Apna Pakistan

To show colleagues how a design for an accelerator component works, designer Gene Anzalone can now carry a lightweight plastic model to meetings. More tangible than a set of design drawings, and more totable than a 35-pound metal model, the working 3-D plastic model of a collimator took about five days to make with SLAC Mechanical Design Department’s new rapid prototyping machine, also called a 3-D printer.

Since the Dimension Elite printer arrived in early January, its tea-box-sized printing head has been on the move day and night, whirring and clicking like a home inkjet printer while it automatically builds up models by depositing thin layers of melted plastic, layer by layer. Once engineer Kurt Vaillancourt sets up the printer, which takes very little time, he lets it work unattended, saving money on machinist costs and material costs.

“It’s a service for engineers and designers across the lab to study the form, fit and function of their design before cutting them in metal,” Vaillancourt said.

The SLAC arm of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) Accelerator Research Program has eagerly taken advantage of the printer—which looks like a snack vending machine—to build models of a rotatable collimator that could be part of the upgrades to the LHC. Collimators block stray particles inside a beam pipe.

“The model is accurate enough to gain an understanding of how well the parts fit together into a working assemblage, and it gives us tangible results at an early phase of the project,” said engineer Steve Lundgren.

The group can test and refine its designs before sending them to the Machine Shop to build parts from quality, expensive metals.

Anzalone and Lundgren electronically sent their CAD (computer-aided design) data to the printer. Several days later, they sandwiched ball bearings between two printer-made plastic rings, and screwed the rings together to form a functional bearing at the end of the prototype collimator. Very quickly, they determined that this design for the ball bearing race worked well. Eventually, when the LHC beam accidentally strikes and damages the collimator, operators will simply rotate it to present a fresh piece of metal without interrupting collider operations.

The printer is available for SLAC use, and can support pieces up to 8 inches square by 12 inches high, in layers as thin as 0.007 inches. Pieces can be glued together, and several parts can be fabricated in one run. The printer can also automatically enlarge or reduce parts.

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The 24-inch iMac’s striking design and impressive performance compare favorably to its smaller 20-inch sibling. In addition to a larger screen size, the 24-inch model offers higher-end configuration options and, of course, a higher price tag. The 24-inch iMac comes in two standard configurations. The $1,799 system includes a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo processor, 1GB of memory, and a 320GB hard drive; the higher-end configuration costs $2,299 and comes with a dual-core 2.8GHz Core 2 Extreme CPU, 2GB of RAM, and a 500GB hard drive.

We tested the fastest-available, 2.8GHz version with the optional 750GB hard disk, which added another $150 to the price tag, bringing the total cost of our configuration to $2,449. For more on the design, features, and service and support of the fourth-generation iMac, check out our in-depth review of the 20-inch, 2.4GHz iMac.

When we tested the 20-inch, 2.4GHz iMac last month, we came away impressed by its application performance, with it more than holding its own against competing Windows-based, mainstream desktops. The same can easily be said for the 24-inch, 2.8GHz iMac. With its faster processor, the 24-inch, 2.8GHz iMac is expectedly faster than the 20-inch, 2.4GHz iMac on all of our application benchmarks–as well as many similarly priced Windows machines. Of particular note is the 2.8GHz iMac’s performance on our multimedia multitasking test–perhaps our most punishing benchmark. The test performs simultaneous video and audio encoding, which typically taxes the resources of most systems. The 24-inch, 2.8GHz iMac’s best-of-class performance on this test is an excellent indicator of the iMac’s potential for tackling processor-intensive applications and juggling the demands of multiple applications concurrently vying for system resources.

The only performance area in which the iMac disappoints is with its 3D gaming proficiency–or lack of it. We were surprised to see the 24-inch turn in even lower scores on our Quake 4 test than we saw with the 20-inch model. This disparity is still a bit of a mystery for us as both systems use the same graphics engine. Regardless, while the bigger model nets you a larger screen, a faster processor, more memory, and bigger hard drive, there are no options for speedier graphics.

The ultimate question is whether the 24-inch, 2.8GHz iMac is worth spending $800 more than the 20-inch, 2.4GHz version for a 16 percent improvement in performance and 30 percent more screen real estate. Serious multitaskers and some prosumers can definitely gain additional screen area to support more open applications on the desktop, and the modest performance bump can make a difference during longer video or audio renders. Perhaps the ideal user is someone who needs as much processing power as possible from a Mac, but can’t justify the much costlier Mac Pro.

The HP LaserJet M2727 series of mono laser multifunctions is geared for small offices, with features such as an Ethernet connector, built-in duplexer, fax capability, and an automatic document feeder. You have your choice between two models: the M2727nf is the base model, and the M2727nfs adds on an extra paper tray and built-in stapler; we tested the M2727nf. Although the M2727nf is fast and produces great prints (its scans need improvement, however), it’s expensive at $600. (The M2727nfs costs $700.) On our tests, less expensive mono laser multifunctions like the Lexmark X342n ($400) were nearly as fast. Comparably priced color laser multifunctions like the Lexmark X502n ($700) were faster than the M2727nf and had similar print quality. We found nothing inherently wrong with the HP LaserJet M2727nf, but you can get more for your money elsewhere–or the same features and performance for less.

Design
The design of the LaserJet M2727 series multifunction is all business. The putty-and-gray body of the M2727nf stands 19.7 inches wide, 16 inches deep, and 18 inches tall, and weighs almost 38 pounds (the M2727nfs is taller and heavier due to an extra paper tray). The flatbed scanner lid is topped by a 50-page automatic document feeder.

The control panel is divided by task. In the center are a backlit, two-line text LCD; menu navigation buttons; and an alphanumeric keypad. The fax area includes one-touch dial buttons, redial, phone book, volume, and resolution buttons. The copy area includes buttons for reducing/enlarging, making copies lighter or darker, changing paper size, and changing the number of copies, as well as buttons for turning on two-sided copies, collating, and a tray-select button. The scan area contains just a Scan To button. All three task areas have their own dedicated start buttons as well.

The paper handling is simple on the M2727 series. The M2727nf model offers a single 250-page paper cassette and a 50-page multipurpose input tray that folds out from the printer’s front panel. Outputted pages exit in the well between the printer body and the scanner head unit. The M2727nfs offers a second paper cassette for increased input capacity, as well as a built-in stapler.

The LaserJet M2727 multifunction comes with the standard 3,000-page toner cartridge, which you can replace with the same or with the high-capacity version, which is good for about 7,000 pages. The former costs $81 to replace, while the latter costs $148. Using the larger version for best value, this works out to a per-page print cost of approximately 2.1 cents, a reasonable cost. The monthly duty cycle is 15,000 prints, which makes this suitable for small to medium offices.

Features
The price and feature set of the LaserJet M2727 series makes it better suited for small offices, but busy home offices can benefit as well. The M2727 multifunctions come network-ready with an Ethernet port, but you can also connect to a single PC via a USB port. It’s compatible with both Mac and Windows operating systems. It comes with 64MB of non-upgradeable memory.

The copy features are standard for an office machine. You can make up to 99 copies at once, and reduce or enlarge through preset values (fit to size) or custom values between 25 percent and 400 percent. You can also instruct the copier to do 2-to-1 and 4-to-1 copies, as well as autoduplex copies, from either double-sided or single-sided originals.

Scan To options include scan to file and scan to e-mail (the options even discern between scanning images and documents). Once the scan is complete, the Save To box is launched on your PC, allowing you to choose where to save the file. Format options include JPEG, TIFF, bitmap, GIF, and PDF. The Scan To button comes preprogrammed to offer scan to file and scan to e-mail options, but you can reprogram the button to include scan to program options. If you want to scan using optical character recognition, you’ll need to install the Readiris Pro program, which comes on a separate CD from the printer’s drivers.

For faxing, you can save up to 120 entries in the MF2727’s phone book, including both individuals and groups. The first 16 entries also correspond to the eight one-touch dial buttons on the control panel (the Shift key lets you associate two numbers to a single button). Pressing the Phone Book button calls up the listings on the control panel’s text LCD, so you can browse through them to choose a person or group. If you subscribe to caller ID, you can turn on junk-fax blocking. The MF2727 also allows you to send a delayed fax, forward faxes, and receive faxes in secure mode. The latter option stores incoming faxes in memory and prints them out only when you enter a password.

Performance
We haven’t reviewed any mono multifunctions in this price range, so we compared it to comparably priced color laser multifunctions and slightly less expensive mono machines. The comparisons don’t do the HP LaserJet M2727nf many favors, as several of the less expensive monos and the similarly priced color multifunctions keep up or even outpace the HP model. The M2727nf scored 19.01 pages per minute (ppm) for black text, behind the 19.71ppm scored by the Lexmark X502n (color). When printing grayscale graphics, the HP scored 18.68ppm, just behind the mono Lexmark X342n and more than 1ppm slower than the Lexmark X502n. With both color and grayscale scans, the HP M2727 was slow–the slowest by far at grayscale with a score of 2.46ppm and second slowest at color scans with a score of 2.50ppm. It did keep up with the pack on copying via ADF, though, scoring 14.96ppm. The bottom line is this: you can save about $200 on a mono laser multifunction and get just slightly slower print speeds, or you can spend the same $600 to $700 on a color multifunction with the same speeds (or slightly slower) and get the added bonus of color printing.

Well, technology innovations like these can anyday, anytime produce paroxysms of tech lust in anyone, never mind the gear heads among us. We here at MastySpot normally tend to take notice when amazing stuffs like these roll out, even though its off the topic! Really, innovations like these leaves me pondering on how one can come up with ideas that’s completely out of the blue or if i may say out of this world!Here’s a glimpse of what the future has in store for us! The folks at Think Geek were lucky enough to test this future device in the form of Bluetooth Laser Virtual Keyboard. Yeah! you got it right, it is a bluetooth laser keyboard. Let me get to the point before I get emotional. So how does this device work? The tiny device, which is just about the size of a cigar lighter, when switched on projects a 63 key / full sized QWERTY keyboard layout on any flat surface and you can then type away accompanied by simulated key click sounds. You can surely witness jaws dropping the moment you pull this baby out of your pocket and use it with your PDAs, handhelds or cell phone.

The Bluetooth Laser Virtual Keyboard allows the convenience of regular keyboard typing in a tiny form factor and if that’s not all, it is compatible with PalmOS 5, PocketPC 2003, Windows Smartphone, Symbian OS, and Windows 2000/XP. Measuring just about 3.5 inches high, it houses a long lasting battery that can deliver 120 minutes of continuous typing when fully recharged. Priced at $179.99, this surely is a must buy product.