Peripherals Most Critical

One of India’s biggest peripheral companies had once stated

that 70% of the value of a PC lies in its peripherals. This may not be the case

with standalone PCs, but it certainly applies to the highly-networked business

environment today. Printers, scanners and UPS’, hard disk drives (HDD), floppy

drives (FDD), monitors, CD ROMs, keyboards, mouse, speakers... peripherals

occupy an important place in the CIO’s shopping list.

Printers: All for the record



While most printers today can reproduce the fonts we see on our computer

screens and can even print photographs that are indistinguishable from prints

created with film, unfortunately, no one printer can do all things. Whether you

want to print in monochrome or color, produce individual sheets or multi-part

forms, turn out text, graphics, or photos, there’s a printer designed for you

and your business.

Your choice of printer should depend on the kind of output

you need. Text, graphics, and photos make different demands on a printer. In

general, laser printers offer the best-quality text, and ink jet printers offer

the best-quality photos and graphics. In case you need to print in bulk or

labels, go for a dot matrix printer.

• If you don’t need color printing, a monochrome laser
  
  printer may be a good choice. It will be faster and provide higher-quality
  
  output text and line graphics.

• Make sure you judge a printer by the speed necessary for
  
  the quality level you want to use. Ink jet speed claims usually refer to the
  
  printer’s fastest mode rather than the higher-quality modes you’re more
  
  likely to use.

• If you have an old computer or operating system that
  
  doesn’t support USB, make sure a printer has a parallel port.

• It is best to connect shared printers directly to your
  
  network. Make sure a printer offers both: the right kind of network
  
  connection and software that will work with your network.

• Not all printers allow memory upgrades. Some need little
  
  or no memory, because they use the computer to process a print job. If a
  
  printer allows memory upgrades, make sure it has enough memory for the kind
  
  of work you’ll be doing.

• If your printer holds 250 sheets, you’ll need to load
  
  paper only about once every two weeks. Choose a printer that can hold enough
  
  paper, ink or toner so that you won’t have to add or change them too
  
  often.

• When comparing printers, consider the total cost of
  
  ownership, not just the purchase price.

Scanner: Adding spice



Here’s what you should keep in mind when buying a scanner so that you don’t

end up paying too much for too little!

• Always keep the optical resolution (OR) of a scanner in
  
  mind. If you work with documents, graphics and images that do not need
  
  intricate details, an optical resolution of 300 dpi is a good deal. However,
  
  to scan detailed images, go for an OR of 600 dpi, while for picture slides
  
  and negatives, an OR of 1,200 dpi or higher is enough. Remember that if you
  
  want to scan images that are small in size and scale them up later, you need
  
  a high resolution.

• The color quality of a scanner depends on its bit-depth
  
  feature. Generally, a higher bit-depth translates into better scans. To scan
  
  photos and documents, go for a depth of at least 24 bits, but for scanning
  
  picture slides, negatives, or transparencies, 30 bits is the minimum you
  
  should consider.

• Optical density (OD) is a measure of the range of
  
  brightness a scanner can capture. Focus on OD if you are looking for a good
  
  graphics scanner. The higher the OD value, the better the graphics quality.
  
  An OD of about 3.0 is good for most photographs, but for photo slides and
  
  transparencies, at least 3.2 is essential. For negatives, you will need an
  
  OD value of 3.4 or higher.

• Most PCs have a parallel port, therefore a parallel
  
  connection or interface is usually very convenient, even though it is slow.
  
  Another option is a USB interface, which is faster and more reliable. The
  
  fastest of course, is a SCSI connector, and most high-end scanners today
  
  come with this interface.

Power backup: The lifeline



Irrespective of whether yours is a one-man show or a company using a 100

PCs, having a UPS has become a need in this power-starved country of ours. So

how do you go about buying a UPS?

You could go in for one large UPS to power all of them, or have many smaller

ones powering groups of computers, possibly a UPS per workgroup. You could also

decide to choose a model where your critical systems such as servers are on a

central backup, and the rest of the systems are on clustered backup.

The standard for rating power backup systems is either VA or the backup time

they provide. The VA rating determines the load–the number of PCs, printers

and gadgets that the UPS will be able to support.

Backup time can either be increased by adding more batteries or by reducing

the connected load on the UPS. In simpler terms, for the same VA rating, a UPS

with more batteries will provide more backup time.

There are, however, other critical factors that would help you decide on the

right UPS:

• Do you need backup just to safely shut down your systems
  
  or switch over to standby generator power and continue to work during power
  
  cuts?

• The other important thing is to determine whether you
  
  need an online, offline or line-interactive system.

• Calculate your load before you go shopping. Typically,
  
  based on the wattages of PCs, a 500 VA UPS should be able to handle three
  
  PIII machines with 15" color monitors. But remember that most of the
  
  UPSs in the market are over-rated. So, lets say, if a vendor says that a 500
  
  VA model will be able to handle a load of one PC, then he is certainly
  
  over-rating the UPS and would actually sustain a load of less than 500 VA. A
  
  500 VA UPS is a good choice for any PC model you have, apart from the
  
  additional load of an inkjet or desktop laser printer, a set of amplified
  
  speakers and your modem.

• The ideal output voltage range of the UPS should be
  
  between 190-250 V. Check for a built-in automatic voltage regulator (AVR).
  
  The larger the voltage range, the lesser the switchovers to battery, and
  
  lesser the drain on the battery.

• Don’t forget to check the switchover time. Ideally, it
  
  shouldn’t be more than 10 milliseconds.

Apart from the technology, you also need to check for the

warranty. You should clearly ask for the warranty on the batteries as well.

Also, check the type of batteries used. They should always be

sealed-maintenance-free (SMF) batteries.

Team DQ