Thursday, January 24, 2008
Device gnats-go away!
And what's with all these crappy services they bloat into your configuration and the little tuxedo-iconed application that keeps asking me to set up the printer when I already set it up? I'd like to snap its little suspenders. All this stuff is so in-your-face.
Ironically, the linux drivers come closest to offering unobtrusive functionality (I have a MAC, a PC and an old PC running Ubuntu at home). Of course, HP didn't write those.
4 Comments:
By 
Charlottesvillain, at
Thu Jan 24, 04:47:00 PM:
Couldn't agree more. It's no wonder HP's been in the tank for years.
By Adam Lawson, at
Thu Jan 24, 05:04:00 PM:
I use Linux almost exclusively, and one of the reasons: Windows hates printers. I have always had trouble with Windows and printers. Other than crappy Lexmark printers (and crappier replacement ink prices), I've yet to have trouble with a printer in Linux.
By Escort81, at
Thu Jan 24, 06:07:00 PM:
I think the 1990s were the peak of HP printer glory. I had a Laserjet at work, and eventually one at home. I maintained my one at home for 10 years somehow, although not without some problems for the last half of that period. The HP scanner I had was crap. When I put together a new system 2 years ago, I looked at the reviews on Amazon and Cnet went with a Canon all-in-one (an MP780) that has been wonderful -- good printing, good 4x6 and 5x7 photo prints, scanning, copying, all for under $300 dollars for the initial hardware (ink is not cheap, however). I agree with Charlottesvillian's comment about HP and the tank. Even their once proud storage business segment is not top tier anymore. In B-school in the 1980s, HP was regarded as a model company in terms of one that had managed technology and growth particularly well from its inception to the then current day. I don't think it's all Carly Fiorina's fault, but something went wrong.
By Unknown, at
Thu Jan 24, 11:20:00 PM:
I think HP started going down the drain when they spun off the instrument business unit, now Agilent. There was much synergy among the business units, with the instrument division coming up with technologies such a high speed parallel interfaces and the optical mouse sensor. The last HP computer I used was a 486 Vectra that was built like an armored car. Now they sell mostly commodity junk. Their service for enterprise class servers sucks, as do the servers themselves.
At work, we once used lots and lots of HP instruments, mini-computers, workstations, etc. I'm fairly certain many of those instruments are still in service. The fancier instruments were always bought with an equally fancy computer to control it so HP got some extra margin on the sale.
They never completely merged product lines with Compaq, who never really merged with DEC. DEC just sort of died with all it's great (at the time) technology. All that remains of DEC seems to be OpenVMS.
I think HP's business printers are still OK. We use them and they give us no problems. As for consumer grade, all I can say is do everything to avoid installing the complete software package. If you can install just the essential drivers (print, scan, fax), you'll be much better off. If you need the OCR software or something else, install it separately.
At home we have an aging LaserJet 6p that is networked via a Linksys print server appliance. We just purchased a Canon MX700 all-in-one. Had to return the first one, but the replacement is just fine. I went for the MX700 because I need to have it on my network (Canon printers use a strange BJNP protocol that I can't find much information on). I have a static IP address on it and everything works. And Canon doesn't try to sell printers where all the inks are in a single tank unit, as with some HP printers.
I use an iMac and my wife mostly uses a Windows laptop that she brings home from work (she telecommutes two days a week). She uses the iMac also. Bought a network attached storage appliance with two 1 terabyte drives that are mirrored. The iMac's Time Machine software happily keeps the iMac backed up to the NAS. At work, I have no choice but to use Windows XP on my workstation. Actually, I have little or no choice about anything on my computer at work.
Now, shall I start on Sun Microsystems?
