I don't know about the book, but I do know about teams. I don't think that teammembers regard other members as smarter than people not on the team, they regard the other members as more knowledgable/up to date on what the team is working on. That's not a bad assumption, seeing as the team is working on(and presumably at the "cutting edge" of their project for the organization) whatever daily, whereas non team members may only get monthly updates, or a memo when the project is done.
Yeah, but then there are the people who just copy the DVD.
Re:Tell that to the average person...
on
Beyond Megapixels
·
· Score: 1
Well, I did some searching on google, and found out that Epson uses something called Resolution Performance Management. Google fails me in finding out just what the hell that means. It does say that actual media resolution depends on media used. Very vague.
I hate marketing speak. I mean, how can you talk about dpi but not mean dpi? So what is the dpi that they are talking about? If anyone knows, please let me know.
Re:Tell that to the average person...
on
Beyond Megapixels
·
· Score: 1
Ok, well I'm pretty consumer savvy, but I never before thought optimize was a keyword for interpolate... Isn't saying Optimizes.... on a grid of up to 5760 x 1440 saying they can do 5760 x 1440. I mean, if that's not what they are saying, then what the heck ARE they saying? I guess I never read the "on a grid" part before, but if it doesn't put dots at that type of grid, then what is it doing, and what is it's dpi anyway? It seems like false advirtising to me.
I wish companies would just say what their products do, so I could have some information to work with.
Re:Tell that to the average person...
on
Beyond Megapixels
·
· Score: 1
Well, what about the epson printers that claim 5760 x 1440 dpi? The C84? Runs about $100? Or are you using some other dpi scale(which I do believe exists) or is epson lying?
Just what does this cover anyway? Because I found out this year, retroactively, when I was doing my New York State taxes that they had a section for stuff you bought over the internet so you could pay tax on that, or they had a standard amount they would charge you if you didn't itemize(yeah, right, I didn't know to itemize untill a month after the year ended!). Is this legal...? I wondered about this at tax time, it seemed shady because one, they are basically retroactively taxing a year on purchases over the net, and two - at least till this year, wasn't there a BAN on internet taxes?
This isn't the first e-book reader. There have been/continue to be many. They all fail - I think for one main reason. They DRM their content, and only let you use DRM content bought from them.
Legal or not, most of the market who might spend $300-$400 on an e-book reader want- no demand - the ability to load their own content:
Websites
Creative Commons e-books
Gutenberg e-books
Heck, even the choice to buy the books from Amazon!
This is a nice device, but for me - I see no real use(unless the individual rental of books is absurdly low - $0.50 each) - I would want to own the books I've bought, and would want a backlight. The keyboard is not helpful, it's not useful because it is lacking many keys, and it's not graffiti like for that sort of entry. E-books probably don't really need any sort of data entry besides a way to set a bookmark.
I've said it before, and will say it again, my favorite e-book reader is the REB1100. Now if someone would start making one of those - but lose the DRM crap... it would be awesome. It would be nice to get the price down around $100 too - but I'm not really sure of the base cost to make one of the things, so maybe that is impossible.
If this was/is true, why doesn't everyone in the field just refuse to work over 40hrs if they won't be properly compensated? I mean, really - do you need a union to figure this out? The old passive agressive stance, if you are paid hourly, it's unlikely that you can be forced to work overtime(and if IT is really in demand or powerful) the company would be relunctant to fire you...
The thing is, IT isn't really powerful in any way. Most collapses of company infrastructure would happen long after you were fired for demanding equal pay/rights/treatment or whatever you would call this.
That is odd. My experiance in NYS anyway has been that the dealer will fall over backwards to order you a car from the dealer... even charging as little as $300 above dealer cost(well, prolly before kickbacks or hidden price lowerings, but not a huge hit for getting THE exact car you want).
My biggest problem is that I'm not sure that Intellectual Property as used today makes any kind of logical or rational sense. I find it pretty laughable that someone can own an idea. Well more specifically, I can't see how it is practical much less logical to try and own an idea.
Here's where I find the problems with our system today(in the USA): Primarialy the protections offered to "IP" are too broad and long lasting - and what counts as IP is way too broadly defined.
The ideas I am presenting here are hardly new on slashdot, but does anyone honestly expect me, or anyone else, to know whose ideas they originally were - much less track down some way to pay them royalties so I can use them in discussion? Such an expectation seems crazy to me, but isn't that what many of these patents are currently analogous to?
It seems to me - that it is ok to let someone own something like the StarTrek, but that ownership needs to be specific. It seems fair to restrict exact copying of the episodes or the technical manual(for a limited time - again to myself the original 14 years seems like plenty).However the overall universe should not be copywrightable, the idea of StarTrek. There ought not be any possible challenge to people who want to write fanfiction(the ones who make up a new crew/ship in the generic ST universe). It's trickier for those who want to write about the established characters, Kirk et al, but I still can't see how that would cause harm in any real sense to Paramount or whoever owns them now.
Many such franchises allow all fanfiction specifically because it encourages fans to be interested in their products. It should be a given by law that some specific things you can own - a specific story, but that characters or world/environments are fair game for anyone to write in. Of course the 3rd party works should not be able to claim to be cannon, hence anyone could totally avoid them if they wanted to.
Another example showing that allowing compatible 3rd party works helps a company/system rather than hurts it is in the 3rd+ Edition of D&D. Ever since Wizards of the Coast opened up the system they use to 3rd party developers(much like OSS) there has been an explosion of products for their system. Many more than one company alone could produce. And every one needed their Core books to play, because that laid out the system in full.(The system seems like it should also be ok to patent/copywright - it is a specific system for generating characters - it is not an ownership of creating RPG style characters)
So where am I going with all this? Simple - in many cases, even outside of computing, allowing or insisting on ownership of an idea, a system if you will, has hurt the public, and limited the amount of products produced thereby limiting the economy revolving around that original product. In cases where such systems or ideas have been opened up, everyone has benefited. So - we as a society have a NEED for a public domain, and that has been lost in law and public understanding in the last few years.
So to summarize:
1. Copyright/Patents(IP) are ok, and probably good as long as they are for short terms, 14 yrs maybe at the top end.(I personally liked the idea of 5yrs renewable in 5yr increments up to 20 yrs max or so - less in software.)
2. Copyright/Patents(IP) need to be specific - no patents on concepts, no copyrights on concepts. (I went to the store today.:copyrightable - going to the store - not copyrightable. Example 2 - momma's chocolate fudge recipe. Use 3 eggs, 2tbps cocoa etc...:copyrightable, Chocolate Fudge: Not copyrightable.)
Much as I love nVidia and detest ATi(only for business reasons, not quality), this is an unfair statement. Better would be to say get a card with the chipset your games are designed for. Of course, games really should be designed for some standard like OpenGL or whatnot - and the cards should be able to handle them. I would contact ATi and ask if there is a known issue with that game(although good luck here - they may deny they ever made your card, happened to me).
I'm going to go out on a limb here, and say my parents, and the parent's of most of my friends. In fact - this is what our highschool had the entire time I was there. Any let me tell you - most people did everything they could to avoid porn, cause it's embarrasing to be caught(by friends or passerby) in HS looking at that. Besides- that's why you have the net at home.
Seriously, what is so scary on the net that teenagers need supervision on it? What can they do to get in trouble? Chat with some people? See some dirty pictures? Come on - no one in their right mind cares. Now my parents and pretty much any parents doing their job should draw the line at running out to meet strangers regardless how the teen set up the meeting. As long as the teens don't have a credit card, I fail to see how anything permanant or dangerous could happen.
Get a grip. I don't want Orwell, and neither does anyone else.
Well, the main problem is that Google has to make money to pay for all their services. They don't owe anyone anything for free, and ads are how many websites charge for their content. The nice thing about Google is that their ads aren't really distracting in anyway - not blocking up the page or flashing like on Yahoo or ZDnet or MSN.
I would however like an option to pay google some nominal amount to be spared ads(like I can Wunderground - $5 a year). Now I have no idea how much it costs Google to run searches, or how much they make from showing their targeted ads when you search, but if they would let you get say a yearly subscription without ads for a small amount, $5-$15, I would pay it. Or they could try something like Slashdot's system, but I find that system too messy for my tastes so I don't suscribe.
I have to ask, what do you gain from chaining privoxy through proxomitron? AFAIK they both do the same things, each is highly configurable - proxomitron moreso unless you are editing the source code in which case privoxy would be - and as to filling in the banners... proxomitron doesn't display anything where the banners were... just whitespace anyway, so that seems redundant. I don't mean to put you down or anything, but it seems like all you would need is proxomitron which with the correct filterset would do everything you have listed(web browser only) and if you want to block certain ip addresses for everything, I've heard DNSKong can do that.
Yeah, I have to say, I was plesantly suppriesed when in 1999(the last time I bought a PC from a company) Micron shipped about 10 CD's with it, full regular OEM install CD's for Windows 98SE other software and drivers. And to think my first PC an IBM Aptiva in 1996 already had just the restore CD. Of course in the interveining 5 years Micron sold their PC business so I can't comment on that now.
Answer this, honestly: is the $10 price of a DVD so unfair, really?
No. However I would own many less movies than I currently do. Also - most DVD's are $17-$25 so I'm guessing this is more of a suggestion of what it should(or what you think it should) cost.
If $10 is too high, what would you pay?
About what it would cost me to make a copy from a rental store + what that computer time is worth to me. DVD rental is somewhere around $4, 2 DVD-R is about $1.50 and 4hrs at night on my computer is worth about $2 to me for the hassle of changing disks sometime...
So if I look at this logically, I'd pay about $7.50 a DVD. Oddly enough my gut instinct was about the cost of a movie ticket or $5 so I guess most people are greedy and eyeball low. The problem with low cost purchasing of DVD's is it puts Bolckbuster out of business.
Can't they just use how many instructions it completes per second? Wouldn't that give a general indication of how much a processor can do, and be a "benchmark" that is portable accross all systems?
You know, this is the problem with windows... If you could just install programs somewhere with everything they need to run in that dir it would be so much easier. Then new comp, copy the dir's over - good to go. Reimage the OS, boom everything is basically the same, only need to change themes for the os again.
Then again, I often think most of the "reinstall" problems with windows are becasue programs don't stay separate in their own dir. That's what I hate about many windows programs... I want to have hundreds of programs available - but I don't want them doing anything but sitting on disk unless and until I run them. For instance, why does a TV display program need to insist on running in the background? Why does winamp need a process running all the time? etc etc.... If I'm not watching TV or listing to mp3, these programs can die!!! And then they don't even give you a choice, unless you know msconfig or registry editing to force them not to run on startup.
I'm probably weird though, I'd prefer some startup lag on the program than startup lag on Windows getting all those things "pre loaded". Plus that's what drives all this new hardware... all these things running in the background when all you really want is the 8 times a year you need a spreadsheet to start it up, you don't want the overhead all the time. Likewise with the video editing program, or image editor.
Honestly, I can't see how one would get screwed with a Money Order or Cashiers Check. Don't ship the product until the check clears the bank. Make it clear that there will be a 10-15 day wait period from your recipt of the check to ensure it clears. Money Orders should be instant I think, just take it to the post office or wherever and get $$. If it is refused, e-mail the buyer and indicate the problem and that you will need another pymt. Or cancel the sale because the pymt did not go through. Only thing you may be out is time.
Interestingly, in upstate NY, Ithaca area - the local EB's are the only store that does buy used computer games(for a pittance, but better than nothing I guess). Also - they have regularly had cheaper prices for new games than the local Circut City, Walmart, Best Buy, and GameStop. Go figure. No idea, must be local economics or something.
As an epson owner I've learned some things from dealing with the ink issue. First, don't wast your money on Epson ink. Pay no more than $12 a cartridge, $7 is average for 3rd party. Second, if you are not using the printer, turn it off(at the printer switch) it will empty the print head so it doesn't clog(this is from epson tech support). Granted this wastes ink, but at (for me) $5 a cart, I really don't care. If for some reason it does clog up and you are within your 1 year warrenty, call epson. 2nd day air to you a factory refurbished(known working) printer. You mail back clogged one. They pay for shipping.
I use epson for 3 reasons. One they have good print quality. Two the ink from 3rd party is good and CHEAP. Three, if the ink clogs up - which seems to happen with all inkjets based on the comments on this thread - you get the printer replaced for you.
I've bought epson for a long time, and am pretty happy with the newer ones that use separate color cartridges(actually I don't care - I don't print that much), but I may just try out a cannon just for the fact that you can swab the print head yourself. I always use 3rd party ink, and it usually works good for me, but sometimes it will clog up a little, and I'm sure if I could swab the printhead and draw out the dried ink myslef, I wouldn't have to return the printer to epson. However, I've found that if you use good ink(hard on the printer replacements until you find a good company) that the printer will last 3+ years on that ink.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't know about the book, but I do know about teams. I don't think that teammembers regard other members as smarter than people not on the team, they regard the other members as more knowledgable/up to date on what the team is working on. That's not a bad assumption, seeing as the team is working on(and presumably at the "cutting edge" of their project for the organization) whatever daily, whereas non team members may only get monthly updates, or a memo when the project is done.
Yeah, but then there are the people who just copy the DVD.
Well, I did some searching on google, and found out that Epson uses something called Resolution Performance Management. Google fails me in finding out just what the hell that means. It does say that actual media resolution depends on media used. Very vague.
I hate marketing speak. I mean, how can you talk about dpi but not mean dpi? So what is the dpi that they are talking about? If anyone knows, please let me know.
Ok, well I'm pretty consumer savvy, but I never before thought optimize was a keyword for interpolate... Isn't saying Optimizes .... on a grid of up to 5760 x 1440 saying they can do 5760 x 1440. I mean, if that's not what they are saying, then what the heck ARE they saying? I guess I never read the "on a grid" part before, but if it doesn't put dots at that type of grid, then what is it doing, and what is it's dpi anyway? It seems like false advirtising to me.
I wish companies would just say what their products do, so I could have some information to work with.
Well, what about the epson printers that claim 5760 x 1440 dpi? The C84? Runs about $100? Or are you using some other dpi scale(which I do believe exists) or is epson lying?
Just what does this cover anyway? Because I found out this year, retroactively, when I was doing my New York State taxes that they had a section for stuff you bought over the internet so you could pay tax on that, or they had a standard amount they would charge you if you didn't itemize(yeah, right, I didn't know to itemize untill a month after the year ended!). Is this legal...? I wondered about this at tax time, it seemed shady because one, they are basically retroactively taxing a year on purchases over the net, and two - at least till this year, wasn't there a BAN on internet taxes?
This isn't the first e-book reader. There have been/continue to be many. They all fail - I think for one main reason. They DRM their content, and only let you use DRM content bought from them.
Legal or not, most of the market who might spend $300-$400 on an e-book reader want- no demand - the ability to load their own content:
Websites
Creative Commons e-books
Gutenberg e-books
Heck, even the choice to buy the books from Amazon!
This is a nice device, but for me - I see no real use(unless the individual rental of books is absurdly low - $0.50 each) - I would want to own the books I've bought, and would want a backlight. The keyboard is not helpful, it's not useful because it is lacking many keys, and it's not graffiti like for that sort of entry. E-books probably don't really need any sort of data entry besides a way to set a bookmark.
I've said it before, and will say it again, my favorite e-book reader is the REB1100. Now if someone would start making one of those - but lose the DRM crap... it would be awesome. It would be nice to get the price down around $100 too - but I'm not really sure of the base cost to make one of the things, so maybe that is impossible.
If this was/is true, why doesn't everyone in the field just refuse to work over 40hrs if they won't be properly compensated? I mean, really - do you need a union to figure this out? The old passive agressive stance, if you are paid hourly, it's unlikely that you can be forced to work overtime(and if IT is really in demand or powerful) the company would be relunctant to fire you...
The thing is, IT isn't really powerful in any way. Most collapses of company infrastructure would happen long after you were fired for demanding equal pay/rights/treatment or whatever you would call this.
That is odd. My experiance in NYS anyway has been that the dealer will fall over backwards to order you a car from the dealer... even charging as little as $300 above dealer cost(well, prolly before kickbacks or hidden price lowerings, but not a huge hit for getting THE exact car you want).
My biggest problem is that I'm not sure that Intellectual Property as used today makes any kind of logical or rational sense. I find it pretty laughable that someone can own an idea. Well more specifically, I can't see how it is practical much less logical to try and own an idea.
Here's where I find the problems with our system today(in the USA): Primarialy the protections offered to "IP" are too broad and long lasting - and what counts as IP is way too broadly defined.
The ideas I am presenting here are hardly new on slashdot, but does anyone honestly expect me, or anyone else, to know whose ideas they originally were - much less track down some way to pay them royalties so I can use them in discussion? Such an expectation seems crazy to me, but isn't that what many of these patents are currently analogous to?
It seems to me - that it is ok to let someone own something like the StarTrek, but that ownership needs to be specific. It seems fair to restrict exact copying of the episodes or the technical manual(for a limited time - again to myself the original 14 years seems like plenty).However the overall universe should not be copywrightable, the idea of StarTrek. There ought not be any possible challenge to people who want to write fanfiction(the ones who make up a new crew/ship in the generic ST universe). It's trickier for those who want to write about the established characters, Kirk et al, but I still can't see how that would cause harm in any real sense to Paramount or whoever owns them now.
Many such franchises allow all fanfiction specifically because it encourages fans to be interested in their products. It should be a given by law that some specific things you can own - a specific story, but that characters or world/environments are fair game for anyone to write in. Of course the 3rd party works should not be able to claim to be cannon, hence anyone could totally avoid them if they wanted to.
Another example showing that allowing compatible 3rd party works helps a company/system rather than hurts it is in the 3rd+ Edition of D&D. Ever since Wizards of the Coast opened up the system they use to 3rd party developers(much like OSS) there has been an explosion of products for their system. Many more than one company alone could produce. And every one needed their Core books to play, because that laid out the system in full.(The system seems like it should also be ok to patent/copywright - it is a specific system for generating characters - it is not an ownership of creating RPG style characters)
So where am I going with all this? Simple - in many cases, even outside of computing, allowing or insisting on ownership of an idea, a system if you will, has hurt the public, and limited the amount of products produced thereby limiting the economy revolving around that original product. In cases where such systems or ideas have been opened up, everyone has benefited. So - we as a society have a NEED for a public domain, and that has been lost in law and public understanding in the last few years.
So to summarize:
1. Copyright/Patents(IP) are ok, and probably good as long as they are for short terms, 14 yrs maybe at the top end.(I personally liked the idea of 5yrs renewable in 5yr increments up to 20 yrs max or so - less in software.)
2. Copyright/Patents(IP) need to be specific - no patents on concepts, no copyrights on concepts. (I went to the store today.:copyrightable - going to the store - not copyrightable. Example 2 - momma's chocolate fudge recipe. Use 3 eggs, 2tbps cocoa etc...:copyrightable, Chocolate Fudge: Not copyrightable.)
Much as I love nVidia and detest ATi(only for business reasons, not quality), this is an unfair statement. Better would be to say get a card with the chipset your games are designed for. Of course, games really should be designed for some standard like OpenGL or whatnot - and the cards should be able to handle them. I would contact ATi and ask if there is a known issue with that game(although good luck here - they may deny they ever made your card, happened to me).
I'm going to go out on a limb here, and say my parents, and the parent's of most of my friends. In fact - this is what our highschool had the entire time I was there. Any let me tell you - most people did everything they could to avoid porn, cause it's embarrasing to be caught(by friends or passerby) in HS looking at that. Besides- that's why you have the net at home.
Seriously, what is so scary on the net that teenagers need supervision on it? What can they do to get in trouble? Chat with some people? See some dirty pictures? Come on - no one in their right mind cares. Now my parents and pretty much any parents doing their job should draw the line at running out to meet strangers regardless how the teen set up the meeting. As long as the teens don't have a credit card, I fail to see how anything permanant or dangerous could happen.
Get a grip. I don't want Orwell, and neither does anyone else.
Well, the main problem is that Google has to make money to pay for all their services. They don't owe anyone anything for free, and ads are how many websites charge for their content. The nice thing about Google is that their ads aren't really distracting in anyway - not blocking up the page or flashing like on Yahoo or ZDnet or MSN.
I would however like an option to pay google some nominal amount to be spared ads(like I can Wunderground - $5 a year). Now I have no idea how much it costs Google to run searches, or how much they make from showing their targeted ads when you search, but if they would let you get say a yearly subscription without ads for a small amount, $5-$15, I would pay it. Or they could try something like Slashdot's system, but I find that system too messy for my tastes so I don't suscribe.
I have to ask, what do you gain from chaining privoxy through proxomitron? AFAIK they both do the same things, each is highly configurable - proxomitron moreso unless you are editing the source code in which case privoxy would be - and as to filling in the banners... proxomitron doesn't display anything where the banners were... just whitespace anyway, so that seems redundant. I don't mean to put you down or anything, but it seems like all you would need is proxomitron which with the correct filterset would do everything you have listed(web browser only) and if you want to block certain ip addresses for everything, I've heard DNSKong can do that.
Try proxomitron... it removes most any annoyances on the web.
Yeah, I have to say, I was plesantly suppriesed when in 1999(the last time I bought a PC from a company) Micron shipped about 10 CD's with it, full regular OEM install CD's for Windows 98SE other software and drivers. And to think my first PC an IBM Aptiva in 1996 already had just the restore CD. Of course in the interveining 5 years Micron sold their PC business so I can't comment on that now.
Answer this, honestly: is the $10 price of a DVD so unfair, really?
No. However I would own many less movies than I currently do. Also - most DVD's are $17-$25 so I'm guessing this is more of a suggestion of what it should(or what you think it should) cost.
If $10 is too high, what would you pay?
About what it would cost me to make a copy from a rental store + what that computer time is worth to me. DVD rental is somewhere around $4, 2 DVD-R is about $1.50 and 4hrs at night on my computer is worth about $2 to me for the hassle of changing disks sometime...
So if I look at this logically, I'd pay about $7.50 a DVD. Oddly enough my gut instinct was about the cost of a movie ticket or $5 so I guess most people are greedy and eyeball low. The problem with low cost purchasing of DVD's is it puts Bolckbuster out of business.
Can't they just use how many instructions it completes per second? Wouldn't that give a general indication of how much a processor can do, and be a "benchmark" that is portable accross all systems?
You know, this is the problem with windows... If you could just install programs somewhere with everything they need to run in that dir it would be so much easier. Then new comp, copy the dir's over - good to go. Reimage the OS, boom everything is basically the same, only need to change themes for the os again.
Then again, I often think most of the "reinstall" problems with windows are becasue programs don't stay separate in their own dir. That's what I hate about many windows programs... I want to have hundreds of programs available - but I don't want them doing anything but sitting on disk unless and until I run them. For instance, why does a TV display program need to insist on running in the background? Why does winamp need a process running all the time? etc etc.... If I'm not watching TV or listing to mp3, these programs can die!!! And then they don't even give you a choice, unless you know msconfig or registry editing to force them not to run on startup.
I'm probably weird though, I'd prefer some startup lag on the program than startup lag on Windows getting all those things "pre loaded". Plus that's what drives all this new hardware... all these things running in the background when all you really want is the 8 times a year you need a spreadsheet to start it up, you don't want the overhead all the time. Likewise with the video editing program, or image editor.
What shell do you use?
Honestly, I can't see how one would get screwed with a Money Order or Cashiers Check. Don't ship the product until the check clears the bank. Make it clear that there will be a 10-15 day wait period from your recipt of the check to ensure it clears. Money Orders should be instant I think, just take it to the post office or wherever and get $$. If it is refused, e-mail the buyer and indicate the problem and that you will need another pymt. Or cancel the sale because the pymt did not go through. Only thing you may be out is time.
Interestingly, in upstate NY, Ithaca area - the local EB's are the only store that does buy used computer games(for a pittance, but better than nothing I guess). Also - they have regularly had cheaper prices for new games than the local Circut City, Walmart, Best Buy, and GameStop. Go figure. No idea, must be local economics or something.
Makes you wonder why that is maybe...
As an epson owner I've learned some things from dealing with the ink issue. First, don't wast your money on Epson ink. Pay no more than $12 a cartridge, $7 is average for 3rd party. Second, if you are not using the printer, turn it off(at the printer switch) it will empty the print head so it doesn't clog(this is from epson tech support). Granted this wastes ink, but at (for me) $5 a cart, I really don't care. If for some reason it does clog up and you are within your 1 year warrenty, call epson. 2nd day air to you a factory refurbished(known working) printer. You mail back clogged one. They pay for shipping.
I use epson for 3 reasons. One they have good print quality. Two the ink from 3rd party is good and CHEAP. Three, if the ink clogs up - which seems to happen with all inkjets based on the comments on this thread - you get the printer replaced for you.
I've bought epson for a long time, and am pretty happy with the newer ones that use separate color cartridges(actually I don't care - I don't print that much), but I may just try out a cannon just for the fact that you can swab the print head yourself. I always use 3rd party ink, and it usually works good for me, but sometimes it will clog up a little, and I'm sure if I could swab the printhead and draw out the dried ink myslef, I wouldn't have to return the printer to epson. However, I've found that if you use good ink(hard on the printer replacements until you find a good company) that the printer will last 3+ years on that ink.