Duncan,
No, I wasn't looking for a solution, but I have to admit, I really need
to re-read before I post, spelling is okay, but some of the words are
just wrong.
My wife wonders why I inflict this stuff on myself. Hope spring
eternal, I believe that somehow, because I'm the one that does it for my
company, someone will actually make it work like it says.
Besides I get some many stories....
I vowed that I would not get cranky as I got older, like I've seen
happen to so many. Things like this don't help me keep my promise....
Steve
DSinc wrote:
Steve,
In my 13yrs on this list, your's is the finest example of
"printer-HELL!" But, I am certain many of us have juicy stories that fit
this send. Great send!!!!
For whatever the reason, the "nickel and dime us to death marketeers"
are still with us.
Only sorry that I have no solution for you. Well, other than I now use a
Brother 2070N b/w laser printer. I still have an aging Canon S600
ink-jet living in the garage - too lazy to take it apart and try and
clean a clogged jet carriage.............. :)
Best,
Duncan
Steve Tomporowski wrote:
Once upon a time, I had a Lexmark Color Inkjet Printer. It had cost
me over $250. It had a single cartridge for black and the three
primary colors and each was hideously expensive. I only used it when
absolutely necessary and tried to balance to the color use so that
each $60 went as far as possible.
One day, my son announced that he wanted a good (non-dot matrix)
printer for his computer and asked for a laser for his birthday. Not
being able to afford one at that time, I researched ink jet printers
and found that Canon printers had the cheapest cartridges and, in
fact, usually had one for each color. I bought him one and, after
use, he was thrilled. The print quality was great, maintenance costs
were very low. In fact, it was so good, I gave away the Lexmark and
bought myself a Canon S750. This printer faithfully served me for over
ten years. I could always rely on the print quality, I could use it a
lot, since each cartridge was cheap, It only installed a driver which
dutifully informed me of ink levels every time I printed. When I
bought a wireless print server, it had no problem and still performed
as if it were a dedicated printer.
Life was Good.
Good things don't last. Late last year, the dear S750 gave up the
ghost. After over ten years of service, it didn't seem like a good
idea just to fix it. Technology had moved on. There were new
things. So I went to the nearby Staples to buy a printer. It seems
like a good idea, they had a $30 credit if you bought a printer, all
their fliers said so!
I was entranced by the HP D5460, it was more compact, had a cute
little LCD display to keep you informed and even had slots for camera
memory. How could I go wrong? Little did I know at the time.
First Staples reneged on the rebate. They happily pointed out that
the excruciatingly small print on each flyer meant that the printer
had to be of a certain price, bought during a certain phase of the
moon, but only on a pluterday. But we all expect rebates to be fantasy.
On returning home with the printer, it first informed me that it
couldn't load drivers with the printer on the network. It firmly
insisted the printer be attached to the computer or it wouldn't
install. So twice I had to lug the printer over to two different
computers to install drivers. And what an install! 135 Megs later, I
had all sorts of applications, including one that announced "Buy
supplies from HP!" which couldn't be uninstalled without breaking the
printer driver. I dealt with that later, however, installing the
drivers this way now broke the print server software, which now had to
be reinstalled. I did that and was thrilled that now everything
worked! I printed a test page from each computer. Looking good.
The next time I printed, nothing happened. After I had printed two
pages, the printer sensed that I now needed new cartridges and refused
to print unless I went over and pushed the 'Ok' button, acknowledging
that I understood that the printer was desperately out of ink!
It was then that I noticed a single page stuck into the printer docs
that announced that the low ink indication really wasn't a low ink
indication, but more of an indication that you should buy new carts
and be ready. Such genius.
Well, printing seemed to be fine, but I went back to staples to buy
ink, figuring just once won't be bad, I can then get more online
later. Sticker Shock! Ink was now three times as expensive as the
Canon. Even online it was 2X expensive.
Needless to say, despite the low ink warning, it did print fine for a
long while afterwards.
I missed the ability to know what the ink levels were, just in case I
was going to print pictures. There seemed to be an application,
called the HP Solutions Center, which would tell me the ink levels. I
did not install it at first, because I had experience with 'Solutions
Centers' and knew that was the equivalent of 'Abandon hope all ye..."
Installed it and watched the noisy HP driver pop-ups which dutifully
told me that the print levels were not available at this time. In
fact, they never seemed to be available. Further, the Solutions
center told me that my printer was not active and will I please turn
it on. But it still printed.
So I did what I thought that HP provided....I call Tech Support.
After negotiating 3 voice response systems, I was finally connected to
Arripta at the 7-Eleven, opps, I mean India. She would be very happy
to help me and would I like her to fix it by remotely accessing my
computer? Sure, what the hell. After much entry of information,
name, assisting tech and the 10 digit case number which I would
eventually memorize (8026646878, yes it will haunt me), the
application, which happened to be VNC, hung as starting session. This
was because I was trying to use Firefox and could I please use IE.
That didn't improve the situation, in fact, it continued to look
identical. The hand occurred three more times in succession including
a fourth time when my Indian 'friend's' computer hung also. Of course
then followed an intense session of trying to figure out what was
wrong with MY computer. My cache was cleared so many times, you could
see yourself in the shine. Arripta seemed to love to do the same
things over and over again, hoping something different would happen.
Finally she ascertained it was because I was using IE8 and would I
please go and download IE7 and install it. After an hour of this, I
decided I had had enough, told her so and hung up.
But it's not over....
HP send me an email, asking me about my support experience. Hmm, is
there something lower than zero...then I came to the question: If you
need to contact HP Support again, how would I do it, with all the
usual suspects: email, website, phone, etc. Unwisely they added a
choice called 'other' where I could fill it in. I typed in that I
would buy another manufacturer's printer. Cute for me, but a bad idea
because...
The next night at the same time, Arripta called me back. She had the
problem solved! (At least hers). Surprise, surprise, suddenly we
could connect and she had control of my computer. Sigh, at least she
was consistent, she still had the idea that doing things 4 or 5 times
in a row was some kind of charm. Luckily I have another computer, so
I walked away and played my games while she played hers. Some of what
she did was repeatedly try to reinstall the Solutions center and clean
the cache, etc. Finally she announced that the firewall was causing a
problem. Even though it has been turned off since I installed. She
spend another 20 minutes opening up ports in the disabled firewall,
since that was so boring to her, she began to chat me up. Really,
wow, now I've got a date in India.
Finally she announced that all I had to do was reboot and it was all
fixed. And...would I mind talking to her supervisor. At least he
spoke English with less of an accent. He proceeded to tell me that
Arripta was his best tech (I had to bite my tongue to keep from
telling him I felt sorry for him) and thank you for being so patient.
At that point the system came up and to no surprise, the situation
remained the same. The moment I told him it still didn't work, he
vanished faster than any metaphor I can think of. My dear friend
Arripta was back and telling me that there was something in my print
server that was blocking the messages and I should take to them. AND
she would be sure to call me at the same time tomorrow. I was
beginning to realize the power of threats.
Linksys' support site was brilliant and to the point: They support
bi-directional communications to the printer, however, most printer
software does not support networking.
Arripta never called back. I guess we are officially estranged.
Sorry to inflict this on the list, but I had to get this out....
Steve
__________ Information from ESET Smart Security, version of virus
signature database 4193 (20090626) __________
The message was checked by ESET Smart Security.
http://www.eset.com
__________ Information from ESET Smart Security, version of virus
signature database 4193 (20090626) __________
The message was checked by ESET Smart Security.
http://www.eset.com
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database 4193 (20090626) __________
The message was checked by ESET Smart Security.
http://www.eset.com
