How to Buy a Printer

So, you want to buy a printer. Or someone asks for advice on a printer?

Here's my list of prejudices.

1. I advise people against buying inkjets. The ink is too expensive to replace, dries out quickly and they are generally pieces of junk. Laserjets will give you most of what you want, especially since most people want B&W only printing.

2. Look at the amount of pages you can get out of one laser toner cartridge. It's usually 3000 to 6000 pages. That's far and away better than an inkjet. Think about how you use your printer. A few pages here and there? Chances are good your laser printer's toner will last a long time.

3. Small monocolor (B&W) laser printers are very inexpensive. HP makes very small B&W laser printers. I think my personal one cost about $100.00.

4. Cost of replacement cartridges. This is where color laserjets are problematic. Color laserjets require 4 ink cartridges and usually one drum. These parts are VERY expensive, and usually cost the cost of the printer to replace. Do you really need a color printer? How often do you actually need to print in color?

5. Footprint on your desk. The larger your printer is, the more room it takes up on your desk. If you use a printer only occasionally, how much space does it need to have?

6. Do you share that printer, or want to share that printer among a few people? Then maybe you should invest in a networked printer. These often have a network jack in the back of them and you can then add it to your network and print to them with little trouble. You can also add a print server to almost any printer to make it network capable. That can also solve the footprint on the desk by moving it to a totally different location. Good for offices.

7. Time of printing. Modern printers today can spit out a page in under 20 seconds; some in less than 15. Not a lot of waiting around for something to print. Pays to look into that.

8. Double sided printing. Some printers can print on BOTH sides of a page. That's nice to save on paper, and an option on newer printers. If you are interested in that, look for a duplex printer.

9. Reviews. Check what other people are saying about your model. Enough said.

10. Paper. What's the tray capacity? What's the size? Is it adjustable? Can you print envelopes? Lots of things to consider, isn't it?

How to fix an internet problem

When someone tells me their internet isn't working, I first check the cable. I always check the cable. 90% of the time, the cable has stopped working. When I say check the cable, I mean replace it with another one that you know is good. (AKA "a known good cable").

Then comes the other, more esoteric stuff. For example, is all the internet not working, or is it just your web browser?

If it is everything, and the cable is okay, what about up from the cable and down from the cable? What I mean by that is....what about the network interface card (NIC)? Does it have flashy lights? If so, your computer is getting signals. Then you know it's something wrong with the computer itself.

If you are getting no flashy lights, it's possible your NIC is broken. Replacing it with a "known good" nic is a good test, but I'd also check "down" from the cable, or the jack or cable modem, or whatever is the interface for your internet from whatever your provider is.

In a cable/DSL example, it comes out of the wall and goes into a cable modem. It might go out of the cable modem and into a router or wireless access point. The wireless access point can have problems, so you can test that by unplugging the cable that comes out from the cable modem and into the router and try plugging that directly into your network port. If that works, then you know the wireless access point/router is the problem. Sometimes, just unplugging it and replugging that in can fix it. Sometimes not.

Also, it pays to know how to log onto your Wireless Access Point/Router in an emergency. Depending on your type of router/wap, it may be a web address like

http://192.168.1.1
or
http://192.168.2.1
or
http://192.168.0.1

This information should be either in your documentation that came with your WAP or router, or might be available on the manufacturer website. That is also where you can find out the default passwords for your WAP or router, which might be helpful in configuring it to see if workes. Specifically, this can tell you if the WAN (Wide Area Network) is coming from the cable modem to the WAP/router. IF it isn't, try to "bounce" (unplug and replug the power) on the cable modem.

Also, if you can get some internet (like your email) and not others (like a specific web page), have you tried switching web browsers? If one works while the other one doesn't, I'd suggest upgrading your preferred web browser to see if that helps.

Fun stuff, internet problems. Luckily, one of these solutions almost always works.