Updating Technology

Dearly Beloved, we are gather together to witness the death of a faithful printer.

For about 10 years, you gave us no problems except your ever present hunger for ink. You survived through 2 major moves, 3 cats, and 1 dog. How I will miss you. Your successor will never match your capabilities.

NOT.

My Canon MX300 was purchased about 10 years ago. Yes, there were 3 cats and a dog in the household at the time that it was purchased. There were also 2 major moves, to Petawawa and then to Gander.

I did have another printer that I could have used but the cost of the ink was more exorbitant than the Canon printer. Both printers were removed from the house today.

The MX300 actually did die on Wednesday and it's very hard to find ink for the Lexmark. I called Canon today to confirm the printer's death.

I now have a Canon mf4770n printer which has a top load feeder for scanning and copying purposes. I can now scan legal sized documents and get the whole document in pdf. I also chose this model as it is a laser printer and the toner works out to be much more inexpensive than the ink jet. I will get between 2000 to 2500 printouts per toner cartridge. The cost of a toner cartridge will be about $89.00 each but each one will last at least six months. I was spending about $65.00 for a black cartridge and a colour cartridge a month and I did most of my printing in black and white. I purchased the printer for just over $200.00.

How did I come to the realization of the savings that this move would give me? Well, more than a year ago, I became friends with Dave. Dave is from Tennessee and was working in Chalk River. He is a member of our church and his wife was a family history center director in Tennessee at the time. She may still be. He needed a printer while up here and we had the Lexmark that we gave to him to use while there so that he didn’t have to go out and purchase another printer. At home, he and his wife has a Brother multi-function laser jet printer which takes the toner cartridges. They are a fair amount of money as well. But, even though their printing needs are fairly high compared to most older couples, it was worth going this route. The cost per copy is in the neighbourhood of $0.04 a copy for the laser jet vice $0.26 a copy for the ink jet. This is a no-brainer.

Last year, I also did a lot of scanning before we moved to Newfoundland. Yes, you can use a flat-bed scanner to scan documents, but if you have a lot of scanning to do, it will take forever. Last year, I was able to use a relatively high-speed scanner and I was able to scan a lot more documents than I otherwise would have been able to. I was able to shred a lot of paperwork that I wanted to keep because I was able to scan it. I did get a new flat-bed scanner and have been using it since I have been here, but it’s a lot slower than what my new printer will be able to do. It also cannot scan legal-sized documents. The new printer can because of the automatic feeder. I am looking forward to using this. I have some documents now that I should have done earlier this year, but I wasn’t looking forward to using the flat-bed.

I could also use my new printer as a fax machine, but technology today does not really need the fax function. It’s nice to know that I have it if I need it. The MX300 also had that capability but I did not need to use it.

One thing that this printer does that the MX300 could never do is that it can be used wirelessly. You do need to wire it into the router, but that’s all. You can have more than one device print to it. My laptop is connected. I haven’t had time to try my tablet yet. I’m also thinking that there is a way that my husband can connect his tablet. It’s nice that this can be done. It took me a while to figure it out but I did.

The size is a nice size. It fits nicely on the top of a letter size filing cabinet. It’s taller than the MX300, but the length and width are almost the same. My new printer is now in the same spot that the MX300 was. The only difference is I cannot use it to pile paperwork on. I did that all the time with the MX300.

Here’s to the old printer that lasted much longer than most people expected and to the new technology that should last even longer. This is a great addition to my family history tools.