Printers these days are pretty inexpensive. You can get a great multi-function inkjet printer/scanner/photocopier for under $100. But why manufacturers can charge you so little is that many make the money back in “consumables” – your ink and paper.

Every printer will suggest compatible ink and paper. Epson and HP both “work best” when you print on their photo paper, because their ink is “specially formulated” to work with their papers. To some extent that’s true, and when you’re producing professional-quality prints, that’s good advice.

But for everyday use you can buy regular paper and it will work fine. But do use photo paper for photographs – if you print full-color pictures on regular paper, the paper will suck up all the ink and create faded, blurry prints.

If you buy generic ink instead of brand-name ink, it may work just fine for awhile, but I actually damaged one printer because the cheapest ink I found on eBay clogged the print heads to the point they couldn’t be cleaned! If your printer was under $70, you can go this route; because you’ll save more than that with cheap ink, you can just throw away the printer and buy a new one. Mostly, I’m joking. But not completely…

The best way to save money is to reduce the amount of ink and paper you use.

First, only print emails and documents you need to take with you away from your computer. There’s no reason to print out a message to file it in your filing cabinet. If you want to keep information for the long-term, create a subfolder and archive your messages or files there. As an added bonus, you’ll always be able to search for and refer back to that content! If you file it away on paper, you’ll never see it again.

When you do print, reuse your paper. I save a stack of printouts as scrap and reprint on the backs. That way I can get two printouts from one piece of paper, halving my paper costs.

If your printer does Duplex printing (printing on both sides of the paper), be sure to turn the feature on. It won’t print on the back and front by default. When you’re in a print dialog box, make sure to click the little blue button in the upper right so that you see the preview of your document. In the middle right, there will be a drop-down menu. Look under Layout or Duplex to see if there’s a checkbox you can click. The actual location and wording for this setting may vary on your computer, so explore all the options in the drop-down list to find “duplex” or “two-sided”.

On the Layout option in the Print dialog box, you can also print more than one page on one side of the paper. This is great if you’re proofing for layout, or are printing out information as a reference. If you have a lot of reading to do, though, the print will be too small.

Also use the settings for Quality. To save the most ink, use Fast or Draft, which will use so little ink that the words may be gray or splotchy. But for content proofreading, it’s great. Use Normal for regular printing. And use High-Quality only when you’re ready for the finished product.

Last, here are some tips when printing web pages from the internet. First, look carefully on the page and see if they have a “Print” link – if you click it, you’ll be able to remove ads and some images, saving a ton of ink.

When you’re in the Print dialog box, again be sure that you click on the little blue arrow so that you can see the document preview. Flip through the pages to determine what pages have the content you need and only print those. For example, you can frequently tell it to skip the last page or two, and only print out pages 1-2.

You may also wish to copy and paste the article itself into a word processor, then print from there. That will strip out all extraneous information, so you can just print out the specific content you need.

Exploring your print options, and making sure you have the right ink and paper for the task at hand, will save you a bundle over the life of your printer.

Have you ever experienced the panic when all your toolbars disappear, and you can’t use your software? Or, maybe you’re working on a file and an extra inch of screen real estate sure wouldn’t hurt…. This quick tip will solve both those problems!

Look up in the upper right corner of almost any window. There’s an innocent, innocuous, “oval-looked” little oval up there. Click on it, and WHOOSH! Your toolbar will slide shut.

Click on it again, and the toolbar will come right back.

So any time you have a window open that only has a thin bar across the top, or your Word toolbars won’t stay put, find that oval and your panic will dissipate.

Here’s a great tip for those of you with iPhones and iPads. Have you ever wished you could get iBooks, the free app for reading books and PDFs, to read out loud to you, like an audiobook? You can!

To make this work, turn on VoiceOver, the accessibility feature that allows blind people to use iPhones & iPads. Go into Settings > General > Accessibility and slide VoiceOver to On.

There are additional settings below for the reading speed and other adjustments.

Do note that turning on VoiceOver will change the way your iPhone/iPad works, a little. Because tapping an item once will now cause your device to read it out loud, you’ll need to double-tap items to open them, and drag with three fingers instead of two. You’ll either get used to it, or need to turn VoiceOver back off once you’re done “reading” your iBook.

Now that VoiceOver Accessibility is on, go to iBooks and open a book. Tap the first line to get the highlighting off the buttons at top.

Then swipe down the page with two fingers and your iPhone/iPad will start reading the book to you in its synthesized voice. It will even turn the pages automatically and keep going until you tap with two fingers to stop it.

Didn’t know you had an audiobook reader, too, did you?

If you have an iPhone or iPad, you’re going to love this technique. The new iBooks app allows you to view PDFs, but it’s not very easy to get them there. This tip will give you a new option when you save your PDFs, to save them directly into iTunes! This is an intermediate-level tip – not hard to do, but we boldly go where you’ve never gone before…

Create a new Finder window (I like to poke the little blue guy on the left of my Dock in the nose). Go to your Applications folder.

Right-click or Control-click on the iTunes application, and select “Make Alias.” A second copy of iTunes appears, but if you look at the icon, you can see a tiny black arrow, and the new name contains “alias” at the end. This alias is NOT another copy of iTunes, it’s a little pointer file that you can store anywhere to gain easy access to iTunes.

Now, open up a second Finder window (File menu > New Finder Window). Click on your Home User folder in the left bar – that’s the picture of the house with your name on it.
Open up the Library folder, then PDF Services. If you don’t have a PDF Services folder, you can create one, just be sure it’s named exactly this way.

Drag your alias file into the PDF Services folder.

The next step is to change the name. Click one time on the words “iTunes.app Alias” (yours might just say iTunes Alias), then take a deep breath and click on the words a second time. The name now goes into Edit mode. Type “Save PDF to iTunes.” This will become the new menu choice! When you’re done typing, press Return to accept the name.

To see this in action, open any file you want to save in any program (even this browser window!), go to the File menu, and choose Print. In the lower left corner of the window there’s a PDF button. Click on it, and at the bottom of the list you now see “Save PDF to iTunes.” Choose it!

Now, open up your iTunes, and click on “Books” in the left bar. You’ll see your file on the list! When you sync your iPhone or iPad, go into the Books tab and make sure there’s a checkmark in front of the file. When you next go into iBooks on your device and tap PDF in its library, your file will be there!

Click here to see a video demo on YouTube.

Almost unnoticed with all the hype about iPads, iPhones, and new iPods, are a few significant changes to the program you use every day to browse the internet, Safari. Version 5 came out last months with little fanfare, but two new features caught my eye and I wanted to be sure you knew about them, too.

The first is that Safari now accepts extensions, just like Firefox. Extensions are little utilities that “extend” the features of the program, making your surfing experience that much easier, or more fun. Some add new functionality. Some are connections to other web services like Google, Twitter, or Facebook.

While most of these plug-ins may not be relevant to the way you use Safari, you’re likely to discover a few gems that you can’t live without. For example, I found one called “Exposer” that spreads out all the tabs I have open so I can view all the content and click on the one I need.

To find extensions for yourself, go up to the Safari menu in the upper left corner of your screen and click on “Safari Extensions Gallery.” A new webpage will open. Scroll down and read about all the new plug-ins.

When you find one you like, click the Install button, and it will be added to Safari. Then quit the program and open it again. You’ll find a new button, menu item, or bar that gives you the new functionality.

Now because this is new technology, I’d expect a few bugs. If the extension isn’t behaving as expected, or if you decide you don’t want it, go up to the Safari menu again and choose Preferences. At the top of the Preferences window, there’s a new button called “Extensions.” Click on it, and you’ll see a list of all the ones you have installed.

If you want to turn one off temporarily, click on its name in the left column, then unclick the checkbox on the right side. If you want to remove it completely from your Safari, click the Uninstall button instead.

Have you ever wanted to save what you’re looking at on your screen? You can, using a keyboard command that creates a “screen capture,” an image on your desktop that you can then paste, save into your Documents folder for reference, or send in an email.

What do you want to capture?

• The full screen: Hold down the Command and Shift keys with your left hand, then press 3 with your right (from now on I’ll use the notation “Command-Shift-3″). This will save a file to your desktop called something like “Screen shot 2010-07-21 at 3.48.48 PM”.

• Part of your screen: Hold down Command-Shift-4. You’ll get a crosshair. Click and drag from the upper left corner of what you want, down to the lower right corner. When you let go, a picture of that zone will be saved to your desktop.
• The top window: Hold down Command-Shift-4-Spacebar. The crosshair will become a camera, and the topmost window will be shaded. Click, and that window will be saved.

Add it to your Clipboard for pasting!

• If you want to immediately insert any of the above pictures in an email or any file, also hold down the Control (Ctrl) key. The picture will be saved just like you had Cut or Copied it, and you can immediately Paste it anywhere.

Ideas for use:

• Tech support: Have an error message you don’t understand? Save it to your desktop to research, or read to (or send to) tech support.

• Confirmation Receipts: Order something online? Take a screenshot of your confirmation number until you receive the item, then throw the image away.
• Reference: After I’ve configured my computer (for example, my email settings), I’ll do a screen capture of the settings and then save them in a Settings folder in my Documents. I’ll change the file name to something obvious (like “Email Settings”) so I can find it again easily.
• Turn something into an image: If you want to turn part of a document or website into a quick image, take a screen capture.

Where to save your Screen Captures:

• Temporarily: If you’re just saving it for a short time, leave it on your Desktop, then throw it away when you’re done with it.

• As part of a collection: Make a folder for them in Documents.
• For easy access: Drag them into iPhoto for fast skimming and organized storage.

If you change your mind:

• If you’ve already done the keyboard command but change your mind, just tap the Escape key.