When the printer goes caput

 Just about everyone with a personal computer at home or at work has, or has access to, a printer. They come in handy for making hard copy output, a task that, happily, is becoming less and less necessary as the world goes paperless.

Printers, while convenient, can be a bit of a pain for both everyday and power users. Regardless of workload, they eat up consumables like a black hole. Every time you turn around the ink light is blinking or your status screen is flashing “Toner Out” incessantly.

And that’s just the beginning. Almost all contemporary information system hardware has been reduced to appliance status. Like a mixer or can opener, computers and printers have become cheap and easy to buy, but difficult to have repaired. When things break, they are as likely to be thrown out as they are to be fixed. Even the computer itself is at risk of dumpster diving. Once the data has been secured, the rest of the system is just an empty shell.

Printers are at particular risk here, with new models occasionally costing less than a new set of ink or toner cartridges for the old model. Electronics recyclers, already stressed, may be called upon to take an ever-increasing load of old inkjet printers that were set out at the curb when their cartridges ran dry.

Businesses may have printing issues of greater magnitude, but the end result is still the same. Unless they have invested in truly high-end printing devices, their printers are just as likely to walk the plank when a service issue arises as any $59 home printer.

You may be wondering what path to take right this minute as your cute little inkjet printer starts shooting out pages with blank, evenly spaced lines running the length of the sheet. Maybe the printer you use for office correspondence has been putting out documents with ghost characters on it, or smeary text. Maybe that 5-year-old inkjet has finally given up the ghost completely and will not even turn on. In any case, it may be time to get a new printer, a prospect that is the subject of The Wire today.

What to do with the old one

But first let’s talk about what to do with the old printer. As more and more Information Age equipment becomes obsolete, landfills will be stressed to capacity with old dot-matrix printers, 5¼-inch floppy disk drives and 500 MB hard drives. Technology equipment must be recycled without fail.

Amazingly, it is not all that difficult to accomplish. Locally, the Atlantic County Utilities Authority will take old equipment off your hands and see that it is properly recycled. Much of your cobwebbed gear can be turned over for free, with larger items like desktop and full-sized copiers, microfiche machines and typewriters carrying a small fee. You can get all the details on recycling alternatives by visiting the ACUA at http://acua.com/recycling/r_electronicsrecyc_dsply.cfm?id=238 or calling recycling authorities in your area.

Take stock of your needs

Now that you have a nice clear space on your desktop, take a minute to consider what kind of printer is best for you. Examine the daily tasks assigned to your printer. You may use it to print checks, while another member of the family may make shopping lists or output homework assignments. Other users may want to make signs or banners, or to print out high-quality copies of digitized photographs. In most cases, a single printer can fill all these needs.

A modern inkjet printer can print documents and checks using a black ink cartridge and make color images using inks from a series of color cartridges. Photo quality output usually entails a larger array of color inks and finer print, along with a few extra bucks.

I found an excellent deal on a feature-rich Hewlett Packard printer. The DeskJet F335 was retailing for less than $45 at a major national retail chain with a local outlet. The price included both black and color cartridges, but not the cable for connecting it to the computer.

The F335 makes competent documents reasonably quickly. You will be able to print homework, checks and other everyday correspondence with ease. The color output is adequate, but it falls short of more expensive photo quality units.

Why Buy A Copier?

In addition to those printing tasks, the F335 includes both copier and scanner functionality. This is an especially handy feature for anyone who is a little short on space. The convenience of having a copier at home cannot be overstated. Think about the last time you had to run out to a copy center at night. Now you can make all those last-minute emergency copies at home.

Cartridges for the F335 are reasonably priced at under $15 each, making it relatively inexpensive to keep in operation. The only downside is the lack of high-quality photo output, as it offers only modest resolution. If you are looking to print a great deal of photographs, you may want to invest in a printer designed for that purpose. Otherwise, this is a useful peripheral that accomplishes a trio of tasks and still gets you change from a $50 bill.

When you need better

If you are in a home office or small business environment, you may not want color output at all. Instead, you may be seeking the crisp documents that only a laser printer can offer. I uncovered an excellent Hewlett Packard LaserJet 1018 printer after shopping two chain stores. One was selling it for $119, while the other offered it for less than $80 to buyers who purchased it online and picked it up at the local store. It’s wise to comparison shop.

The manufacturer advertises that this printer can print up to 3,000 pages per month at 12 pages per minute in 600 DPI resolution. Many home office or small business users will find that more than sufficient to fill their needs. Documents produced by this printer are professional in appearance, giving even everyday output an edge over the inkjetters.

Replacement toner for laser printers can be pricey, but I found new HP cartridges for the 1018 selling for around $70. Home users could get months of usage out of a single toner before they have to replace it, and the cartridges seem to be readily available.

For that kind of money, small offices can give document-generating staff members their own printer, minimizing the time they spend using networked units in other locations. Home networks can share one laser to accommodate everyone’s document printing demands and even add a color inkjet if the need arises. The whole bill, even with having to buy cables, will be under $150.

I think we have touched on printing solutions that solve the needs of a great many users. If you have devised a clever printing solution at home or at work, tell me about it and save toner by e-mailing granese@juno.com.