March 01, 2004Printers / Scanners Blog Archives |
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Illegal InkWe all know that printer cartridges are expensive, but did you know that they are getting so valuable that people are smuggling them into the U.S.? The New York Times reported Tuesday, March 29th, that a sting operation run by the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor netted $500,000 in bogus cartridges and other boxed office supplies. The arrest was the result of a tip from Canon, which had information that there were fake copies of their cartridges floating around.... The full article is here (you need to be registered at the NY Times site).09:42 PM # TechTV RoundupTechTV has come out with a rather nicely done head-to-head review of five multifunction (all-in-one) printers that compares them according to price, built-in fax, USB, and the time to print 10 pages of text and 10 monochrome/color copies. You can read the complete reviews, and see a video highlight of the associated program, here.06:07 PM # Considering ErgonomicsWhile trying to move a rather heavy laser printer in order to hook it up, it occurred to me that the ergonomics of a printer or scanner -- the considerations having to do with its design and efficiency for human use -- can be as important as how many pages get produced per minute. So I've added an article that lists some ergonomic factors you may want to consider when purchasing a new device. You can find it here.11:02 AM # A Brief Follow-upWell, my Significant Other managed to solve at least part of the problem he was having with his all-in-one. As you may remember (or you can simply look at the previous post below this one), he ran out of yellow ink, and was unable to print at all -- even in black. After some investigating, he found that, by going into the printer driver (if you're unsure about what a driver is, look here), and choosing the option to print only in black at all times, he was able to use the multifunction even after running out of yellow ink. Of course, this doesn't solve the problem of: Why is he being forced to buy a new yellow-ink cartridge even though the cartridge isn't 100 percent empty? Hopefully, we'll have an answer to that one soon.06:58 PM # Color CrazinessMy Significant Other was in a bit of a tiff the other day. He has a Brother multifunction unit, which he uses in his home office to fax, print, and do the occasional copy (and which I borrow shamelessly when I need to).Like many of us, he doesn't do a lot of color printing. The occasonal Web page, sometimes a little color to spice up his business cards... But mostly, it's simple, black-print documents. He even, as I do, sometimes prints color pages in black simply to save on the ink. However, even used judiciously, ink will get used up -- even color ink. Yesterday, the machine informed him that he was almost -- I repeat, almost -- out of yellow ink. It then refused to print. Anything. His first question was -- okay, so I can't print any colors. Fine. I've got several manuscript pages I need to get out; why can't I simply do basic black printing? Surprisingly, most color desktop printers these days do not allow you to continue printing in black ink if any of the color cartridges are spent. This can be a source of great irritation to those of us who aren't color mavens. Is it possible that the technology is so stubborn that there is no way to tell a printer that it's okay to do black printing if any of the colors are out? You wouldn't think so. However, that wasn't the end of the story. In looking through the printer's menus in order to try to find a way around the problem, my S.O. accidentally hit the command that prints out a test page -- the kind that printers do to check the print heads, etc. Not only did the printer immediate print out that page, but it included a lovely, well-saturated square of yellow ink. From, presumably, the cartridge that was so low that it was dangerous to let him print out his business documents. Thus, his irritation. He says that he's going to find out why, if the cartridge is not totally out of ink, the printer is not letting him use it. Is there some great danger to the print if the cartridge goes dry in the middle of a print run? Or is it simply a way for manufacturers to find yet another way of increasing ink sales? Stay tuned. 09:29 AM # LaserMonksA few years ago, I worked for a company that needed to get a lot of information into a database. This meant hiring people to read the material, understand it, and type it all into the right places on a form. Where did we finally go? To a convent that earned money by doing information processing for dotcoms and other companies.I couldn't help being reminded of that when I saw the Web site for LaserMonks, which is run by a monastery that is part of the Cistercian Order. They sell new compatible cartridges or remanufactured cartridges for a variety of printers. According to their site, they got the idea when their Steward of Temporal Affairs realized that (a) the markup on printer cartridges was incredible, and (b) the abbey needed a new way to generate income. I checked out a few cartridge prices and was pretty impressed. For example, a black cartridge for the Epson Stylus C40UX costs $16.19 at Staples; the listed price at LaserMonks is $4.95. Even with the base shipping price of $4.95, it's not a bad deal. And let's face at -- at how many Web sites can you simultaneously shop for printer cartridges and request a prayer? 11:57 AM # Forcing the Cartridge IssueBuying a printer isn't what makes printing expensive -- it's constantly replacing the ink or toner cartridges. One way to lessen the expense is to buy cartridges from a third-party company -- in other words, a company other than the one that manufactured the printer. However, as you can imagine, the printer manufacturers don't like that.A company called Static Control Components (SCC) has fired another salvo in its battle against Lexmark for the right to supply third-party cartridges. Lexmark has a line of laser printers (T520, T620 and T630) which use a technology that verifies that the toner cartridge in the machine is from Lexmark. Otherwise, the printer won't run. Last year, SCC was stopped from replicating these cartridges by a court injunction. However, the SCC may have found a way around the problem. In the last week of February, they started selling cartridges that include additional benefits such as ink management. So far, according to news reports, Lexmark hasn't objected. This isn't a landmark case, by any means. Other printer manufacturers also discourage users from buying third-party cartridges. However, they don't hardwire their printers to stop the practice. Hopefully, they'll never see the need to. 04:12 PM # Lexmark Color LaserLexmark is now offering color laser printing to small businesses in the form of its Lexmark C510. The 30ppm (black)/8ppm (color) printer has a small footprint (but, at 67 lbs., is no lightweight). The printers starts at $729; other models including networking, duplexing, and additional paper capacity.11:35 AM # New Ricoh Laser PrintersRicoh has introduced three new small business laser printers: the Aficio 2015, 2018, and 2018D. According to the company, the new products offer high performance, along with embedded scan to e-mail, Internet faxing, LAN faxing, and fax forwarding to e-mail. The Aficio 2015 is the lowest priced of the three at $2,450, while the Aficio 2018 offers higher performance and larger paper capacity, while the Aficio 2018D adds automatic duplexing.11:17 AM # |
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