My printer will drive me to drink
I'm always refilling its ink
It empties my purse
To make matters worse
It's usually on the blink! by Graeme King
As I was working on a serious article about the economics of small business and technology, I realized that my printer is my ultimate nemesis. I really believe I brought this all on myself when I gave up my HP4 (circa 1993) that was still working in 2007 for a printer whose name shall not be mentioned. It wasn't an HP and that is what started the bad karma. After a year, I left it by the street with a note saying "Free - if you want, it is evil." That was followed by an HP that worked OK until I went to Windows 7. . . not even going there. This time, I went to an HP inkjet that had high recommendations, cost a lot less than a laser and the ink was less expensive. I figure if this one is possessed, I'll just keep buying cheaper ones.
My printer often reminds me of the 1970 movie called the "Colossus: the Forbin Project". It scared me then and sometimes my printer scares me now. Here are just some of the things it did on Friday as I prepared for a Saturday workshop.
- Not print a black ink only document when it was low on yellow;
- Take a perfectly good piece of paper and turn it into an accordion fan;
- Tell me I have a spooling issue and to turn off the printer;
- While trying to turn off the printer, it wouldn't, so I unplugged it;
- When I plugged it back in, the menu display said "You will damage printer if you unplug. Always turn off with on/off button";
- My punishment for unplugging it was a "check system" that took 11 minutes - I timed it;
- Asked the printer to print 12 sets of handouts, it printed 22 sets;
- Every so often while printing the sets, it would wrinkle a page and chew the corner.
- After printing 22 sets, I requested it print a single sheet 12 times and it "had no response to that";
- Rebooted computer and printer did another "check system";
- Asked again to print 12 copies of one page and it did 11 perfectly, but the last one it grabbed more paper than needed and did parts of the document on three pages;
- Requested the last page again and it "had no response to that"
- I gave up, made a copy on a copy machine at the gas station on my way to the workshop.
So, while this venting has been fun, I did a quick Internet search and found two interesting sites. Hope you enjoy them, too.
Printers were sent from Hell - poster available, too!
Your Printer is a Brat And just do a YouTube.com search on the key words "evil printer" and you will find I'm not alone.
Thanks for listening.
Linda Fayerweather MBA EA419.897.0528
Linda@ChangingLanes.biz
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Changing Lanes LLC
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The Right Computer for the Right Job - Part 1
| Often, when visiting clients I come across archaic technology and ways of doing processes. When I ask them about it the usual responses are "Its just how we have always done it.", "We don't have the money to upgrade to the latest technology.", Or "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." The issue is usually dropped due to stonewalling but for the few that realize there is always room for improvement, my heart jumps for joy. I can't help it I love helping people do what they do better. Think about this situation my one client was in. His company had a small staff for the front office. They all used computers from the early 2000's with a mix of old and newer software. All the computers worked and did the job. One day, while I was waiting to meet with said client. I was in the front office chatting with a few of the employees. I watched as the one employee opened up some software on her computer. She then sat back and waited. It took over 20 seconds for it to load up. After chatting with her and the rest of the front office staff, they let me know that it is a regular thing. They said that they can only run one, maybe two programs at a time before the computer becomes really slow. If they are working with a spread sheet they can only have 2 sometimes 3 open at a time. They have to reboot at least once a day, too. It was obviously frustrating to them. I asked them to write down every time they have to wait for their computers to load some thing, whether it is software or something within the program, and roughly the time they had to wait. After a few weeks I was back for another visit. The office staff presented me with several sheets of paper containing their tabulations. As I waited I looked over the information. Over the course of a day, for the four staff members, on average each waited for the computer to do its thing for over 20 minutes. That included rebooting, loading software, and waiting for the programs to process info or load files, etc. So on average between the four of them they lost a minimum of 1 hour and 20 minutes a day of work. Over 6 hours of work time a week. Over 25 hours a month. My head started to spin. When I presented my finding to the owner, he couldn't believe it. He hadn't realized how much time was wasted due to his staff's old computers. But would buying a new computer really cut down on lost time and if so, how much? Part 2 will continue next week. In the mean time, do the test yourself for the next 7 days. Write down how long it takes for your computer to boot/reboot? How long does it takes for you to load a program or file? Write it down for each and every time. Send use your results and some of your computer specs next Tuesday! Jeff Mendelsohn Liquid Mechanix Studio, LLC 419.297.3364 |
