//beconfused

My assignments are done already (more or less). While doing the printing, my printer just stopped and refuse to print anymore. It tells me to put in a new black ink cartridge.

(HP Photosmart C5180 All in one printer.)

It even knows that I am using a genuine HP ink cartridge. Quite impressive. I wonder what if I put in a pirated one, would it have some sort of warning. A Cartridge Genuine Advantage program perhaps?

My printer loves ink cartridges, has 6 of them each time. Thought it look kinda pretty when it’s opened up naked and all, I’ll keep the printer open for another hour.

Last Friday I went to the PC Show held in Suntec Convention Center. I carefully picked Friday since Thursday is a public holiday (Vesak Day) and Saturday Sunday is just weekends. I don’t want to go there when it is crowded you know.

I went with about 6 friends all aiming to purchase different things. I realize the hottest selling thing is probably storage disk, storage media and RAMs. I don’t think they are that cheap but everyone’s excited over storage cards. I wonder why would people need so much SD cards.

I purchased a printer, the HP Photosmart C5100. It’s quite affordable at SG$279 with a SG$50 voucher. And with trade in of my non-functioning printer, I get an additional SG$50.

Above is the printer. Can you name all the items on my table?

There aren’t really any special stuff asides the usual showgirls. Sony brought some people to do Brazilian dance or something. The Brazilian dancers shake here and there and patroled the entrances of the PC Show. It was seemingly good treat to the photographers. They’re snapping happily and the Sony girls were looking really good. And at the end of the dance routine, they unveil a scroll that has some Sony promotion which look awfully ridiculous and they shouted “Sony!”

I was stunned for a moment and the other girl shouted “Sony!” and they continued parading to the next entrance announcing “Sony!” every few shakes. My heart just died a little. Sony!

Memjet Technology is releasing a printer that prints faster than the rate my computer take to send things to my Canon printer.

Video demo of Memjet technology at work

• Document printer (A4/letter): 60 ppm page-width, 1600-dpi, full-color printing
• Photo printer (4â? x 6â?): 1 print every 2 seconds / 30 prints per minute
• Label printer (6â? length): 6 to 12 inches per second
• Large format printer (51â? width): 6 inches to 1 foot per second

Definately one company to look out for.

Secretive inventor with more patents that Edison. Spent 13 years developing the technology. Today released videos that have stunned the printer industry. Analysts have confirmed prototypes are real. Ultra-high speed $150 photo printer technology available 2007. Also promises color printers built into mobile phones, digicams, and handheld games…

read more | digg story

There’s an IT Show today (from Thursday to Sunday actually) so it might just be a good time to buy that external harddisk that you wished Santa fall last Christmas.

I might be getting a couple of gadgets this IT Show:

• Flash drives – I’m getting one from SanDisk. I’ll snap a picture if I manage to buy one.
• External harddisk – My brother wants one of these. If it’s affordable, I buy one of these too.
• Laser Printer – I felt like having a laser printer. I don’t really like to read from the monitor all the time you know.
• Earphones – Shure is there I heard. I’ll check out their canal phones, if they’re affordable, I may just buy it. But it’s Shure, so… probably not.

I’ll be going with my camp mates. I felt like I ORD already actually. Days left says 93. That’s about 3 months more and time will fly real quick on the month of March.

A pretty creative Lexmark printer advertisement.

[Direct link]

I remember HP having one of those too. It’s about this space rover robot going around in Mars trying to find life in Mars. The robot was actually looking at an A4 sized pictures printed from the HP printer. And then the robot starts to rotate to the left. You see a martian frantically printing the next page out. It then ran to the left and the robot got a good glimpse of Mars. Pretty cool concept. But I can’t find the advertisement online. I love that one.

An advertisement every Tuesday

Just two days ago, I tried something new. I was told to bargain down a photocopier from SG$5,200 to SG$5,000. It’s quite fun actually.

XXX Company Representative (CR): Good afternoon, how may I help you?
Me: I am calling on behalf of Mr. Joseph from ABC camp regarding the photocopier that you’re selling. Just to check with you – have you sent the quotations to us?
CR: No, we haven’t. The contact person for the sale has not get back to us.
Me: May I know what’s the current quoted price?
CR: That would be SG$5,200.
Me: We are tight on budget at the moment, would it be possible to sell us at – say – SG$5,000?
CR: SG$5,200 is a discounted price already, other people are selling at SG$5,700. You can check if you don’t believe.
Me: I see. It seems that other photocopiers are…
CR: This one prints faster and has better duplex functions.
Me: Yes, I know. We like the printer. Would you consider lowering the price to SG$5,000. We were thinking of just getting that photocopier.
CR: That would be hard, it’s already discounted.
Me: But we like your photocopier. Would you consider lowering to SG$5,000 to meet our budget?
CR: I’ll check for you.
Me: Thanks a lot.

… Five minutes later…

CR: Hi, thanks for waiting. We can lower to SG$5,000. It’s a really good photocopier at a very good value already. I’ll send the quotations to you now.
Me: Thanks once again.

_(A picture of a HP volume printer I took at Biopolis. I don’t have a picture of a photocopying machine.)_

It’s quite fun, you know. I never bargained much in my life. That’s perhaps the advantage of going through national service. You do a bunch of strange things sometimes. This is one of the sai kang I enjoy. I never negotiated on the phone for such things, so it’s quite an experience for me.

And guess what, when you screwed up, it’s really okay. Because my superior asked me to negotiate till SG$5,000. If I really screwed up, he can’t reprimand me, after all I don’t do this for a living.

I bought the much publicized Canon (xnu) i320 printers to replace my old Canon BubbleJet 210. As free gifts, I received bundled software (some drivers and useless stuff), a phone set and a mini-cooler (for those picnics and stuff). However, I received the phone set all thanks to my aunt. And, however (again), I am not very happy about it.

I have been eyeing on this printer for quite some time (for 2 weeks ago actually, not that long). I told Ben that I am interested to purchase one of these Canon printers on the Today (newspaper) advertisement. He revealed that he has one of these at home, and wanted to sell it to me for S$80 as his family is upgrading to a higher-end model. It costs S$149 as advertised by the way.

This afternoon, I was at Westmall with Cuixia, looking at the i320 printer which cost S$129, less expensive than what was advertised on Today. I asked the sales guy if this offer is bundled with any things. [Note: Asking if the offer comes with bundle stuff is just my way of asking if there's any free gifts, hehee..] I was told it comes with the bundled software, a telephone set, an ice-cooler box and some photo paper. It’s a really good deal it seems – buy 1 get 4 free. lol

I went home and discussed it with my mother. She agreed upon the purchase after a while. [She thought that S$129 is a very cheap price for a printer.]

After dinner, I returned to Westmall with my mother (she wants to see the printer) and my aunt (she wants the cashier to see her credit card) to purchase that printer. Again, I asked for a review for the bundled items, and it has changed. Now an ice-cooler, bundled software and a calculator (non-scientific) is offered instead. Apparently the previous guy who introduces the printer to me that afternoon made several mistakes. The telephone set and photo paper is only offered to high-end printer models.

I called Ben up and ask him for details on his S$80 deal. His parents decided to sell it at S$70 instead. But my mother ain’t too keen. I don’t think she trust Ben too. She brought up a couple of what-ifs. I informed Ben, telling him the deal is off. I felt quite bad about it actually. S$70 is a really good deal actually.

We went back to buy the printer. My aunt went to complain to another salesman that someone told me that I will receive a telephone set as a free gift. Surprisingly enough, the sales man agreed to give us the telephone instead of the silly calculator, on condition that I point out who told me I will get a free phone. Frankly, I have no idea. But hey, we still get the phone! No photo paper though but it doesn’t matter.

Perhaps that something I should learn from my aunt. And also, sorry Ben.

[I went back home and test-print it. I looked for the image with the best resolution which is the image of Lain1. With 1147*1663 resolutions, that's the best I have got. I wonder where should I put Lain1, hmmmp..]

1) Lain is a character from the Japanese animation – Serial Experiments Lain. Serial Experiments Lain reminds me of Serial Dilutions, hahaa… That is if you know what I mean.