Written for printer purchasers and users.

If you spend a fair amount on printer cartridges, you should read the UK Daily Mail's recent article on 'The great printer rip off: Ink costs more than vintage champers - and devious new tricks mean you constantly have to buy refills'. This article reveals that printer manufacturers make it as hard as possible for you to have competing choices when purchasing cartridges. They also deploy a range of tricks to make you use ink faster than you need to.

Although this article mentions how manufacturers prevent consumers from using cartridges 'low on link', it did not raise the point that printer lifespans are themselves also controlled by a limit on printable pages. I recently experienced this with my Canon Pixma iP5000 when it displayed the following, seemingly innocuous 'Support Code : 1700' error message:



I took it to a licensed service provider who informed me that most printers track the number of pages printed. Once a page limit is reached, your printer displays an error message and you will be unable to print. They advised that this can be fixed by replacing the printer's main board, but warned that this only has a 50% chance of working. After authorizing this, the error message disappeared and I could print again... for a brief while until the print quality become erratic and several varieties of error message were displayed. The service provider informed that although my print head required replacement, this was impossible as that part was no longer in production. As a result, I was given a newer refurbished model for free after my "old" one was recycled.

I would like my printer to work until it literally 'falls apart' and wonder whether there is any printer manufacturer which produces a printer that; is designed to last longer than five years, has no limits on printable pages and a reliable supply of spares? (If you know, please let my readers know in the comment box below, thanks!) Given the growing market for environmentally responsible products,  there could be a market niche for such a green printer.

Written for iTunes users who are passionate about organizing their music library.

Out of iTunes 11's four library music views ('songs', 'albums', 'artists' and 'genres'), I now enjoy using artists the most. It wasn't always like that; an erratic collection of compilations had resulted in a long scrolling view that was irritating to navigate. Tired of the genre view and wanting a fresh way to select my music-of-the-moment, I decided to spend time improving my artists view.

Tagging album and song information more appropriately (as described in the tips below) was a good choice as I now have a much better iTunes-user experience: I not only have a speedy way to select an artist's songs and benefit from a more varied listening-experience (than my past reliance on playlists or Genius Mixes), but now also can quickly use the linked 'iTunes Store', 'Listeners Also Bought' and 'Related' options views to find pre-releases, live and cover versions, novelties and remixes that I ordinarily would not have been aware of.

Follow these steps below and you can also have a better iTunes experience using your artists view:

1. Find and change your compilations' album artist titles
The highest selling albums in South Africa have tended to be compilations, which may pose a challenge for local iTunes users' artists view as iTunes prioritizes the 'album artist' field when displaying an artist's albums and singles. This may result in some of your favorite artists, DJs and tunes being hidden in this view, particularly if they are labelled 'Various Artists', 'Various' et al. in the album artist field and their album is also ticked as a compilation type. It's easy enough to check the extent of this challenge in your library, by opening the 'compilations' and 'various artists' "artists" in your artist view and seeing their size (you should also check that there are no namesakes (like 'Various'). It is easy enough to fix, select the songs of your 'best of' albums and change the album artist name to his or her name. (N.B. If you tire of being automatically redirected to the start of your artist view, remember to use the shift and letter shortcut to get back to where you were making changes).

2. Hide artists best viewed under genre
Your library may feature artists who's oeuvre is not large or interesting enough to merit your focus in the artists view. Simply change their album artist field to 'Various Artists' and they will be hidden in the artists view.

3. Change individual album artist names to their more famous band's (or vice-versa)
To ease selection, you may want to move an individual artist under their band's name (say Agnetha Fältskog under ABBA). Simply change their album artist field to their band's name. Of course, this may be reversed, where relevant (i.e. by placing Cream under Eric Clapton). Although nitpicking purists may frown at this, it's your music collection to label and the resulting streamlined view is likely to take priority over complete accuracy.

4. Order tunes and the best remixes under your favorite DJs and producers
In those cases where DJ mixes, re-mixes or producer work are so distinctive that they merit being featured under artists, you should enter the DJ or producer's name in the 'album artist' field. I suggest you also append all DJ's names with DJ (i.e. 'DJ Tonka' or 'DJ Armin Van Buuren'), which makes it easy to select and see the DJs you follow under the artists view's DJ section (just press 'shift' key, followed by 'd' then 'j'). Unfortunately,  iTunes only supports one artist entry under its 'artist' and 'album artist' fields, so you may be forced to choose which DJ to highlight a seminal collaboration (such as DJs Sasha and John Digweed) or to label the duo as a distinctive artist.

5. Group soundtrack albums by their composer or director
Following on from DJs, there are also some composers (such as Angelo Badalamenti) or directors (like David Lynch) whose soundtracks are so distinctive that you want to group them under the composer's or director's name. Again specify the 'album artist' field to arrange it.

6. Collate an artist's pseudonyms under one artist's name
Electronic music artists in particular are well-known for using multiple aliases and it is helpful to use the 'album artist' field to group work that would otherwise be listed under distinct artists (i.e. AFX, Blue Calx, Bradley Strider, Caustic Window, DJ Smojphace, GAK, Martin Tressider, Polygon Window, Power-Pill, Q-Chastic, Tahnaiya Russell, The Dice Man, Soit-P.P., and speculatively The Tuss, for the Aphex Twin).

7. Get rid of multiple titles for an artist
iTunes does not support attribution to multiple artists, which I have found particularly problematic with classical music; where the conductor, composer and orchestra have all been attributed under the 'artist' field. To address this, I have decided to only use the artist field for the most important performer and to cut-and-paste the composer's information into the 'composer' field. How you address it depends on your priorities; you are most welcome to label Mozart under "artist", for example!

8. Get rid of 'one hit wonders'
To reduce the artists present in your view, you can also remove any one hit wonders {who only play for a short time when selected, anyway}. However, before doing this, check the artist's 'In The Store' view, just in case the 'one hit wonder' describes your library's content, not the artist's output :) !

If you have any other helpful tips, please share them in the comments box below.