By John Wilets
As Jeff Krause has passed the “Tech Tips” column on to me, I felt I should briefly introduce myself. After writing the column for five years, Jeff has reached the age of MYLA retirement, though he still plans on administering the MYLA website. I have worked with Jeff for a number of years in the legal technology field. In fact, you may not even notice much of a change in the column - short of missing Jeff’s fluid, poetic writing style, of course.
As background, I graduated from UW Law School in 1994. Since that time I’ve been involved in legal technology, and have worked with a number of law firms doing training, support and custom programming. If you have any questions at all about a column, or would like to see a particular topic covered, please feel free to e-mail me at john at itprosusa.com.
Okay – enough rambling – I’ll try to squeeze in a topic here. Inkjet and photo printers. Everyone owns at least one or two, and many of you have likely noticed that the cartridges can cost nearly as much as a brand new printer. Some of you may have even been lucky enough to have discovered it after your 6-year old hit the Print button repeatedly on the same screen in Reader Rabbit’s Newest Adventure.
The first tip I have to offer is to never buy a printer that cannot use generic ink. HP may provide you with quality printouts, but it’s notoriously difficult to find inexpensive ink. The same is true of Dell’s newest printers, and a number of Lexmark models. Generally, the most compatible printers are Epson and Canon, and both have a range of high quality printers. In fact, the best photo prints I’ve seen from a $200 printer have come from a Canon (the i950).
The second tip – try generic ink. You may have to experiment a bit to find the best generic ink for your printer – some provide better results than others. However, when the cost is about 90% less than a name-brand cartridge, it’s well worth the effort. One popular, reputable site is located at www.megatoners.com. Notice that even the generic HP cartridges run about $16, while the Epson and Canon ones are in the $1-$2 range. Who wants to pay $30 for a cartridge at Best Buy that you can find on the Internet for $2? Now you can print those 8x10 pictures from your new digital camera without worrying about ink costs.
This tip was originally published in the October 2003 issue of the MYLA Brief, the newsletter of the Milwaukee Young Lawyers Association.
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