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BANG!


That sound? Me slamming my fist down on my desk while trying to print out the last issue of my print zine.

With the Rube Goldberg interface of computers and the Web, you would think publishing online would be a bigger chore than printing out a few paper copies. Wrong.

Thanks, Hewlett Packard.

Before purchasing a HP inkjet printer I had other three other such printers, an Epson and a couple of Applewriters. I had some problems with those units but nothing like this HP.

The last issue of my print zine had a number of images. I tried to render them with decent quality but failed -- actually, the printer failed. There's nothing I enjoy more than grayscale images coming out with streaks, especially color streaks. Like a little light pink with that B&W photo?

Double-sided printing is supposed to save paper, i.e., each side of a sheet is used. 8 pages are printed with 4 sheets. But you won't save paper if the printer keeps getting hung up, printing out of sequence.

So next time draft mode, one-sided printing. If that's not good enough, go to my site where PDF files of my zine are stored and print your own.

And don't mention getting a laser printer. I don't have the money and I've used a HP one which also sucked. A HP printer trying to properly communicate with a computer is worse than a computer interfacing with the Internet.

I could go back to trekking to the print shop and doing my issues there but I prefer at-home DIY to save time.

A while ago a subscriber summed it up this way in regards to my efforts to publish a good quality zine:

"I don't care what it looks like as long as I can read it."

So why should I bother?

BANG!

That sound? Another nail being pounded into the coffin for my print zine. I haven't given up, but with HP ripping me off with overpriced ink cartridges and a printer that uses ink like shit through a goose, don't be surprised if my print zine ceases publication.

Comments

Doug said…
Ah, for those good ol' days when layout was done on a piece of paper and photocopied (probably on the Xerox machine at work when the boss wasn't around).

It was a lot more work but a lot less frustration.
12:00 AM
Marvin said…
Some comrades of mine just switched to http://www.mimeo.com/ for print output of their publications. Apparently they like it.
3:29 PM
X. Dell said…
(1) I forgot, in the previous post, to wish the zine a happy birthday. So happy birthday. Many happy returns.

(2) It's funny you should write this. I've spent the last couple of days trying to set up a wireless Epson for my parents. The damn things don't work as the instructions say they should. If they weren't my mother's good tables, I'd be pounding them too.

(3) Rube Goldberg would have probably made a more reliable and less complicated printer.

(4) Might want to look at the first sentence, fourth paragraph.
9:27 PM
Leigh Hanlon said…
Ray,

You might want to look at HP's Magcloud service. I'm considering it for some of my stuff.

http://www.magcloud.com/

It allows you to list your zine on their service and allows people to buy it.

Leigh
8:41 AM
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