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Dying technologies: do you still use a printer much?

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mouser:
btw for those who haven't seen one of these ebook readers like the kindle with special grayscale screens -- they look completely different from a laptop lcd -- they are much closer to looking at real paper -- it's quite impressive.

johnk:
Amazon, Sony, and all the rest of the players need to realize that, in the world of business, just because you own the bat and ball doesn't necessarily mean you also get to make up all the rules.
-40hz (August 27, 2009, 02:26 PM)
--- End quote ---

Well, actually, you do get to make up the rules. You can manufacture anything you like (within the law) and put whatever you like in your EULA (within the law). Then the market decides whether it wants your product. And although I wouldn't touch the Kindle with a bargepole because I don't like their approach to DRM, it seems to be selling very well. Obviously, many people don't care about DRM.

DRM (particularly in the music market) is simply an illustration that there are a lot of not-very-intelligent people working in the industry. It took them the best part of a decade to work out that the only people inconvenienced by DRM were the honest people who paid for the music anyway. The thieves carry on thieving regardless. I stopped buying music CDs when some particularly draconian types of DRM prevented me from making copies of discs for use in the car. I wasn't playing that game. My CD collection is frozen in time about three years ago. Once I stopped buying discs because of DRM, I just lost the habit of buying discs completely, and it never came back.

But most of the music companies seem to have realised their error and are offering non-DRMed product. It's just a mystery why it took them so long.

f0dder:
btw for those who haven't seen one of these ebook readers like the kindle with special grayscale screens -- they look completely different from a laptop lcd -- they are much closer to looking at real paper -- it's quite impressive.
-mouser (August 27, 2009, 02:36 PM)
--- End quote ---
Yeah, it's E-ink - pretty great stuff. I have still to see on IRL, but it's my understanding that because there's no refresh (which even TFT/LCD screens have), you get a 100% rock-solid flicker-free display, just like... paper. "Flipping to a new page" is supposedly still pretty slow, though?

Deozaan:
To answer the original question: I think our printer gets used more now than it has in the past few years since my wife took up "couponing."

It became so expensive to replace our ink cartridges every few weeks that we bought a laser printer. The "teaser" toner ran out since we bought it, but we're still on our first full toner cartridge.

I don't print things very often, but my wife does.

steeladept:
I have never seen a Kindle (DX or otherwise), but they have E-Readers on display at Borders Books in my area.  They are nice looking, and they are just as f0dder described - flicker free and easy to read, but very slow to change pages.

I find it funny that so many people complain that there is no backlight.  DUH, that is the point.  If E-ink were backlit, you would start to run into the same problems as LCD screens.  Why get E-ink then backlight it anyway?  If you want to do that, just get an iPod Touch or similar and use that.  They are about the same price and much more versatile.

My big problem with them is economic more than anything else.  Why should I pay over $300 more for an electronic reader, then pay the same price for the data, then when I loose it/break it/decide I want a newer device I loose the book.  Also, with systems that push and/or keep your files (like Amazon), they can also remove them permanently.  When I buy an e-book, I want the entire file, and I want it where I can access and move it on my own computer and my backup scheme, not where Amazon can say "Oh, we weren't allowed to sell that." and boom, all I have left is a credit for another book to download.  What if that was the only book on the entire system I wanted!  That is just wrong.  They should do their due diligence before the sale, and if they made the mistake, they should pay the author for their mistake - Not me paying by loosing access!  At the very least, they should refund the money instead of just providing credit.

As to the original question, I only use it a lot when I am in class.  I think I have maybe ran 500 pages through my laser since I graduated with my MBA.  I am sure I will use it alot again with my Doctoral studies...

Of course at work, I run the Printroom, so yes, we use it extensively there.  In fact I run 3 of them with an average output of somewhere around 40,000 pages a day when run at full capacity.  Of course we rarely run that much.  Usually closer to about 5,000 pages a day on average.

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