Category: Electronics

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Computer Recycling in the D.C. Area

While we are shopping for the holidays, we should remember to recycle our old electronics. This article covers recycling information and locations for the Virginia, D.C., and Maryland area.

Dangers of Computer Waste

Old computers and monitors have harmful materials that can seep into the ground water and air if thrown in your normal trash. The cadmium and mercury in displays can damage the nervous system. Computers also may contain lead (causing birth defects and learning disabilities) and CFCs (destroying the ozone layer).

Donations

If you have a working computer, you can get rid of it through:

  1. Craigslist (Washington D.C. metro area) has sections for selling or giving away free stuff.
  2. Freecycle is a free program to give people items for reuse. They have groups everywhere, including, Washington D.C., Virginia, and Maryland.
  3. D.C. Goodwill accepts computers that are not more than 5 years old. They will not take CRT monitors, the older large monitors that have been replaced by LCDs.

Recycling Computers and eWaste

The easiest way to recycle an old computer is to do it with the purchase of a new computer. Apple, Dell, HP, Sony, Toshiba and others have a corporate recycling program that allows you to give them your old computer after buying your new computer.

This image shows the Free Recycling Kit option that Dell provides in their services customization when you buy a new computer.

Drop-off Locations for Computers and other eWaste

The EPA eCycling site is the closest thing to a definitive set of inks to eCycling programs across the country. Below are the best links I found to the D.C. area programs:

Washington D.C.

DC Free Electronic Disposal Sites:
DPW (Department of Public Works) offers free, weekly Household Hazardous Waste (HHW) and electronic recycling (e-cycling) drop-off service at the Benning Road Trash Transfer Station, 3200 Benning Road, NE, and at the Ft. Totten Trash Transfer Station, 4900 Bates Road, NE, each Saturday from 8 am to 3 pm.

Virginia

Arlington, VA HAZMAT Program:
Arlington residential households can recycle computers and other electronic items at the County’s HHM drop off sites.

Virginia Department of Environment Computers and Electronics Recycling, List of Virginia Collections Centers

Maryland

Maryland Department of Environment Electronic Recycling Collection Events and Locations:
Montgomery Country Shady Grove Transfer Station and Recycling Center

Ink Cartridges

Ink cartridges can be dropped off at Micro Center in Fairfax, Virginia. Office supply stores such as Staples, Office Max, and Office Depot take used toner cartridges and sometimes even give you credit toward a store purchase for dropping them off.

Cell Phones

Cell phones can be dropped off at cell phone stores. Working phones can also be donated to women’s shelters. Unactivated phones still have the ability to call 911 so they can be useful.

Recycling Can Be Easy

With many recycling options, you can easily dispose of your electronics safely.

Please let us know if you have any corrections or additions to this post.

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LCD Image Persistence

Most people have heard of screen burn-in. It is an imprint of an image on a display that is caused by that image being displayed too long. CRT burn-in was very common for things like taskbars that were always displayed on the screen in the same place. To prevent this, screen savers were invented to display different images to counteract the burn-in effects. Most people thought this problem went away when LCDs were created but that isn’t entirely true. It is uncommon in LCDs but it can happen.  The crystals change their natural state enough to cause an imprinting of the persistent image, kind of like a shadow of it.

See the LCD screen to the right which has a menu at the top that still displays on a blank screen.

Prevention

Much like CRT burn-in, screen savers can help prevent the problem.  It is a good idea to pick a screen server with lots of changing colors.  Having your screen auto turn off when not in use will also help by not displaying the image more than it has to be.

Fixing

Unfortunately, preventative techniques will only do so much if you are always at your computer and not giving it an opportunity to turn off or run a screen saver.  In that case, you need to know how to fix the problem.  It is important to try to fix it as soon as you notice it as it is possible to become permanent if it continues too long.  To fix it, you can try one of these following techniques:

  1. Leave your monitor off for very long periods of time.  This could take hours or many days.
  2. Use a screen saver with lots of colors and let it run for a long period of time.  The length of time can vary depending on how bad the persistence is.
  3. Display a solid single color or white for a long period of time.

If none of those work, your image is probably permanent and you are at your computer far too often.

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Small Multifunction Printers

At Tech DC, we regularly set up printers for individuals and businesses. One of our favorite workhorse printers is the multi-function laser printer by Brother called the MFC-7440N, available for $230.

Laser Printers versus Ink Jet

Most customers purchase ink jet printers because their initial cost is low. Manufacturers make their money on the back-end, through inflated prices on the ink. Therefore any volume of printing quickly makes ink jets more expensive. Ink jets typically break more easily and have problems with printer heads drying out. They also do not have as fine of print as laser printers.

The one advantage of ink jets is in printing photos. But it is usually far cheaper to print photos at a Target, Sams, Costco, or drug store.

Brother MFC-7440N

The MFC-7440N is a recent update by Brother from the MFC-7820N. Yes, it’s an upgrade even though the model number went down.

As a multi-function printer, the MFC-7440N prints, faxes, scans, and makes copies. It is very small (15.6 D x 16.9 W x 12 H inches) and can be sufficient for small offices with occasional printing needs. The 250 sheet paper tray makes it less practical for larger volumes.

Networking

The printer includes an ethernet jack and works easily over a network. If you need wireless, consider the Brother MFC-7840W which adds wireless connectivity.

These network printers work with PCs and Macs.

Other Options

Brother also makes larger multifunction printers that add duplex print (double sided printing) options.

Brother laser printers have usually proven to be the most cost effective for our computer support clients. Samsung also makes good printers, but we have found their small mutifunction printers to be somewhat cheaper, both in price and quality. Our experience is that HP’s small multifunction printers are more expensive and provide no greater quality.

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Add More Recording Time To Your Tivo

With a 1TB or 1.5TB drive you can record hundreds of hours of TV in a TiVo. You first need to decide between two approaches.

Option 1: Order a pre-made TiVo Drive

This is the simplest method. You can buy a hard drive already setup for your TiVo from weaKees (TiVo Upgrade Kit section). I have also had good experience buying from dvr_dude on eBay.

Purchasing a new drive is your only option if your original drive failed and you don’t have a backup (obtained possibly through the Linux option described below). Replacing a failed drive can also save you from losing your lifetime or multi-year subscription contract with TiVo.

The cons to this approach are:

  1. Buying hard drives with TiVo software already loaded can add over $100 to the cost of buying a blank drive.
  2. This method will give you a new blank TiVo. It does not keep any of your programs, to do list, recording preferences, channel lineup, or CableCard pairing (for TiVo 3 or HD users who use CableCard to tune digital channels). This isn’t a con if it’s a new TiVo.

Option 2: Build Your Own Drive

This method takes much longer. You remove the drive and put it and the new drive in a computer that boots off of a Linux Live CD. In Linux, you run a command to copy the old drive to the new one bit by bit.

TiVo HD users should follow our TiVo HD instructions. TiVo 3 users should follow the bumwine instructions. TiVo Series 1 and Series 2 should follow the hinsdale instructions.

Building your own drive can take hours but it is the cheapest upgrade method and it saves all your shows, preferences, etc.

My Experience

Since my first Philips TiVo Series 1 with 20-hour recording capacity, I have been upgrading or adding drives to TiVos for myself and D.C. area clients. It can change the way you use your TiVo. If you have hundreds of hours of recording capacity, the TiVo feels closer to a TV and movie archive. Give it a try if you find yourself running out of space or if you want more TiVo suggestions.

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New Aspire One Netbook with 160GB Hard Drive Demo Video

New King of Netbooks

Acer has just started selling a new Aspire One netbook. The latest improvements in this model are an increased SATA hard drive to 160GB and a 6-cell battery which will yield a good 5 hours of use even playing movies. It includes a low power Intel Atom processor running at 1.6GHz. Many people assume all netbooks are slow but the following video demonstrates that it is more than powerful for most computer uses today. This is in part due to the SATA hard drive which outperforms the more commonly found SSD option.

See the video demo that I made here: