Computer monitor problem

[Don Y]

Yes. In my case, I may have a few score of *feet* (thick) of paper and I want to find a reference to some particular topic. I don't want to thumb through thousands of pages in teh HOPE that I can remember which document contains the reference. Or, miss some

*other* document that also talks about it simply because I wasn't aware the other reference existed!

So, I want to have a text version (at least of those parts that truly ARE text) that a machine can freely access on my behalf.

Imagine you bound all of your "liability slips" into giant tomes... maybe one per year. Now, have to find Bob Smith's paperwork in that tome...

If you have a hopper that can be *set*! :>

I'd likewise not have a problem WAITING if I had a scanner that was FASTER! :>

[Don Y]

I have a little "PictureStation" that makes gorgeous postcard-sized photos. I suspect the media is very expensive (dunno, I always seem to find new boxes being discarded). f SWMBO needs a color photo of some picture she took, I'll use that. Slow as it makes 5 passes over the picture (CMYK+sealant) but you'd be hard-pressed to tell it didn't come from "Kodak".

I use color laser for higher volume jobs -- newsletters, etc. And, a solid-ink Phaser for production quality output.

[clare]

Talk about an expensive way to print!!! We had a Phazer at the office for a while. Kept having memory problems at a rate of about $300 a stick, added to the insane price of the "wax"

The "boss" got great satisfaction from throwing it out the back door to paved driveway.

[Don Y]

Yup. I could never afford it if I'd had to buy the printer (OR the ink! :> )

OTOH, I only use it for my "proof copies" of everything -- before bringing them to the (professional) printer. I.e., ensure the correct color mappings, cropping, etc. I keep these "originals" in a binder (in "sleeves" soas not to have to punch holes in them).

[My monitors, printer and scanner are all color-calibrated so I can know what a particular color will REALLY look like when it is "mass produced"]

Never had a problem with the marking engine. Don't like using it, though, cuz it wastes a lot of "ink" on startup. And, makes the house smell like "burnt crayons" -- not an unpleasant smell but not a pleasant one, either! :-/

Was a time I had three of them. I'd use them until I ran out of ink, then recycle them.

[clare]

We were using third party wax for the last 2 years - actually at one point we had 2 of them in the building - - the first one was discardes with a full load of wax -(imossible to remove and salvage for use in the other one) when the RAM went bad AGAIN.

The last one got discarded when the boss had had enough of it's misbehaving (I think it was another RAM failure - He didn't bother having me check it out before HE chucked it out. I picked up the pieces to take to the recycler.

[Don Y]

I recently had to *purchase* a toner cart for one of the low temp LJ's. It was *REALLY* hard to do (psychologically) -- having never had to BUY ink/toner in the past! :-/

I generate a lot of "virtual paper" -- but try hard not to make that

*real* paper! I.e., most of my proofing and editing is done on the screen. I tend to only resort to making print copies when I'm making proofs (and "pre-proofs").

Or, if I am systematically checking large tables or other masses of data that are easier to be able to "check off" (with a pen) when they've verified.

E.g., there are *hundreds* of "rules" for each of my speech synthesizers (i.e., a particular combination of letters is pronounced in a particular manner when encountered in a particular context). You go cross-eyed trying to keep track of which rule you are examining when you are viewing it on a screen (the symbols used to represent the sounds aren't traditional "letters" that you could easily make a mental note of while parsing the table).

OTOH, print it out and you can use your fingertips to track which line you're on -- and a marker/pen/highlighter to note which ones you've already checked. Kinda hard to do on the screen!

[honda.lioness]

I was getting some flicker and spontaneous exit (from MS-Word) problems whe n using MS-Word. Nothing rendering my computer inoperable but a definite an noyance. MS-Word is the application I have been using most lately. Many her e suggested replacing the power supply. I googled on the net for the expect ed life of power supplies, and my impression is that most people say ten ye ars is way too long to go without replacement (either pre-emptive or due to a power supply failure). Yesterday I replaced my computer's 10-year-old 35

0 watt power supply with the least expensive one I could find in stock at B est Buy. This turned out to be a 400 watt unit, priced at $40 before taxes. It has reviews by over 300 people at the Best Buy site, and a 4.7 out of 5 stars rating. It was easy to replace. I fired up the computer and instantl y noticed a faster response for loading applications. I used MS-Word for a half-hour and did not have any problems.

Thank you to all for sharing once again. It's so liberating to be able to d o one's own repairs and so minimizing being a slave to technology.

[philo]

Too soon for April 1

[Tony Hwang]

What is your computer? No error message like string of numbers?

[honda.lioness]

No, just spontaneous distortion of the letters when in MS-Word on occasion, and occasional spontaneous closing of the application with a request to se nd an error to Microsoft.

I was using MS-Word yesterday and flipping through spreadsheets for a coupl e of hours. Everything is running flawlessly and faster. I am delighted. I checked eBay and Amazon and think I could get the same, brand new 400 watt Insignia power supply for around $10 less. Now that I have some experience on this point, next time I will buy a power supply from the net.