I just had the chance to test out the Epson PictureMate Charm, a portable photo printer--which means I had to update my list of Top Photo Printers for 2009 as well. Portable and easy to use, the PictureMate also puts out some fantastic photo prints. There are some basic on-board photo-editing functions, though a somewhat clunky interface makes them a bit hard to find and understand; and it's frankly not quite as fun looking as the Canon Selphys; but overall, it hits the mark for a Best Buy.

There are some new entries in this year's list of Top All-in-One Printers. These workhorses not only can print, scan, copy, and (usually) fax), they're not expensive, either. Finding the best one for yourself or for a most-welcome holiday gift is a simpler task with the Top Ten All-in-One Printers for 2009. But keep checking back--the year's not over yet!

I've just added a new photo scanner to the list of Best Photo Scanners of 2009. The latest addition is at the low end--the Pandigital Photo Link Personal Photo Scanner, which for now is only available via QVC (for about $100). It's appropriate for home users who don't take photos for a living. If you do take photos for a living, there's something in the list for you too (a high-end Nikon CoolScan) that's over $1,000. And for those of us in the middle, there are several HP and Epson photo scanners that won't break the bank but will do a fantastic job scanning all those holiday photos you're going to take this year. And if you don't have a camera yet, this is a good time to get one; here's a list of the best digital cameras under $300. Start snapping!

Sometimes, problems with printing are fairly obvious. You send a Word document to the printer, and it never comes out. Sometimes, the problems are less obvious but just as irritating. One example is given by Dennis O'Reilly in a recent CNET column called Troubleshoot Microsoft Word Printing Problems. In this case, no matter how many times a friend changed the default paper size to letter, next time he printed it had reverted to A4. O'Reilly's first thought was to install new drivers--not a bad solution for most printer issues--but then realized that "driver updates often spell trouble," since they can cause issues as well as fix them. One solution was far less obvious: reset Word's normal.dot (or normal.dotm) template. O'Reilly's article has many other great tips as well as handy links to Microsoft printer-troubleshooting pages.