshipers surged forward in mass delirium, snapping photos with their cellphones, bowing to the palanquin and chanting hymns. They stretched out their hands to touch the carriage. Priests ordered them back.
Then the priests veered into the inner sanctum, carrying the unseen god toward the eager arms of his wife. They too had a night of divine pleasure ahead of them, so we were all ushered out as the guards began locking up.
This union of Meenakshi and Sundareshwarar is a nightly ritual in Madurai, the largest temple city in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, drawing feverish crowds of Hindu devotees. In much of India, the gods are not creatures of distant myth to be worshiped as abstractions. They exist in our world, in our time, and are fully integrated into the daily lives of Hindu believers. They move simultaneously through the world of the divine and the world that we inhabit, and are subject to all the emotions and experiences that we humans are all too familiar with — including carnal desire.
Few things in India express the continuous presence of the gods better than the ancient, massive temple complexes of Tamil Nadu. Walk through any city there and what catches your eye first are the soaring temple entrances known as gopuras, sacred skyscrapers decorated with a phantasmagoria of Hindu statues of multi-armed, bug-eyed gods, mythical beasts and chiseled warriors. Thousands of such statues adorn the largest gopuras, like the ones rising from the Meenakshi-Sundareshwarar temple in Madurai, one of the holiest pilgrimage sites in India.
“Here, we have a proverb: ‘Where there is a temple, people can live,’ ” said Ram Kumar, a guide I had hired in Madurai. “The temple is the center of a person’s living space.”
Though Kerala, the state just to the west, draws larger tourist crowds, Tamil Nadu is an increasingly popular destination. One of India’s most developed states, it also has beaches and lush farmland, and its cuisine is among the most flavorful — and hottest — in India.
But it is the temple circuit that is the main draw, as it has been for centuries. Indeed, many of Tamil Nadu’s residents see the state as a repository of “pure” Hindu culture. In many ways, it is a country within a country, proudly preserving its ancient Dravidian culture, most noticeably in the widespread use of the Tamil language.
I had been to India four times, but never to the south, so I had little idea of what to expect in December, when I flew with my friend Tini into Chennai, the capital of Tamil Nadu. We were met by a driver from a hotel in Mahabalipuram, a beach town 36 miles south. He whisked us into an Ambassador, those grand 1950s-style sedans ubiquitous throughout India, and off we went, veering past cows, motor rickshaws and overcrowded buses.
The chaos of India — sometimes the very quality that draws me there — wasn’t quite what I needed on this vacation. For a moment, as we were flying through the insane traffic, I had second thoughts about the whole trip.
Then we pulled into Mahabalipuram; I could see the ocean as we cruised into town. There was the smell of salt in the air, and we drove through quiet lanes to the seaside hotel. The beach there is not of the golden-sand-and-swaying-palms kind you find in Goa or Kerala, but it is a pretty stretch to walk along and unwind from sightseeing (think fishing skiffs and seafood restaurants).
It is the town’s stone architecture, some of the oldest in India, that makes Mahabalipuram a good first stop on the temple crawl. Biking between temples seemed the most relaxed way of taking in the sights, so off we went to a set of mini-temples on the southern edge of town. The place was already crowded with Indian tourists and juice vendors standing next to carts piled high with green coconuts.
The ancient site was designed to be a big outdoor showroom that exhibited the skills of the town’s architects. Incredibly, the set of temples, the Five Rathas, was carved from a single large slab of granite: models in the Dravida style.
As I pedaled north, I heard the chiseling of stone coming from roadside workshops — a sound I would hear throughout the day — reminding me that Mahabalipuram is still the stone-sculpturing capital of India, just as it was in ancient times. Likenesses of major Hindu gods like Shiva, Vishnu and Ganesh roll out of these workshops and into homes and offices around the country.

Technology Smooths the Way for Home Wind-Power Turbines

Wind turbines, once used primarily for farms and rural houses far from electrical service, are becoming more common in heavily populated residential areas as homeowners are attracted to ease of use, financial incentives and low environmental effects. Enlarge This Image Skystream
A residential wind generator that has built-in controls and an inverter. Some “plug and play” systems plug directly into the home panel. RelatedNew Ways to Store Solar Energy for Nighttime and Cloudy Days (April 15, 2008)
No one tracks the number of small-scale residential wind turbines — windmills that run turbines to produce electricity — in the United States. Experts on renewable energy say a convergence of factors, political, technical and ecological, has caused a surge in the use of residential wind turbines, especially in the Northeast and California.
“Back in the early days, off-grid electrical generation was pursued mostly by hippies and rednecks, usually in isolated, rural areas,” said Joe Schwartz, editor of Home Power magazine. “Now, it’s a lot more mainstream.”
“The big shift happened in the last three years,” Mr. Schwartz said, because of technology that makes it possible to feed electricity back to the grid, the commercial power system fed by large utilities. “These new systems use the utility for back up power, removing the need for big, expensive battery backup systems.”
Some of the “plug and play” systems can be plugged directly into a circuit in the home electrical panel. Homeowners can use energy from the wind turbine or the power company without taking action.
Federal wind energy incentives introduced after the oil crisis of the late 1970s helped drive large-scale turbine use. But the federal government does not currently provide a tax credit for residential-scale wind energy, as it does for residential solar applications, according to the American Wind Energy Association, a trade group for wind-power developers and equipment manufacturers.
A number of states, however, have incentive programs. In New York, “we have incentive levels for different installations, but a homeowner could expect to get approximately $4,000 per electric meter for a wind turbine,” said Paul Tonko, president of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, which administers the state’s renewable energy incentives. “That would cover about 30 to 40 percent of the project cost.”
“Certainly, the technology has improved, and the cost per project is coming down,” Mr. Tonko said. “Turbines for farms and residential applications are seeing much more activity.”
States have also enacted so-called net metering laws that require utilities to buy excess power made by a residential turbine at retail rather than wholesale prices. “Many of the barriers to residential turbines have been lowered, but net-metering removes what may be the biggest barrier,” said Jim Green, a senior project leader at the Wind Technology Center, part of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo.
“Along with state incentives, net metering entirely changes the economics of residential wind generation,” Mr. Green said.
Ecological concerns, more than cost savings may drive many new residential turbine installations. “People want to reduce their carbon footprints,” Mr. Tonko said. “They’re concerned about climate change and they want to reduce our reliance of foreign sources of fuels.”
Mr. Schwartz, the editor, said that even with the economic benefits, it can take 20 years to pay back the installation cost.
“This isn’t about people putting turbines in to lower their electric bills as much as it is about people voting with their dollars to help the environment in some small way,” he said.
Despite growing interest, some hurdles will not change. Whether a residential turbine saves a money or just eases ecological guilt depends largely on the wind . The wind energy available in any given location is called the “wind resource.”
Even if the wind is strong, zoning and aesthetics can pose problems. “Turbines work in rural areas with strong wind,” Mr. Schwartz said. “But in urban and suburban areas, neighbors are never happy to see a 60- to 120-foot tower going up across the street.”

Q. Could a plan being explored to use wind to produce a third of the power for New York City affect weather systems?

A. The usual objections raised to wind farming involve aesthetic issues, expense, noise and fears of danger to wildlife, and the issue of weather impact from wind farming has not been conclusively studied.
There has been at least one preliminary study of wind farming that suggested the possibility of an adverse effect on local weather systems from a large wind farm with many rotors in one area. But the researchers also suggested that potential problems could be ameliorated by redesigning the rotors to produce less turbulence.
The study, published in October 2004 in The Journal of Geophysical Research, used a hypothetical model of a wind farm much larger than any that had been built: 10,000 turbines, with rotor blades 165 feet long, in a 60-by-60-mile grid in north-central Oklahoma.
Dr. Somnath Baidya Roy, the lead author, then at Princeton, said the impact would come not so much from the rotor blades’ slowing down the air but from atmospheric mixing in the wake of the blades. The mixing of layers of air would create warmer, drier conditions at the surface, the study suggested.
A nighttime stream of fast-moving air in the Great Plains separates cool, moist air near the ground from drier, warmer air above. The simulation found that the turbines would catch this nocturnal jet, with ensuing turbulence and vertical mixing. When the upper air mass reached the surface, the warming and drying effect would be significant, the model suggested.

It Takes Just One Village to Save a Species

Peking University Chongzuo Biodiversity Research Institute

CHONGZUO, China — Long ago, in the poverty-stricken hills of southern China, a village banished its children to the forest to feed on wild fruits and leaves. Years later, when food stores improved, the children’s parents returned to the woods to reclaim their young. MultimediaSlide ShowOnce Endangered, Now Recovering RSS FeedGet Science News From The New York Times »Enlarge This Image Ruth Fremson/The New York Times
Lopen Sonam Wangchuk observing the set-up of the shrine he will pray at during the "Dragon's Gift" exhibition at the Rubin Museum of Art. More Photos »
To their surprise, their offspring had adapted to forest life remarkably well; the children’s white headdresses had dissolved into fur, tails grew from their spines and they refused to come home.
At the Nongguan Nature Reserve in Chongzuo, Guangxi province, the real-life descendants of these mythical children — monkeys known as white-headed langurs — still swing through the forest canopy.
As the langurs traverse a towering karst peak in a setting out of a Chinese landscape painting, they appear untouched by time and change, but it is remarkable that they and their tropical forest home have survived. In 1996, when the langurs were highly endangered, Pan Wenshi, China’s premier panda biologist, came to study them in Chongzuo at what was then an abandoned military base. This was at a time when hunters were taking the canary-yellow young langurs from their cliff-face strongholds, and villagers were leveling the forest for firewood.
Dr. Pan quickly hired wardens to protect the remaining animals but then went a step further, taking on the larger social and economic factors jeopardizing the species. Dr. Pan recognized the animal’s origin myth as legend, but he also believed that alleviating the region’s continuing poverty was essential for their long-term survival.
In the 24-square-kilometer nature reserve where he has focused his studies, the langur population increased to more than 500 today from 96 in 1996.
“It’s a model of what can be done in hot-spot areas that have been devastated by development,” said Russell A. Mittermeier, the president of Conservation International. “Pan has combined all the elements — protection, research, ecotourism, good relations with the local community; he’s really turned the langur into a flagship for the region.”
Part of what makes Dr. Pan’s achievements so remarkable is the success he is having compared with the fate of primates elsewhere. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s most recent Red List, nearly half of the world’s 634 primate species and subspecies are in danger of extinction. “If you look at the Red List, Asia has by far the highest percentage in the threatened categories,” Dr. Mittermeier said.
When Dr. Pan arrived in Guangxi, the challenges of studying langurs, much less protecting them, seemed insurmountable. He and a student spent their first two years living in collapsing cinder block barracks with no electricity or running water.
At that time, the langur’s population was in freefall, dropping from an estimated 2,000 individuals in the late 1980s to fewer than 500 a decade later. Historically, local farmers had occasionally killed langurs for food, but then teams of outside hunters began taking a serious toll on the population.
“In the 1990s, the Chinese economy started booming, and those with money — governors, factory owners, businessmen — all wanted to eat the wildlife to show how powerful they were,” said Dr. Pan, 71.
A breakthrough in protecting the species came in 1997 when he helped local villagers build a pipeline to secure clean drinking water. Shortly thereafter, a farmer from the village freed a trapped langur and brought it to Dr. Pan.
“When you help the villagers, they would like to help you back,” he said.
As self-appointed local advocate, Dr. Pan raised money for a new school in another village, oversaw the construction of health clinics in two neighboring towns and organized physicals for women throughout the area.
“Now, when outsiders try to trap langurs,” Dr. Pan said, “the locals stop them from coming in.”
But the villagers were still dependent on the reserve’s trees for fuel.
“If I told them they can’t cut down the trees, that wouldn’t be right,” Dr. Pan said. “They have to feed their families.”

Gears of War continues the grind on a new platform

An exclusive look at the PC edition of the revolutionary shooter from inside Epic Games studiosEpic Games, the studio behind renowned PC franchise Unreal, surprised fans when the studio’s latest opus, Gears of War, was developed and released for a console—the Xbox 360—last fall. The sci-fi shooter was explicitly designed for a couch-bound experience, reducing the dependence on split-second timing and accuracy afforded by a keyboard and mouse by introducing a strategic covering mechanic that afforded excellent targeting ability when stationary while reducing weapon precision when running. It might seem surprising, then, to see Gears of War come to Windows PCs this fall. However, after visiting Epic’s North Carolina headquarters for a Canadian exclusive preview of Gears of War for PC, we can happily report that Windows gamers will be in for a treat when the game is released this month. The first thing we noticed was how good it looked. Hailed as one of the most gorgeous and cinematic console games ever made, the PC edition, running at a maximum resolution of 1900 x 1200 on a tricked out box, puts the Xbox 360 version to shame. The scars and cracks on our tree-necked heroes’ war-battered faces are so authentic that we felt as though we could run our fingers through them, and the game’s sprawling and dilapidated urban locales are filled with authentic concrete and stone textures and a terrific amount of debris detail. But there’s more than just improved graphics. Epic created five new single player chapters just for the PC version, effectively adding 20 per cent more length to the campaign mode. Only one of the journalists at the preview event managed to finish the new content—which includes an epic battle with the monstrous Brumak beast previously seen only in Gears of War television commercials—in the two hours we were given to play. We were also shown a pair of new multiplayer maps (the game ships with all existing Xbox 360 maps plus several new ones) as well as an original multiplayer mode that plays like team-based king-of-the-hill with a twist: Hill zones appear in defensible areas. As one Epic programmer put it, “It lets you protect the position and not have your ass hanging out in the wind while you do it.” And if you don’t like any of the maps, new or old, you can create your own. Players will have full access to the latest version of the Unreal game engine to create their own mods and levels. One of Epic’s designers demonstrated how easy it is not only to create simple maps, but also to insert the kind of barriers the game uses for its all-important cover and mantling mechanic. However, the most impressive demonstration we saw was the way a player can swap from keyboard and mouse to gamepad on the fly. The game can distinguish with each passing moment whether you’re using one control method or the other, and on screen cues are dynamically updated so that you are never told to touch the space bar when you’re holding a gamepad or touch the A-button when playing with a keyboard and mouse. We saw some players switching between the two depending on the weapon they were using. One player even used both at the same time. But, regardless of how you choose to play, one thing is certain: The patience of Windows gamers has paid off. Gears of War for the PC is everything it was on the Xbox 360 and more.

Nokia N95 8GB Quad-Band Cellular Phone

Rogers introduces the exclusive GSM Nokia N95 - an even smarter Smartphone. It lets you connect, communicate and explore in entirely new ways. Surf the web over the Rogers 3G network, get world-wide maps coverage with built-in GPS, take pics with a 5MP camera, watch videos on the 2.8" display screen and store media and files on the 8GB built-in memory.

Sony's KDL52W4100 52" BRAVIA W-Series LCD TV with 4 HDMI inputs and Full HD 1080p resolution

Get ready to experience HD the way it's meant to be. Sony's KDL52W4100 brings 1080p picture quality home with amazing, Sony-exclusive features like the XMB (Xross Media Bar) with 3D graphics, picture quality technologies like ACE (Advanced Contrast Enhancer) and BRAVIA Engine 2. Add to that a sophisticated, piano black design, 24p capability so you can get the most out of the movies you watch on Blu-ray and DVD, 4 HDMI inputs along with three other HD-capable connections, and what you have is a television that can bring dreams to life.

London at night- Birds view

Waterloo Bridge and the River Thames, also featuring the London Eye (center, seen from the side), the Royal National Theatre, and Waterloo Station.

Battery, uninterrupted

Six ways to extend your laptop battery life
It's happened to many a traveller: you’re onboard a flight from, say, Vancouver to Toronto, with plans to finish the stack of work tucked into your laptop case. After all, an airplane is often a great place to be productive, thanks to the absence of nagging colleagues, email and ringing phones – providing, of course, the technology you need is in working order at 30,000 feet.
Sometimes, you barely make it over Winnipeg before your computer warns you it's about to "hibernate" as your battery power is at just five percent. Now how exactly do you plan to finish that sales report before you land?
Energy management has been a problem since the earliest days of mobile computing. Thanks to more powerful batteries and processors with better energy management, it’s getting better all the time, though there’s still no magic-bullet solution.
But there are some things you can do aside from lugging a spare battery. The following are a few tips for squeezing more juice out of your laptop:
1. Turn down the brightness of your monitor a great deal as it will help preserve battery life. This can usually be found on your laptop’s secondary keyboard commands (such as blue icons that look like little suns) and then manually reducing the brightness. When you’re near an electrical outlet again - at home, the office or in a hotel – crank the brightness back up, if you like. If you’re shopping for a new laptop, keep in mind the bigger the laptop screen the faster the battery drain, in most cases.
2. The battery will drain faster if there’s a spinning disc in your CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive such as a game, music CD or DVD movie. Some games offer you the choice to install it all to the hard drive, so choose this option as you’ll get more life out of your laptop. Same with music – copy your favourite tunes to the hard drive instead of spinning the CD. While Hollywood cringes at the idea, there are also many programs that can “rip” your movies to the hard drive. Needless-to-say, your laptop battery will last much longer in programs with little drain on system resources, such as a word processor.
3. Make sure you have no devices plugged into the laptop that can be draining its power, such as a Webcam, USB thumb-stick or a wireless PC card. Connected peripherals can be a factor in eating away at battery life, so get used to the touchpad instead of using an external mouse when you’re away from an electrical outlet. Ditto for enabling wireless connectivity, such as Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, so be sure these radios are turned off when you don’t need them. (They should be turned off in an airplane, anyway!)
4. Windows users can also click on Power Options in the Control Panel (which may be under Performance and Maintenance) to manually reduce the power consumption of your laptop. Some may turn off your monitor when not in use for, say, three minutes, but will turn on instantly again when a key is touched. Also, you can set alarms when the battery is about to die (say, at five percent) so you can safely save your information before powering down. If you’re in the market for a new laptop, the new dual-core processors from Intel are roughly 40 percent faster than their predecessors, yet about 40 percent more energy efficient, resulting in longer battery life.
5. While not cheap, you might want to consider a better battery than the one that shipped with your PC. For example, HP laptops typically ship with a regular six-cell battery that can deliver up to four hours of battery life, depending on the application. But you can choose to buy an eight-cell battery that can last up to 10 hours on a single charge or the current top-of-the-line laptop battery – a 12-cell Smart Lithium-Ion Ultra-Capacity battery – for just under 16 hours of battery life. A 12-cell HP battery costs between $179 and $199; this price is comparable to other laptop manufacturers.
6. This last tip may sound like a no-brainer for air travellers, but you’d be surprised how many times it’s overlooked. If you want to get a jumpstart on your work before taking off, be sure to find an electrical outlet while you’re waiting for your flight at the gate, a restaurant, bar or airline lounge. This way you can juice up your laptop before soaring the friendly skies. Experts used to say you shouldn’t recharge a laptop battery unless it’s fully drained but a quick email to four leading computer manufacturers suggests this is old advice - today’s laptop batteries can be recharged at any time without hurting the longevity of the battery.

Using Bluetooth

Bluetooth is one of those technologies that actually does help simplify your life and save you time. For example, rather than spending hours entering names and numbers into the address book on your new cell phone with a miniscule keypad, you can use Bluetooth to wirelessly transfer your contacts directly from the address book on your PC.
You can also use Bluetooth to get around poor cell phone reception. If your home office is located in your basement, for example, pair up your Bluetooth-enabled cell phone with a Bluetooth headset. Leave your cell phone on the main floor, where the reception is strong, and then use the headset to make and receive calls while you are downstairs. (Glenn Kennedy, carrier sales manager at Motorola Canada , says a friend of his uses this strategy.)
Talk on your cell phone while driving with both hands on the wheel using a Bluetooth speakerphone kit for your car. BlueAnt’s Supertooth Light (US$99) is an easy-to-use handsfree kit that you can pair with up to five Bluetooth-enabled phones with Headset (HPS) or Hands-Free (HFP) profiles. The device rests on your visor via a magnetised metal clip. Talk time is up to 15 hours, and on standby, the device will last up to 800 hours. Calls will sound crystal clear from your end, although recipients might complain that they can hear too much – including your AC and surrounding traffic.
Print photos from your Bluetooth-capable cell phone, PDA or point-and-shoot camera by transferring them wirelessly to your printer via Motorola’s PC850 Bluetooth USB PC Adapter ($69.95). Transfer speed will fluctuate, but a 1MB file will take roughly 30 seconds to reach the printer. You can also use the adapter as an external USB dongle to provide Bluetooth capability to your PC.
Walk comfortably down the street with wireless headphones that rest discreetly at the base of your neck. Motorola’s S9 MOTOROKR Headset ($149.95) contains controls in the right and left speakers and will play music stored in your Bluetooth-enabled cell phone. If you prefer your iPod playlist, a kit ($189.95) is also available that includes the S9 and a Bluetooth iPod adapter. (You can also use this iPod adapter to connect your iPod to any other Bluetooth-enabled product.) The headset supports A2DP and AVRC, lasts for up to six hours of play and will also answer your phone calls.
Audiophiles who don’t mind the extra bulge can opt for Motorola’s S805 Bluetooth Stereo Headphones ($169.95). This headset includes an embedded mic and comes with a cable that you can plug into your MP3 player for those situations where Bluetooth isn’t suitable, such as on a flight. It also supports A2DP and AVRC, and lasts for up to 17 hours of listening or 20 hours of talk time.
Skype calling is more comfortable with a wireless headset, such as Gennum’s nXZEN VoIP Headset (US$159.95), which will keep you connected as long as you remain within 30 feet of your Bluetooth-enabled PC. The device supports Windows 2000/XP.
Chances are you own at least one Bluetooth-enabled product. But are you taking advantage of what this technology has to offer?
Bluetooth operates on an unlicensed band (2.4 GHz ISM), so there is no cost to use it. The only price you pay is for purchasing a Bluetooth-enabled product.
You don’t need to install any driver software to use Bluetooth. Pairing one Bluetooth device to another is a simple process you perform in a few steps.
In order for Bluetooth to operate, the devices need to be within a certain physical range of each other. There are three ranges for Bluetooth: Class 1 (up to 300 feet), Class 2 (up to 30 feet) and Class 3 (up to three feet). Most devices (including mobile phones) fall in the Class 2 range of 30 feet.
The speed at which data transfers from one Bluetooth device to another also varies, depending on the version of Bluetooth your device uses. (For example, when transferring a photo from your cell phone to a printer.) If your device uses Bluetooth Version 1.2, the speed is 1 Megabit per second (Mbps); Version 2.0 transfers up to 3 Mbps.
Bluetooth is a universal and global technology standard; a Bluetooth-enabled product from Canada will work with a Bluetooth-enabled product, from, say, Japan. To be certified as Bluetooth-compliant, devices from one manufacturer must play well with Bluetooth devices from any other manufacturer.
A Bluetooth-enabled device can pair with - and simultaneously operate with - up to seven devices at a time.
Bluetooth technology handles voice and data transmissions simultaneously, so while talking on your cell phone you can also listen to music stored in your phone by streaming it wirelessly to another device.
Bluetooth-enabled devices communicate with each other using particular Bluetooth profiles. Advanced Audio Distribution Profile (A2DP) is one such profile used to transfer a stereo (two-channel) audio stream, like music from an MP3 player, to be decoded and played back by a headset or car radio. For the high quality audio to occur, both must support A2DP, which is not a given, especially in older Bluetooth devices. Interestingly, although Mac OS X has supported Bluetooth since 2002, Mac OS X 10.4 does not currently support A2DP. Windows XP and Vista will support A2DP, but you must install third party drivers.

Logitech Harmony 520 Remote Control

Control your entire Home Entertainment system with the touch of a single button! Simply select an activity (e.g., "Watch TV", "Play a videogame", etc.) and your Harmony remote will send the right commands so you don't have to juggle remotes or remember a sequence of buttons. The Internet-based setup is a breeze. An intuitive setup wizard will walk you through the steps to get the Harmony remote to work with your systems. The online database contains all the information of over 4,000 manufacturers and over 150,000 models of components. The Harmony 520 makes Home Entertainment accessible to the whole family.

Asus Eee PC 1000 Intel Atom 1GB DDR2 80GB 10" 1024x600 Draft N Webcam Linux 6-Cell - Fine Ebony (EEEPC1000H-BK009X)

This Eee PC 1000 offers even more options to users for unique user experiences. With its shockproof Solid State Drive (SSD) design, users will be able to enjoy stable and reliable computing on-the-go; while up to 8 hours of battery life, high speed 802.11n connectivity and exclusive 20GB Eee Storage makes it the ideal traveling companion for outdoor activities. The large 10" display provides comfortable viewing, and a keyboard that´s 95% sized of generic notebooks make for easier typing and relaxing usage. It is also available in 6 custom colored designs to fit your unique personality.

Canon PowerShot S5 IS 8MP 12x Optical Zoom 2.5" LCD SD SDHC MMC Digital Camera

The ultra-powerful 12x optical zoom on the PowerShot S5 IS means you'll get the shot you want with no compromise, yet that's only the beginning of what makes this camera so exciting. The S5 IS is loaded with many of Canon's latest advanced technologies including the DIGIC III Image Processor, so both still images and movies are rendered with fine detail and luminous clarity. And now ambitious photographers have even greater creative latitude thanks to an included hot shoe adapter that allows you to attach Canon Speedlite EX Series external flashes.

The First World War is Now Online!

A new online resource on World War One has recently been created in order to better inform Canadians and others of the role we played in "the war to end all wars," lest we forget.The website, entitled Canada and the First World War, was launched thanks to the Canadian War Museum with the help of the Department of Canadian Heritage as part of their Canadian Culture Online initiative.The exhibition includes unique subjects of discussion such as photographs, diaries and letters, as well as digital artifacts and facts about all of these items. In addition to that, teachers can find resources on the site that will help them teach and discuss these items and topics in their classrooms.The new website has great potential as a teaching resource due to the fact that it has many never before seen photos, as well as some resources formerly not available to the public. In addition, the website also doesn’t require browser plug-ins or top-notch machines so it’s perfect for classrooms where computers don't have to be top of the line.The website is also used as a complement to an exhibit which is taking place at the Canadian War Museum right now called Trench Life: A Survival Guide. That exhibit focuses on the lives of the soldiers in the trench and how they coped with the war and kept their culture alive through songs and stories. Trench Life will be featured through April 2009, a time spanning the 90th anniversary of the Armistice of WWI.Enlighten yourself about the realities of war and Canada’s tragedies as well as celebrating our country’s accomplishments and victories at www.warmuseum.ca/firstworldwar.

Get Some Skin at MyTego.com

When it comes to selecting a skin for your cell phone or any handheld device, it seems the selection is limited. That has recently changed however, with a company called MyTego.Winnipeg-based MyTego.com, which was created in 2005, is providing an online service where customers can create and design vinyl material skin covers for their cell phones, laptop computers, gift cards and even game consoles like the Xbox and Playstation systems.What stands out most for MyTego.com is that it’s the customer who is the designer, not the company. MyTego provides the consumer with many options for customizing the latest gadgets. From choosing your favourite NHL team skin to selecting a personal picture, they can all be copied and designed to use as your MyTego skin. Doyle Buehler, president of MyTego Inc., believes society is becoming more inclined towards the personalization trend.“We have given consumers the tools to be their own creative genius and design exactly what they want,” said Buehler. “Everybody has the inherent desire to be different and stand out, and personalization at MyTego.com is one very easy way to accomplish this.”Ron Burke, CEO of MyTego, believes this process of creating a skin is very easy, while at the same time, fun.“The feedback we’ve heard is that we’re building unique relationships with our customers by empowering them in a way that allows them to put their personal thumbprint on their Tego skins,” said Burke. “They feel empowered by being able to completely design their skins to reflect their own personal life stories and messages.”MyTego is charging its customers who want to purchase a selected skin for a price tag just above $30.

Digitized documents and wired workflows

Fujitsu ScanSnap S510: scanning and searching
Fujitsu Canada’s ScanSnap S510 is high quality colour scanner with an integrated OCR (optical character recognition) program and a suite of related applications. It can be a powerful tool for business or personal use - although the price ($595) and software suite aim this device more at the business/professional user. Documents like business cards, conference hand-outs, printed contracts, hard copy spreadsheets and so on can be searched, edited, archived and managed as part of a document filing system. Personal documentation and mementoes such as photographs, travel documents, newspaper clippings, projects and more can be captured in a single pass.
The ScanSnap S510 is lightweight, compact and easy to use. You can use one of the software tools that’s included with the scanner, or simply use the quick-start button located on the front panel of the unit for one-off scans. Its resultant scanned output file is either PDF or JPG. All files can have user-specified file names, password protection or specified-use options.
The 600 dpi, sheet-fed USB device scans in colour or black-and-white. It can scan and send documents – whether single or double sided – as email; it can scan and export them to MS Office programs like Word, Excel and PowerPoint with OCR or it can perform other scanning and archiving tasks on printed documents, graphic images or photographs up to legal size (8.5 x 14 inches). The S510 is Vista-compatible; it’s the new older brother to the S500 XP version. Mac versions of the ScanSnap are also available.
The S510 can hold up to 50 sheets at a time in its automated feeder. In 99 percent of cases, it performs flawlessly, with no misfeeds or paper jams. For large or odd-size documents, the S510 comes with a clever clear plastic "carrier sheet" that folds over bigger or irregularly shaped materials so they can be easily scanned, as well. It will accommodate up to an 11 x 17 inch page but because you need to fold oversized paper in half, it wouldn’t be suitable for historical papers. The resulting scan is stitched together into a seamless PDF.
A software-enabled setting called "Setting for text only document" helps sharpen characters and lines while enhancing contrast, so it is handy for B&W documents.
The scanner’s colour mode is best used when dealing with high quality photos or other colour documents, which the S510 does very well. Text and subtle detail, even with shaded colours, are all reproduced faithfully.
All the software that comes with the ScanSnap is another strong selling feature – you get several dedicated programs for specific functions and applications. Because the scanner works with PDFs, it means, of course, that Adobe Acrobat is required. Version 8.0 Standard is bundled with the scanner, allowing for document mark-up, digital signatures and document security, among other things.
The ScanSnap Organizer has been enhanced for better organizing and viewing of PDF and JPEG files. It helps convert image PDFs to text-searchable files that you can use with self-defined keyword searches. Automatic indexing is supported.
Often listed last, but perhaps it should be first, is the bundled PFU CardMinder software. It helps manage the process of scanning both sides of a business card, with full indexing capability and a handy data export function for entering the data from a business card into popular contact management or email software. A new feature is a quick "search and view" tool that displays the scanned file of any name entered into its search field.
ScanSnap’s scanning engine is a CCD-based, cathode lamp duplex system. Its native 600 dpi element (interpolation to 1,200 dpi is possible) can be set to lower quality when appropriate, thus saving file size and increasing ppm (page per minute) capabilities. Users should also be aware that some parts and supplies, called consumables, will be needed during regular operation. Extra carrier sheets, pad assemblies, pick rollers and the like should be replaced on a fixed basis (usually thousands of hours or thousands of scans, depending on the part). Carrier sheets are priced around $40; replacement hardware parts are usually around $20.
The S510 has a list price of $595, an online price 100 bucks less, but that still may sound high for a "just a scanner." But the ScanSnap is much more than that. Its ability to turn personal or business documentation into searchable, editable files can be an invaluable advantage while we continue to wait for the truly paperless office.

The Ultimate Home Office

What you need to thoroughly geek up your SOHO environment
When I first entered the ranks of the self-employed back in the late 1980s and set out to equip my den as a home office, I concentrated on the ergonomics—a good chair, a good desk, a decent desk lamp and the like. I needed a PC too, of course, but the choices were so limited and the prices so exorbitant that the decision-making process wasn't much of a process at all. I bought a fax machine because it was my sole method of data communication in those pre-Internet days, but other tech peripherals such as copiers and scanners either hadn't been invented or were simply too expensive. And I remember stocking a bookcase with books because I certainly couldn't turn to anything like a "Web" for information.
Today, the ergonomics still count. However, it's the tech that really makes a home office fly. It all starts, of course, with a good computer.
Computers: What's your style?
Your first decision when choosing a PC is whether you even want a desktop PC. If you spend a lot of your business hours outside your home office—on the road, in hotels, at meetings—you may need or want a notebook too. And then you'll need to decide if you have the financial wherewithal to spring for two different computers. For the moment, we'll pretend you have that financial wherewithal, and look at the current PC market.
The PC landscape is not what it used to be. The fact is that it doesn't take a ton o' bucks these days to buy a desktop computer capable of handling office basics such as email, spreadsheets and letters/business proposals.
If you don't foresee yourself going much beyond these essentials, consider a unit structured around an Intel "Core 2 Duo" processor. Granted, an entry-level Intel "Celeron" processor-based system will cost you even less, but the multitasking smoothness that comes from multiple processing cores, not to mention the performance boost, will give you a better experience. Currently, the Core 2 Duo lineup is extremely wide-ranging (the processor is running from the $150 mark all the way up to $400 and more), but the lower end of the scale should suit your needs.
As an alternative, consider Intel's chief rival, AMD, which also has mainstream dual core processors. They are called the "Athlon 64 X2" and like the Intel Core 2 Duo line, come in a number of performance variations.
Keeping with our economy-minded yet best bang-for-the-buck parameters, we'll set up the rest of the system as follows: 1GB of DDR2-667MHz RAM, a 200-320GB hard drive (price differences are small so if your budget permits, go for bigger capacity), a reliable motherboard with integrated sound and network facilities—something in the ASUS P5B series would do just fine—and a DVD burner.
Graphic content ahead
Though many prebuilt budget systems utilize integrated, on-the-motherboard video, we'll move up just a bit from that just in case you want to play the odd game, and go with an affordable but competent video card like the new BFG GeForce 8600GT.
You don't want to go cheap on the quality of your display considering you'll be looking at it all the time, but we do need to save some bucks. Thusly, we'll opt away from the 20-inch-plus monsters and go with a perfectly usable, highly rated 19-inch widescreen Samsung SyncMaster 931BW.
If your needs are a bit more substantial—in other words, if you're into 3D design or you also want to play games and movies, stockpile large files and just generally do everything faster and more capably—you'll need to spend a few more dollars. Stick with the Core 2 Duo processor but move on up to one with a 1066MHz cache (cache is extremely fast temporary memory).
Any processor with that much cache is guaranteed to also sport a high clock speed. Add 2GB of DDR2 800MHz RAM, two 320-plus GB hard drives (one for your applications and one for your files, or use the second for backup), an ASUS P5N32 motherboard (ASUS is a very reliable name and this motherboard supports all manner of future upgrades) and the DVD burner. An alternative to the DVD burner, which is still somewhat pricey but worth considering if you need lots of archiving, are the next generation optical recorders, either Blu-ray or HD-DVD.
Wise shoppers would also spring for a portable hard drive for carting files to other locations or making backups for remote safekeeping. Seagate, Maxtor and LaCie all make units that use 3.5-inch (the size typically used in desktop PCs) or 2.5-inch (notebook) in a variety of capacities. And, to ensure you can play the greatest games for a very long time to come or run virtually any 3D modeling program on the market, we'll go with an EVGA E-GeForce 8800GTS video card with 640MB of onboard memory.
A good PC demands a good-sized screen, and any 22-inch-plus Samsung or LG with a sub 5ms access time should do the trick. In the end, this is a competent but not ridiculously pricey PC that'll do most everything your business and leisure life demands. Do you really need Microsoft's latest operating system, Windows Vista? No you do not, but you may not have a choice because it comes installed on virtually all new computers, and it is practically impossible buy Windows XP separately in retail stores. Vista is far more resource hungry than Windows XP. At the very least, you should have 2GB of memory installed.
You can take it with you
Your choice of a notebook computer depends on whether you plan to spring for a PC. If you don't, you'll want to look for a "desktop replacement" notebook, a comparatively hefty machine that will easily handle both parts of the desktop and portable equation. A nice, big 17-inch screen is almost de rigeur in notebooks of this ilk, and, considering this will be your only computer, an Intel Core 2 Duo processor of at least 2GHz, a 200-plus GB hard drive, and 2GB RAM should be considered mandatory. A video card with dedicated video memory is preferred over a graphics chipset that's integrated on the motherboard and shares the computer's main memory. Bluetooth capabilities, built-in cameras, memory card readers and biometric security measures such as fingerprint readers are just some of the perks you should look for.
Conversely, if you've decided you'll need a PC, your notebook doesn't need to be quite so large. In fact, you might want to look for portability factors like small size and light weight or lower cost. Capable models with 14.1-inch and 15.4-inch screens and power-efficient AMD Turion and Intel Centrino processors are now commonplace, and many are priced under $1,000. You won't have the storage space, the power or the graphics-handling capabilities of a desktop replacement, but it'll be easier to lug around and it'll cost you half as much.
There are a couple of other classes of notebook computers that you may also want to consider. The ultraportable is, as the name implies, designed mainly with portability as the key factor. This means the unit (including the screen) will be relatively small. Miniaturization has its price, so ultraportables also tend to be somewhat expensive. A road warrior class of notebook tries to balance a number of key factors—performance, weight and battery life. These are often the only computer that people like traveling executives or sales people have, so they are also used as desktop replacements, but without the weight penalty or battery hit imposed by 17-inch screens.
The Mac connection
An alternative to Windows PCs are Apple’s iMac and Mac Mini desktop machines and iBook notebook machines. Macs have always had the reputation of being more expensive that PCs, but now that Apple has shifted to Intel Core 2 Duo processors in these lines, there are more common points on which to base a comparison. If you compare Apple’s line with other international brand-name computers, you might be surprised at how small the price difference is. But house brand or white box computers are still significantly less expensive.
Of mice and men (and women)
No computer discussion would be complete without a couple of words on mice. And those words are cordless and laser. Cordless, because losing that darn cable is truly a freeing experience. Moreover, cordless mice now run comfortably for several years before expiring. Laser, because laser mice not only weigh less, they're also more precise. Cordless keyboards are pretty nifty too (because they don't have a cord, natch), especially if they're equipped with hotkeys across the top for instant, one-touch access to your most utilized commands. Logitech leads the way in both mice and keyboards, and for good reason—the company makes good stuff at reasonable prices. Its entire Cordless Desktop line (one part mouse, one part keyboard) is great—it's up to you to decide what features you want and need. Early cordless mice and keyboards used to communicate with the computer via infrared signals. Later, radio-frequency (RF) offered a better communications method. Today, RF is being joined by products that use Bluetooth.
Dirty power
Whereas mice get a lot of attention, the lowly (it sits on the floor) uninterruptible power supply or its lesser cousin, the surge protected power bar, doesn't get nearly enough. Yet if a power spike has ever destroyed your data or fried an electronic component or if you’ve lost hours of work when the power suddenly goes out, you know AC power management can be your best friend. In a home office, it's a necessity, especially if you live in an area that regularly experiences power outages, brownouts, lightning storms, etc. The uninterruptible power supply, or UPS, has four main parts: a battery, a battery charger, a power inverter and sophisticated circuitry to make these systems work together. The inverter converts the DC power from the battery into AC power for your computer, while the charger keeps the battery charged.
While there are a number of different types of UPS, a common one for home use is called the Standby UPS system. Under normal conditions, the battery/inverter system is in standby mode. When you lose AC power (e.g., a power outage), a circuit detects this and instantly switches over to battery power. The battery has enough capacity to allow you to finish what you are doing and save your current work. Often you can programme the unit to perform an automated shutdown of your computer, should the power fail when you are not at home.
Most often shaped like a standard six-outlet power bar, a surge protector features a built-in circuit breaker that trips when it senses a spike. Surge protectors are rated in terms of Joules, with a 1000-Joules (1 kJ) rating being the standardly accepted benchmark. APC and Belkin both manufacture reliable surge protectors that begin, approximately, at the $30 mark. Powersquid (http://www.powersquid.com/) offers a pricey but compelling solution that incorporates not just an extremely high Joules rating, but also a gaggle of breakout outlets (they look like tentacles), thus affording ample room for those cumbersome power bricks that come with some electronic devices. Regardless of your final selection, look for a unit with a "connected equipment" guarantee—few under the $10 mark will carry one.
Sound advice
Far more fun that buying a surge protector is adding sound to your computing setup. Truth is that the built-in speakers in a notebook, even a honkin' big desktop replacement notebook, aren't particularly convincing. Nor are the speakers packaged with most pre-built PCs. What you need is a three-way setup consisting of two desktop "satellite" speakers and one subwoofer. These are often sold as “2.1” speaker systems. Granted, we're not building a monster gaming rig here, but there's a very real chance you'll occasionally want to listen to music, watch a movie or maybe even play a game.
If saving money is your goal, few manufacturers build sub-$100, self-powered computer speakers as well as Logitech and Altec Lansing. You'll need to drop at least $50 to rise above the bottom of the barrel stuff. At the high end of the spectrum ($200 and above) sits the Klipsch entries. Great units all around, with bass that'll rattle the windows. For the truly well-healed, any of the Klipsch ProMedia series will impress both you and the neighbours.
Printers and multifunctions
You'll clearly need a printer to output your data. The question is whether you need a standalone printer. The answer is: Probably not. Today's space-saving multifunction printers do it all (printing, faxing, scanning and copying), and many of them do it well. Canon's extensive PIXMA series scores high ratings all around in the inkjet category, as does the HP Photosmart series.
You should remember, though, that although inkjets are great for photos, the page per penny printing cost of inkjet cartridges are generally quite a bit higher than that of lasers (at least the beefier lasers), and the text quality and speed are generally lower. All-in-one lasers, such as Canon’s strictly black-and-white imageCLASS series and Lexmark's x500n and x502n colour units, are good bets. Really, the only reason to be stuck on standalone is if you happen to do prodigious amounts of printing, and then you'd want to turn to something brawny such as the Brother HL-5250DN or the HP LaserJet P2015d. Both are in the $300 to $500 range.
We've got to start communicating
To connect your computer(s) and other devices to the outside world, you have two high-speed options – cable and DSL. But you'll need not only the modem your cable or phone company company likely provides, but also a router. Routers allow you to connect more devices (usually a total of four for entry-level routers) and they offer security in the form of a firewall. The prices of routers vary wildly, depending on speed and wireless capabilities. D-Link's expensive ($160) DIR-655 Xtreme N Gigabit Router, based on the freshly certified "Draft N" standard, delivers excellent range, world class speed via both its wired and wireless connections and super-slick good looks. Those who don't need wireless connectivity and can make do with standard non-gigabit wired speeds don't need to spend nearly as much—models such as the sub-$70 Linksys BEFSR41 or TP-Link’s TL-WR641G should do just fine.
Email is good, but there's nothing like a good, old-fashioned conversation to cement relations. On that note, you're going to need a phone. But first, you'll have to decide if you want to utilize your traditional phone line or move on to Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services such as Vonage.
One day in the near future, VoIP will likely kill off plain old telephone service (POTS) because it's simply a superior technology that saves most users money. In the meantime, it's a good alternative to traditional technology that's growing in popularity even though it's impacted by the same things that sporadically interrupt email or Internet surfing. To get on the VoIP bandwagon, you either need to purchase an analog telephone adapter such as the sub-$80 D-Link VTA to use with your current analog phone, or go with a brand new VoIP-equipped phone like the VTech IP8100-2 ($200). Another option exists in the form of hybrid phones that allow you to do both VoIP and POTS. Panasonic's cordless GLOBARANGE lineup, priced between $100 and $200, does just that. Chances are, however, that most home office folk will stick with their current analog phone lines, at least for the time being. Reliable, corded phones with a couple of lines and a speakerphone feature make a great deal of sense in the business environment. Unless you see yourself moving around quite a bit when you're talking, check out corded business phones from well-regarded manufacturers such as AT&T and Panasonic. If you really feel the need to move while you talk, look into the Panasonic KXTG6700. This monster phone features high frequency 5.8GHz wireless technology, two independent lines, a handset LCD and an integrated answering machine. The $300 price is the only hiccup.
If you don't want to hand over a bunch of extra bucks to the phone company every month for a second line, be sure to check whether your local provider offers a "smart ring" feature. Though it isn't a second line per se, smart ring does give your home a second phone number and a distinctive ring when that number is called, at a fraction of the cost of a true second line. Moreover, you don't even need a two-line phone to utilize the service.
Of course, there will be times when you can't make it to your phone to answer all those incoming calls. The question of an answering machine vs. voice mail is something every SOHO worker faces, and there are positives and negatives on both sides. In an answering machine, you have a solution you pay for up front. No other costs are involved, and the entire thing remains within the comfort of your home for immediate access. Indeed, an answering machine may well be incorporated into the telephone you purchase. However, depending on your phone setup, callers may encounter busy signals or long waits while you finish up with your current call. Moreover, many of the answering machines at the big box stores sound muffled and indistinct. The best idea is to try before you buy, or at least be prepared to audition more than one unit at home.
The big drawback in voice mail is ongoing charges. Otherwise, it's arguably the better way to go. With voice mail, you don’t need to worry about whether an answering machine is turned on or off. You don’t need to worry about busy signals or audio clarity. Ultimately, the decision is very much subjective.

Jack of one trade

Monochrome laser printers In The Lab
One sage piece of advice offered to budding entrepreneurs is to "do one thing and do it well." Rather than trying to be all things to everyone, see a gap in the market, an under-served segment or see how you can do something better than your competitors and create your business plan around that. Small and medium sized business and enterprise work groups may therefore appreciate the simplicity and performance offered by stand-alone monochrome laser printers.
These aren't the multi-function fax machine, copier, printer, scanner, coffee makers that grace the shelves of your local computer retailer or SOHO supplier. Rather, these are (varyingly) easy to set up, easy to administer and easy to use black and white document printing workhorses for smaller offices and workgroups.
Why go mono?
Inkjet and laser multi-function printers (MFPs) serve as true all-in-ones and in many cases, are an ideal choice for a home office. Inkjets offer often incredibly low initial cost of ownership but the value proposition falls apart if you need to do anything more than sporadic photocopying and if you receive more than a few faxes or print more than a few documents ("few" in this case being a scientific measurement stand-in for "not many but we're not entirely sure exactly how many").
Laser MFPs tend to be more expensive at retail but have a lower overall cost of ownership than their inkjet counterparts. That said though, in offices of more than a few (a literal few, in this case) people, an all-in-one document centre is likely to experience some traffic jams which rank only slightly below paper jams on the list of printing pet peeves. While Jane from accounting is trying to fax off year end figures, John in marketing is scanning documents and trying to print off a dozen copies of a presentation for tomorrow's meeting. Meanwhile, Milton is searching for his Swingline stapler and listening to the radio at a reasonable volume from nine to eleven while he's collating (Office Space, anyone?).
The monochrome lasers we had in for testing are stand-alone document printing centres. They would be ideally suited to a medium-sized office or workgroup that will use a central office fax machine and a central copier and document scanning centre.
A note on HUB: The Computer Paper's review methodology. Each printer was tested in as close to an even comparison as possible. Things like the way certain functions or features are labeled (econo mode, toner saver or eco mode are all different names given to essentially the same function, for example), but can be fairly compared and contrasted across the various manufacturers and models.
In the course of our testing, we used a 10-page black and white document without line breaks, indentations or any special formatting in both our single-sided and duplexed text printing tests. We also used a 13-page stock photo catalogue in PDF form with approximately 10 per cent image coverage to test monochrome image reproduction. There was no appreciable difference in print time per page as compared with our text-only document.
First page print time was tested from the moment the print button on our freshly formatted Windows XP Professional box was pressed to the moment the first page dropped in to the document tray.
Our measurements for a printer's noise level were highly scientific and involved walking away to a point that the sound of the printer was no longer annoying while the printer churned out pages.
Price: Manufacturer's suggested retail price where available. Retail partners may sell for less. Dimensions: From widest point to widest point, including displays. PPM (manufacturer supplied): The manufacturer's listed page per minute (PPM) based on a best case scenario. PPM (real world, printer default settings): B&W print time/10pg = sec. per pg. and 60sec./sec. per pg.= PPMPPM (real world, duplex): Same equation but measured while printing the same document in automatic duplex mode. Duplex: Automatic and/or manualConsumables cost: Manufacturer's suggested retail price (MSRP) for a high-yield if available (assuming direct order through consumables management feature of printer interface when present). Assumes use of cartridge return programs and the discounts associated therewith when available.
E352dnLexmark http://www.lexmark.ca/ $508.75Dimensions: 38.5 x 25.5 x 32cm (WxHxD) Weight: 11.4kgPPM (manufacturer supplied): Up to 35PPM (A4 paper) PPM (real world, printer default settings): 24.9PPM (real world, duplex): 14.6Duty cycle: 35,000 pg/mo. Duplex: Auto or manualNetwork: EthernetNoise level: 10ft. in default, beside your desk in Quiet ModeConsumables cost: Toner cartridge- $214.65 / 9,000 pg., Photoconductor Kit- $45.90 / 30,000 pg.
The E352dn from Lexmark is a good looking and versatile mono laser printer offering network functionality and full manual or automated duplexing, along with options for booklet, top-bound or side-bound duplexed printouts. It's a capable printer and despite some initial driver installation issues, is the fastest of the bunch with a real world PPM of 24.9. Well short of the manufacturer's spec of 35 PPM but also, including the initial spooling process. After hitting the print button, the first finished page landed in the tray in about 8 sec. Dialing down the print quality to draft doesn't have that much effect on the printer's speed but does offer toner-saving prints with no appreciable loss of print quality, making the Lexmark E352dn a truly usable printer--even for presentations or official documents--when in toner-saving draft mode. The same black and white document sent through in standard setting duplex mode, which is easily accessible via either the printer's two-line mono LCD screen or using the on-screen printer menus, offered a PPM of 14.6.
The printer spools quickly and would be a good choice for workgroups given its 35,000 page duty cycle, 366 MHz processor and 32MB RAM, expandable to 160MB. As a networked printer, it's ideal as a workgroup device. In this context, the noise level is acceptable. If it's going to be sitting on a desk however, a quiet mode scales the speed back and thus, cuts the noise level significantly. If the printer is sigging on your desk, it's worth the sacrifice.
A single sheet or envelope slot on the front of the unit is a nice touch for quick one-off envelopes or label sheets. When using paper from the bottom-mounted, 250-sheet capacity paper tray, it can be loaded with up to 11" x 14" (legal) paper. Beyond 8.5" x 11" however, the paper tray must be expanded such that it juts out of the back of the printer. This issue is not unique to the Lexmark printer in our round-up. However, the included dust cover that keeps the otherwise exposed paper (and thus, the printer's inner workings) clean, is.
ML-3051NDSamsung http://www.samsung.ca/ $299.99Dimensions: 39.5 x 28 x 41cm (WxHxD) Weight: 11.1kgPPM (manufacturer supplied): Up to 28 (A4 paper) PPM (real world, printer default settings): 21.7PPM (real world, duplex): 15.1Duty cycle: 50,000 pg/mo. Duplex: Auto or manualNetwork: EthernetNoise level: 8ft. Consumables cost: Toner/drum cartridge- $129.97 / 8,000 pg.
Samsung's ML-3051ND is a speedy printer that offers high quality output in default mode. It's also one of only two printers in our Lab that incorporates a two-line monochrome LCD panel for accessing some functions from the printer itself and for giving text feedback on the printer's status and, should any problems occur, what's ailing it.
While it's rated for a 50,000 duty cycle, the ML-3051ND is probably best suited to a smaller workgroup or for individual, heavy use home office as it's paper tray feels a bit flimsy and will require extra care to ensure it isn't damaged.
Duplexing and toner save modes are accessible via dedicated buttons on the printer's no-nonsense control panel. Toner save mode creates a readable document suitable for internal office use and filing but that you probably wouldn't want to hand to a client with text looking a bit washed out without sufficient contrast on the page. In default mode however, the ML-3051ND spits out high contrast, easy to read pages and clear monochrome images and charts with the first page hitting the tray in about 10 seconds.
When auto duplexing, the capable printer still manages a respectable PPM of 15.1 with our 10-page heavy coverage text document taking 39.7 sec. from spooling to finished tray.
The paper tray can accept media up to 8.5” x 14" (legal paper) by expanding the tray, which then juts out a bit precariously from the back of the unit. A second tray can be added to boost the printer's capacity from 300 to 550 pages in the lower tray, the same number in the add-on tray and 50 pages in the front-loading multi-purpose tray. Said tray accepts plain paper, envelopes, labels and other media.
Under the hood, a 400 MHz processor and 64MB RAM expandable to 320MB keeps this chugging along smoothly and allows for a large print queue.
For administrators, the ML-3050 series includes the "SyncThru Web Service" for checking the status of the printer on the network, including network and individual settings and updating firmware. The "SyncThru Web Admin Service" that is available on network versions of Samsung printers ups the ante allowing remote diagnostics, configurable problem alerts and more through a dedicated web interface.
HL-5250DNBrother http://www.brother.ca/ $299.99Dimensions: 36 x 23 x 37.5cm (WxHxD) Weight: 9.8kgPPM (manufacturer supplied): 30PPM (real world, printer default settings): 21.7PPM (real world, duplex): 11.4Duty cycle: 20,000 pg/mo. Duplex: Auto or manualNetwork: EthernetNoise level: 10 ft. from deskConsumables cost: Toner cartridge- $129.99 / 7,000 pg., Imaging drum- $249.99 / 25,000 pg.
Brother's HL-5250DN is a no-nonsense networked laser that, despite its lower than the average duty cycle of 20,000 pages per month, is a capable, high-capacity and speedy printer suitable for home office use or in smaller workgroups.
Perhaps its biggest claim to fame is in its huge up to 800 sheet capacity; 50 sheets in the front-loading, flip-down multipurpose tray, 250 in the included paper tray and up to 500 more with two additional purchase add-on paper trays. You'll have to keep an eye on larger jobs however as the output tray will only accept 150 of those printed pages. Paper trays accept up to legal (8.5" x 14") paper easily with snap tray adjustments. When using standard letter-sized (8.5" x 11") paper, the tray and the printer are one self-contained unit. When going beyond letter, the paper tray sticks out the back of the printer.
An incredibly easy to follow set-up guide makes it simple to get the printer up and running within half an hour of opening the box, even for neophytes. This ultra-simple setup speaks to single-user, non-techie offices. For small workgroups in enterprise, small offices and for the more technically inclined home user, there's an extensive web management system designed with network administrators in mind. Here, you can do web-based driver deployment to a workgroup, check the level of consumables, the printer's overall health as well as grab generic PCL drivers for Citrix Metaframe and Windows Terminal Server.
On the first run through, printing several 10-page documents, the printer left an awkward curve the finished product that made it hard to even up the pages. However, after a few run-throughs, this problem self-rectified and didn't occur again.
Our 10-page heavy coverage test document made its way through the printer from initial spool to final page in 27.1 sec for an impressive real-world PPM of 21.7. The first sheet was delivered within 9.7 sec.
Duplexing on the HL-5250, while not the slowest, showed the biggest difference between print time for single-sheet and duplexed pages. Our 10-page test document printed on both sides of five sheets took a manageable 52.5 sec (11.4 PPM) from start to finish.
Under the hood, a 266 MHz and 32MB RAM expandable up to an impressive 544MB keeps things running smoothly.
LaserJet P2015dHP http://www.hp.ca/ $449.00Dimensions: 35 x 25 x 35.5cm (WxHxD) Weight: 11kgPPM (manufacturer supplied): 27PPM (real world, printer default settings): 20.9PPM (real world, duplex): 11.9Duty cycle: 15,000 pg/mo. Duplex: Auto or manualNetwork: Not as testedNoise level: 8 ft. Consumables cost: HP LaserJet Q7553X Black Print Cartridge- $147.99 / 7,000 pg.
The P2015d is a recent entry level small office / enterprise workgroup mono laser printer and enjoys instant brand recognition as a part of HP's generally highly regarded LaserJet line. Eschewing a display screen, the P2015d instead opts for several LED lights that alert to paper jams, low consumables and other such printer mainstays.
Moving up a step from the P2015d, the P2015dn adds network capability, network administration and a print server to the list of marketing bullet points and adds about $120 to the suggested retail price.
The model tested is the basic P2015 with added duplexing functionality. Speaking of which, the LaserJet P2015d spits out duplexed pages (using our heavy coverage text document) at about 11.9 PPM. Single sheets emerged at a speedy 20.9 PPM in standard mode. In this mode, text is crisp, clear and easy to read. In our test presentation document, images are as clear as can be hoped for on a monochrome laser printer at factory default settings. Printing in economy mode, text becomes grey, loses contrast and generally makes it look as if the toner cartridge is dying before its time. In other words, eco-minded or not, you probably wouldn't want to put a document printed in this mode in front of a client, either existing or potential. Toner savings aside, the time savings aren't worth the sacrifice; our test document printed in eco-mode came out just a little more than three seconds faster (23.7 PPM) than the same document printed in standard mode. We assume that the toner savings in eco-mode are considerable.
The smaller than average monthly duty cycle of 15,000 pages per month mean this printer is ideally suited to home offices, some small offices and small workgroups. 15,000 pages is a lot to print in a month, but larger workgroups or offices should step up to a higher rated printer.
That said, the printer's solid feel speaks to reliability and it has what feels like the sturdiest paper tray in the Lab this month. Said tray accepts up to standard letter (8.5" x 11") paper while maintaining the printer's overall footprint. Upping the paper size to legal means the tray juts out the back. With an optional additional 250-sheet paper tray, the P2015d can accept up to 550 sheets; 250 in the included paper tray, 250 in the add-on and 50 in the multi-purpose tray.
A 400 MHz processor is the brains behind the operation and the 32MB RAM that comes standard can be expanded up to 288MB.