My 6-month old Acer Timeline is giving me a problem with the screen. The screen’s colours are distorted. It’s quite a disappointment as it’s only 6 months old and I don’t expect to have such a problem. My previous Acer Aspire laptop had screen problems too but that was after some years of use.

Wonder if Acer generally has a weaker screen since both my Acers had problems albeit not the exact same problem. Now I have to send the laptop in to be serviced so I’ll have to suffer downtime for a few days at least. It’s truly an inconvenience as the laptop is my main source of doing business. Even backing up the files I need to be used on another PC is quite a hassle because there’s so much to back up. Now I understand why companies use virtualization services, to avoid this kind of downtime if one PC goes down. But as an individual, the only affordable way is to do manual back-ups.

Anyway, I better get started on it as this baby has to go for service in a few hours already…it will be missed deeply!

Meanwhile, anyone has any great recommendations for a laptop? I may want to stop using an Acer altogether…

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We’ve got a printer that’s functioning as a scanner, copier and printer. Been useful thus far but I’ve to admit that it’s a rather big machine. We thought of getting one that’s smaller, just for printing job. A smaller printer definitely helps to save space. I’ve not shopped in this area for a long time, so not sure what brand is a recommended one. Any suggestions, anybody?

Whilst I was just doing a quick search on this topic, I also came across something which I thought was neat for my little business, the epson tm-t88iv printer. It prints receipts and all, so saves the hassle of doing the manual way to write. But this buy is only a KIV case. I don’t need it right now, just neat to have.

So I’ll just search for a normal printer first. It doesn’t really cost much, I believe. Just want to get one that’s small in size but reliable in its functionality. What’s a good choice, Canon, HP, Epson?

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Recently I wrote a post asking for recommendations for a good business card scanner. At that time I was exploring a brand called PenPower WorldCard which costs nearly RM500. And then I found that most shops don’t carry the brand but they carried one called Plustek OptiCard which costs around RM300. But since the former came highly recommended, I didn’t think Plustek would measure up.

Not so willing to spend RM500 at the same time, I thought I’d look for an alternative and see what others are recommending. No one provided me with anything and I proceeded then to give Plustek a try. I bought the Plustek OptiCard 820. I’m happy to say that it works just fine and I’m completely happy with it. Read below on what this business card scanner can do and how well it’s been working for me.

I like the sleek look of this scanner!

The Plustek OptiCard 820 model is a colour scanner and can fit up to an A6 paper size. I don’t know exactly know how big an A6 paper is but I’m guessing it’s the size of a standard photograph. You see, apart from scanning business cards, this scanner can also scan photographs.

There are 2 types of scans you can perform, one being an image scan and the other a text scan. For the scanning of business cards, obviously it is better to use the text scan. Once scanned, the colour image of the card is stored along with the extracted information on the card. The extracted data like name, company, telephone number, address, etc are automatically filled into columns for you, much like a spreadsheet on Excel. All these are stored in a software that comes with the scanner.

You can also specify that the same information be stored on an Excel spreadsheet so that you can do data sorting or create a database if you so wish. Very convenient, very easy. You can also opt to have the scanned business card stored directly in your selected email application like Outlook Express or Microsoft Outlook. They will be automatically stored into your Contacts folder in the email application. Easy and fast!

On the usage of the scanner itself, it is quite idiot-prove. The device comes with an installation CD that contains some complementary softwares that work with the scanner. All you need to do is to install them all. As for the setting up, it’s not much work, really. Each time you want to perform a scan, just press the buttons on the scanner and determine whether it’s going to be an image or text scan and it will do the rest to store the results automatically for you.

You can do the scan document by document or you can do continuous scans if you have a few at a time to scan through. Just keep feeding the device with the documents before you open them up in batch to view. It’s also quite quick to have a business card scanned through. I scanned some 200+ business cards in about 30 minutes or so.

The Plustek OptiCard doesn’t need to be plugged into a power adaptor to be used. Just connect it to your computer via the USB hub and it will power up. It is also quite small in size and of reasonable weight, so it’s very portable as well. It comes with a pouch to be stored in so that you don’t get dust settling on the device and therefore compromising the scan results.

As you can tell, I’m very happy with the performance of this business card scanner and it has totally met my needs. Retailing at RM299, this business card scanner is really worth it for me. So if you are looking for an affordable scanner like this, you can give this brand and model a try.

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I’ve been looking for a business card scanner and one that came highly recommended is the Penpower WorldCard Color Business Card Scanner. I went to look for this in Low Yat Plaza last week and it was the most expensive business scanner I could find in that building!

Penpower WorldCard Color Business Card Scanner

And it was rather hard to find too, only 1 shop had it and it was selling for a whopping RM445 after some negotiation. And that was a cash price too, if I pay with a credit card, I was told I will be charged an additional 3%. Since it came recommended, tried and tested, I decided I will get it anyway.

It was out of stock and I made an order for it. But when the stock finally arrived this week, I was told that the price had gone up to RM485! I didn’t think it was fair to raise the price on me after collecting my deposit and committing to that price. The least they could’ve done was to honour the deal and not make me pay a higher price just because they didn’t check properly with their supplier on the price prior to quoting me. I immediately cancelled my order and asked for my deposit to be refunded.

Now that I’ve cancelled the order, I was thinking of trying other brands that might cost less than this Penpower WorldCard. Anyone has any recommendations?

This is the Plustek Opticard business card scanner

When I was browsing for this at Low Yat, I came across only one other brand that many shops carried, the Plustek OptiCard. According to the shop keepers, it is not too bad in performance and it costs only RM299, a whole lot cheaper than Penpower WorldCard. Plustek is from Taiwan whilst Penpower WorldCard is from China.

If I have no other recommendations, I was thinking of trying out this Plustek one. I don’t have much of a choice anyway as business card scanners aren’t that popular a gadget here so there are not many brands offered in the market. It’s not exactly a popular device as I don’t think many people use it. I think more people own ipods than a business card scanner!

So if you have experiences with any business card scanners, I would really appreciate your comments and recommendations!

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I was very happy when I saw a review of the Nikon D5000, the latest entry level DSLR camera by Nikon. According to the review, the D5000 packs in a lot of features from the Nikon D90. This should be good news for those who want a powerful DSLR but at the price of an entry level camera.

But then again, after having spotted the price which is at RM3,288, I didn’t think it was that low a level to call it entry level. But admittedly, it is still quite a steal compared with the higher end DSLR cameras.

The Nikon D5000 DSLR comes with a live view (something I would like!), has video recording and a foldable LCD screen for the latter purpose too. However, the reviewer did write about how the screen is quite unpractically positioned should you want to mount the camera onto a tripod.

This newest model of Nikon DSLR is also a slightly smaller version compared to its other range of DSLR cameras. Whilst some may find this a welcome, the reviewer pointed out that it was quite a difficult grip, even for small hands. I’m quite intrigued to get my hands on this and see if it’s true.

For a full and honest review of the Nikon D5000 DSLR camera, read it here.

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