There can be few more mundane subjects than printers but they have become
part of our everyday lives and also, for many, part of everyday
frustrations. Has any one of you reading this never had an irritating moment
induced by a printer?
Printers now seem to have changed little from printers in the 1990s except
that they are almost all on wifi and not direct cable link. Some also have
larger refillable ink tanks and some have monthly ink charge arrangements.
The basic paper feed mechanism seems as unreliably antiquated as it ever
was.
Manufacturers tempt buyers with very cheap deals on printers (which now have almost empty print cartridges - just enough for the set-up and a few tempting photos) and then charge a fortune for the ink. To make sure they get their pound of flesh, they focus all their efforts on making sure printers only work with proprietary ink cartridges.
So life with a printer for most people runs something like this:
- Buy a printer.
- Set up the printer (if you're lucky this might not raise your blood pressure).
- Honeymoon period - printer works as it should.
- Poddle along.
- Need an urgent print job.
- Printer won't cooperate.
- Waste a day trying to get it to work.
- Get the urgent job printed by a friend or a local copyshop.
- Dump the printer.
- Buy another printer.
- Repeat.
On the other hand your experience might be like this:
- Discover printer won't work.
- You're pretty handy with gadgets so you sort it.
- Start the job and printer absolutely refuses to cooperate.
- Decide printer is dead.
- It's Saturday. Urgent print job. Argos is open. Buy new printer.
- Complete job.
- Monday, ring help line for first printer.
- Get software upgrade.
- Printer back in working order.
So you (I) now have two printers. This is handy because when one printer decides to throw a wobbly the other is usually in a good mood.
I make photo cards and post cards. Mostly for my own use but also for other people (not commercially). So almost all the printing I do is photographs ie colour printing, and decorated envelopes and the cards on which the photos are mounted. So I use a great deal of ink. So I have chosen a monthly ink purchase scheme. So for a few £s per month I get an unlimited supply of ink to enable me to do all the printing I need and don't have to worry about a sudden outlay on expensive cartridges which can run into quite a hefty sum.
PS If the weather wasn't so bad I'd be in the garden and not writing posts like this.
