So yesterday I went out and bought a little hp printer. It was on sale for about $50.00 at microcenter. A printer with the ability to scan to pdf would make my working from home a lot easier, I'd told my staff; I was looking through the microcenter catalog, saw one, and thought I'd go have a look at it. Of course, I saw what looked to be a better deal when I was in the store, so I spent like an hour grilling the guy, and then decided to buy it.
Got it home and realized that it was woefully inadequate. Actually, it probably would have been fine, but it was a single sheet flatbed scanner and I wanted an automatic document feeder. So I returned it to Microcenter and got another one. I have to give them a shout out. Even though I'd installed the starter ink cartridges, they took the return and gave me full credit for it. I ended up with an Officejet Pro 8600. It's a bit bigger and sturdier, and has a 35 page auto document scanner (although I have discovered. there is no manual feed option for envelopes, which means that if I want to print one envelope I have to take the paper out, realign the spacers to fit the envelope, and put in at least two envelopes, since it won't print with only one.). That scanner has gotten mixed reviews, but I'm expecting it to meet my needs. The printer is a duplexer, as well; not sure if it makes two sided copies or only prints on two sides, but the two sided printing will be nice.
It's all set up: it scans, it faxes, it copies, I have yet to put a network cable into it and it still scans to my laptop; it has its own email address so I can send jobs to the printer by emailing them to it; all in all, it's pretty neat. The ADF seems to work ok, though a bit slowly; I haven't tried the duplexing yet. I can't imagine that it will live up to the ppm specs I thought I saw on it (something like 18-20 bw, and a little less for color). It seems considerably slower than that. Even though it's an HP, and we all know that HP makes its money not in printer sales but in toner and ink sales. I bought the XL cartridges for it because Microcenter didn't have their store brand in stock, and because xl cartridges are supposed to last longer (I looked at a cheaper, similarly functioning printer, but it cost about $50.00 less, but the cartridges gave me about half the output of these while costing 2/3 as much as these.). All that to say that the ink cartridges cost nearly as much as the printer did.
But the joy and convenience of being able to sit on my living room floor and copy pics for my cousin, then print, sign and scan documents for the office -- that's priceless! I now have a mobile office in my living room (because there's a tv in the den, and I'd never get anything done). It's about time for a home makeover, though. I have hundreds of cds, but am dismantling the cd/cassette player/stereo thingie, and I have knickknacks from all over the world. It's lovely, but do I really need stone birds, wooden animals, stone fish, pyramids, oxcarts, wooden and glass glass hearts, African masks and walking sticks, olivewood statues, Alaskan totems, Taj Mahal miniatures, an uncured shofar, and Tiffany clocks all in my living room? As I look around, they are certainly reminders of a life well lived, but they're like everywhere. And while everything I have is something I brought back from a country I visited (except for the Taj Mahal. Someone brought that back for me), I could probably get many of these items here in NYC. My house looks like a flea market, and like I have a bit of a fetish for birds.
My plant is dying. The last time my plant died (Fred, may he rest in peace), I was diagnosed with breast I've had my little plant since it was in a 7" pot; I can now not find a pot big enough for it. So it needs a little tlc.
Which I hope to be able to give it if I'm working more from home, which I should be able to do now with my office phone and printer all here in my living room.
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