5 Ways to Save on Photo Printing at Home

With the advent of digital photography, most people don’t need to go out and have a roll of film developed at a photo shop anymore. They can simply print out the photos they’ve taken using their desktop computer and printer at home. However, when printing multiple pictures, it can get quite expensive.

So how can you save on printing photos at home without sacrificing quality? Here are some tips:

1. Always Check All Print Settings First

One of the simplest ways to save on printing is to avoid creating misprints. Keep in mind that it’s not enough to simply check Print Preview before hitting the Print button. It’s a great habit  to also check all printer settings before printing, as some configurations may conflict or override the program itself. Make it a habit to check the Printer Properties option to make sure all settings are in sync.

2. Switch to Generic Replacements

If you have a Canon or HP printer, you don’t necessarily have to buy branded photo paper. There are many generic brands out there that offer the same quality as their name-brand counterparts. The same goes for printer ink, as people can opt for remanufactured or compatible ink cartridges instead of buying cartridges made by original equipment manufacturers. Remanufactured printer cartridges are high-quality cartridges recycled from used ones, while compatible cartridges are newly manufactured cartridges that are considerably more affordable than name-brand ones.

3. Print Drafts on Copy Paper

Photo paper is more expensive than regular paper, and for good reason—it’s thicker and heavier than plain old bond paper. However, if you just want to make sure that the photo you’re printing is just in the right size or is properly aligned, you can use copy paper first. Then just switch to photo paper once the drafts are good.

4. Print Only One at a Time

If you’re printing multiple copies of a single photo, you have to take your time to avoid misprints. After all, home printers aren’t built to continuously print out hundreds of photos. They may not be able to handle printing many copies one after another, leading to paper jams and lots of wasted ink. So, if you’re printing many pictures, just take it slow and keep an eye on the printer.

5. Try DIY Ink Refills

If you’re not afraid to get your hands dirty, you can try refilling your old, empty cartridges with fresh ink. While this is the cheapest way to get printer ink, it’s also the trickiest, as the refilling process differs from cartridge to cartridge. And if done incorrectly, the refilled cartridge can even ruin your printer. While this method can help you save lots of money in the long run, only attempt this if you’re confident enough in your abilities.

These five tips are just some of the ways you can save money on printing photos at home. By following them, not only will you get to enjoy the convenience of not having to visit a print shop just to have a single image printed. You’ll also get to save a bit of money from every print.

Xiaomi’s Yeelight Wi-Fi bulb offers Hue quality at less than half the cost

The Yeelight LED bulb is a great option if you’re looking for an affordable smart lighting solution.

Xiaomi made its name by selling budget phones that offered great value for money, and the company is taking the same approach to connected devices. That’s especially true of the $20 Yeelight LED bulbs, which offer a experience similar to that of Hue bulbs at a fraction of the cost.

A great quality product for half the price of a Hue setup.

One of the main selling points about the Yeelight LED bulbs is that they don’t require a hub to connect to your Wi-Fi network, unlike Hue. Just hook up the bulbs to an E27 socket, and install the Yeelight app to get started with connecting the bulbs to your Wi-Fi network. The lack of a hub means that to get started with three Yeelight bulbs, you’ll have to shell out $60, less than half of the $150 retail price of a Hue starter kit.

Once the initial setup is done, you’ll be able to use your phone to control the lights, including setting a scheduler to automatically turn them on or off, adjusting the intensity and brightness of the lights, and much more. There are preset scenes available from the Yeelight app, and you can also pick a color by uploading a photo from your phone’s gallery.

You can adjust the colors by sliding left or right in the app, and the intensity by sliding up and down anywhere on the screen. The app also offers options for a mode called Flow, which cycles through a set of colors. Color temperature of the Yeelight bulb ranges from 1700K to 6500K, and you can control multiple lights from the app simultaneously.

The lights get fairly bright as you increase the color temperature, but you’ll be able to get that with the standard white variant of the bulbs. The RGB version is all about the colors, and it shines in that regard.

The lights are available on Amazon in the U.S., but they don’t officially work in the country — yet. The Yeelight bulbs are designed for 220V outlets, and running them on a 110v results in the bulbs not connecting to Wi-Fi. You’ll need to get a 110V to 240V converter to get these working in the U.S.

Unfortunately, these bulbs don’t official work in North America. Yet.

The Yeelight ecosystem is still in its nascent stages, but it has picked up IFTTT support at the end of last year, and Xiaomi added Alexa integration a few days ago. You’ll have to switch to the Singapore server from the Yeelight app to be able to connect to Alexa, but once you do, you should be able to use your Echo or Echo Dot to control the Yeelight bulbs.

Alexa control is limited to turning the lights on and off as well as controlling the brightness. As of now, there’s no option to change the color of the lights with your voice. There’s also no mention regarding Google Assistant compatibility.

That said, the Yeelight LED bulb costs just $20, and is on sale all week for $17 at GearBest. Its affordability gives it a distinct edge, and the amount of features — even accounting for lack of Assistant support — makes it an enticing option if you’re looking to get started with smart home tech.

See at GearBest

Now Roombas check in with ‘Clean Map’ reports to your phone

How do you know if your Roomba has cleaned every inch of your floor? If you have one of the wirelessly connected series 900 Roombas, you’ll start getting “Clean Map” reports through the iRobot Home app for Android and iOS. The machines now map the parts of your home they’ve cleaned by combining adaptive navigation with visual localization. You’ll get those maps as part of the new reports, along with how much time the Roomba spent vacuuming and what the dirtiest parts of your house are. The app can now also send you push notifications on the robot’s cleaning status.

Series 900 Roombas will soon be able to obey Alexa commands, as well. Sometime in the second quarter of this year, you’ll be able to start, stop and pause the vacuuming robots by speaking to the Amazon assistant. All you have to do is issue simple voice commands, such as “Alexa, ask Roomba to begin cleaning” to activate or deactivate the machine.

Source: iRobot

Energizer’s Xbox One battery charger recalled for burn hazard

Faulty parts in tech devices have always threatened a particularly explosive calamity, but the last year has seen recalls for a bizarre range of devices that set themselves on fire. Top of the list: HP laptop batteries, Samsung’s washing machines and 2016’s biggest fail punchline, the Note 7. The latest device to get a recall notice is Energizer’s double controller battery rechargers for the Xbox One, which is reportedly overheating so badly that it’s melted the plastic casing on a few dozen units.

Luckily, no injuries have been reported — yet. But with 24 accounts of deformed plastic and six reports of a burning odor, a Consumer Product Safety Commission notice has been sent to recall 121,000 units with the serial number 048-052-NA. The creators of the recharge unit, Performance Designed Products, are giving a full refund. Even if you have a different-numbered model, it would be wise to keep an eye (and nose) open on the charger. Just in case.

Via: MS Power User

Source: US Consumer Product Safety Commission

There’s reason to be skeptical of Samsung’s new ‘commitment’ to monthly security updates

A generic form response from Samsung’s ‘security team’ does not mean what you think it means.

Building on the frustration of the U.S. unlocked Galaxy S7 still not having Nougat while other models are updated, a story is swirling this week about Samsung Mobile Security saying in an email that it will “commit” to updates every month for unlocked phones. As great as it would be, there’s plenty of reason to be skeptical about the possibilities of Samsung flipping the switch to a full-on commitment to release these updates monthly — even for a single device in a single country.

Going back as far as August 2015, Samsung has made a commitment to streamlining the security patch update process, going so far as to list devices that would receive the updates and start surfacing the patch level in its software. We were rightfully excited back in 2015 — then everyone forgot about it as things got back to normal and various phones and tablets skipped patches for months at a time.

Samsung’s simple Mobile Security website, which has been around since shortly after that 2015 announcement, lists the same information it always has. You’ll find the latest security patch information — including March 2017 patches — plus a list of devices slated to get updates and what specifically was fixed in each update. The wording is explicit, and has been there for well over a year now (emphasis mine):

In order to meet your expectations and continue to keep our products secure, Samsung will release monthly and quarterly security updates on selected Samsung devices listed below. Monthly and quarterly security updates will include patches for Android OS related security issues released by Google, as well as, patches for Samsung-specific security issues.

The list of devices includes the Galaxy S7 series, Galaxy S6 series, Galaxy S5 series, Galaxy Note 5 and more. Unfortunately for all of us, things aren’t that easy, and there is always a disclaimer letting Samsung off the hook (again, emphasis mine):

Please note that in some cases regular OS upgrades may cause delays to planned security updates. However, users can be rest assured the OS upgrades will include all up-to-date security patches when delivered. While we are doing our best to deliver the security patches as soon as possible to all applicable models, delivery time of security patches may vary depending on the regions and models.

The disclaimer has to be there for multiple reasons, not the least of which being the logistical hurdles that keep Samsung from actually fulfilling the promise of keeping so many phones updated month after month. It seems downright improbable at this point that Samsung could update a single phone — like the U.S. unlocked Galaxy S7 — every single month, let alone the full cadre of models listed above that it already says it will update monthly.

Samsung has ‘committed’ to monthly security patches since August 2015.

Considering that update schedules for Samsung phones have varied dramatically by model, but also region, country and carrier (or lack thereof), it would be a substantial change in protocol for Samsung to start painting with such a broad brush as to fully commit, without reservation, to monthly security patches for a set number of phones, whether they’re unlocked or carrier branded. It would be cause for celebration, in fact; not something to keep internal and choose not to make a triumphant announcement about.

Samsung may have recently placed a renewed sense of importance on monthly updates internally — and Nougat’s new seamless updates may make the monthly cadence easier for normal users to handle. But none of that means we should all of a sudden expect to see security patches every single month, as Samsung has been unable to do so with a single model to date despite making it a point of emphasis.

Until the wording on its official pages changes, and we start seeing patches arrive month after month on Samsung phones — from much-maligned U.S. unlocked Galaxy S7 to any other new phone — there’s reason to be skeptical that anything has changed since August 2015.

Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus

• Latest Galaxy S8 rumors!
• Galaxy S8 announcement coming March 29 in NYC
• Galaxy S8 release date set for April 28
• Join our Galaxy S8 forums

Netflix really wants to be a legitimate movie studio

Netflix has been producing original movies at a steady clip, sure, but, despite its best efforts, earning any prestige has proved elusive. In an effort to attract more big name stars like Will Smith, and directors such as Martin Scorsese, Deadline reports that the company has hired someone with deep ties to Hollywood to lead its original movie ambitions: Scott Stuber. While his name might not be very familiar, the movies he’s worked on should be.

He’s produced the Jeremy Renner journalism thriller Kill the Messenger, Ted and its sequel Ted 2 from Seth McFarlane and Peter Berg’s recent Boston Marathon bombing picture, Patriot’s Day.

Essentially, this hire fully reveals Netflix’s hand: it wants to become a movie studio and be a major player in Hollywood. But, as Bloomberg reports, one of the disadvantages it faces is that many filmmakers develop their projects with a theater experience in mind — not the streaming service where it will eventually end up. Netflix’s day-and-date streaming and theatrical releases have had had staunch opposition from theater owners. And unlike one of its competitors, Netflix doesn’t have any Oscars under its belt either, which makes attracting talent harder yet.

Comparatively, Netflix’s rival Amazon Prime Video gives its movies a theatrical run before they stream. What’s more, Jeff Bezos’ film wing has two Academy Awards under its belt (best actor and best original screenplay) and a handful of nominations for last year’s Casey Affleck-starring Manchester by the Sea. Perhaps hiring well-known indie producer Ted Hope (21 Grams, The Ice Storm) in 2015 helped bring those statues home. In that light, it makes perfect sense for Netflix to try doing the same.

But whether or not it can replicate the success of its TV department is anyone’s guess. So far, Netflix’s approach to TV has just been signing whatever original projects it can just to boost the amount of original programming on offer. Some of it hits with viewers and critics, but a lot of it certainly does not. In terms of movies, for every Beasts of No Nation on the service, there are four in-house Adam Sandler movies on offer. Stuber’s role here could help reverse that reputation.

Source: Deadline, Bloomberg

Warner Bros. is reportedly considering a ‘The Matrix’ relaunch

In 1999, a small sci-fi movie called The Matrix made its debut, featuring not just a focus on hacking and a slick action aesthetic, but also the use of “bullet time” special effects. Its success meant that those elements would quickly become (over)used elsewhere, but its place in cinema history is secure. Tonight, reports indicate that the studio behind it is considering revisiting that universe. The Hollywood Reporter cites sources claiming Warner Bros. is in talks with writer Zak Penn (Ready Player One, Alphas, X-Men 2, The Incredible Hulk) to write it, and considering Michael B. Jordan to star, but also says it’s far from being ready.

Meanwhile, Deadline reports that the studio wants to “create a writers’ room of scribes” to come up with ideas for a relaunch, and there’s no word on whether the Wachowskis, who wrote and directed the original movies, would be involved.

The final movie in the series, The Matrix Revolutions, came out in 2003, and a lot has changed in science fiction, movie viewing and special effects since then. Now, even “bullet time” is obtainable enough that it’s used for real-time sports highlights. The Matrix was the first movie I bought on a DVD, and if physical media is truly on its way out, maybe another movie in the series could be the last.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter, Deadline

How much does Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S3 cost? Best Buy reveals all

It’s been a month since Samsung unveiled its Galaxy Tab S3 with no word on pricing, but now, we know how much it costs.

Best Buy has listed the 32GB model at $599 – and that includes the S-Pen accessory. The retailer also listed the folio case for $59 and the keyboard add-on for $129, both of which you have to purchase separately. So, if you get the tablet and all the stuff that it works with, expect to pay close to $800, which is quite a bit more than the $499 (£399) price tag of the 9.7-inch Galaxy Tab S2.

• Will Samsung finally show its Galaxy X foldable smartphone at IFA 2017?

In other words, the Tab S3 is kinda expensive, but it’s still cheaper than Apple’s comparable 9.7-inch Pro, which sells for $599 (and its stylus and keyboard case retail for $99 and $149, respectively). The Galaxy Tab S3 comes with a 9.7-inch display with a 2048 x 1536 pixel resolution. It features a Snapdragon 820 processor, 4GB of RAM, and 32GB of storage with microSD for storage expansion.

We still don’t know when the tablet will launch. Best Buy only listed it as “coming soon”. In the mean time, check out Pocket-lint’s Tab S3 guide for more details about it.

Samsung

Lowe’s is using AR and VR to make how-to easier

Last year home improvement chain Lowe’s teased what it was doing with Google’s Tango augmented-reality technology, and now the company is ready to debut the next wave of its high-tech initiatives. First up is the outfit’s new In-Store Navigation app, which it says is Tango’s first retail indoor-mapping application. To use it, you’ll need to snag a Lenovo Phab 2 Pro from a blue-vested employee. Then you can use the slate to navigate around the store and hopefully find exactly what you’re looking for in no time flat. It’s something Lowe’s showed off recently in tandem with a VR project to illustrate how tech can make DIY easier.

More than just AR, the company is utilizing virtual reality to help people as well. It’s taking the existing Tango-powered Holoroom and upping the ante with “Holoroom How-To” which, as its name suggests, teaches folks how to go about various home improvement projects, using an HTC Vive.

One example is showing trepidatious customers what it’ll be like to tile a shower without actually getting their hands dirty. “From mixing the mortar to laying the pattern, the simulation walks the user through each step of the process,” the press release reads.

So far, the franchise says that its limited tests have been successful at boosting customers’ confidence at tackling do-it-yourself projects, well, themselves. In the video below, Kyle Nel, executive director of Lowe’s Innovation Labs, says that versus someone who only watched a YouTube how-to video, customers who went through the Holoroom How-To program had 36 percent better recall of the skills they learned. “People learn by doing,” he says. “It’s just how we’re built.”

The next step is analyzing feedback from this larger test pool before potentially adding the tech to more stores. If you’re in Framingham, Massachusetts you can check out the latest version of Holoroom right now. Lowe’s says that customers in Burlington, Canada and Beloeil, Quebec will be able to demo the VR experience over the next “several weeks.” Perhaps even more than gaming, this type of implementation for VR will show mainstream users exactly what the medium is capable of — especially when it can save them some money and frustration.

Source: Lowe’s

The iBus dongle could help you restore your Apple Watch Series 1 by yourself

Why it matters to you

If your Apple Watch experiences software issues, it can be a real pain to fix them and it often involves taking a trip to the Apple Store.

Apple devices are known for being consumer friendly but when they break down, that isn’t necessarily true. Case in point: When the Apple Watch has software issues that aren’t fixed with an over-the-air update, you are forced to bring your device to an Apple Store to have the issue resolved. Not anymore! Well, maybe.

A company called MFC claims to have built a solution to the issue. The device is called the iBus Data Cable and it’s basically a small dongle that plugs into the Apple Watch’s maintenance port that sites behind the watch strap. Most Apple Watch owners don’t even know that the port exists and speculation suggests that it is mostly built for Apple use — but MFC says that through the port, the dongle can completely restore the Apple Watch’s software.

More: The Apple Watch Series 3 could launch with two major improvements

The iBus Data Cable comes in two separate parts — the dongle itself, and a two-in-one adapter pilot pin. That adapter pilot pin connects to the iBus data cable on one end and your Mac on the other end.

It’s important to note that there are a few caveats here. For example, the device only works with the Apple Watch Series 1 and the company may not provide the actual software files you’ll need for the device, but you can find a few links to use in the comments section on the MFC website. There is another issue here, though. Apple only makes the software files available for an over-the-air update and you will need a file that is currently approved by Apple.

In other words, most people will still want to take their device to the Apple Store but the more tech-advanced among us may have a simpler way of doing things. Assuming they have an Apple-signed copy of the Apple Watch software, that is.

The iBus itself comes at $90 but keep in mind that we have not verified how well it works or if it works at all. If you really still want one, you can get one from the MFC website.