According to Gov.Uk. there were 21 people killed at work by a falling object, last year. I would double that for items falling on people from a high window, round it up and say that 50 people per year are killed by falling objects.
As to the objects, I’ll bet that 99.9% of them are printers.
And, yes, I have spent the last two hours trying to get a new printer to connect to the WiFi.
Afterwards, my computer asked me to name the printer, which is a Canon TS4150i.
As far as the Device Manager on the PC is concerned, the printer now identifies as BASTARD.
Our previous printer was a Canon which drank ink like Shane MacGowan at last orders and replacement cartridges were extortionate. We’ve had a monochrome Brother laser ever since which is much cheaper to run and just sits in the corner until needed.
We’ve not fired up our laptop since pre-covid times, similarly the printer. In the unlikely event that something needs to be printed, I email it to my work address and use the work printer, a rare event. That source of frustration has been removed from my life, not that aren’t other sources.
Epson with refillable tanks. Has cost me £30
In ink since 2021 and I print a fair few documents. It largely behaves itself as well – although sometimes it won’t show up and I find opening a word doc and going through the print something routine seems to make us show again. Printers are like teenagers – you hope that yours isn’t too bad.
I’ve never owned one and never will. I don’t use PCs or laptops either although I have owned a few laptops but stopped using them years ago. A tablet and a phone gives me all the online connectivity I need.
I too have Canon and the set up was far beyond my comprehension. I recently had to get replacement cartridges. The woman in Ryman had Rottweiler tendencies. When I commented that the £53 price for black and colour used to be a little cheaper. In fact last time I came in they were £42.00 I said.
‘Well they ain’t been that price for a long time love’
she told me.
When I got home checked Amazon – £31.00.
‘Won’t be coming back to Ryman’s for a long time love’
‘Well they ain’t (as-far-as-I-who-knows-f*ck-all-about-anything-can-tell-you) been that price (here at rip-you-off-world) for a long time love (now-piss-off-and-let-me-serve-the-next-sucker)’.
Theo obviously doesn’t pay wages that attract the right sort of front-of-house staff.
My printer is an elderly Canon Pixma something or other. When my PC gave up the ghost and I switched to Apple it wasn’t compatible, despite being only a couple of years old. Canon helpfully emailed me the drivers to enable me to install it, but only half its functions still worked. Now it seems the drivers are no longer available, so as well as charging me way beyond the original cost of the printer every time I need to replace the ink, Canon have kindly built in obsolescence in order to force me to buy a new one.
Thom Yorke has a (very good, if you like that sort of thing…) song about printer frustration, on Anima. Called ‘The Axe’. I am not joking.
Outdated but still same old, same old
No one has mentioned Hewlett Packard, so I will.
Avoid the fuckers like the plague.
I get regular problems that the computer can’t find the printer.
With respect to ink, there are plenty of third party suppliers, who are far cheaper.
The down side is that these days printers talk back to the manufacturers, so from time to time a message pops up on screen when using the printer, informing me that they know that I am using ink not supplied by HP and that if I don’t change the wrath of Zeus will be visited upon me.
There is always the option of handwriting!
I find handwriting a 30 page pdf contract to be a bit of a faff.
I’ve owned three printers in my time and the only problem I’ve ever had with them is working them too hard and wearing them out, but they’ve all probably lasted a good ten years each, at least.
The first one was from HP, the previous one and my current printer are both Canons. I don’t care about the price of ink cartridges; I get good use out of them, but if you rarely use the printer and is forced to change the ink out because it’s gone out of date, then I can see how it would be annoying.
All easy to install with minimal effort from me.
But the new computer I had to buy this year…don’t get me started!
They seem so pleased with themselves that the computers today are teeny-tiny, but then you have to add on a CD/DVD drive, and a USB hub to be able to connect everything else you need extra, and you’re expected to want to store everything in their bloody cloud.
I’ve given up on storing music on my computer, it’s such a chore adding it on the latest version of Windows and its apps, and the old music is stored on an external (physical) memory that I had to disconnect because it didn’t get along with the new computer…probably too much music stored for it to cope.
So now I listen to music on a portable CD player, the few times I listen, or on my mini stereo in the kitchen (when I cook and do the washing up).
But I’m getting ready to finally set up my proper stereo as well, so I can sit comfortably in my armchair and listen to both CDs and LPs (it’s been a while…)
Anyway; printer’s doing fine!
Do you have a piece of music in mind to play as the first song to christen your stereo with when you’ve set it up?
@slotbadger, I hadn’t given it a thought (bad Afterworder…) but I do have a few LPs bought in recent years and never played (because they didn’t come on CD and I wanted them badly, despite knowing I couldn’t play them until I fixed my stereo and it would probably take a while), so perhaps I’ll finally take the shrinkwrap off of them and give them a first spin (I’ve heard most of them on Spotify, but not loving S, I’ve not heard them more than perhaps twice each)!
And before you ask: some of them would be the latest by Anna Ternheim, and Andreas Mattson, and a Billy Idol EP, there’s an experimental jazz thing (don’t remember the name) and a rap album somewhere as well…might be more but I can’t remember.