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On Printers and Ink<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n The other day, I ordered a printer to replace a 2-year-old printer that says it has ink, but prints illegible things. It\u2019s my 7th or 8th printer –\u00a0 I\u2019ve had so many, I have lost count. <\/span><\/p>\n Oh, don\u2019t worry, I don\u2019t have 7 or 8 printers sitting around my house waiting for me to issue the print command \u2013 I only have one printer.\u00a0 The rest are rotting – or not in the landfill. But next time I’ll be more environmentally conscious and recycle my non-functioning, piece-of-junk printers, I promise!<\/span><\/p>\n Let me back up. I had no\u00a0working<\/em> printers at all until UPS delivered my new printer yesterday \u2013 and hopefully, when (IF) I get it set up today, I\u2019ll have one that works.<\/span><\/p>\n The printer I was using was only two years old. I replaced the ink in it twice, but it was haunted. It was haunted right from the start. My travails started on Tuesday, I needed to print out a bank statement to see why the bank showed I had $61.26 less than what I showed I had \u2013 I’m not too fond of that when that happens. Why can’t the bank show MORE money in my account than I think I have?<\/span><\/p>\n I digress… much to my chagrin when I punched the print button, my printer responded by printing four illegible pages that may as well have been Egyptian hieroglyphics.<\/span><\/p>\n Yep, I did everything you\u2019d think I\u2019d do. I ran the print-head alignment thing, I did all the \u201cTroubleshooting\u201d things, and I ran the HP Print Doctor. And, of course, I checked the ink levels. The ink levels were low but not empty. I thought I\u2019d try putting in new ink cartridges and see if that would fix things. I hopped in the car and drove to our local Wally World (Walmart).<\/span><\/p>\n Wally World just \u201cupgraded\u201d our local store, which means they moved things around -didn\u2019t add anything new or exciting.\u00a0 In fact, they must have a lot of supply chain issues, since whatever I go there to buy, they’re out of. <\/span><\/p>\n Anyway, it took me ten minutes to figure out where they moved the printer ink section.<\/span><\/p>\n After sorting though hundreds of different brands and model numbers, I found the correct ink cartridges for my printer. What to my bloodshot eyes should appear \u2013 the newer higher prices.\u00a0 The black and white cartridge was $23 and the color cartridge was $34. In my limited world of math, that equals $57 not including 7.5 % tax. With tax included, even with my limited math skills, I could figure the total cost was going to be around $61… just for INK!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n I\u00a0 was standing there surrounded by printers. Some of them were selling for LESS than the cost of ink for the cheap HP printer I had at home.\u00a0 For instance this\u00a0Canon Pixma printer<\/a> for $59\u2026or this HP DeskJet wireless printer<\/a> for $59.\u00a0 And they both come with ink.<\/span><\/p>\n This was not the first time I have tossed a printer because it costs more to replace the ink than it costs to buy a new printer.\u00a0 Big wheels kept turning, my mind kept on burning \u2026 if I spent $60 for new ink cartridges and then my printer still printed hieroglyphics \u2014 I\u2019d be out $60. I don\u2019t have $60 to throw away.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I left Wally World without the ink cartridges.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n When I got home I decided to do some online shopping for a new printer. After searching Best Buy, Amazon, Target, Staples, etc. I ordered an HP printer from Amazon\u2013 online \u2013 for $62.43 including tax and free shipping. It is a better model than the cheapie I\u2019m going to toss. For about the same price as it would have cost to replace the ink for my old HP El Cheapo<\/em> printer, I bought a new HP\u00a0 \u2013 not-so-El-Cheapo<\/em> printer \u2013 that comes complete with INK.<\/span><\/p>\n The big day came — the new not-so-el-cheapo printer arrived!<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n I unplugged and removed the HP El Cheapo printer from its nest and unceremoniously tossed it in the rubbish. Yes,I promise, next time, I’ll recycle, I tells ya!<\/span><\/p>\n Then, came the time for the super “easy-peasy” setup HP has promised me.<\/span><\/p>\n Ha! Ha!<\/span><\/p>\n After 30 minutes of finagling, I finally got it set up \u2014but only after I realized that I had to turn down the \u201cSmart Ink\u201d offer that was on my screen before the printer would actually work.<\/span><\/p>\n Instead of spending $60 for two ink cartridges for an old, genuine El Cheapo printer, I\u2019m happy to tell you that for about $60 I have a brand new, not-so-El-Cheapo printer, complete with two full ink cartridges. And it prints pages that I can actually read.<\/span><\/p>\n Why does ink cost as much or more than a new printer?<\/span><\/p>\n Thanks for reading my RANT.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On Printers and Ink The other day, I ordered a printer to replace a 2-year-old printer that says it has ink, but prints illegible things. It\u2019s my 7th or 8th printer –\u00a0 I\u2019ve had so many, I have lost count. Oh, don\u2019t worry, I don\u2019t have 7 or 8 printers sitting around my house waiting for\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16328,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1681],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25085"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25085"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25085\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25097,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25085\/revisions\/25097"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}