OVER 2 YOU 172 (16/03/04)

GOLD PRINT

I wish to create some eye-catching invitation cards and certificates. Does anyone know of a printer, or can suggest a way of printing silver or gold lettering and borders? Does anyone produce gold or silver ink cartridges for home printers?

Beth Taylor, via email

I don’t think that ordinary inkjet printers can handle metallic inks. I suspect that it is something to do with the size of the particles used in the pigment, which would be quite large in the case of metallic inks and would probably clog the fine nozzles in the print heads on a consumer printer. I looked into something similar a couple of years ago and came across a range of specialist inkjet printers made by Alps Electrical (http://www.alpsusa.com/index.html). These can be used with metallic (gold and silver) ink cartridges. However, I understand that they are now out of production and can be difficult to find, but even when they were available they were rather expensive, something like five or six times as much as an ordinary home printer; it might be worth checking ebay, though, as they are bound to become available from time to time.

Phil Brody, via email

I can recommend Vista Papers' Lasercolor system (http://www.vistapapers.co.uk/). It's a foil that you cut to size and then place over the required text. You then run it through the printer again (printing a blank sheet) in order to transfer the foil onto the paper. It's a bit fiddly, but the results are excellent. Sadly, it requires a laser printer due to the way in which it works.

Paul Ganney, Head of Computing, Hull Royal Infirmary

I have just the thing; Tonertex Transfer Foil will stick by ironing onto a photocopied/laser printed design. The toner in the ink acts as the glue. Cards or invitations can be foiled either individually by ironing, or several sheets at once using a laminator. It is obtainable from us (call 01494 881886 or email gillsew@ukonline.co.uk) and we have about 12 colours, plain, striped, marble and
holographic in 20cm wide sheets. The price varies from £3 to  £6 per metre.

Gillian Swift

Heat settable metallic foils that bond to printed or photocopied artwork can be obtained from companies such as Papilio (http://www.papilio.com/)

Chris Duggan, via email

I have used I-Candi-Designs in the past (www.i-candi.co.uk).  They do all sorts of wonderful

Things, including invitations, place cards, napkins, beer mats, matchbooks, anything that is ‘printable’. You can use your own artwork (as I did) or they come up with suggestions. With regard to gold and silver you basically have two options (I know this because I used gold print for my brothers 30th birthday). You can choose between ink and foil, the latter looks great and very classy. I believe they supply everything from weddings to corporate events but are very reasonably priced.

Deno W. Fischer, via email

IPOD VOLUME

I like to use my iPod at the gym but I can’t turn up the volume loud enough to drown out the piped music. Has anyone solved this problem?

Mark Kirwin, via email

Unless those wishing to exceed 100dB at the ears have a short life expectancy may I suggest they would do better to avoid damaging their hearing with excessive volume? The effect of loud sound of any kind is all too often discovered when it is too late and the best that can then be offered is a hearing aid! For your correspondent who quite understandably wants to drown piped music with something more to his liking he might instead seek well-padded sound absorbing earphones, which will keep out a high proportion of external noise. These are often used by disc jockeys or other professionals in the music industry and sometimes in other situations where hearing speech communication in a noisy environment is important.

John Edwards, via email

One cheap and easy solution is to use insert headphones, which will have some noise cancelling effect on their own and cover them with a pair of noise reducing earmuffs, which can be bought from most DIY stores. A much more expensive solution is to purchase a pair of noise cancelling headphones - Sony make a set MDR-NC11. I bought mine a year ago and wear them whilst sitting on a noisy mowing machine. Incidentally, as a retired ENT specialist I can say that it is not a good idea to pump up the volume to overcome the background noise. You might permanently damage your hearing.
Alan Bracewell, via email

You should obtain a pair of noise cancelling headphones like the Shure E3C or the Etymotics 
ER4P.  They will cut down the outside noise by 20 - 25dBs letting you listen to your music at a comfortable level.  They will not stop the thumping bass though.
Jim Phelps, via email

Another way to increase the volume output of your iPod is by increasing the volume of all your tracks.

1. open iTunes,

2. select all tracks (ctrl a)

3. get info (ctrl i)

4. answer 'yes' to 'edit all information...' prompt.

5. the next pull-up box offers a volume adjustment level.

6. hit OK, and it will increase the volume of all your music, which will transfer to your iPod when you next dock it. Incidentally, I do not recommend turning it up to 100%, as it blew one of my earphones, and eardrums for that matter!

Guy Wells Middleton, via email

GOLF FORMULA

I am one of 8 golfers going on a 7-day golfing holiday. We want to play 2 Fourballs each day. Each golfer must have a different partner each day. In any Fourball, it should be possible to ensure that each golfer plays the minimum number of times with other players over the 7 days of play. Can anyone come up with an Excel formula to calculate each day's parings?

Graham Jones, via email

The order of play sought by David is the same as that in Two Table Progressive Bridge where over an evening every person plays with, and also against, each of the other 7 players. In golfing terms the required order of play is:

Day        Fourball 1            Fourball 2
1          1-2 v 4-5              3-6 v 7-8
2          1-5 v 3-7              2-4 v 6-8

3          2-6 v 5-7              1-3 v 4-8
4          1-4 v 6-7             2-5 v 3-8
5          1-7 v 2-8           3-5 v 4-6
6          1-8 v 5-6              2-7 v 3-4
7          1-6 v 2-3              4-7 v 5-8
Paul Egan, via email   

CAN YOU HELP?

There are several tax calculation programs for the PC, such as Tax Calc and Microsoft Money etc. Can anyone recommend an equivalent program suitable for a Mac G3 user?
Kevin O'Rourke, Milton Keynes.

I am using Excel Chart to graph a price series against time. However, the time axis of the data is for business days only, i.e. it excludes weekends. Unfortunately Excel Chart insists on adding back the weekends and so distorting the shape of the graph. How can I avoid this?

Howard Skipp, Guildford