Color

Lexmark International has been the king of inexpensive printers for the past few years. But with the Z65 Color Jetprinter ($180), Lexmark has gone upscale - with mixed results. The Z65 has a few things going for it. It easily connects to your computer via a Universal Serial Bus cable (which is not included). It can produce prints with resolutions up to 4,800-by- 1,200 dots per inch on glossy paper and 4,800-by-600 dpi on plain paper. It produced solid black-and-white documents in draft mode at 10 to 12 pages per minute in our tests - good performance for an inkjet.

Baltimore fashionistas probably aren't going to replace the little black dress with the little purple dress, but purple in all its glory is definitely the color of the moment. Not aubergine. Not plum. Not magenta or lavender. Purple. Jimi Hendrix immortalized the shade in "Purple Haze." Alice Walker raised it to the stature of literature. But it took the Ravens heading for the Super Bowl to make purple a fashion basic. For the past couple of weeks, people have been digging out any piece of clothing they own that has even a touch of purple.

A FEW NIGHTS ago, I sat down and watched a wonderful black-and-white program on TV called the World Series. Oh, yes, I know the World Series is televised in color these days. But on my color TV, a hulking 32-inch GE that dates back to the Reagan administration, the World Series was appearing in black and white. The Mets were scratching themselves in black and white. The Yankees were spitting in black and white. Joe Torre was dozing off in the dugout in black and white. This I recognized as big trouble.

For the first few decades, movies only came in black and white. Then color took over and elbowed its predecessor into the shadows.But a little black and white can still do a lot for a film - as New Line's "Pleasantville" proves. "Pleasantville," which opened in theaters Friday, uses glorious B&W to depict the title town, a throwback to those wholesome little villages that dominated TV screens of the 1950s (think "Father Knows Best" or "Leave It To Beaver"). The effect is both nostalgic and visually striking.

Q: We've begun doing some serious work on our aging summer house at the beach. A decision has to be made about the wood floors, which are no longer in very good shape. Can we get away with covering them in wall-to-wall carpeting? If so, please suggest some color choices. Alternately, do you think the costlier option of replacing the floors would make more sense?A: Nothing better camouflages a beat-up floor that does wall-to-wall carpeting. It's also relatively easy to maintain. But with the exception of sisal or very low-pile carpeting, this is not what I consider a summery look.

When your workday begins at 7 a.m., you need a jolt of color to jump start the day.That's why Jackie Gaines, president of chief executive officer of Health Care for the Homeless, has a closet filled with vibrant shades, including ruby-red, fuchsia and teal.Although she's yet to decide what she'll wear to the non-profit's Comedy Care benefit and 10th anniversary gala on March 18, she's most likely to turn up in a show-stopping bright."I wear my boldest colors when I need someone's attention," says Ms. Gaines, 37, who lives in Bel Air. "It gives you a sense of presence."

Pertaining To Your Sept. 21 editorial, "What the general has wrought," I find it ridiculous to find a reason to ''thank'' Colin Powell for being a black American and allowing voters to ''size'' him up as a potential president.Mr. Powell would be a qualified presidential candidate regardless of his race.The Sun has missed the point. Mr. Powell does not want people to ''forget'' his color. But he also does not want to be commended for his color. Mr. Powell wants people to see an ''American who happens to be black.

COLOR pictures are wonderful. Getting them into your computer is not. Particularly in the Windows world, color scanners can be tricky to install and trickier to master. But prices have been dropping, and decent models are available for less than $150.For recent tests, I limited myself to units with optical resolution of 300 dots per inch, which is all most users need with today's best ink-jet printers. I also stuck to units that connect to a computer's printer port and offer a pass-through port for the printer.

Black, according to some fashion followers, is such a staple it has become a cliche. Such a notion causes those of us who have invested large sums in a wardrobe based on black to snicker.Truth is, black as a fashion basic will never die. It is not only visually slimming, as the image consultants say, it also is easy to dress up, hides dirt (for those times one must take an extended business trip with limited luggage) and goes with anything you can think of.Still, fashion moves in cycles. (How else to sell new clothes?

My condominium apartment has lots of glass, white-painted walls and off-white carpeting. All this, plus my pale-colored sofa and chairs, makes the living room look just like the North Pole -- only less interesting. As you can probably tell, choosing colors is not my forte, so I wind up buying off-white everything.Take comfort, first of all, in the knowledge that your predicament is not unique. Plenty of people blanch when presented with the need to select something less safe than plain old off-white.