The Radiologist's Computer 2004
The basics with a PC-Windows perspective
The Radiologist's Computer 2004 |
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Contents of this page
Because of the threat of power outages and surges one should seriously consider buying the following:
Surge Protector – A Surge Protector diverts extra electricity into the outlet's grounding wire if the voltage from the outlet surges, spikes or rises above the accepted level. Damage can occur instantaneously or over time (with smaller surges). Microprocessor chips are highly susceptible to voltage fluctuations. The metal oxide varistor (MOV) is a surge protector component that absorbs excess electrical energy and holds the voltage to a safe level. The more MOVs the better.
Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) - Electricity often spikes when it comes on after an outage, posing a threat to a PC. Too much voltage can get sent to the CPU. I have bought several relatively inexpensive UPSs for our home computers. These machines include batteries, which keep a computer running in the event of a power failure. Mine do not provide power for a long duration in the instance of a power outage. But they are nice to have during power outages. Although all electrical devices within the home were off as a result of a power outage my UPS enabled my computers to still function and it allowed me time to complete the work I was doing and to save it. Then it still permitted me plenty of time to shut the computer down until the power was back up. If you're not around, however, during a power outage and you have not turned off your computer, the UPS battery will eventually fail and your computer will not be down improperly. Since a computer (that has not been properly shut down) can potentially be damaged by surges when power is restored it is well to have safeguards. However, some UPS manufacturers include software that shuts down an untended computer properly before the battery fails. I always shut down our computers when I leave the house.
UPS protection is as important for surviving a power outage as backing up your computer data. You should have a UPS rating of at least 300 volts/amps or 150 Watts for your home computer’s UPS. As mentioned above, some of these UPS units offer optional software that can close any open files and shut down your computer automatically whenever the backup battery kicks in. One of my home UPSs is a Belkin 350 Home Office VA unit that has Bulldog software that manages computer shutdown in the event of a power failure. It is Windows XP compatible and it provides diagnostic support. Following shutdown this unit provides up to 15 minutes of backup time.
The printer converts digital 1s and 0s into analog dots on a paper medium. They employ memory to do the digital to analog conversion. Higher resolutions have extreme memory requirements. Until recently most printers connected by parallel port connections but most printers now on the market have USB connections.
Laser printers offer a wider range of print speeds and resolutions than any other printing technology. Laser printers are very easy to maintain and care for. But they have prodigious power consumption. Lasers dispel static charge from the OPC (optical photoconducting) drum that causes the toner (magnetic iron compounds, plastic and pigment) to be melted onto the paper.
In considering makes of laser printers one Southern California expert has particularly recommended Xerox (“a real workhorse”). He also particularly likes HP laser printers. We had a Brother Laser MFC unit that we unfortunately had to replace following a long period of service. I enjoyed using the Brother Laser MFC unit and I appreciated its sharp-appearing print. This laser MFC unit also had a fast printing speed and a fast sheetfed scanning capability. It was also our home FAX machine.
Ink jet printers are the most popular option for personal printing due to low prices, improved print quality and ability to print color cheaply. They are also compact and consume little power. They spit tiny dots of colored ink onto the page. While higher-end ink jet printers can include a CPU and memory, low-end ink jets don't employ their own memory to store the entire image of the page to be printed, but rather they place dots on the page in real time (as the bits arrive from the PC). In general their black and white text is not as sharp and they don't have laser's print speed in longer documents. Some low-end inkjets literally eat high-cost ink cartridges. Overall operating expense is therefore an important consideration. One Southern California expert has recommended the Lexmark as a good low end printer.
When our laser MFC unit needed to be replaced, we got another MFC unit. This model had inkjet printing as well as doing the other things that our previous MFC unit did. I have been impressed with the sharp-appearing inkjet print that we get on the newer HP MFC unit – it is of laser quality. We also use this inkjet printer for printing in color and we have another HP inkjet printer especially designed for photo printing. For photo work one Southern California expert has particularly recommended Epson or HP.
One of the problems of upgrading to a newer computer operating system is that the new OS might be incompatible with the peripheral hardware that you have been using happily along with your earlier OS. If your printer does not work with XP you might try going to the printer website to get updated drivers.
Here is a tip that you may find useful. Not every home office has a photocopier—but if you have a scanner and a printer, you do. ICarbon is a free tool that lets you send a scanned document to a printer in seconds. ICarbon loads fast, and its black-and-white, gray-scale, and color presets make the conversion simple. Go to find.pcworld.com/33965/ to download ICarbon.
Other Hardware Devices and Software Programs
See elsewhere in this Syllabus for our discussion of Scanners and scanning software. This Syllabus also includes information on Digital Cameras, CD and DVD writers, CD and DVD writing software and other hardware and software items. We have discussed the basics of Video and Sound, Graphics and Sound cards, Monitors and Multimedia Players in an earlier Syllabus publication, “Video, Sound and Multimedia 2002” and hope to update this article soon. We plan to add information on Routers and Wireless devices to this year’s meeting presentation and add this information also in a future Syllabus publication.
Copyright © 2004 American Society of Neuroradiology, www.asnr.org