Pro life tip.
- Buy a printer that accepts off-brand cartridges.
- Buy off-brand cartridges in bulk for further discounts (I buy 12-packs of ‘Hicorch’ cartridges for my Epson Stylus)
- Relax never having to worry about running out of ink.
Better pro-life tip.
1)Buy a laser printer instead of inkjet and never worry about ink again.
That’s it. That’s the only step.
Or an ink tank printer. Way cheaper.
- Don’t update the printer that might put DRM in after the fact.
Keep it far away from the internet.
Now for an idea time. Printer with WiFi that auto-connects to unsecured networks (read “public”) to install updates for user’s convenience. Or, the drivers could proxy host’s connection. Or, download the update to host in advance, then auto-update by pushing to the printer when connected, even offline. Or, build an LTE modem into the printer.
Calm your tits, Satan.
Pro life tip.
1) Buy a printer that accepts off-brand cartridges.2) Buy off-brand cartridges in bulk for further discounts (I buy 12-packs of ‘Hicorch’ cartridges for my Epson Stylus)3) Relax never having to worry about running out of ink.- Buy a ink tank printer
- don’t buy an inkjet printer
Ink is for chumps. Real chads buy toner.
LOL, but what about ecotank technology?
Living in Japan and being able to walk a block over to the convenience store when I need to print something every few months is the greatest daily life I’ve ever had with a printer.
This came in handy for me, I dropped my phone there last time I was there on holiday, my screen shattered and I couldn’t get a QR code to scan, luckily the staff at the combini helped me print it out, god knows what they thought seeing a panicked Scotsman trying to translate through Google 😄
After I bought a bunch of inkjet printers and figured out ink tank modifications … I finally just bought a good Canon Inkjet Printer.
After ten years of messing around with these dumb printers for about ten years my inkjet printer has been working fine for the past ten years and I’ve only ever changed the toner once and never had any problems.
??
You said “ten years” so many times in one sentence that I’m honestly unclear on how much time passed.
It was a time loop … it could have been ten years, maybe more, maybe a hundred years … I don’t know
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No offence taken … the last time I used those dumb tanks, or off brand cheap inkjet replacements (I still have a stack of them in my basement in sealed packages) was over ten years ago. I don’t remember how or what I did back then … all I remember is that it was all a constant pain because every time I found a solution, the companies figured out ways to break any set up and then people would start with something new again.
And all I ever wanted to do was print black and white documents anyway. It was always a pain in the ass to try to print a black and white page and my printer would complain that it needed CYAN! … the comic and jokes about that is real … you couldn’t print unless all the colours were there.
I got so mad about it all I went and bought a $300 laser printer and have never had problems since. Once this printer goes, I won’t mind spending $500 on another laser printer because I will never invest in an inkjet printer for my home office.
For real, an HP nowadays is even worse at that. They have a setting now called true black that instead of just using the Black Ink that comes with a printer it uses the black ink and a little bit of every color to make it so it’s a darker shade. The result is a darker tone however it blows through your ink even faster because it’s also using your color at the same time.
If I have no more choices … I’d switch to a mechanical Gutenberg press before I go back to inkjet ever again.
Get an ecotank printer
I have am epson ecotank and they actually make money on the printer instead of the ink, you fill the ink into tanks on the printer
They some other cool uses too:
Applied Science Photochemical Machining
My advice, since as others have said inkjets are trash: If you only need to print something every so often, use your local library. Easier if you live close to one, and still a hassle loading it on a thumb drive, but to me it’s easier than having a printer taking up space in my home.
And if you want to print photos, get it done at a lab. It’ll cost more or less the same or even be cheaper, and come out much better.
When you say “a lab,” what are you referring to? Do you mean shops that provide photo printing, or somewhere more dedicated to photography specifically?
I like to scrapbook, but I don’t know anywhere that only prints photos. The photo lab at CVS can suffice for a lot of things, but if there is a better option, I’d value advice about it!
I meant it as a generic term for a photo printing place. Typically online nowadays. Good ones will do colour proofing if you take that into account in your processing.
I’ve been doing this for over a decade now. I don’t use a thumbdrive though, I just email myself the thing I need to print. Go to library computer, log in to email, print right from there. Each page is 10 cents at my local branch.
Also, a lot of libraries will provide you with a “guest pass” so you can use the computers even if you don’t have a library card. 10/10 highly recommended.
I have to press “keep on printing” on my printer for months now and every print is fine. This is just disgusting.
Another way they get you: the ink cartridges that come with new printers are often only half full.
half full is a very optimistic view. I’ve taken apart HP cartridges that were defective at my last job, the starter cartridges are maybe 1/8 to a fourth of the container when being generous, the instructions back when they used to have paper instructions would say there is only enough ink in the printer for about 10 pages worth
Keep in mind pages talks about 5% coverage, too.
Way less than that. They put demo cartridges that are like 1/8 normal capacity, so you get a few pages and then gotta cough up.
I had to print maybe 3 times in the last 10 years and just used one of those coin operated printer things. Does anyone still print that much to justify owning a printer?
Yes. But I use a cheap Brother laser printer.
it used to be that way… then they came up with ‘starter’ consumables with a fraction of the useful ink/toner inside.
I have bought a “starter” cartridge inkjet, a "premium“ AIO inkjet, and (supposedly) one-of-the-better-ones monochrome laserjet. All of them gave me nothing but grief. I used to think this was an accepted loss with the entire printing landscape, that it’s a problem of the domain itself.
Turns out it was because I had always bought HP.
The last final printer I bought is a Brother inktank. It is not without its quirks, granted, yet I have never felt so easy.
God knows how much of a grief stricken, pain inducing, blood boiling, poisoned my life was– because HP. Once I switched to a different vendor, a burden of sorts was lifted.
i have had a total of 5-6 products in my lifetime from HP, and I’m pretty sure each one has easily taken out years from my life expectancy.
Anyone ever tried to assemble a compute cluster from these?
I have done this before!!!
Why is it the cyan that’s low in the comic? It’s always fucking yellow that they scream about.
If I recall correctly it always screams about yellow because many printers print microscopic dots that make a code allowing law enforcement to ID the printer
*Goes through and upvotes all the comments about getting a Brother laser printer*
If you need an ink jet, I can also recommend the Epson L3260 ink tank. You pay a bit more for the printer but the ink is fairly reasonable.
Mostly true, but a few months ago there was some reports of an automatic firmware update that blocked 3rd party ink or toner. It was probably my fault since I just bought a Brother and this sort of thing always seems to happen to me.
This reminds me, I need to learn how to partition my network to keep thebprinter from reaching the internet.
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