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It looks like a product but is secretly a subscription

calpaterson.com

261–270 of 326 posts

Re: It looks like a product but is secretly a subscription

#261
post #16

Printers. Yeah. Herewith, my standard advice. Buy a Brother monochrome laser with duplex, an ethernet port, and BRScript/3 (their PostScript clone). Even if you're sure you will never need one or more of those features, get them all. Wifi and Bluetooth and NFC are strictly optional, and probably not worthwhile. If you need color printing, send it to a printing company. There might even be a local one. It will be done…

WiFi printing feels like an essential feature to me. Being able to print directly from a phone or tablet is huge.

Re: It looks like a product but is secretly a subscription

#262
post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except this only makes sense in office-like environments. It’s not a solution for a typical home, simply because getting it to run is too complicated. Unless there’s a way to make it work like normal printer does, eg with AirPlay?

> Unless there’s a way to make it work like normal printer does, eg with AirPlay? It wasn't your distant forefathers in their "brutish, short, and dark" lives, nor even your own boomer parents in the hilarious 1970s, but people alive and walking among us even now (your boss, your children's school principal, your next-door neighbour...) who once upon a time -- not even all that long ago, actually right here in this s…

But of course, same with horse carriages and Flash applets.

Re: It looks like a product but is secretly a subscription

#263
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually shifted to using a double edged safety razor when the cost of the disposable blades felt like too much. It isnt quite as easy, and I still cut myself from time to time but I also am still using the variety pack of 100 blades that I bought two years ago for like 10$.

Try disposable blades from Feather, a Japanese razor and blades company. It is sold on Amazon. I settled on their cartridge razor just for convenience. Blades are excellent.

Feather blades completely destroy my skin. I break out and bleed from small micro-cuts on my face. I’ve found they’re too sharp for me.

There’s no one-size fits all solution here.

Re: It looks like a product but is secretly a subscription

#264
post #16

Printers. Yeah. Herewith, my standard advice. Buy a Brother monochrome laser with duplex, an ethernet port, and BRScript/3 (their PostScript clone). Even if you're sure you will never need one or more of those features, get them all. Wifi and Bluetooth and NFC are strictly optional, and probably not worthwhile. If you need color printing, send it to a printing company. There might even be a local one. It will be done…

WiFi printing feels like an essential feature to me. Being able to print directly from a phone or tablet is huge.

If WiFi printing is essential, then add it to your personal list of desired features. The point of the original feature list is to point out things that will save you money. The point of the anti-feature list is to point out things that vendors typically add-on to make their product more enticing yet don't necessarily add value.

Take WiFi printing. The typical WiFi router has ethernet ports. In that case a printer with an ethernet port is WiFi accessible, is typically easier to setup to be WiFi accessible, and is indirectly upgradable when WiFi security standards change. (The latter is important if a printer lasts 10+ years.)

It is also important to note the original desirable feature list can be modified. PCL emulation, rather than PS emulation, is typically fine. The point is to avoid printers where the drivers are vendor/model specific. USB only or USB/WiFi is fine, as long as you realize that network printing requires (or, at some future point, will require) setting up a print server.

Edit: also, I cringe slightly at the Brother recommendation. I use their printers and only have good things to say about them. Yet the important thing is to avoid the games many vendors play. There may be other vendors who don't play games. More important, there is nothing preventing Brother from playing games in the future.

Re: It looks like a product but is secretly a subscription

#265
post #16

Printers. Yeah. Herewith, my standard advice. Buy a Brother monochrome laser with duplex, an ethernet port, and BRScript/3 (their PostScript clone). Even if you're sure you will never need one or more of those features, get them all. Wifi and Bluetooth and NFC are strictly optional, and probably not worthwhile. If you need color printing, send it to a printing company. There might even be a local one. It will be done…

I wonder if I can get one of those that can also print A3-like sizes. When I last went printer shopping, there was a vastly wider gap between standard and wide-format prices for laser printers than for inkjets.

Why use such large paper? Printing off the occasional orchestral score.

Re: It looks like a product but is secretly a subscription

#266
post #227
post #16

Printers. Yeah. Herewith, my standard advice. Buy a Brother monochrome laser with duplex, an ethernet port, and BRScript/3 (their PostScript clone). Even if you're sure you will never need one or more of those features, get them all. Wifi and Bluetooth and NFC are strictly optional, and probably not worthwhile. If you need color printing, send it to a printing company. There might even be a local one. It will be done…

Except this only makes sense in office-like environments. It’s not a solution for a typical home, simply because getting it to run is too complicated. Unless there’s a way to make it work like normal printer does, eg with AirPlay?

I have a Brother HL-L2380DW. It's a basic monochrome laser with duplex and WiFi. Setting it up was easier than any of my prior laser-jet printers (Canon, HP, both of which always had flaky software and drivers). My iOS devices print to it without any config - it just appears as an available printer and does its job.

Re: It looks like a product but is secretly a subscription

#267
post #16

Printers. Yeah. Herewith, my standard advice. Buy a Brother monochrome laser with duplex, an ethernet port, and BRScript/3 (their PostScript clone). Even if you're sure you will never need one or more of those features, get them all. Wifi and Bluetooth and NFC are strictly optional, and probably not worthwhile. If you need color printing, send it to a printing company. There might even be a local one. It will be done…

Plus, no microdots, right?

Re: It looks like a product but is secretly a subscription

#268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Despite having the capital, both of our cars were purchased on finance deals. For my car (3yo at purchase) an outright purchase was the same price as total cost of finance, so I financed. For my partners car (new) it worked out significantly cheaper to finance as they 'match' the scrappage deal of the old (very broken) car. Whilst most finance deals are scams, there are good ones. In our case double dipping on scrapp…

> Whilst most finance deals are scams, there are good ones. It's hard to get these though. You need a combination of good credit scores, a lot of time, math knowledge and car knowledge and insider connections for that. Everyone else will get ripped off. > Most independents are cheaper I admit I'm a bit clueless about the US situation, but here in Germany if you have a new car it will lose resale value if checkups hav…

Losing "value" on independent services is true, but unless you have the car a short time you will not lose more than you save (UK) unless its a very premium car.

Re: It looks like a product but is secretly a subscription

#269
Another product that does this: video games. Games like Destiny are sold at full price and then ALSO require semiyearly purchases to retain access to the content you bought. Technically each purchase cycle provides new content, but you always lose access to something you had.
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