Extraordinary ink that only looks expensive

I bought a cheap printer back in those days when Printer was considered too expensive, I was happy to have cheap one. It was marketed as best too. Well, it delivered good printouts but later when my ink soaked up by those printouts, I had to go to get new one.

To my dismay, the Ink cartridges were almost the price of printer itself. So, I thought should I buy the new printer with Ink Cartridges loaded up or what but I thought that wouldn't be a good idea either. I found out the cost of operation was going to be too taxing for my limited budget and finally I had to ditch that printer.

That old scenario that I just put on above paragraph is still prevailing and most of the time, naive consumers blindly purchase cheap and best printers but later on they realise it's too much they are spending on inks. The cost of operation is still high for inkjet color printers than the product itself.


I recently stumbled upon a company with a different motto 'best ink cartridges at 30-70% less price than the one in the market'. Precisely, 'Extraordinary ink that only looks expensive' is their main motto and you'll see this when you visit their site. You've to use their products that how much they are upto their motto and vision.

Interestingly this company is run by people who believe that the quality inkjet cartridges shouldn't cost nearly the price of printer itself. That's true. The company known as 'Carrot Ink'is in business since 1998 and widely recognized company for it's cheap but quality ink cartridges.

This company is so well settled that now they have all kind of ink cartridges, refill kits, toner for varieties of printers. Be it Epson Ink Cartridges or be it Canon Ink cartridges or be it HP or any other brand name, you select and just hop into their wide arrays of selection to choose from. Select any cartridges you like to try and you would turn yourself into returning customer to their product.

I've read positive comments on their products all over the net and not all people could go wrong. Their amazing Ink cartridges have left whole lot of good impression and whereas I think it should be the must-have ideal choice for any printer owner who cares about the price factor but doesn't want to compromise quality either.

Carrot Ink is the answer.

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Meet my friend but please..

..please don't even dare to move that mouse cursor around him. He doesn't like that..

Thanks for reading this.

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How to create a Hardrive Image or How to clone your Disk Partition

When your computer gets messed up, you think re-installation of operating system is the only way out. In most cases, it works but that cost lots of your time and you've to go through hassles of installing individual softwares and drivers for hardwares one by one.

There is an easy way to do this. Just take a snapshot of your entire operating system when it's healthy. I mean when everything is working perfectly, when all your softwares and drivers are working just fine. Your best move would be to take snapshot.

Then on one unfortunate day, your PC crashed or say your hard-drive went kaput, or say your operating system was infected with plethora of virus and malwares.... You think re-installation of OS is the only way left. Nope, just put the snapshot back to the hard drive that was taken when your system was healthy. And, you're all good to go. It will take just few minutes instead of hours while re-installing your Operating system off the Installation Setup CD.

So, this whole process of taking snapshot of(and putting back into) your harddrive is called Hard-drive imaging. To my understanding, Imaging is a process of archiving entire disk(storage) content into one file. Sometimes, it's also called as disk-cloning. If you take image of your CD/DVD media, it's often termed as ISO image. So, Imaging is a breakthrough technology for anyone who wants to have solid-rock backup of entire operating system or content.

I come across a new disk imaging software called "Acronis True Image". Mark my word, this is one hell of a easiest way to backup your entire system at one go and is the most fastest of all I've used before.

Just take an image of your harddrive, save it to some media(like I saved it to my both computers image on 500 GB Freeagent Seagate Drive), create a bootable CD off the software(very easy to do that too) and when there is time-critical situation, just load the boot CD, plug in the drive where Image file is located and it's all 1-2-3. Pretty easy.

It can create image while you're working on your system. So, no more booting off the CD and doing those things. You can call it Hot-Imaging as USB(or someother hardwares) is hot-swappable.

Once you have Acronis True Image and installed it, launch it. Following steps are easy enough to understand on how to create Harddrive IMAGE.

Since we are creating Image, Click 'Backup and Restore'

Select 'Backup'

Click NEXT

Select MY COMPUTER and click NEXT

Select "Disks and Partitions" and click NEXT

Now, on this screen, we've to make a decision which partition to create image from. Mostly it's C: where our primary Operating is installed. So, select only C:
but if you've two partitions with two different Operating systems just like mine in above screens, then, I'd select
both C: and D:.
In most cases, it's only C:

The above screenshot is showing my Primary Harddrive under "Disk 1" divided into 3 partitions. C: holds Vista, D: holds XP and E: holds Toshiba factory informations.
Under "Disk 2", it's my 500GB freeagent Seagate external harddrive
Under "Disk 3", it's my 80GB Seagate external pocket size drive.
It's nothing to do with imaging just in case you wanted to know why I've connected these drives but for backup purpose I'm using FreeAgent external drive. If you don't have external drive, you can save your image on other partition if you think you've enough space.

On this screen, don't select anything, Just click "NEXT"

The neat feature about this software is that it lets you update your image file overtime. That's called incremental or differential backup. Since this is our first time IMAGE backup, just ignore this message and click OK

Now, give location and name to your IMAGE backup. I've selected External 500 GB harddrive(F:) as destination file save location and gave my IMAGE backup name as 'laptopbackup'. (It saves file in .tlb format.)This is the most important part and we should preserve this file safely.

Select 'Create new full backup archive' and click Next

Select 'Use default options' and click Next

On this screen, you can give some informations about what this image is all about for future reference.
Since this is Image backup of my Laptop, I've written something relevant.


Now, this is the Create backup wizard. Just take a note how things are going on and click 'Proceed'>

Image Backup in progress(on mine it took some 20 minutes)

Finally, Image is created with this screen. Click Ok and you're done. You successfully created an Image backup of your drive.

Next post will be how to restore an Image file.

Thank you for reading.

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Why I stopped bodybuilding...

I was physically attention drawing,had nice bicep heights,grabbed people's attention. I was chocolate. I had many friendly dates than my friend's. Courtesy goes to my effort put on bodybuilding but Why I stopped bodybuilding...
because...



I could spend my quality time on learning than wasting time to build a detrimental impermanent physique. I do physical than gym workout these days.. Dunno, lost interest to build muscle. Reason is apparent, look the image above.

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Install Windows XP over Windows Vista and have a Dual-boot system easily

I have my laptop Toshiba Satellite A215-S4807 with me, it was getting damn sloppy after each updates I downloaded. It came with 160 GB harddrive, 2 GB DDR2 RAM and with other excellent bells and whistles. My problem was it's getting sloppy day by day. Somehow I had to fix that. I don't yet understand the core of VISTA as I understand of XP's. My only resort was to create another partition since my laptop had only one partition allocated for whole 160 GB which according to me is not good for any system's performance.

Synopsis:
- I had to install XP no matter what?? But the system supported drivers were only for Vista, that means, I can't use any features of laptop through XP. For ex: I wouldn't be able to use Volume Control bar on laptop to control audio volume inside my OS. I wouldn't be able to use the camera and other Function key combos that has come integrated to work smoothly with vista and my laptop.

-Umm.. So, I needed Vista too. But not the one that my laptop was holding, that Vista was damn lousy and someway screwed up, I really needed fresh Install. I could have installed XP over already installed Vista, (that's not impossible as some of you might think. We can install XP over Vista. I'll show you as I progress on writing.) but as I wrote earlier I needed Fresh one, no messed up configuration.

-I made my mind to backup everything first. Oh yeah, I also bought 500 Gig external Seagate harddrive for $99(with taxes additional). This was a hot deal for me. It took almost six days to get this 500 gig baby delivered at my door. Whatever, online shopping is not that bad either. I was tracking my order everyday and it was real interesting to learn about where my product landed and reached. Thinking I ordered from Frys Electronics(Sunnyvale), it was actually being shipped from IDAHO.. pheww.. when things don't go as I've imagined, i really get pissed up so easily. ummmmm .. ahh I backed up every to my external hard drive.

Verdict: I needed XP, I needed Vista and I needed Backup. The main deal here is with DUAL booting.

These factory made Laptops/desktops usually comes with a Restore CD, just in case if something gets screwed up, just enter the CD, hit a certain key on keyboard during bootup as instructed on the cover of CD jewel case and follow the instruction. That would install the factory default image of entire Operating system. I did the same and within next 2 hours, I had this as fresh as when I got this laptop first. I thought image backup would take some 20-30 minutes but it exceeded my expectations. No glitch, it's Microsoft Vista after all. Now I was having a feeling of using brand new system. It was zip-zap fast, no sluggishness at all. hmmmmmmm...

Now, I needed to install XP on it. Why would anyone need XP? because there are so many driver issues with Vista and many softwares still have problem with it. I've felt that many times and I had to put lots of my time and effort to troubleshoot system issues instead of trying to get my things done. So, I needed XP.

So, assume, that you've VISTA on your system, even if I've installed fresh, I'm assuming here it's my OLD one. I'm trying to show you can actually install Windows Xp over Windows Vista. Follow these steps:

(Disclaimer: I'm not responsible for any damage you may cause to your system following my suggestions. So, I strongly urge you to backup first then walk on my steps.)

1. From within Vista, Click 'Start' button and on 'Search' bar or 'RUN' bar, type 'diskmgmt.msc' without quotes and hit 'Enter' key.

2. The next dialog box is all about managing your hard drives and other storage devices. Basically, it's useful for creating partitions. I had used this tool since windows 2000.
Right click on the blue primary hard drive at the bottom section of Disk Management and select "Shrink Volume".

You can shrink your large one partition disk by slicing it into pieces. Now you've to decide how much gigs of space you want for XP, but Vista tries to decide when you right-click and select the 'shrink volume' option.

*Total size before shrink in MB: ####### (this is your current total hard drive space)
*Size of available Shrink space in MB: ####### (this is guesswork of VISTA and giving us option that we can use this much space for XP, what if we need more than it has shown)
*Enter the amount of space to shrink in MB:#######(now on this part, we can actually input how much space we want if we think that the Vista's offering is not good enough, else you can leave as it is)
*Total size after shrink in MB:###### (This is the size of your Vista partition after Shrink)

All set, hit the 'Shrink' key and let it do it's job. Don't worry, no multiple restarts, no frigging annoying repetitive messages. It's something damn easy in Vista that I've figured out.

3. After the shrink, you'll have an 'unallocated space'(a new partition for XP is just born) on that Disk management screen.


(The problem now is, C: drive is Vista, and we already have D: as CD/DVD drive. Now, if we are to use this 'unallocated space', system will give it E: as a label. I don't want that. So, if you have a spare DVD or CD, put it inside the tray, it's just for making the CD/DVD drive alert. Once that's done, from within Disk Management window, -right click the CD/DVD drive box
-select 'Change drive letters and paths
- and assign it 'E:' as a drive letter label. Select 'E:' from the drop-down menu
- click 'change'
That's it.
Now, We can give 'D:' as a drive letter to unallocated space where we will install XP.
Thats so nice, C: for Vista, D: for XP and E: for CD/DVD drive. Exactly the way I wanted)

4. Lets do something with the unallocated space. Lets make it ready for XP installation. Right-click 'unallocated space' box on the same disk management window and select 'New Simple Volume' and follow the Wizard.


-Select 'Format this volume...' option
-Select File system(I would select NTFS)
-Allocation Unit Size(leave it as it is)
-Give the volume label of your choice, (I would give 'XP' just for easy recognition during XP installtion)
-Select 'Quick Format' option
-Don't select 'file/folder compression' one.

Hit 'next' and follow the wizard.

Once completed, I would rather let my system decide how to assign drive letters to newly created partition. Don't worry, we already managed by giving E: to CD/DVD drive. "D:" drive will be right on our pocket it won't go anywhere.

5. So, Restart your computer.

Vista will now have a newly created additional partition along with it's own native partition(C:).

6. Now, I assume you've your XP setup disk ready. Insert it on the drive and make your system boot off the CD. Do your regular XP installation process and at one point where it would ask where to install, select the partition with volume label 'XP'( we created that on Step 4. right?) and follow with the usual process of XP installation.

7. Restart and don't get mad at me from what you would see. You will be seeing no VISTA at all. It will be starting Windows XP only because, the boot loader information of VISTA is overwritten(say 'masked') by XP's own. We've to correct this issue. Once we correct this issue, you'll have choice to select from two operating systems;Vista and XP. This is called Dual booting.

8. To correct this issue, download one nifty tool called VistaBootPro from http://www.vistabootpro.org/. Download the latest one. This software is to manage the vista's boot configuration file. We need this to make our system boot into Vista and XP as well. For now, our system is booting only to XP. So, I assume, your XP system has all necessary drivers installed and ready to go online. I also assume, there would be no problem downloading this software and once you do, you also have to download .NET framework from Microsoft server. Since, this is a .NET software.

9. Once VistaBootPro is installed. Run it.

- Don't really care about backing up BCD(boot configuration data of Vista) for now.
- Jump to 'System Bootloader' tab
- Select 'Windows Vista BootLoader' from First section
- Select 'All Drives' from second one
- Click 'Install BootLoader'

Now, click 'Diagnostic' on MENU BAR and select 'RUN DIAGNOSTICs'. This will make Vista boot loader information active giving us the choice of Operating System Selection.

We're Done!! Restart your system and Select either Vista or Windows XP.

NOTE: On some system, it worked perfect, on someother system, it didn't. I don't know why. The problem was like: Now, even if I select the XP from the selection, there is some 'ntldr is missing' message popping up. This time, the system is only letting us boot to Vista, not to XP at all. If that's happening to you right now, you've to manually edit boot configuration from within VISTA. It's easy, don't get scared.

Do you remember VistaBootPro on above steps? That's GUI version of BCDEDIT(Boot Configuration Data Edit of Microsoft Windows Vista) in Vista. We're now going to use BCDEDIT from console and manually edit things to make this problem solved.

-Open the command console in Vista (Go to Search Bar or RUN bar, and type 'cmd' without quotes and hit 'Enter')
- You may now type 'bcdedit'(hit 'enter' key) to see how your boot configuration file looks like

-Okay, enough watching, must be scratching your hair thinking 'what the heck are these'?
-on the same Vista Console, type as follows(after each line, don't forget to hit 'Enter' Key. So, it's four times, you've to hit 'ENTER' key after you type in those lines):

bcdedit –set {ntldr} device partition=C:

bcdedit –set {ntldr} path \ntldr

bcdedit –displayorder {ntldr} –addlast

bcdedit -set {ntldr} description "Microsoft Windows XP"



As you go on typing above lines and 'Enter' key, you should see :
"The Operation Completed Successfully"

OR

"The Specified Entry Already Exists"

Restart your computer, You'll be having two Operating System at your service.


Thanks for reading.

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I Beg Your Pardon

I'm such a hypocrite, I throw a post on how to blog nicely,consistently and then I , Myself got lost for a week. Yeah, I confess that and I beg your pardon for this and those who are willing to get some valuable computing tips from me, I feel sorry for myself.

I also assume that RSS readers of my blog haven't been bothered for some time but, I'm back again to bother them. ;)

These past few days had been hectic and busy.

1. First, I was training myself to get a driver license. I already passed the written test few month ago , it was just a few-day away from my driving test last week and so I had to put myself through vigorous driving learning session. As soon as I got back from work, I was on the road driving, learning rules here and there. So, this is the first thing that's so important for someone like me who came from the country where people take their vehicle from left lane. It's not so easy to set my mind to lead the road from right-hand lane in here. Besides, some rules are different here. Now, I taught my sub-conscious about all the driving rules here. I gave the driving test on my nearest DMV department, it was some 15 minutes session and I got only 3 error points. I thought I made only 1 error but anyways, I'm not so complaining. I'm happy for what I did. I passsssssssssssssed and Got MY DRIVING LICENSEEEEEEEEE.. phewww.. A mission accomplished.

2. So, after those driving sessions, when I usually got back home, I don't really wanted to work on computer. Just took a nap and next morning, same regular stuffs. Now, that I'm free from those training stuff. I'll put my mind on this part of my world too and try to be regular to update my blog. After work, I had to manage with other things too, I opened a new back account, applied for Credit Card and they were more than happy to get me one, I dunno why. I thought I was supposed to be more happier than one.. but whatever, they said , I'm approved. So, Credit Card will be my next cash to buy stuffs.

3. And, I'm asking a contractor for some part time job too. To work during those weekends, I don't know if I got this thing to do on weekends, I don't really know if i would be able to be online ever. Because, I need time to think and write. It's not just writing, it's thinking that takes lots of my time online. Anyways, I'm happy for what I'm doing and I'm doing jobs that I'm interested on.

and Lastly, this blog of mine is making some money, so, NOW ON, I Won't be putting my personal stuffs here, Only Tech stuffs and reviews , of course, that would be my own words though.

I've an announcement to make,please Bookmark your browser for my new very personal blog
www.navinlama.com


Thank you for reading.

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