HP printers have these things going for them: They're cheap (as in junk); plan on having to replace it every couple of years with light use. They break just looking at them (in my experience)
The printhead is on the cartridge, so it's expensive as hell when you run out of ink. And maybe even if you don't; in my experience HP carts clog all the damn time. I had to waste tons of ink running cleaning cycles, and I had to throw away carts with ink in them because I couldn't get them clean even with hot water/windex/alcohol/anything wipes.
Forget refilling; though you CAN do it, the printheads are designed to not last much longer than it takes to squirt their ink out. You might get one, two, MAYBE three refills.
Check out Canon. Nice drivers, infinitely refillable (ink cart is just a plastic box with ink in it; takes 30 seconds to refill), I've printed 25+ refills of ink out of it and have never had even one clogged nozzle.
I think it's time for the Quantum Bigfoot drives to make a comeback. With today's technology, I'm sure we could easily have a 1TB drive with 5.25" platters. I'd buy one. I wouldn't really care about speed or latency issues, as I would certainly have a fast 3.5" drive to boot the OS off of.
Absolutely!
I want one fast drive on my system, the one with the swap space, the OS and the apps installed. Then I need about 1TB of space which can be very slow by today's standards. I just want it to be very reliable and big.
We have to buy all these trucks, and pay drivers for all of these routes. Then these companies come along, and they decide that they can use OUR infrastructure to send THEIR packages. Our service is intended only for sending postcards to granny. If those companies want to use OUR service to facilitate THEIR business, then they better pay m/e//a//k/i/c/k/b/a/c/k/ us for the priviledge of using our facilities.
Lately it's even come to my attention that people and even businesses in FOREIGN COUNTRIES can send mail through our system. If they don't pay up, we're going to start burning their packages for heating fuel.
You say people are able to exercise their first amendment rights? And you can't find them in order to threaten them? Aww, let's pass some laws to help out. Ya damn crybaby.
Anonymous free speech is guaranteed by the constitution. Get used to it or do business in another country.
Local variations in cloud cover, atmosphere stability, etc have MUCH more impact than exact timing. It'll look basically the same for several nights in a row. This isn't a meteor shower or aurora where you have to be there at the right time. Mars has looked pretty good for weeks already and will for a few weeks after this.
Yeah, except it's not true. The pass 2 years ago was closest in 60,000 years, but this one's not unusually close at all. Mars is at opposition with Earth every 2 years, and every time there's all kinds of sloppy science reporting. When I read this on CNN yesterday, I just shook my head.
The reporting last time was ridiculous; some even stated that Mars would look as big as the moon; this again was sloppy misquoting; S&T had said that Mars IN A 75X TELESCOPE would appear as big as the Moon does TO THE NAKED EYE. Many news sources cut the emphasized parts in that statement.
I sometimes think AP puts people on the science desk if they can't make it anywhere else. They don't really seem to have an interest in accuracy, even though the science desk would seem to demand that qualification.
BTW, the view of Mars is actually better this time around than the "closest in 60,000 years" pass 2 years ago. The reason is that Mars is higher in the sky this time, so you have less atmosphere to look through. That's a far bigger difference than the measly amount closer it was last time.
Except that, even in the winter in Michigan when it's 20*F out, we actually run the air conditioning. The computers and people put out more than enough to heat the building, we have to run the air to keep it comfortable. Of course, A/C is pretty efficient when it's dumping heat into 20*F ambient air, but still...
Not in terms of bloat, but in terms of slow processing. Firefox's Javascript is HORRIBLY slow in comparison to IE's. I have an intranet site that allows viewing of somewhat large tables of data (up to a few thousand rows), and there's javascript code embedded that allows filtering & sorting of that data. Change a selection in IE and it's done in about 2-3 seconds; in Firefox, the same action can take 45 seconds or more.
I still prefer Firefox, but I use IE if I need to view a large dataset on that page.
Just goes to show, even after functionality is there, there is still a lot of room for improvement in many OSS apps.
I've got a 15", and honestly, I'd trade it even up for a 12" display. I bought it thinking "desktop replacement" but for what I do, you just can't replace a desktop with a laptop. If it's not going to be my main machine, I want it as portable as possible. I'd rather have a 800 MHz 4lb or less 12" screen unit that I could bring along anywhere than this 8.5lb 15" brick I have.
I suggest you listen to the This American Life episode entitled "testosterone".
One of the true stories in it is of a person who had a disorder that made his body stop producing testosterone. It turns out that without testosterone people (both men and women) lose pretty much all desire to do anything at all or even think. This guy was just as happy to lay in bed all day as to go to work, he had no desires, he had no reaction to anything; he could walk down the street, and his brain would just identify things without reacting; "brick in wall" - "dog shit on ground" - "dead baby in street" - no reaction to anything.
Most such malapropisms could be logically reasoned out if people would just realize that these phrases ACTUALLY MEAN SOMETHING. That would solve most mixed metaphors as well. The people I mention such bloopers to usually don't even realize that there is even supposed to be some logical meaning to the phrases; I guess they think that someone just put random words together one day and declared that "long row to hoe" was the phrase to use if you have a big job ahead of you, and it doesn't actually relate to anything in real life.
I'm running a Linksys WRT54G, which runs Linux. If Linksys doesn't release a new firmware to support whatever tech is needed, someone else will; there are multiple sources of firmwares for this box, and it's one of the most popular boxes.
To me this is one of the best reasons to pay $50 for a 54G instead of buying one of the $15 crapo boxes; I'm not locked in and I can do all kinds of cool stuff if I want. Similar to why I like to run Linux on my PCs.
It's interesting that in my experience gained by cleaning up people's machines, the paid-for anti-spyware stuff misses a ton of stuff, while the freeware finds everything the paid for stuff does and a lot more. Paying for anti-spyware has to date been a counterproductive move.
the less i watch the more i find myself simply unable to watch
I feel the same way. For the last 6 months or so, I really haven't watched TV directly. I do watch shows via BitTorrent, but only 1 or 2 new shows, really only animation, and some old stuff I'm catching up on.
As far as current TV, I walk into the living room, see what my family is watching, think "what crap" and leave. In a way it's bad, because I want to go in there and spend time with them, but I can't even stand to be in the same room where that drivel is playing.
At least in my house my family is watching mostly cable channels, like HGTV/DSC/DSC Kids type reality shows (what not to wear, etc). When I visit my mom/siblings/etc, god, they're watching broadcast TV. We switched to Dish about 12 years ago, haven't really had broadcast for years, when I go and look at it, it's absolute sewage. What happens to a mind that has that crap pushed through it all the time?
You take a people who have been denied non-propagandized news sources all their lives, and hand them an information tool so rich that the government can't effectively stop ALL the light from getting through, and they eat it up.
I wonder if they would treat people who read for 4 hours a day for paper addiction.
Well I made sure to say "affect" and not reduce. OK, I missed that.
Some say that running too many cleaning cycles will damage the printhead, mostly Epson support
It's an issue with Epson. I think half the ink I used when I had an Epson was in cleaning. Damn thing always had a clogged nozzle, even when I was running genuine Epson ink.
By contrast, I've been through > 20 refills on the Canon, and I haven't run a cleaning cycle yet ONCE. I just put ink and paper in and it works.
I don't mind text ads at all, and will sometimes investigate them. Graphic banner ads sometimes bother me, I have clicked on a few, particularly on sites like this, for something like thinkgeek or such. Flashing ads will drive me right from a page. Floating ads will make me shut down the browser. Flash ads will make me reach for a gun.
Some combination of the last three eventually drove me to look at options, and I installed adblock. I'm happy now. The people with unobtrusive graphic banners can thank the asshats who put in floating flashing abominations; now I don't see ANY ads.
There are those who claim that non-OEM ink will affect your printhead life
I can see this in a couple of situations; if you have an HP that has thermal-based printheads, sure. But those printhead die pretty quickly anyway as they're DESIGNED to die. They're supposed to get replaced ever time.
If you have a piezo based printhead, as all the permanent printheads are AFAIK, the only life-shortening thing I can think of would be if the viscosity was wrong, or if the PH was off or there was a bad solvent in the ink. All of those seem pretty far-fetched to me, and easily avoided by anyone taking any kind of care in forumlating the inks.
I don't *believe* this is true, I think people are just making excuses for using factory ink. People do the same for lots of stuff; cars, food, even operating systems:-/
I'm using MIS Associates inks. Glad to see they performed well in those tests. I typically buy the 4oz bottles. I'd buy larger quantities, but my usage is low enough that I'm not sure I'd use up more fast enough that it wouldn't go bad in some way. As is I use a set of 4 oz bottles about every 14 months or so.
I've been refilling my Canon printer tanks since I got it. Before that, an Epson (PITA) and before that, two HPs. I've never bought a cart for my Canon. It's trivial to refill (hardly harder than putting in a new tank). I've refilled all the tanks about 25 times now.
I can't tell the difference between prints made with Canon ink and aftermarket ink. In fade tests in sunlight, the aftermarket inks fade about the same as Canon, but last better than Epson (not current generation, I don't do Epson anymore).
You have to buy properly formulated inks, specifically for your brand/type of printer. If the place is selling "one size fits all" ink, stay away, it's crud. I've tried putting that stuff in printers before, and it really screws up the color balance and the stuff fades in a month.
I can fill all the tanks in my Canon for about $5, as opposed to $40 for new tanks.
I found glossy paper on sale a couple of years ago at Office Depot; one of those crazy "nearly free after discounts" sales - something like $5 for 100 sheets. I bought about 20 packs. I might even have to buy paper in another 5 years or so.
IOW, if you're frugal, you can make your own prints for VERY cheap. I think my 4x6's probably cost 5 cents each.
That's why the first thing I do when I get a new computer is to ghost the hard drive (just in case) before I ever boot it, then wipe the hard drive and reinstall the OS from scratch. The machines are so full of crap that I don't trust them. I want to know what's installed on my PC and I don't trust that this shovelware uninstalls cleanly.
The iPod plays standard MP3s as well as other formats. That's all I've ever loaded onto mine. Is buying a CD at Amazon and ripping it not considered "buying music online?" Is instant gratification required?
I've never even been to iTunes. In what way am I "stuck" with iTunes?
Don't use the crap that comes with the thumbdrives. Install TrueCrypt. I've been using either it or its predecessor, E4M, for years. No problems. You get to choose any of the high grade algorithms you want to use.
I would seriously consider sending the stuff to myself in GMail as well. I already store some important contacts, shopping lists, etc as drafts in my GMail account. They have distributed servers so it should be fairly safe against catastrophe.
If they built the scanner into the computer, it would probably cost no more than $5. I had a car that was built after computers were put in but before they went to the standard communications bus. If you had a check engine light on that car, you just stuck a paper clip between two terminals in the fuse box, turned on the ignition, and the "check engine" light blinked out the error code.
Now you have to buy or rent/borrow a scanner. Nice ones are $200 or so, but Harbor Freight has them for $35 (I haven't used one, don't know how good it is). If they were built in they could leverage the existing computer to directly drive a readout and it would be cheap indeed.
However, it's not in GM's interest to give you something cheap. That's not what this is about. This is about getting you into a subscription model. Nobody wants to sell goods, they want to sell services. Goods get paid for once; services get paid for forever.
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HP printers have these things going for them:
They're cheap (as in junk); plan on having to replace it every couple of years with light use. They break just looking at them (in my experience)
The printhead is on the cartridge, so it's expensive as hell when you run out of ink. And maybe even if you don't; in my experience HP carts clog all the damn time. I had to waste tons of ink running cleaning cycles, and I had to throw away carts with ink in them because I couldn't get them clean even with hot water/windex/alcohol/anything wipes.
Forget refilling; though you CAN do it, the printheads are designed to not last much longer than it takes to squirt their ink out. You might get one, two, MAYBE three refills.
Check out Canon. Nice drivers, infinitely refillable (ink cart is just a plastic box with ink in it; takes 30 seconds to refill), I've printed 25+ refills of ink out of it and have never had even one clogged nozzle.
I think it's time for the Quantum Bigfoot drives to make a comeback. With today's technology, I'm sure we could easily have a 1TB drive with 5.25" platters. I'd buy one. I wouldn't really care about speed or latency issues, as I would certainly have a fast 3.5" drive to boot the OS off of.
Absolutely!
I want one fast drive on my system, the one with the swap space, the OS and the apps installed. Then I need about 1TB of space which can be very slow by today's standards. I just want it to be very reliable and big.
We have to buy all these trucks, and pay drivers for all of these routes. Then these companies come along, and they decide that they can use OUR infrastructure to send THEIR packages. Our service is intended only for sending postcards to granny. If those companies want to use OUR service to facilitate THEIR business, then they better pay m/e/ /a/ /k/i/c/k/b/a/c/k/ us for the priviledge of using our facilities.
Lately it's even come to my attention that people and even businesses in FOREIGN COUNTRIES can send mail through our system. If they don't pay up, we're going to start burning their packages for heating fuel.
You say people are able to exercise their first amendment rights? And you can't find them in order to threaten them? Aww, let's pass some laws to help out. Ya damn crybaby.
Anonymous free speech is guaranteed by the constitution. Get used to it or do business in another country.
Local variations in cloud cover, atmosphere stability, etc have MUCH more impact than exact timing. It'll look basically the same for several nights in a row. This isn't a meteor shower or aurora where you have to be there at the right time. Mars has looked pretty good for weeks already and will for a few weeks after this.
Yeah, except it's not true. The pass 2 years ago was closest in 60,000 years, but this one's not unusually close at all. Mars is at opposition with Earth every 2 years, and every time there's all kinds of sloppy science reporting. When I read this on CNN yesterday, I just shook my head.
The reporting last time was ridiculous; some even stated that Mars would look as big as the moon; this again was sloppy misquoting; S&T had said that Mars IN A 75X TELESCOPE would appear as big as the Moon does TO THE NAKED EYE. Many news sources cut the emphasized parts in that statement.
I sometimes think AP puts people on the science desk if they can't make it anywhere else. They don't really seem to have an interest in accuracy, even though the science desk would seem to demand that qualification.
BTW, the view of Mars is actually better this time around than the "closest in 60,000 years" pass 2 years ago. The reason is that Mars is higher in the sky this time, so you have less atmosphere to look through. That's a far bigger difference than the measly amount closer it was last time.
Except that, even in the winter in Michigan when it's 20*F out, we actually run the air conditioning. The computers and people put out more than enough to heat the building, we have to run the air to keep it comfortable. Of course, A/C is pretty efficient when it's dumping heat into 20*F ambient air, but still...
Not in terms of bloat, but in terms of slow processing. Firefox's Javascript is HORRIBLY slow in comparison to IE's. I have an intranet site that allows viewing of somewhat large tables of data (up to a few thousand rows), and there's javascript code embedded that allows filtering & sorting of that data. Change a selection in IE and it's done in about 2-3 seconds; in Firefox, the same action can take 45 seconds or more.
I still prefer Firefox, but I use IE if I need to view a large dataset on that page.
Just goes to show, even after functionality is there, there is still a lot of room for improvement in many OSS apps.
I've got a 15", and honestly, I'd trade it even up for a 12" display. I bought it thinking "desktop replacement" but for what I do, you just can't replace a desktop with a laptop. If it's not going to be my main machine, I want it as portable as possible. I'd rather have a 800 MHz 4lb or less 12" screen unit that I could bring along anywhere than this 8.5lb 15" brick I have.
I suggest you listen to the This American Life episode entitled "testosterone".
One of the true stories in it is of a person who had a disorder that made his body stop producing testosterone. It turns out that without testosterone people (both men and women) lose pretty much all desire to do anything at all or even think. This guy was just as happy to lay in bed all day as to go to work, he had no desires, he had no reaction to anything; he could walk down the street, and his brain would just identify things without reacting; "brick in wall" - "dog shit on ground" - "dead baby in street" - no reaction to anything.
It was a fascinating set of stories.
Most such malapropisms could be logically reasoned out if people would just realize that these phrases ACTUALLY MEAN SOMETHING. That would solve most mixed metaphors as well. The people I mention such bloopers to usually don't even realize that there is even supposed to be some logical meaning to the phrases; I guess they think that someone just put random words together one day and declared that "long row to hoe" was the phrase to use if you have a big job ahead of you, and it doesn't actually relate to anything in real life.
I'm running a Linksys WRT54G, which runs Linux. If Linksys doesn't release a new firmware to support whatever tech is needed, someone else will; there are multiple sources of firmwares for this box, and it's one of the most popular boxes.
To me this is one of the best reasons to pay $50 for a 54G instead of buying one of the $15 crapo boxes; I'm not locked in and I can do all kinds of cool stuff if I want. Similar to why I like to run Linux on my PCs.
It's interesting that in my experience gained by cleaning up people's machines, the paid-for anti-spyware stuff misses a ton of stuff, while the freeware finds everything the paid for stuff does and a lot more. Paying for anti-spyware has to date been a counterproductive move.
the less i watch the more i find myself simply unable to watch
I feel the same way. For the last 6 months or so, I really haven't watched TV directly. I do watch shows via BitTorrent, but only 1 or 2 new shows, really only animation, and some old stuff I'm catching up on.
As far as current TV, I walk into the living room, see what my family is watching, think "what crap" and leave. In a way it's bad, because I want to go in there and spend time with them, but I can't even stand to be in the same room where that drivel is playing.
At least in my house my family is watching mostly cable channels, like HGTV/DSC/DSC Kids type reality shows (what not to wear, etc). When I visit my mom/siblings/etc, god, they're watching broadcast TV. We switched to Dish about 12 years ago, haven't really had broadcast for years, when I go and look at it, it's absolute sewage. What happens to a mind that has that crap pushed through it all the time?
You take a people who have been denied non-propagandized news sources all their lives, and hand them an information tool so rich that the government can't effectively stop ALL the light from getting through, and they eat it up.
I wonder if they would treat people who read for 4 hours a day for paper addiction.
Hmm, how to get them on my SETI team....
Well I made sure to say "affect" and not reduce.
OK, I missed that.
Some say that running too many cleaning cycles will damage the printhead, mostly Epson support
It's an issue with Epson. I think half the ink I used when I had an Epson was in cleaning. Damn thing always had a clogged nozzle, even when I was running genuine Epson ink.
By contrast, I've been through > 20 refills on the Canon, and I haven't run a cleaning cycle yet ONCE. I just put ink and paper in and it works.
Correct.
I don't mind text ads at all, and will sometimes investigate them.
Graphic banner ads sometimes bother me, I have clicked on a few, particularly on sites like this, for something like thinkgeek or such.
Flashing ads will drive me right from a page.
Floating ads will make me shut down the browser.
Flash ads will make me reach for a gun.
Some combination of the last three eventually drove me to look at options, and I installed adblock. I'm happy now. The people with unobtrusive graphic banners can thank the asshats who put in floating flashing abominations; now I don't see ANY ads.
There are those who claim that non-OEM ink will affect your printhead life
:-/
I can see this in a couple of situations; if you have an HP that has thermal-based printheads, sure. But those printhead die pretty quickly anyway as they're DESIGNED to die. They're supposed to get replaced ever time.
If you have a piezo based printhead, as all the permanent printheads are AFAIK, the only life-shortening thing I can think of would be if the viscosity was wrong, or if the PH was off or there was a bad solvent in the ink. All of those seem pretty far-fetched to me, and easily avoided by anyone taking any kind of care in forumlating the inks.
I don't *believe* this is true, I think people are just making excuses for using factory ink. People do the same for lots of stuff; cars, food, even operating systems
I'm using MIS Associates inks. Glad to see they performed well in those tests. I typically buy the 4oz bottles. I'd buy larger quantities, but my usage is low enough that I'm not sure I'd use up more fast enough that it wouldn't go bad in some way. As is I use a set of 4 oz bottles about every 14 months or so.
I've been refilling my Canon printer tanks since I got it. Before that, an Epson (PITA) and before that, two HPs. I've never bought a cart for my Canon. It's trivial to refill (hardly harder than putting in a new tank). I've refilled all the tanks about 25 times now.
I can't tell the difference between prints made with Canon ink and aftermarket ink. In fade tests in sunlight, the aftermarket inks fade about the same as Canon, but last better than Epson (not current generation, I don't do Epson anymore).
You have to buy properly formulated inks, specifically for your brand/type of printer. If the place is selling "one size fits all" ink, stay away, it's crud. I've tried putting that stuff in printers before, and it really screws up the color balance and the stuff fades in a month.
I can fill all the tanks in my Canon for about $5, as opposed to $40 for new tanks.
I found glossy paper on sale a couple of years ago at Office Depot; one of those crazy "nearly free after discounts" sales - something like $5 for 100 sheets. I bought about 20 packs. I might even have to buy paper in another 5 years or so.
IOW, if you're frugal, you can make your own prints for VERY cheap. I think my 4x6's probably cost 5 cents each.
That's why the first thing I do when I get a new computer is to ghost the hard drive (just in case) before I ever boot it, then wipe the hard drive and reinstall the OS from scratch. The machines are so full of crap that I don't trust them. I want to know what's installed on my PC and I don't trust that this shovelware uninstalls cleanly.
Downloading an HBO show without paying for HBO *could* be considered theft of services. That's getting pretty shaky though.
The iPod plays standard MP3s as well as other formats. That's all I've ever loaded onto mine. Is buying a CD at Amazon and ripping it not considered "buying music online?" Is instant gratification required?
I've never even been to iTunes. In what way am I "stuck" with iTunes?
Don't use the crap that comes with the thumbdrives. Install TrueCrypt. I've been using either it or its predecessor, E4M, for years. No problems. You get to choose any of the high grade algorithms you want to use.
I would seriously consider sending the stuff to myself in GMail as well. I already store some important contacts, shopping lists, etc as drafts in my GMail account. They have distributed servers so it should be fairly safe against catastrophe.
If they built the scanner into the computer, it would probably cost no more than $5. I had a car that was built after computers were put in but before they went to the standard communications bus. If you had a check engine light on that car, you just stuck a paper clip between two terminals in the fuse box, turned on the ignition, and the "check engine" light blinked out the error code.
Now you have to buy or rent/borrow a scanner. Nice ones are $200 or so, but Harbor Freight has them for $35 (I haven't used one, don't know how good it is). If they were built in they could leverage the existing computer to directly drive a readout and it would be cheap indeed.
However, it's not in GM's interest to give you something cheap. That's not what this is about. This is about getting you into a subscription model. Nobody wants to sell goods, they want to sell services. Goods get paid for once; services get paid for forever.