Once upon a time if you had bought a new computer printer you just bought it home, took it out of the box, connected the cable to the computer and the power cable to the electricity socket, turned on the printer and you were ready to use it.
Nowadays you buy the printer and bring it home. Then you remove vast quantities of packaging, the disposal of which will have a significant effect on the ozone layer. Then amonst the packaging you find an unconnected bit and work out that it is the English language front panel of the printer and snap it into place which takes a good five minutes fiddling. Then you try to work out which two of the three printer cartridges also buried in the packaging needs to be inserted immediately into the printer and do it. Then you plug the transformer into the electricity cable which in turn is plugged into the electicity socket. Then you turn to the computer and insert one of two CDs which also came with the printer. Once the installation wizard has started up you (a) plug the printer into the computer and (b) much against your better judgement you turn off your Internet Security programme so that the firewall doesn't affect all that is going on in the computer's innards. Then the CD takes about 20 minutes to download and install all of the many, many files connected with the printer. Then you restart your Internet Security software. Then the printer's software connects with its home via the Internet and starts to ask you questions when you have no idea of the implications of your answers. Then you have finished and the printer is ready to use. Then you realise that the new printer will not fit into the space left by the old one. So you have to reorganise the tabletop the screen and mouse stands on so that it can accommodate the printer as well. Then you sit back and contemplate the fact that because you wanted faster printing speeds from a more reliable printer you have bought lots of facilities you do not need and will not need unless you buy a digital camera.
Ain't progress wonderful.
5 comments:
Good grief, Val--what an experience! It's been 6 or 7 years since our last printer purchase--the one that sits at my elbow. It is a small footprint machine that has never worked quite right, but which is used little enough that I just put up with it (each sheet of paper must be fed in, individually, to keep the machine from trying to injest the whole batch!) After reading of your experience, I'm thinking that I'll put up with this machine for a whole lot longer. Your trials make for entertaining reading, but are not something I wish to experience, first hand.
Cop Car
CopCar,
We used to have a simple and very cheap printer which we put up with mainly because we so rarely used it. I think all it was used for was to print off the odd recipe or a map if we were going somewhere new. Because it was so rarely used I just put up with the fact that frequently it failed to feed the paper through, it was very unreliable and took ages just to print one peice of paper. Then the Husband started a course in Interior Decoration and frequently wanted to print out things he found on the internet. He also wanted to print out papers on music and musicians for others in his other class, this time on music. It soon became clear we needed a better and more efficient printer so we popped out a few days ago to buy one. It didn't take long to buy - it took much longer to set it up properly. I'm glad now it's done - the quality of the printing alone is worth it, as well as the speed and efficiency of the machine. But the palaver to set it up - ~groan~.
We purchased a really good black & white printer a few years before I bought my small one. I let Hunky Husband put the printer next to his computer desk, since he had previously agreed that we would network our computers and share the computer. Right. When I got ready to network the printer (this was prior to BlueTooth), HH got a stricken look on his face and declared that I could not drill holes in his walls or floors to pass the cabling. It was his house! When I wished to print something, I put it on a floppy and he printed it out for me.
Eventually one of us upgraded and we no longer had common media drives, so I insisted that we buy a small printer to hook up to my machine. HH does about 10-20 times (maybe more) the printing that I do, so I prefer to have the smaller machine. He's welcome to the big guy!
Cop Car
Cop Car,
It is useful to have a printer connected to your p.c. I think so I am not sure that I would have put up with saving material onto a floppy disc and then transferring everything to your HH's machine to print out. It would add quite some time to the process of printing out. At least it is possible to get quite inexpensive printers nowadays. I'm glad you've made life easier for yourself by buying one.
The small printer is 7 years old, now, and I just replaced the cartridge for the first time a few weeks ago. After replacing the cartridge, I found that the prints were still not as dark as I wanted. It turned out that my software was set up for draft quality printing. I should put the old cartridge back in!
Cop Car
P.S. As I recall, the price of my small printer was about 5% of the price of the big guy.
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