Hotel Room Hardware

I'm writing from a hotel room in Seattle, on my way to attending WinHEC, the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference. As far as I know, there will be nothing terribly interesting there as far as printers and scanners are concerned -- but what I did find interesting was that, sitting in a drawer in a desk in my hotel room was an HP OfficeJet all-in-one printer.

It used to be that, if you were in a hotel and wanted something printed, you had to go down to a business center, usually in the lobby of the building. This was convenient -- it was certainly better than trying to find the nearest Staples -- but it wasn't nearly as neat as finding yourself with your private printing center. It wasn't easy to find; if I hadn't been following my usual practice of checking every nook and cranny of the room to see what interesting things I could find, I never would have guessed it was there.

So next time you're on a trip, check around. You may find, next to the phone and the tourist literature and the ugly stationery, your own printer/scanner.