What inkjet printer prints the best text?

"TJ" wrote in message
.. .
(snip)
I haven't had that problem with Linux. In almost six years of using Linux,
through several updated versions, all of my peripherals (except for one
oddball Visioneer scanner) have worked "out-of-the-box," and they keep
working that way.
(snip)
TJ - I also had to dump a Visioneer scanner when I updated to a new Windows
version. Visioneer didn't update their drivers. The scanner wasn't very
old. Last Visioneer scanner to grace my desk. In fairness, technology and
associated software for scanners had advanced to the point where it was
actually a blessing after the fact.

CBFalconer wrote:
Miles Bader wrote:
TJ writes:

How many printers have we heard about in this newsgroup that
don't work with Vista because the manufacturer didn't bother to
develop a driver?

Of course, a printer that actually requires a special driver is
a crap design in the first place...

Of course a system that uses Vista is a crap design in the first
place. For some of the reasons, see below.

--
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.txt
http://www.securityfocus.com/columnists/423
http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-0702.html#8
http://www.aaxnet.com/editor/edit043.html


All of the links above are reasonably old in terms of the release cycle of a
new OS. Vista has improved immeasurably in the past few months and when SP1
comes out in the new year I suspect we will see better performance as well as
other improvements. Your comment about Vista reminds me of similar comments
about XP and previous versions of Windows during the early stages of release.
In many cases the end result was a pretty reliable OS (Windows98SE and Windows
XP with SP2 for eaxmple). Modern OS' are immensely complex and anybody who
thinks they can be released in their final totally stable version is dreaming.
All of the negatives in the above links have been refuted by people just as
expert as the authors. It seems to me that the links have been "cherry picked",
in other words chosen because they are all negative. There are many positive
links about Vista. I have been using Vista for many months with absolutely no
issues as of yet and am looking forward to SP1. I also lived with the Windows
98 XP iterations which resulted in a stable computing experience for me.
On a more specific note the first link is well worth a read, clearly the author
has an agenda. He says that "This document looks purely at the cost of the
technical portions of Vista's content protection" and immediately follows this
with comments that are critical of the OS with little or no relevance to the
subject matter.
Tony

Burt wrote:

TJ - I also had to dump a Visioneer scanner when I updated to a new Windows
version. Visioneer didn't update their drivers. The scanner wasn't very
old. Last Visioneer scanner to grace my desk.

That's my point. You scanner may, in fact, have worked fine! The
*******s were too sucky to even see if their existing drivers would work
under the new OS (which, in my own case, the driver works just fine).

By the way, Visioneer scanners were/are sold under other brand names
(such as Memorex,Colorado, and private label brands). So when you buy a
scanner sold under one of these brand names, guess whose "support"
you're going to get?

Bubba

"Cal Bubba" wrote in message
...
Burt wrote:

TJ - I also had to dump a Visioneer scanner when I updated to a new
Windows version. Visioneer didn't update their drivers. The scanner
wasn't very old. Last Visioneer scanner to grace my desk.

That's my point. You scanner may, in fact, have worked fine! The *******s
were too sucky to even see if their existing drivers would work under the
new OS (which, in my own case, the driver works just fine).

By the way, Visioneer scanners were/are sold under other brand names (such
as Memorex,Colorado, and private label brands). So when you buy a scanner
sold under one of these brand names, guess whose "support" you're going to
get?

Bubba

You are right - the Visioneer scanner worked just fine. I was forced to
move on to Epson and Canon scanners and ended up with much better, faster,
more versatile units.

On Thu, 20 Dec 2007 21:59:01 -0500, TJ
wrote:

measekite wrote:


TJ wrote:
Burt wrote:

On my desk I always have the two printer solution to the problem. A
good quality b/w laser printer and an inkjet that prints good quality
photos and color graphics. The best of both worlds at this point in
time. Fast text printing for multi-page reports, documentation
booklets, checks, and business correspondance. Photo prints that
look, to the naked eye, as good as lab prints.

Probably the best solution, as long as the O.P. has the space and the
cash to buy, use, and support two printers.

TJ

If you really think about it you may buy two printers but in essence you
are really supporting one in a giving time period. You see if you use
the printers equally then in theory each will last twice as long in a
given period so each will require 1/2 the maintenance. So the average
is the same for one printer.

It's a moot point. If you really think about it, a well-designed,
well-built printer will probably be considered outdated and/or obsolete
by the manufacturer long before it quits printing, even if it's the only
printer you use.

Irrelevant. Even if it is outdated before it breaks it can
still have far better cost per page, far better printing
quality, far faster.



How many printers have we heard about in this newsgroup
that don't work with Vista because the manufacturer didn't bother to
develop a driver?

Who buys an OS without checking if it supports their needs
first? Why buys a printer without checking whether it
supports the OS they want to use?

IMO, Vista is not as worthwhile as a nice printer. YMMV.



It doesn't matter if you use a printer every day or
once a month - when the support is gone, it's gone.

Not really, many of the nicer printers out there aren't
WinPrinters, don't need elaborate software. Some can be set
up generically over a parallel port, especially for text
printing. Others may eventually have Vista drivers unless
very old already, and if very old already, the reasonable
value was already gotten out of the purchase.

You also have not demonstrated we have a reasonable
assumption "it's gone".




Your argument doesn't address the problem of needing enough space, either.

Might be a valid argument in a small office cubical, but the
with several cubicals there would be a shared network
printer. If you're not stuffed in a cubical there is no
real "needing enough space" argument, a printer is not a
large appliance (in most cases, we're not talking about a
high volume business class machine for the purposes of this
thread), it can be put almost anywhere.

On Fri, 21 Dec 2007 08:14:40 GMT, "Burt"
wrote:


"Miles Bader" wrote in message
...
TJ writes:
How many printers have we heard about in this newsgroup
that don't work with Vista because the manufacturer didn't bother to
develop a driver?

Of course, a printer that actually requires a special driver is a crap
design in the first place...

Excuse me for contradicting your generalization, Miles. I've had several
peripheral devices and software versions that worked great but didn't have
new drivers or were incompatable when we updated our OS. Had to replace
them with new devices for which the new version of the OS had a driver or
software versions that were compatable with the new OS version. Common
problems that I've encountered while migrating through the various versions
of Windows. The devices were not crap - the manufacturers of these
devices/software versions decided to not support them with the new windows
version. That is why I've purchased my last two computers in Oct and Nov
and specified WinXP instead of Vista.



I think what was meant was "cheap crap". Given enough money
the printer manufacturer would write a driver, but years
later they don't see any money in it.

Cheap isn't necessarily bad though, cheap stuff can do fine
- till you realize what the limitations were in it being
cheap. Needing a host processing based driver is one of
those limitations.

On Sat, 22 Dec 2007 00:39:41 GMT, "Burt"
wrote:


"TJ" wrote in message
. ..
(snip)
I haven't had that problem with Linux. In almost six years of using Linux,
through several updated versions, all of my peripherals (except for one
oddball Visioneer scanner) have worked "out-of-the-box," and they keep
working that way.
(snip)
TJ - I also had to dump a Visioneer scanner when I updated to a new Windows
version. Visioneer didn't update their drivers. The scanner wasn't very
old. Last Visioneer scanner to grace my desk. In fairness, technology and
associated software for scanners had advanced to the point where it was
actually a blessing after the fact.



Which model? I have 5, maybe 7-8 year old lower-end
Visioneers that still worked on XP. I'd have replaced them
long ago but they keep running so... one of them will be
replaced if I ever need to use it to scan more than text as
it's CCFL is starting to dim some so it is mostly suited for
text scanning now.

On Fri, 21 Dec 2007 18:16:48 -0800, Cal Bubba
wrote:

Burt wrote:

TJ - I also had to dump a Visioneer scanner when I updated to a new Windows
version. Visioneer didn't update their drivers. The scanner wasn't very
old. Last Visioneer scanner to grace my desk.

That's my point. You scanner may, in fact, have worked fine! The
*******s were too sucky to even see if their existing drivers would work
under the new OS (which, in my own case, the driver works just fine).

By the way, Visioneer scanners were/are sold under other brand names
(such as Memorex,Colorado, and private label brands). So when you buy a
scanner sold under one of these brand names, guess whose "support"
you're going to get?

Bubba


Any of the above? Mostly Visioneer since their 'site does
provide the legacy drivers. (see links below).

My Visioneer 4400, Memorex 6142, PrimaScan 2600U (all same
printer/driver, just sold under all these names) has XP
drivers. For the price I paid way back when (under $20
after a rebate) and that it works still today, I can hardly
complain if it wasn't supported by Vista.

http://support.visioneer.com/product...ex/default.asp

Now the funny part, the 2600U claims not designed for XP but
is the same printer, with same driver they claim works for
the Memorex:
http://support.visioneer.com/product.../downloads.asp

On Fri, 21 Dec 2007 18:53:26 -0600, Tony
wrote:

CBFalconer wrote:
Miles Bader wrote:
TJ writes:

How many printers have we heard about in this newsgroup that
don't work with Vista because the manufacturer didn't bother to
develop a driver?

Of course, a printer that actually requires a special driver is
a crap design in the first place...

Of course a system that uses Vista is a crap design in the first
place. For some of the reasons, see below.

--
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.txt
http://www.securityfocus.com/columnists/423
http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-0702.html#8
http://www.aaxnet.com/editor/edit043.html


All of the links above are reasonably old in terms of the release cycle of a
new OS. Vista has improved immeasurably in the past few months

Nonsense. Marketing drivel.


and when SP1
comes out in the new year I suspect we will see better performance as well as
other improvements.


Of course, but that doesn't mean it should be used NOW, nor
does it mean the improvement will be enough, nor does it
negate any of the other valid concerns in the above links.

Your comment about Vista reminds me of similar comments
about XP and previous versions of Windows during the early stages of release.

Then you didn't read the links but read too much into a two
word description like "crap design", which isn't elaborated
upon enough in his post to attribute anything similar to the
state of early release of 9x, 2k or XP, but THEN the
content of what was linked makes it even more uniquely
different.

It really isn't at all similar to the concerns about
previous versions of windows, except in the generic way that
any immature code will be refined over time but even then we
still see what the goal is with the refinement. Vista will
still have many of the concerns people express no matter how
much it is polished, because the design did not have many
consumer's interests in mind.

I am not into "Marketing drivel" I am an engineer and am into first hand
experience and my comments are based on exactly that, my own experience.
Perhaps you would rather believe what people with thinly disguised agendas
write! There are many people publishing good reports of Vista, what a pity that
people don't read the positive and concentrate only on the negative; part of
the human condition I guess!

What's' wrong with using Vista now, it work,s and works very well, for me and I
have pushed it pretty hard; all of my hardware migrated to Vista once the
drivers became available which didn't take very long, all of my software (some
of it quite specialised) is working well with Vista. All of my customers that
use Vista are satisfied with it and there are lots of them. Have you actually
used Vista or do you rely on biased reports?

Of course it isn't perfect, it may never be perfect but it is so much better
than its predecessors at the same point in the development cycle that there is
no comparison. MS have done a pretty good job this time, of course for some
people they can't do anything well.

As I said, experience with previous Windows versions leads me to believe that
there will be significant improvement soon and my experience with the OS is
that there already have been some major improvements......no different to
previous developments.

I read the links very carefully indeed, they are dated and in some cases they
contain barely disguised agendas. The only agenda I have is the pursuit of
truth with no bias!

kony wrote:
On Fri, 21 Dec 2007 18:53:26 -0600, Tony
wrote:

CBFalconer wrote:
Miles Bader wrote:
TJ writes:

How many printers have we heard about in this newsgroup that
don't work with Vista because the manufacturer didn't bother to
develop a driver?

Of course, a printer that actually requires a special driver is
a crap design in the first place...

Of course a system that uses Vista is a crap design in the first
place. For some of the reasons, see below.

--
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.txt
http://www.securityfocus.com/columnists/423
http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-0702.html#8
http://www.aaxnet.com/editor/edit043.html


All of the links above are reasonably old in terms of the release cycle of a
new OS. Vista has improved immeasurably in the past few months

Nonsense. Marketing drivel.


and when SP1
comes out in the new year I suspect we will see better performance as well as
other improvements.


Of course, but that doesn't mean it should be used NOW, nor
does it mean the improvement will be enough, nor does it
negate any of the other valid concerns in the above links.

Your comment about Vista reminds me of similar comments
about XP and previous versions of Windows during the early stages of release.

Then you didn't read the links but read too much into a two
word description like "crap design", which isn't elaborated
upon enough in his post to attribute anything similar to the
state of early release of 9x, 2k or XP, but THEN the
content of what was linked makes it even more uniquely
different.

It really isn't at all similar to the concerns about
previous versions of windows, except in the generic way that
any immature code will be refined over time but even then we
still see what the goal is with the refinement. Vista will
still have many of the concerns people express no matter how
much it is polished, because the design did not have many
consumer's interests in mind.