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#11
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Best user friendly printer maker?
TJ wrote: ***** charles wrote: Hi all, I need to get a new printer. It needs to be cheap to buy, cheap to maintain and the company should be friendly to the people who buy their products. B&W or color is ok. Is there such a company? It should also be able to work with Vista when it comes out. thanks, charles.... Cheap to buy, cheap to maintain, and a friendly company, eh? OK, what planet are you from and what have you done with Charles? Is he in a pod in the basement? Oh, and if you want user-friendly, don't wait for Vista. You'll be disappointed. Get a Mac instead. It'll be much cheaper and easier to maintain, too. MACs are known for being more expensive to buy and more expensive to maintain. I can build a PC for about $1200 that would cost more than $2000 as a Mac. Everything you buy for a Mac costs more. It may be a little easier to operate for the beginner but thats all. Progrmming software either costs much more or is non existent. User software also costs more. TJ |
#12
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Best user friendly printer maker?
"Edwin Pawlowski" wrote in message
news:Gd5Dg.316$df.127@trndny06... "***** charles" wrote in message t... Thanks for the reasonable reply. I think I will go with an Epson Stylus C88 for $80 at my local Staples. I specifically used the word cheap because of the connotation since it doesn't have to be heavy-duty. The other thing I like about the Epson is that it just works with Linux which I know is something I didn't mention in the OP. To me cheap means anything under a $100. You ask a question, you don't like most of the answers, then you come back and finally tell the "rest of the story". Next time, think about what you really want to know and ask with all the information needed to make a proper recommendation. . A lot of folks come to the NG with only a vague idea of what they want to know. It's only after some folks start questioning them that they really start understanding what they want to really know. I don't mind helping them problem solve but it's often that the original poster doesn't realize the effort taken by the responders to the poster's ignorance that got them the understanding they wanted to know in the first place. Too often the OP just gets angy at a response and too often a responder gets too short with the OP. Everyone walks away angry or annoyed. It's unfortunate. People should try to be a little more civil. -- Jan Alter or |
#13
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Best user friendly printer maker?
measekite wrote:
TJ wrote: ***** charles wrote: Hi all, I need to get a new printer. It needs to be cheap to buy, cheap to maintain and the company should be friendly to the people who buy their products. B&W or color is ok. Is there such a company? It should also be able to work with Vista when it comes out. thanks, charles.... Cheap to buy, cheap to maintain, and a friendly company, eh? OK, what planet are you from and what have you done with Charles? Is he in a pod in the basement? Oh, and if you want user-friendly, don't wait for Vista. You'll be disappointed. Get a Mac instead. It'll be much cheaper and easier to maintain, too. MACs are known for being more expensive to buy and more expensive to maintain. I can build a PC for about $1200 that would cost more than $2000 as a Mac. Everything you buy for a Mac costs more. It may be a little easier to operate for the beginner but thats all. Progrmming software either costs much more or is non existent. User software also costs more. Hey, if you want to spend half of your computing time patching security holes, updating anti-virus software, and dodging spyware, that's up to you. Those of you who expect Vista to be much of any different in that regard than the other versions of Windows are living in a dream world. Actually, had the OP mentioned that he has used Linux, I would have said to use Linux instead of a Mac. Linux is available for *free* (including all development/programming software) and is completely immune to Windows malware. There have been a small number of Linux-specific viruses created, but they wither away when released "into the wild" and can't spread the way Windows viruses do. The only problem with Linux is that it puts so much power in the hands of the user that beginners are sometimes put off by it. TJ |
#14
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Best user friendly printer maker?
measekite wrote: MACs are known for being more expensive to buy and more expensive to maintain. I can build a PC for about $1200 that would cost more than $2000 as a Mac. Everything you buy for a Mac costs more. It may be a little easier to operate for the beginner but thats all. Progrmming software either costs much more or is non existent. User software also costs more. It would be a very good idea if Measekite doesn't render any advice for PCs. Macs tend to cost more, this is true. But a $2000 mac is pretty much a powerhouse, offering dualcore and nvidea based graphics. If you are buying a system you gotta buy the higher end machine to get a seperate graphics card rather than the stock i950. It's hard for me to price 2 dual core intel chips since i'm not seeing them on the dell site, but you can get dual g5 dual cores in a mac for about $3000. It's a pretty good value. As for programing software? This is just another stupid measekite statement, someone who does Visual Basic. User software costs more? It depends, a crap load of GNU software has been ported over to the mac. Some software costs more, some software is designed for the mac. A "good" rule of thumb is buy the PC which offers the best benifit for your main application. For example, if your main application is photoshop... go mac.... really go mac. |
#15
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Best user friendly printer maker?
"TJ" wrote in message ... Actually, had the OP mentioned that he has used Linux, I would have said to use Linux instead of a Mac. Linux is available for *free* (including all development/programming software) and is completely immune to Windows malware. There have been a small number of Linux-specific viruses created, but they wither away when released "into the wild" and can't spread the way Windows viruses do. The only problem with Linux is that it puts so much power in the hands of the user that beginners are sometimes put off by it. TJ i tried linux but found canon don't do any print drivers for it. Getting on the internet with broadband was problematic too. |
#16
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Best user friendly printer maker?
"TJ" wrote in message
... ***** charles wrote: Hi all, I need to get a new printer. It needs to be cheap to buy, cheap to maintain and the company should be friendly to the people who buy their products. B&W or color is ok. Is there such a company? It should also be able to work with Vista when it comes out. thanks, charles.... Cheap to buy, cheap to maintain, and a friendly company, eh? OK, what planet are you from and what have you done with Charles? Is he in a pod in the basement? Oh, and if you want user-friendly, don't wait for Vista. You'll be disappointed. Get a Mac instead. It'll be much cheaper and easier to maintain, too. What a load of crap! |
#17
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Best user friendly printer maker?
TJ wrote: measekite wrote: TJ wrote: ***** charles wrote: Hi all, I need to get a new printer. It needs to be cheap to buy, cheap to maintain and the company should be friendly to the people who buy their products. B&W or color is ok. Is there such a company? It should also be able to work with Vista when it comes out. thanks, charles.... Cheap to buy, cheap to maintain, and a friendly company, eh? OK, what planet are you from and what have you done with Charles? Is he in a pod in the basement? Oh, and if you want user-friendly, don't wait for Vista. You'll be disappointed. Get a Mac instead. It'll be much cheaper and easier to maintain, too. MACs are known for being more expensive to buy and more expensive to maintain. I can build a PC for about $1200 that would cost more than $2000 as a Mac. Everything you buy for a Mac costs more. It may be a little easier to operate for the beginner but thats all. Progrmming software either costs much more or is non existent. User software also costs more. Hey, if you want to spend half of your computing time patching security holes, updating anti-virus software, and dodging spyware, that's up to you. Windows update works automatically. Antivirus is invisible and I never get spyware. So what is next. It is usually the idiots who have those problems. Those of you who expect Vista to be much of any different in that regard than the other versions of Windows are living in a dream world. Actually, had the OP mentioned that he has used Linux, I would have said to use Linux instead of a Mac. Oh yeah. More maintenance than a Mac and then you never know what will work and what will not due to the invisibility of drivers. Linux is available for *free* (including all development/programming software) and is completely immune to Windows malware. There have been a small number of Linux-specific viruses created, but they wither away when released "into the wild" and can't spread the way Windows viruses do. The only problem with Linux is that it puts so much power in the hands of the user that beginners are sometimes put off by it. TJ |
#18
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Best user friendly printer maker?
measekite said: Snipped per request
[Regarding windows update, spyware, and whatnot] Anyone who says they have never had a problem with windows is lying. There are plenty of people who are not morons who experenced issues with windows. A few years back PCs which shipped with XP home got infected with viruses right out of the box the first time they connected to the internet. You can't say these people were stupid because many were doing the right thing, going online to get the latest service packs, anti-virus, and firewall software. XP pro and MCE ship with SP2, and all new machines ship with the right patches in place, but this is NOT the fault of the user. Futher, automatic windows update often results in problems. For example, SP4 for 2k resulted in a system crash, a fault I isolated to the panasonic print driver. More recently, one of the automatic updates caused Canon's EZwebprint to break. Again, not the user's fault. Antivirus isn't flawless. The popular applications i've noted miss alot of viruses. [as for the macs requiring more maintance, and having invisable] I have NO clue what measekite is rambling about. It's true that Macs are a form of turn key technology. I'm no mac expert but if talking OS 9 and before you dragged drivers to the system folder. OS 10 is based on the BSD kernel, and you can load a shell. Unless i'm sadly mistaken you can use all the standard utilities to see what device drivers are loaded. Maintenance ? What maintenance? OS 8 and before I agree was a bit of a pain. If you bought 3rd party stuff sometimes it wouldn't work like the apple branded stuff. I.e. you couldn't plug in a hard drive and format it with the apple utilities, you had to get a 3rd party one. You coudln't for example get a toshiba CD rom and auto boot it, you had to get an apple branded cd rom. I think they abandoned this bull**** in OS9, and probally by OS X. [as for measekite] This is a typical ignorant responce. I don't own a mac worth speaking about, but I respect the choice to buy one. For your bucks you get a pretty good machine, something wich is largely standardized. Your typical PC clone you might end up with an Award bios, phoenix bios, or ami. You might get NCR/Symbios boot suppport or not. You might get network boot support or not. Not only is there AMD and intel for processors but chipsets differ from machine to machine. Vid cards change, bridgechips change. With a PC clone, you may talk with microsoft on the subject if you bought the retail box edition, or your vender if you bought the OEM edition, and get stuck in the blame game between vender and microsoft, which gets really nutty when the vender contracted microsoft to do the drivers. At least with apple, you can buy offical apple **** which is supported by apple, which WILL work. It's the NICE thing about making the OS and the computer, though this will change with Tiger. |
#19
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Best user friendly printer maker?
zakezuke wrote:
measekite said: Snipped per request [Regarding windows update, spyware, and whatnot] Anyone who says they have never had a problem with windows is lying. There are plenty of people who are not morons who experenced issues with windows. A few years back PCs which shipped with XP home got infected with viruses right out of the box the first time they connected to the internet. You can't say these people were stupid because many were doing the right thing, going online to get the latest service packs, anti-virus, and firewall software. XP pro and MCE ship with SP2, and all new machines ship with the right patches in place, but this is NOT the fault of the user. Futher, automatic windows update often results in problems. For example, SP4 for 2k resulted in a system crash, a fault I isolated to the panasonic print driver. More recently, one of the automatic updates caused Canon's EZwebprint to break. Again, not the user's fault. Antivirus isn't flawless. The popular applications i've noted miss alot of viruses. [as for the macs requiring more maintance, and having invisable] I have NO clue what measekite is rambling about. It's true that Macs are a form of turn key technology. I'm no mac expert but if talking OS 9 and before you dragged drivers to the system folder. OS 10 is based on the BSD kernel, and you can load a shell. Unless i'm sadly mistaken you can use all the standard utilities to see what device drivers are loaded. Maintenance ? What maintenance? OS 8 and before I agree was a bit of a pain. If you bought 3rd party stuff sometimes it wouldn't work like the apple branded stuff. I.e. you couldn't plug in a hard drive and format it with the apple utilities, you had to get a 3rd party one. You coudln't for example get a toshiba CD rom and auto boot it, you had to get an apple branded cd rom. I think they abandoned this bull**** in OS9, and probally by OS X. [as for measekite] This is a typical ignorant responce. I don't own a mac worth speaking about, but I respect the choice to buy one. For your bucks you get a pretty good machine, something wich is largely standardized. Your typical PC clone you might end up with an Award bios, phoenix bios, or ami. You might get NCR/Symbios boot suppport or not. You might get network boot support or not. Not only is there AMD and intel for processors but chipsets differ from machine to machine. Vid cards change, bridgechips change. With a PC clone, you may talk with microsoft on the subject if you bought the retail box edition, or your vender if you bought the OEM edition, and get stuck in the blame game between vender and microsoft, which gets really nutty when the vender contracted microsoft to do the drivers. At least with apple, you can buy offical apple **** which is supported by apple, which WILL work. It's the NICE thing about making the OS and the computer, though this will change with Tiger. I couldn't have said it better myself. Well, most of it, anyway. I've never used a Mac myself, but one of my best online friends, a newspaper technology columnist, is really big on them. He says OS X is worlds different (read better) than the previous versions of the mac OS. Also, while Mac has gone to using Intel processors, the other chips will still be Mac-specific. Apple is still the one designing the OS and the computers. BTW, that columnist recently bought a new PC for work use. He set it up and connected it to Road Runner, "protected" as well as he could against all forms of Windows malware. Just sitting there, idle but connected, the PC was infected with spyware within a half hour. Measekite may "think" he never gets spyware, but how often does he check? Measekite's comments about higher maintenance and printer drivers were regarding Linux. I've used Mandrake/Mandriva Linux for over four years now, and I've never had a printer not work with Linux. I've used HPs and Epsons. As for maintenance, there is much less than for Windows, but probably more than for a Mac. I'll take Linux over any version of Windows any day of the week. At least with Linux the software doesn't have to phone home for permission for me to use it. TJ |
#20
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Best user friendly printer maker?
TJ wrote: I couldn't have said it better myself. Well, most of it, anyway. I've never used a Mac myself, but one of my best online friends, a newspaper technology columnist, is really big on them. He says OS X is worlds different (read better) than the previous versions of the mac OS. Also, while Mac has gone to using Intel processors, the other chips will still be Mac-specific. Apple is still the one designing the OS and the computers. BTW, that columnist recently bought a new PC for work use. He set it up and connected it to Road Runner, "protected" as well as he could against all forms of Windows malware. Just sitting there, idle but connected, the PC was infected with spyware within a half hour. Measekite may "think" he never gets spyware, but how often does he check? Not using internet explorer helps. A combo of Kerio personal firewall and Avast! anti virus is pretty decent protection. AVG anti virus works pretty well too. Alot of people use Nortons, in fact some machines are shipped with it or trial versions, and it's pretty much crap. Measekite's comments about higher maintenance and printer drivers were regarding Linux. I've used Mandrake/Mandriva Linux for over four years now, and I've never had a printer not work with Linux. I've used HPs and Epsons. As for maintenance, there is much less than for Windows, but probably more than for a Mac. I'll take Linux over any version of Windows any day of the week. At least with Linux the software doesn't have to phone home for permission for me to use it. There are certainly printers which won't work under linux, as well as a ton of scanners. Probally nothing worth speaking about, but I am sure they exist. Kernel based drivers well... can be a royal pain to say the least. As for higher maintance? As a user's machine it's pretty damned stable. It's those damn config files which can be monsters, but your average distro will have a user friendly application which will allow you to tweek the right things. I'm sure there are some phone home applications for linux. Do keep in mind that not everything for linux is free or open source. I don't know how decent real audio is for linux but that's certainly one of those malware based companies. But I have observed that newbees on linux for the most part have higher uptimes than that on a windows box, so long as they are just using the software which came out of the box. |
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