Book VII: Upgrading Your Laptop 464 36 140925-bk07ch03.qxp 4/8/08 12:50 PM Page 464 Chapter 4: Going External with Printer, Network, and Special Peripherals In This Chapter ߜ Going from dots on screen to ink on paper ߜ Scanning the horizon for words and images ߜ Adding a facsimile of a fax machine ߜ Mousing, trackballing, and keyboarding outside the box ߜ Adding or fixing wireless insufficiencies M uch of this book extols the virtues of the laptop computer as an all-in-one wonder device. It has a microprocessor, a motherboard, a keyboard, a pointing device, and a screen all in a single two-piece box. Its wireless communication system allows you to connect to the Internet to send and receive e-mail and files. For many users, a laptop has all you need. You pick up your files at your desk and take it with you on commuter trains, airplanes, and to offices, libraries, schools, and anywhere else you do your work. The only external device you need is the AC adapter to recharge the laptop’s batteries between excursions. However, some functions that you occasionally perform with your laptop aren’t yet incorporated into standard machines. Here are a few: ✦ Printing hard copies of files or e-mails ✦ Scanning documents as images or for optical character-recognition con- version to text files ✦ Using full-sized special-purpose pointing and input devices, including drawing tablets, keypads, and card readers ✦ Projecting presentations, photos, or other files onto large screens These examples aren’t part of “standard” portable computers. Today you can go into a restaurant and find the server with a handheld special-purpose computer that reads your credit card and prints a charge slip; or return a 37 140925-bk07ch04.qxp 4/8/08 12:50 PM Page 465 Connecting to a Printer 466 rental car and watch the attendant scan a bar code on the vehicle to pro- duce a printed receipt. I don’t need an LCD projector built into my laptop, because I know that anywhere I go to give a presentation will have facilities that plug directly into my machine. Connecting to a Printer You can produce a hard copy of a file on your laptop at least seven ways: ✦ Take your laptop to an office or a service bureau where you can directly connect a cable from the computer to a printer. The most common such connection uses a USB port on the laptop, like the one shown in Figure 4-1. If this is the first time you’ve used this particular laptop with a partic- ular printer, you may be prompted to install a device driver; follow the onscreen instructions to do so. When you’re ready to print, be sure to select the printer you want to use. ✦ Some printers can communicate with laptops that have Bluetooth or infrared broadcasting systems. Bring your laptop within range of such a printer and follow onscreen instructions to make a connection. Again, you may need to install a device driver if this is the first time a particular combination of laptop and printers talk to each other. ✦ Connect your laptop to a local area network (LAN) in an office or service bureau (you may need a login and password to do so) and then use any printer available on the network. The connection can be wired (using an Ethernet cable) or you can use a WiFi wireless link. You may need to install a printer driver. ✦ Output a copy of the file you want to print to a form of removable media: The easiest and quickest solution here is a flash memory key. You could spend a few minutes burning a recordable CD or DVD. Then take the media to a computer in an office or service bureau and install it in a directly attached (or network) computer to a printer. (Don’t forget to retrieve your memory key or disc after the print job is complete; at the least you’re leaving behind your property and at worst you could be exposing personal or business information to persons who have no need to see it.) ✦ Connect to the Internet by wired or wireless means and send your file to a service bureau for printing. For example, you can send files to chain stores like Staples, FedEx Kinko’s, The UPS Store, or OfficeMax or to a local equivalent and drop by to pick up black-and-white or color print- outs, announcements, business cards, brochures, collated and bound catalogs — just about anything you can design on your laptop. ✦ E-mail a file (as an attachment) over the Internet to a colleague or friend who can accept it and print it for you on his system. You can e-mail across the country, ahead to the next stop on your road trip, or to a machine in the next cubicle over. 37 140925-bk07ch04.qxp 4/8/08 12:50 PM Page 466 Book VII Chapter 4 Going External with Printer, Network, and Special Peripherals Connecting to a Scanner 467 ✦ Wait until you get back to your home or office and print it there on an attached or networked printer. Courtesy Toshiba America, Inc. Connecting to a Scanner A desktop scanner is a great way to capture a picture of a drawing, create a shareable document, or grab hold of a printed document and run its image through optical character-recognition software. A PDF is a portable document format developed by Adobe Systems that con- verts text or graphics into a format for display on any current laptop or desktop without regard to machine features such as display resolution or processor design. In other words, it allows you to create and send a file to someone else and expect that what they see on their screen or in a hard copy printout is identical (or nearly so) to what you see. PDFs can be cre- ated with Adobe software as well as from within many modern office tools, including the latest versions of Microsoft Office. Scanners range from remote control-sized devices that can read the bar code on an inventory tag to desktop units that look at entire letter- or legal-sized pages. In between, you find handheld pen scanners that pick up a line or a paragraph of text at a time. The most common connection between a current-generation laptop and a scanner is a USB cable. However, wireless units can transmit information by WiFi, Bluetooth, or infrared signals. And you could connect (by wire or wire- lessly) to a LAN and use a scanner available to that system’s users. Figure 4-1: Just about any current external device with a wired connection uses a USB 2.0 port, like the one shown here. 37 140925-bk07ch04.qxp 4/8/08 12:50 PM Page 467 Faxing from Your Lap 468 Faxing from Your Lap Remember fax machines? For some people they were essential tools in the office — it was the way to send contracts, grainy product images, and writ- ten confirmation of trip details, deals, or other arrangements. Today, e-mail does much of the work formerly done with fax machines. You can send docu- ments, pictures, and any other type of file as an attachment. And if the user must “see” an image of a document, you can scan it (see the previous sec- tion) as a PDF or as an image file and transmit it from place to place. But if you still must send or receive a fax, you have many ways to use your laptop instead of a standalone facsimile machine. Let me start with the most direct: using your laptop’s built-in facilities. Many laptops still ship with a built-in dial-up modem, and the majority of those units throw in facsimile emulation software. What do I mean by emula- tion? This class of software sends and receives the same sort of line-by-line scan that a fax machine uses, but instead of working from or printing to a piece of paper, the image exists as a bitmap in computer memory. I could, for example, send an image of the page I’m writing at this very moment from my laptop to a fax machine, or from my laptop to another laptop that has fac- simile emulation software installed. The process is relatively straightforward, although the details of using vari- ous fax software programs differ from one machine to another; read the instructions displayed onscreen for details. The biggest downside: You’ll be using a dial-up connection at dial-up speeds. For those who are used to working with high-speed broadband Internet connections, this is an unpleas- ant — or at least annoying — reminder of Ye Olden Days of Computing. Figure on speeds of 30 to 60 seconds to transmit or receive each page; even if your laptop is especially fast, it’s limited by the telephone connection and the fax machine or computer at the other end of the wire. You can send and receive faxes other ways as well: ✦ Connect your laptop to a LAN in an office or service bureau (you may need a login and password to do so) and then use any fax machine avail- able to you on the network. The connection can be wired (using an Ethernet cable) or you can use a WiFi wireless link. You may need to install a special driver or a fax software program. ✦ Output a copy of the file you want to fax to a form of removable media. Again, the easiest and quickest solution here is a flash memory key but you could also spend a few minutes burning a recordable CD or DVD. Then take the media to a computer in an office or service bureau and install it in a computer attached directly (or over a network) to a fax machine. (And to repeat my earlier warning, don’t forget to retrieve your memory key or disc after the fax job is completed.) 37 140925-bk07ch04.qxp 4/8/08 12:50 PM Page 468 Book VII Chapter 4 Going External with Printer, Network, and Special Peripherals Adding an External Mouse or Keyboard 469 ✦ Connect to the Internet by wired or wireless means and send your file (a word-processing document, a PDF, an image file, or other informa- tion) to an Internet-based fax service. A number of such companies are available — use your Internet search engine to find one. Some services are free, sending your fax with an advertising page attached; other services charge a few dollars for receiving your electronic file and re-sending it to a fax machine. ✦ Connect your laptop to a printer (directly or indirectly through a net- work or service bureau) and create a hard copy of what you need to send. Then find a traditional dial-up fax machine and send it out the old- fashioned way. Adding an External Mouse or Keyboard I like my collection of laptop computers very well, thank you. But when I’m at my desk, none of them can quite compare to the ease of use I get from my desktop PC. I’m not complaining, just explaining. I have large hands and a heavy touch, and I can really fly along on a full-sized keyboard — especially one with keys that move down to a solid bottom with a satisfying click. I’m always on the lookout for the best keyboards — ones that most remind me of the old-style IBM Selectric design. It’s the same thing with pointing devices. My large hands (and a bit of shoul- der pain) make it much easier for me to work with an oversized trackball that sits next to the keyboard, rather than having to reach out onto the desk to grab a mouse. I make do the best I can when I’m traveling with my laptop. But I know that my typing speed on a shrunken keyboard with a reduced-depth click is less than my speed on a desktop keyboard. And as far as using the high-tech touchpad on my laptop, well . . . I’ll just say I miss my trackball. But when I know I’m going to be working for an extended period away from home — a few weeks in a villa in Tuscany, perhaps, or an extended world cruise, or even just a week in a hotel on a consulting job — I often pack a full- sized trackball or mouse in my suitcase and sometimes even throw in a key- board. Together they weigh about a pound. Modern versions of external input devices like a mouse, trackball, drawing tablet, or keyboard simply plug into an available USB port. These devices require very little electrical power (and most only draw current when you push a button or spin a wheel). If you have an older input device, it might be expecting to find a PS/2 port like those offered on older laptops and desktops; you can purchase an adapter that sits between its plug and the USB port on your machine. Similarly, if you 37 140925-bk07ch04.qxp 4/8/08 12:50 PM Page 469 Knowing Which Network You’re With 470 have an older laptop that actually has a PS/2 port, you can buy a little gizmo that converts a USB plug into a PS/2 plug. You’re not required to, but if you use an external input device you might want to disable the built-in touch pad or stick to avoid confusion. Check the instruction manual for your machine to see if you can disable the pointing device from the keyboard, from a setting made to its Mouse Properties screen, or from the BIOS setup screen. Check out the Mouse Properties page, part of the Control Panel, to find out about available customization for the pointing device in your laptop or installed as an external device. An example is shown in Figure 4-2. Most Mouse Properties screens include advanced features such as delegation of specific tasks to the left or right buttons. Another valuable option is to enable Snap To functionality. With this feature turned on, the pointer auto- matically appears in the default button of any dialog box you come to. This allows quick navigation through common tasks with a series of clicks or taps. Knowing Which Network You’re With Today nearly every modern laptop comes equipped with an Ethernet port for wired connection; an Ethernet system is the most commonly used office Figure 4-2: The Mouse Properties screen for the built-in touchpad on a Toshiba Satellite laptop. A similar screen is added to your system as part of the device driver software for an external mouse or trackball. 37 140925-bk07ch04.qxp 4/8/08 12:50 PM Page 470 Book VII Chapter 4 Going External with Printer, Network, and Special Peripherals Knowing Which Network You’re With 471 networking design. You also find a built-in WiFi adapter that cuts the cord between the machine and a nearby access point for a wired network. Beyond these two basics, some laptops add one or both of a pair of specialty wireless communication protocols: Bluetooth or infrared. I talk more about these two means of communication in Book VIII, but for the moment let me explain that these last two methods are well suited for closely located devices. You can work with a printer across the room or exchange data between your cell phone and your laptop using Bluetooth, for example. What do you do if ✦ Your machine isn’t equipped with the wireless networking device you want to use? ✦ Its built-in WiFi system is outmoded by faster and better communica- tions standards? ✦ The built-in system fails? The answer to all three questions: Work around the problem by buying and using an external adapter. The solution here is to use a PC Card, Express Card, or USB adapter to communicate with the laptop’s internal data bus. (Coming devices will likely use the developing eSATA specification as well.) Of the three options, the most likely problem to be solved is number two: technological obsolescence. The most common set of specifications for wire- less communication fall in the IEEE 802.11 series, which begins at 802.11b and (as this book goes to press) has gone through commercial release of faster or more capable 11a and 11g variants with two more versions (11n and 11y) ready to arrive soon. If you don’t have a problem with what you’ve got installed in your machine, you don’t have a need for a change. But if you have an older system built with 802.11a technology, you might want to upgrade so you can work at greater speeds or at greater distances from an access point. If you add a new WiFi adapter to a machine with existing built-in circuitry, turn off the prior system. This prevents conflicts within the computer and reduces the electrical draw that would occur with two transmitters and receivers in the same box. Consult your laptop’s instruction manual or sup- port desk for advice on disabling an unused WiFi system. The third situation, a failure of the circuitry, is relatively rare. If your machine suffers a major electrical failure because of overvoltage, overheating, or an excess of gravitational forces (as in a fall from the table to the floor), it’s likely that your problems will be greater than just the WiFi module. 37 140925-bk07ch04.qxp 4/8/08 12:50 PM Page 471 Book VII: Upgrading Your Laptop 472 37 140925-bk07ch04.qxp 4/8/08 12:50 PM Page 472 Book VIII Networking and Linking to the Internet Click the Quick Tabs icon to see thumbnails of all open Internet pages at the same time. 38 140925-pp08.qxp 4/8/08 12:50 PM Page 473 . character-recognition software. A PDF is a portable document format developed by Adobe Systems that con- verts text or graphics into a format for display on any current laptop or desktop without regard to machine. America, Inc. Connecting to a Scanner A desktop scanner is a great way to capture a picture of a drawing, create a shareable document, or grab hold of a printed document and run its image through. occasionally perform with your laptop aren’t yet incorporated into standard machines. Here are a few: ✦ Printing hard copies of files or e-mails ✦ Scanning documents as images or for optical character-recognition