Daley Ponderings

is there a version of this printer that you'd recommend? we've gone through 3 printers since rowan's birth and i'm so tired of printer problems!!!

Turns out it's a fuser error - it's like a light bulb and can burn out similarly. I can buy a fix-it-yourself fuser kit for $85, or I can buy a new HP laserjet for $99. Hmm... Now, that's the cheapest one, still more research to do. I can't give any recommendations, all I know is this one which has been good for ten years.

Aaargh! Toxic boarding pass! How sad, and how frustrating. But since our unfixable computer was only 19 months old, I guess I'm not surprised.

We have an HP DeskJet 722C (color inkjet), which cost about $280 in 1998 and is still going strong. It's a great machine but I keep fearing they'll stop making ink for it, since it's nearly as old as yours. For the record, the printer we had before that was a Canon BJC-600 (color inkjet) that we bought in 1994 for $500 and lasted four years. Before that it was an $800 Epson MX100 (dot matrix) we bought in 1979 -- it was still going strong 15 years later, but talk about obsolete....

But things change so much all this is of little help when contemplating buying a printer now, especially since they're all made in China.

We're also currently using an HP DeskJet 722C (color inkjet) . . . given us by Theresa's parents after our HP 1350 had multiple issues at the same time. And we're also concerned about ink cartridge supplies drying up, we'll check back for good printer recommendations. Maybe before or after the holidays we can find something good on sale.

We were actually given the printer nine years ago. Sidd doesn't read our blog, but I emailed him when I took his computer to Goodwill, since that is the computer and monitor that went with this printer that he sold me for an obscenely low price, but he took pity on a this college student since he was going to make the big bucks at Microsoft...

I'll have to think about whether it is worth fixing this one. I know many people who say it is a great model, except for the only-printing-one-page problem, it prints forever, and we have a toner and a half left of ink, which is just about forever for us.

For generic printer recommendations, I don't particularly like the color inkjets, I have owned a number of them (including the Canon 600, or maybe 660C, purchased in 1995), and then a couple HPs, and the cost is so high for the ink, and they have only last a couple years each, and the replacement parts are more expensive than the printer itself.

So, I like the black and white laserjets. The ink lasts forever, and ... just checked the price - $18 (rated for a thousand pages), so that is even cheaper than I expected. The 4L and 6Ls were decent printers, and I think the 5L can get safely clumped together with those as well.

For inkjets, epson has historically had better quality output with regular paper, where HP and Canon can only achieve their advertised resolutions with special paper.

At my IT job, they did just get a free printer with a computer purchase, so I guess it were free, I'd take it, but the cost of running it is still probably not worth it, since you can go to a copy center and get nicer prints for less money. I just don't print enough color for it to matter.

I see that you can get refurbished 6Ls for $115. I'll probably try Piexx and see if they have any old ones lying around that I can steal a fuser out of.

May I suggest that the reason you don't print much color is that you don't have a color printer? I can't imagine an ink cartridge lasting a whole year, let alone two, but that's not because they don't hold much ink -- it's because I use the printer a lot. Granted, I could go to a copy center, and have done so when I needed large quantities of black and white pages -- but for most printing, the cost in terms of time and effort is higher than the cost of using our own printer and ink. And for color copies, even with expensive ink-jet ink, it's cheaper to print at home than at the copy center.

I don't know - I had a couple different color printers for years, I never really used them. If I want a color print, I probably want it to look good, so it is worth the trip to the copy center.

Unfortunately, Kinkos doesn't appear to publish their prices, Rite-Aid says $.20 to $.30 a page. I think that is about the same or less than a typical inkjet. And you never have to buy ink or a printer.

Our current rate of toner use is a new one every five years, so I guess that puts us at about 200 pages a year.

I was recently thinking about buying a color laser, since they now seem quite affordable at under $300. However, I decided not to when I found that a toner refill would cost over $400 ($100 per color, separate cartridges) -- more than the printer itself! (The printer comes with a small amount of toner.)

Two hundred pages a year? I will do that in a day if I ever get this Christmas letter written....

Are you sure your recipients want a physical copy anyway? I wouldn't. I'd rather you make a pdf, put it up on a https website and email me a link.

Good thing she isn't sending you a Christmas letter then... She probably doesn't have a PGP key to get your address anyway. :)

I kind of like Christmas letters in paper form, although I think the Christmas cards with zero content in them are silly. I have always thought of that as an "old person" thing, so it is funny to see some of my friends sending cards now.

On the other hand, I guess I hardly ever get nice newsletters electronically - sometimes people scan in the paper format so it shows up as an image or something, or else it is just plain text in an email, so less interesting to read. As long as it isn't a word document...

We have one friend who would rather get the Christmas letter the way Mike describes. I can't do pdf's but considered for a while making the newsletter into a webpage. I thought it was a good idea, but no one else did, apparently. It didn't go over any better than the year I decided that the card part was silly and made the newsletter so that it folded up with the address on the outside and we stapled them and mailed them, sans card, sans envelope even. The trouble with that was that some people saw the computer-printed form and just tossed them without even opening them, thinking it junk mail. :(

So we're back to real cards, and I feel a little better that most of the ones we found weren't printed in China. Most were printed in the U.S.; one set was from China, and the remaining from Switzerland. :)

As to it being an "old person thing," I certainly never thought it so, but you may be right. Not old as in my generation, but old as in your generation. For me, the real value in sending and receiving Christmas cards is the chance to get caught up with news from people whose lives don't otherwise touch ours and with whom we would likely lose contact if it weren't for the yearly tradition. It took getting older for me to realize that once-a-year contact really is sufficient to keep the embers of a friendship going so that it might rekindle into a flame when given the opportunity. But all this might be irrelevant and even incomprehensible to the Facebook and blog generation.

So why do we send Christmas cards to people we've seen recently? I can't speak for Porter, but I have three reasons. One is that I think Christmas cards make nice decorations, and figure maybe others do to, another is that some people appreciate our newsletters even if they know all the news that is in them, and the third is that a card is a physical way to say "Merry Christmas," and USPS letters are getting rare enough to be appreciated. I have to agree that I find receiving cards with just a name in them less than satisfactory, however.

Merry Christmas, Mike! I have to say it here since you won't be getting a card from me. :)

I'm starting to feel "old" in that way now - now that we do have some friends that we only contact once every year or two years. And I agree about enjoying getting real mail in my mailbox. So maybe sometime you'll see a Daley Christmas Letter in your mailbox, or a Daley Christmas In July letter...

Merry Xmas SursumCorda.

:) :)

Not to sidetrack the tangent, but I ordered a fuser for $60 for our printer. Hopefully, it will "just work", and we'll get to keep this printer for another 10 years. (I read on one HP specifications page that said each toner will last up to 2500 pages - so we really do have a lifetime supply of ink...)

Also, I noted in the Tiger Direct catalog this month that there was a Brother color laser printer that was selling for $300 and the inks were $30 or so. Brother isn't particularly known for making high quality stuff, but probably worth a look, if you were interested in color lasers.

Sigh. It's wonderful to repair, reuse, recycle...all that. I'm really glad you're a fix it rather than replace it kind of guy. But I'll admit to having hoped you'd finally have a printer that didn't require constant operator intervention to print more than one page....

I did consider getting the fix-it kit that included the fuser and a gear replacement set to fix that issue as well, but it was $50 more...

It doesn't bother me all that much, though I suppose I do print more over the network than I used to, so I notice it more than I did.

I guess when I write it like "$50 more", it seems like it probably would have been worth it, but when I think about spending $110 on a 12 year old printer, it doesn't. Some sort of illogical cost line or something.

We arrived home to find the fuser waiting for us, and Jonathan and I installed it last night. Unfortunately, the cheaper version didn't come with instructions, and it was a rather difficult part to replace. But, the printer now works, and the old fuser has an obviously cracked piece.

Hooray!