Taming the Power of a PC

Taming the Power of a PC
By Reid Goldsborough

Like many machines, personal computers have the ability to both empower and alienate. Only they do it better. On the one hand, PCs enable you to accomplish several tasks — what previously took many people — boosting your productivity and freeing you from needing to work with others. With the right hardware and software and with preferably a fast Internet connection, you can be your own company.

On the other hand, PCs promote an electronic shut-in mentality that, at its dehumanizing extreme, can lead to the pathology of teen-agers playing out in real life the killing contests glorified by video games.

Still, computer hardware continues to get smarter, cheaper and better.

Multifunction printers have been around for a while, combining three or four devices into one, but the latest are the greatest, letting you do more for less.

The well-regarded Lexmark X5150 , for instance, which at $150 costs no more than a decent ink jet printer, prints black-and-white text and color photos, scans in black and white or color, converts scanned text into words that can be edited, faxes documents created on your computer or freestanding pages, and copies in black-and-white or color. And it does all this at impressive speeds.