Apparatus and methods for monitoring and controlling network activity of network appliances are provided, in which the network activity is transmitted to at least one controlling mobile communications device such as a cellular telephone or wireless telephone-enabled personal digital assistant. It can be made of materials with a wide variety of properties. The interactive recommendation system further presents a user interface that allows the user to interactively modify the criteria of the recommendation model and to apply the modified recommendation model to the datastore in order to generate one or more modified recommendations. The sensor is coupled to a controller. Operating methods improve printer performance by reducing variations in media transport velocity through the fuser. The waveguide can be used in an integrated optical waveguide device.