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How to change the region on an HP OfficeJet printer in 57 easy steps

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Re: How to change the region on an HP OfficeJet printer in 57 easy steps

#141

Post by kroltan »

gambiting wrote: post #139
AnotherGoodName wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are required by law to do certain things. You can't print black if yellow is out because the tracking microdots won't print. The region is extremely important not to be changed because different regions have different requirements. You can't even create a printer startup and fix the issues because it's all basically regulatory.

That doesn't make sense - obviously black-only laser printers exist and manage to be compliant just fine

Regulation is "color printers need telltales", not "color prints need telltales"

Re: How to change the region on an HP OfficeJet printer in 57 easy steps

#142

Post by gpgn »

robswc wrote: post #113

I actually have no idea how printers (things that have been around for ever) are _still_ just so bad. I do get cheap printers tbf... but sometimes they just flat out do not work or can't connect or get jobs stuck in the queue, etc. I never experience this when buying other "cheap" peripherals, yet, printers just seem to consistently suck in almost every way.

Obligatory Oatmeal reference https://theoatmeal.com/comics/printers

Re: How to change the region on an HP OfficeJet printer in 57 easy steps

#143

Post by tdeck »

rtpg wrote: post #34
tdeck wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those of us who need to print a bit more often, my advice is to buy a black and white laser printer for ~$40 on Craigslist and you'll get years of cheap, reliable occasional printing in your own home while you use up the rest of the toner cartridge that came with it. When it breaks you can probably find another one in the same price range.

I'm going to advise against this. Most people selling their printer are doing so out of frustration due to paper jams or other nonsense. I have gotten 2 used printers out of not wanting to generate e-waste, only to have constant printer jams and other frustrations leading to me having to just print at the grocery store instead. "That Brother printer" will cost you more (and be Yet Another Plastic Thing To Go To A Lan…

I've done it four times. One printer had an issue but was still usable, the other three didn't. It's very common for students and other folks to sell perfectly fine printers when they move.

My latest one is a brother printer that I bought on Craigslist.

Re: How to change the region on an HP OfficeJet printer in 57 easy steps

#144

Post by AnotherGoodName »

gambiting wrote: post #139
AnotherGoodName wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are required by law to do certain things. You can't print black if yellow is out because the tracking microdots won't print. The region is extremely important not to be changed because different regions have different requirements. You can't even create a printer startup and fix the issues because it's all basically regulatory.

That doesn't make sense - obviously black-only laser printers exist and manage to be compliant just fine

That's exactly why the black only printers are so good though. They escape regulation to print yellow dots since they can't print subtle yellow dots.

They still have tracking dots. But at least you can print when yellow is out.

Re: How to change the region on an HP OfficeJet printer in 57 easy steps

#145

Post by Kwpolska »

AnotherGoodName wrote: post #119
robswc wrote: post #113

I actually have no idea how printers (things that have been around for ever) are _still_ just so bad. I do get cheap printers tbf... but sometimes they just flat out do not work or can't connect or get jobs stuck in the queue, etc. I never experience this when buying other "cheap" peripherals, yet, printers just seem to consistently suck in almost every way.

They are required by law to do certain things. You can't print black if yellow is out because the tracking microdots won't print. The region is extremely important not to be changed because different regions have different requirements. You can't even create a printer startup and fix the issues because it's all basically regulatory.

[citation needed]

Printers are mechanical devices. Putting ink on the page in a way that actually looks good requires quite a lot of precision. It may take a lot of resources to get a marketable product, so it’s not something startups tend to do.

Re: How to change the region on an HP OfficeJet printer in 57 easy steps

#146

Post by MisterSandman »

madeofpalk wrote: post #129
benjamoon wrote: post #70

I bought a Brother monochrome laser printer (with built in scanner) for £250 and it was bundled with 6 spare toner cartridges. That was two years ago, we’re still on the first cartridge. The printer before that was also a monochrome laser printer and that lasted nearly a decade (only got rid of it because it didn’t support wireless and I couldn’t be bothered running cables anymore). Basically, I think monochrome lase…

See linked, also from The Verge > Best printer 2023: just buy this Brother laser printer everyone has, it’s fine > The Brother whatever-it-is will print return labels for online shopping, never run out of toner, and generally be a printer instead of the physical instantiation of a business model. https://www.theverge.com/23642073/best-printer-2023-brother-...

The Verge is honestly pretty great. Usually. It's the only mainstream tech news publication that feels like it's not bought out by every company (re: CNET)

Re: How to change the region on an HP OfficeJet printer in 57 easy steps

#147

Post by teddyh »

If I may, I’d lite to quote, in their entirety, two older comments of mine:

⁂

I agree about your description about printers, but I wouldn’t call them “evil”. I’m trying to think of the best word to describe them… haunted? bizarre? chaotic? random? mysterious? No wait, I know; the perfect word is opaque. They do weird stuff and you don’t know why, and you can’t look inside them and find out why. Hmm, now that I’ve come to this conclusion, the answer seems to be the same obvious one that we already have for the similar problem of opaque software and operating systems. Free software, so you can actually look inside and debug the things when your system/printer has found some new way to confound you.

I seem to recall that the original story about how Richard Stallman was inspired to create the concept of free software was that he was stymied by proprietary software in a printer, so this would simply bring the concept back to its roots, so to speak.

— https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10322408

I wish that the intelligence in printers would migrate back to the computer. Having printers with their own complex formats (PCL, PostScript, etc.) only makes them inscrutable and lends itself to proprietary competing formats and printouts which never gets quite right. I think the original NeXT machine was on the right track with their simple bitmap-only laser printer, where the PostScript processing was done on the computer side.

— https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24787633

Re: How to change the region on an HP OfficeJet printer in 57 easy steps

#148

Post by ProllyInfamous »

teddyh wrote: post #147

If I may, I’d lite to quote, in their entirety, two older comments of mine: ⁂ I agree about your description about printers, but I wouldn’t call them “evil”. I’m trying to think of the best word to describe them… haunted? bizarre? chaotic? random? mysterious? No wait, I know; the perfect word is opaque . They do weird stuff and you don’t know why, and you can’t look inside them and find out why . Hmm, now that I’ve c…

⁂ Are you using this to indicate sarcasm? Just asking cause I saw that given as an example of the tri-star symbol, and I'm just a confused Tennessean!

Re: How to change the region on an HP OfficeJet printer in 57 easy steps

#149

Post by teddyh »

ProllyInfamous wrote: post #148
teddyh wrote: post #147

If I may, I’d lite to quote, in their entirety, two older comments of mine: ⁂ I agree about your description about printers, but I wouldn’t call them “evil”. I’m trying to think of the best word to describe them… haunted? bizarre? chaotic? random? mysterious? No wait, I know; the perfect word is opaque . They do weird stuff and you don’t know why, and you can’t look inside them and find out why . Hmm, now that I’ve c…

⁂ Are you using this to indicate sarcasm? Just asking cause I saw that given as an example of the tri-star symbol, and I'm just a confused Tennessean!

No, just as a section break.

Re: How to change the region on an HP OfficeJet printer in 57 easy steps

#150

Post by chatmasta »

NegativeLatency wrote: post #118
chatmasta wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most places (government included) accept e-signature now, don't they? You might need to upload the PDF to docusign to make it a "legit" e-signature, but that sounds better than the absurdity of printing and rescanning an originally digital document.

Tried this with a couple of forms in Alaska and they were rejected because the signature looked like a digital one. (Even though my digital signature is a scan of an actual signature)

The E-SIGN act says that e-signatures are valid, with the main caveat being both parties need to opt into doing business electronically. Unfortunately that doesn't mean that every agency must accept e-signatures.
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