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printing posts

Filed under: Design, Productivity, Web services

Make webpages more printable with The Printliminator

The Printliminator is a bookmarklet that gets any webpage ready to print. Once it's activated, you can click on elements you don't want to print to remove them from the page. If you don't want to do it manually, you can remove all images on the page using one button. Another button applies a nice default print stylesheet.

Sometimes there's only one element of a page that's worth printing, and The Printliminator has you covered there, too. Instead of clicking to delete one thing at a time, you can option-click to delete everything but what you're clicking on. If you make a mistake and delete something you wanted to print, there's no undo. Just reload the page and start over.

Filed under: Hardware, Windows, How-Tos

Stupid Windows trick: print to your new USB printer from crappy old DOS programs

Plenty of people out there are still running the odd DOS application - many of them for business purposes. So what are you to do when that trusty old printer breaks down and you can't find a new one with a parallel port?

Why not buy a fancy new USB-only printer and make use of a stupid Windows trick that's been around for a while? It's a fairly simple process.

Step one is to install the printer as you normally would - making sure you follow the instructions provided, of course. Once that's done, you're set for Windows printing. Go to control panel and open your printers, then right-click on the newly installed one and choose properties from the context menu.

Once the printer properties are up, click the ports tab and make note of which port has the check mark in it. You'll need that information in just a minute.

Close that window, and choose to add a new printer (the option to do so should be on the file menu, or you may see an icon). Click next to start the process. On the second screen, select local printer but take the check out of automatically detect and install.

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Filed under: Utilities, Hardware, Windows, Freeware, Open Source, Windows x64

WinPrint routes print jobs from DOS to Windows USB printers

As much as I'd like it to not be the case, some of my customers still rely on clunky (but functional) DOS applications to manage their businesses. While their applications tend not to change, their hardware does - which invariably leads to problems.

Take printing , example. If your business is stuck with a DOS application and restricts you to a half dozen or so "supported" printers, you may think that you'll have to use that HP Laserjet IIp forever. DOS isn't all that fond of printing to USB printers.

Sure, you can hack a solution together by setting up a network share and mapping LPT1 to it, but it doesn't always work depending on your printer. MFCs are especially bad for this.

WinPrint provides a better solution. It's a free application that monitors DOS print jobs and forwards them to any Windows printer. Configuration is fairly simple, though you will likely need to play with margin settings a bit to get things looking picture-perfect. Once you've got things set up correctly, you won't have to worry about your trusty old parallel-only printer dying on you and leaving you in the lurch.

Filed under: Internet, Web services, web 2.0

Magazine + Cloud Computing = MagCloud

If you ever had the dream of being the editor of your own magazine but lacked the experience, network and the monetary investments to get it off the ground don't give up yet. MagCloud hopes that with its services you can be the next publishing mogul.

While currently in beta, MagCloud claims that the process is easy enough.

  • Create your magazine according to their specifications and upload it to their servers.
  • Order a proof to verify that the magazine is how you want it.
  • Set your price and publish it.

The concept is similar to that of CafePress which allows you to set the price for your own custom printed t-shirt with no investment on your part. While we haven't seen an actual physical copy of MagCloud's work, the ability to print your own magazine is tempting.

Filed under: Utilities, News, Windows

GreenPrint - new free edition saves you money and saves the trees

GreenPrint
GreenPrint
software launched a new free edition today to help home users and non-profits reduce home and office printing waste. Known as GreenPrint World edition, this edition has fewer features than other versions and includes advertising. The software works by analyzing every page of a document sent to the printer, and looks for banner ads, pages with just a logo or URL, legal jargon, etc., and then highlights and removes them before they ever reach the printer. You can also remove images with a click.

According to GreenPrint, users can save up to $90 per year and eliminate 1,400 wasted pages. In addition, the software quantifies your toner and paper savings in a nice report which you can review to help you feel better about all the trees you are saving. The company estimates that with widespread use GreenPrint can save 100 million trees and reduce greenhouse gasses by over 30 million tons globally.

We're all for technology which helps save trees and automates mundane tasks helping to make your printing sort of idiot proof. It's a big step in the right direction, however, there is just so much software can do. We continue to recommend print preview as an important part of your ongoing safe printing practice.

Filed under: Business, Design, Internet, Photo, Web services

Moo now offers postcards

Moo now offers postcardsWe love Moo at Download Squad, and are excited to report they have added postcards to their ever expanding product line.

The online minicards system that allow users to drop their favorite Flickr, Livejournal, Vox, Fotolog, Habbo, Facebook and bebo images onto them now have Postcards. The 148mm x 105 mm glossy printed cards come in packs of 20, with each one using different photos or designs on the front, and a custom message on the back. Pricing is set at $19.99 US, with free shipping until October 28th.

So fire up your cameras, drawing and photo applications to get an early start on making holiday cards this year, and impress your family and friends. Moo also offers their famous mini cards, stickerbooks and notecards.

Filed under: Business, Design, Internet, Office, Adobe

Adobe gets rid of FedEx link

Adobe gets rid of FedEx linkAdobe had teamed up with Kinkos FedEx to print documents over the internet, unfortunately this move upset smaller printing companies.

The FedEx printing option had begun in Acrobat 8.1 and Reader 8.1 in June. However, complaints from rival businesses has forced Adobe to rethink their partnership with Kinko's and initiate a plan to take the feature out by an October release.

FedEx Kinko's will continue to distribute a version of the Adobe Reader with the special printing feature on its website.

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Office, Open Source

PDF your way to a paperless office with Linux


Need to pump out the PDF's but don't have the considerable change required to pick up a copy of Adobe Acrobat? Linux could be your answer. If you already have a Linux machine around the house serving some other duty, you can easily turn that machine into a PDF printing and archiving factory, and simply click "print" on any computer (and from any operating system) in the house to create a paperless document.

Joe Brockmeier of Linux.com explains, "What sort of things might you want to save as PDFs? When you buy stuff online, virtually every site provides a receipt, which you may want later if the order email is lost or if you need to send in a receipt for expense reports. However, you may not want to print all of them out just to keep them around, and Firefox only supports writing to PostScript, rather than PDF."

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With Halloween fast approaching, it's a great time to get in some practice defending your territory against zombies. In Graveyard Shift, you take aim at zombies and other creepy-crawlies, blasting them into splatters of cartoony green guts. It's a casual first-person shooter, and it's very easy to get the hang of - use the mouse to aim, click to fire. Graveyard Shift has at least 15 levels, and it might even have some secret stages I haven't unlocked yet. They key to getting good at Graveyard Shift is learning to use ...

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