Lately, a good friend of mine has been having printer problems on top of printer problems on top of printer problems. It is actually quite the mystery, something with the memory transfer between computer and printer. It is amazing, because after all of the upgrades that the computer has undergone, and all of the fixes that have been applied and tested, the problem has alluded us.
That, however, is not the point of this small tidbit of information. Thankfully, for both you and I. This is more about the importance of said printer, and how vital it is for your business, no matter how large and no matter how small. The printer is definitely one of the best things for your business to have, be it to scan, to copy, to fax, or even to do what it’s name dictates, print! It is stunning to think of all the things that the printer will be able to do in just a few short years.
These days, most printers come as “All In Ones”, which basically do the four tasks I previously mentioned. These fours tasks are getting seeminlgy basic, seemingly repetitive as each day goes by. We are looking into the future every day, scanning and copying at the same time, scanning printing and faxing at the same time, many many multiple tasks. I am not a think tank, nor am I very creative in terms of the future, so I really don’t have many ideas of my own. Darn.
This all in one pocket knife of techonology is brilliant, and also quite complicated. To be compeltely honest, it is my bane. Printers are just about the one thing that have always tried to get away from my intelligence, and at some point in our chase, it got away from me. I have never quite mastered printing or how a printer fully works, that’s why I stick with more internal hardware and software.. but that’s another show.
If a printer doesn’t seem to want to work, the very first thing I would say is shut it off. Let it cool its’ jets, let it relax, let the power that is stored up inside this dangerous machine dissipate into our atmosphere, because that might be all that it needs, a little time to meditate; so to speak. That has solved certain problems throughout my grind of the computer world a few times, but was never the ultimate solution, sadly. You need to then look up exactly what your error what might be, it can be just about anything; from a paper jam, to a memory error..such as mine.
If there is no documented reason as to why your problem seems to be coming up, try to narrow it down to when exactly it is happening, such as whenever you are saving a document, or whenever you are scanning a document to a PDF, whatever the case may be, you need to try to keep your reasons down. If you get to vague, and come up with too many possible solutions, the only answer to your worst problem would be some aspirin of some sort, to cure that blaring headache you are building up.
It is best to keep trying, though.
If your one method fails, go on to the next. If that method falls through, go on to the next again; just remember to take your time and maybe even a break every now and then, because again, that aspirin wont get you through woods, just over the next ridge. When you are running through the woods, take a minute to stop and look at your compass, it will save your printers life.
But who knows, maybe you can’t save it’s life! Scrap it. Printers are a dime a dozen, so replacing a printer normally isn’t too difficult of a thing to do. Just make sure you get one that is of pretty decent quality, and also make sure that it can do what you want it to. And by that I mean color quality and also quantity of pages printed.
Printers can come in a some what simpler form as well as all in one printers, they come as, well, printers. These printers can either be simple such as black and white only (which is rare), or a few types of color printers. If you look deeper, you start seeing that the ink cartridges are different. There are tons of them! And they are normally the most expensive part of the printer, most of the times you can buy an entire new printer cheaper than the ink for the printer. You can get inks that have all the colors in them, Cyan Magenta Yellow and Black (CMYK), or you can get the type of ink that has each one seperated. It really depends on your choice when it comes down to it, sometimes the “All In One” inks are easier to install, so if you just dont care and plan on printing everything in color, go for those. If not, aim for the later, you might save yourself a buck or two…not much though.
All in all, printers are printers. Sure you might be able to do all sort of different things with printers, and they shouldn’t really be called printers any more, but who knows what to call them besides that. I sure don’t. I hope you have a good friend sitting next to you, waiting to be aligned, waiting to be fed some paper, waiting to do it’s job. Take care of that friend, because when you want to run through the forest, you might not have any aspirin in your pocket.
<3 Mike
