Tech Table Tuesday, May 13, 2014
May 13, 2014
Justin: Welcome to MPA’s Tech Table. I’m Justin.
Diana: And I’m Diana.
Justin: And we’re your hosts. We’ll be serving up a heaping spoonful of all things tech.
Diana: We promise it’ll be easy to digest. Well, hello there, Justin. It is Tuesday.
Justin: It is Tuesday.
Diana: Yep and that means it’s Tech Tuesday. We get to talk about some tech tips.
Justin: Yeah, we do and that’s great but I can barely read my notes.
Diana: Why is that?
Justin: Well, it appears the printer is having some issues and it’s all…
Diana: Which is ironic because our topic today is about printer.
Justin: Is fixing printers. Yes, it is. Yeah, and printers, they are a pain.
Diana: They really are but they’re so wonderful. I remember a time we didn’t have printers at home.
Justin: I remember a time when we didn’t have computers at home.
Diana: Well, this is true. This is true but even after we did have a computer we didn’t always have a printer.
Justin: I remember the old rotary dial on the telephone too.
Diana: Yes, yes, yes.
Justin: But no, yeah printers, they’re something that most everyone has but I tell you what, you buy an inexpensive printer and it doesn’t work after a certain amount of time. Sometimes if you don’t use it very much it doesn’t work because the ink dries up.
Diana: That’s true. They’re finicky.
Justin: They’re finicky.
Diana: And they sure don’t seem to load those ink cartridges with much toner, do they?
Justin: Right, no. No, exactly. So, people often call in and ask us about fixing the printer that they bought from one of those big box stores like Walmart or Office Max or Office Depot. Honestly, when printers start having serious problems, nowadays they’re virtually disposable.
Diana: Which, there’s two ways to look at that – easy or very sad.
Justin: Right, exactly. I think it is kind of sad.
Diana: I agree. I agree. It would be nice to fix it but in most cases it will take more money usually to fix it, sometimes twice or three times the expense of just buying a new one.
Justin: Well, you can buy an inexpensive printer now for what? Thirty dollars?
Diana: Yeah.
Justin: Yeah. I remember when I was younger they were at least $100. Nowadays you have thirty bucks, you might as well just toss it and buy a new one.
Diana: Yes. So, if you are looking for a new basic color ink jet printer, Canon actually makes really good ones.
Justin: Yeah. Now, Canon, of course, Canon because of their photographic technology so I guess it would make sense that they might make good printers.
Diana: Yes. Yes, and if you don’t need color but you would like your ink to last longer, our tech leader, John, suggest actually a Brother laser printer.
Justin: Yes, and I love… Before I came to work at the tech company I never really thought much about laser printers. I thought, “Oh, that’s another step. I don’t need that. I can do inkjet, no big deal.” But the Brother laser printer I have in my office is amazing and I print stuff all the time.
Diana: So you’d recommend that too?
Justin: I would. I’d recommend it highly. It’s in black and white, like you say, but…
Diana: Sure. Sure.
Justin: It works very well all the time and the toner lasts forever.
Diana: That’s awesome. It’s a laser.
Justin: Yeah, it’s a laser. We moved to my new office. We moved probably it’s been a year and three months. I print stuff daily and we’ve changed the toner once.
Diana: Wow. It’s amazing.
Justin: Yeah, it really is.
Diana: Now, some of you may not be so apt to wanting to just throw one out so as for diagnosing quickly some printers that are giving you difficulties you can try look… It may be jamming up constantly or if it’s not printing right, try to do, for fixing them, maybe clear the jams, maybe do a factory reset, look at the owners manual to see if there’s some troubleshooting you can do but really beyond those things it’s not usually worth fixing.
Justin: That’s right, and note, the owners manual a lot of times is online.
Diana: True.
Justin: You’re not going to actually get an owners manual in paper form anymore. Put enough money into a printer to get one that does the things you want but don’t expect to last forever.
Diana: That’s true.
Justin: That’s right. Until next time…
Diana: Take care.
Justin: Tech Table is brought to you by MPA of Bloomfield, Iowa, and God’s Country Radio. You can visit us online at askmpa.com.
Diana: If you have questions or comments, please send them to questions@askmpa.com. That’s questions@askmpa.com.
Justin: And thanks for listening.
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