Q. Equipment:- Lap Top Dell latitude D505 / Printer HP Desk Jet F2180. When I scan in documents they always end up as Jpegs which of course to me means picture which I cannot edit and sometimes print off’s do not fit onto a A4 page. Am I making a basic mistake or is that how it is.
A. Hi Bernie, I would say that its correct that your scanner software is saving files in the .jpg format, that’s a pretty standard picture format. I’m not sure what you mean by being able to change and print the files; however I suspect that you simply don’t have, or are not using the correct software. For photo editing there is a great, freely downloadable package called paint.net – you can download it from www.getpaint.net it’s a great, free photo editing application, nothing like Adobe PhotoShop of course, but also nothing like the price! Alternatively you could download Google’s Picasa from http://picasa.google.com, it is a great photo library application that also has some basic photo editing functions built in (if you find paint.net a bit overwhelming). As for printing, both of these applications has built in printing options, however I find that Windows Photo Viewer is pretty good and easy to use, it comes with all the modern versions of windows and allows you to easily print A4 photos. Hope this helps, get back to me if you have any more questions.
Update: Thank you for responding to my original query and no sooner had I finished my session than I picked up the courier and saw that someone was asking you the same question I think they call it murphy’s. I forgot to ask you about Wifi routers. I am looking at moving providers from my current provider who is quiet expensive to something more suited to my pocket but provides a good package, yes I know good luck! Anyway having now acquired 2 / 3 routers at unreasonable cost I am wondering if they can be unblocked, much as a mobile phone could be and if so where can I get it done or can I purchase, either at an electrical retailer or on line, a router that gives out a reasonable signal strength.
Reply: Hi Bernie, routers are never “locked” to a certain provider, any ADSL router can be used on any ADSL provider, it may need to be reconfigured for the particular settings for the new provider but that is something that any computer engineer should be able to do easily for you, it’s just a matter of logging onto the routers admin screen and changing the relevant values for the new ADSL provider and usually changing the username and password for the new provider.
As for strength of signal on a Wi-Fi router, the type of router should be matched with the type of wireless network card in your laptop/PC; the wireless-n (802.11n) standard currently provides the best range and speed, it works on the principal of MIMO (Multi In, Multi Out) where the router allows multiple connections from the same computer at the same time to provide greater range and speed, however most people are more than happy with the wireless-g (802.11g) standard – both of these signal types will be on the box of any router that you buy, its important however to remember that for an ADSL (phone line) router you need an ADSL router (generally called modem-router in Spain).