TO PRINT OR NOT TO PRINT THAT IS NOT THE ONLY QUESTION!

I've always been reluctant to spend big money on printers even though I really like having easy click access to hard copies.  It just seemed that  the ink cartridges are expensive and generally they don't last long.
In fact I've never actually bought a brand new printer.  I've always taken hand-me-downs and refilled the ink cartridges with a syringe type refill kit. So I've struggled at times to have a smoothly running printer system.
Running Linux hasn't made printing easier since the drivers are never supplied with the printers and if they are available at all, they need to be found on the web and often installed manually. Turboprint is a good source for drivers for mainstream printers but it isn't freeware.
Last year when my friend started working at Premier Salons, the company supplied her with a used HP 1000 laser printer.  But she already had a new Canon Pixma MP160 colour inkjet all in one photo printer/scanner installed and running and didn't want to change to a monochrome, basic printer so she lent it to me.  Since this particular printer is among the best selling printers of all time (HP sold 60 MILLION OF THEM!)  it was not too difficult to get it to run well on Redhat 9.0 and SuSe 11.1.  But then Karen moved on and the company took the printer back and I was faced with returning to using my Dad's ancient hand me down Canon BJ200 bubble jet or getting another printer.  I began researching and shopping for a steal on a printer. 
A couple of years ago I received an HP 325 compact colour photo printer as a birthday gift but while it works flawlessly with my Canon Powershot SD990 IS digital Elph camera,  it only prints the 4"X6" size so while I felt that I could forgo the expense of a colour and/or photo quality printer, I still had to have another printer.
Since there's already scanning and faxing capability in our house as well, I narrowed down my needs to a basic, monochrome printer but despite my frugal nature, having had the quiet, quick and fluid HP 1000 laser printer on my desk I decided that I would not return to the world of clattering inkjet printers and their seemingly always nearing empty ink cartridges.  Ink cartridges are like batteries....it seems they are always dying or dead. But laser toner cartridges last for thousands of copies.
So dear reader, this frugal journalist turned to the internet and Craigslist to find a laser printer.
A quick search turned up 185 printers for sale within reasonable distance of my office and then 22 laser printers, with 7 of those being colour.  I was down to 15.  4 of them stated that the toner was finished or almost finished and 2 had broken or missing parts. Now I was down to 9.  5 were either huge office types or located too far away to bother. Now there were 4 used, monochrome, laser printers with toner remaining.  The asking prices ran from $30 to $90 dollars.  A little research on the net told me that despite eco, and sales taxes a new laser printer could be had at Staples, Office Depot or Best Buy or Future Shop or for $75 dollars more or less.  Considering that toner refills also cost from $30 to $90 dollars locally, the obvious deduction is that used basic laser printers have zero dollar value unless they are full or nearly full of toner.  None of the remaining 4 printers seemed to be worth making appointments to see and buy so it seems that I was going to have to break down and buy my first BRAND NEW PRINTER!.
Next I turned to my favourite, local, computer store's website GreenNet to try and avoid the the big box retailers where the word Linux is never heard and lo and behold there was a Samsung 1640 compact, desktop, monochrome laser printer for $76 dollars, just a few blocks from my office.  GreenNet offered a one year "take it back to the store" type warranty as well.  Only one important detail remained before I whipped out my Airmiles credit card......will it work on my Linux SuSe 11.1 , X41 IBM Thinkpad?  
As I wrote in my previous entry, Neither Mac nor Linux, despite increasing popularity worldwide, is going to unseat Microsoft as the dominating force in home computers for the foreseeable future.  But Samsung included a Linux driver right on the installation disk....making the ML1640 laser printer almost plug n' play!  Way to go Samsung!  Thanks Greennet.

3 MAJOR WAYS TO A LOW COST, SECURE, COMPUTING ENVIRONMENT

Microsoft's Windows operating systems control the vast majority of the worlds computers. Even Mac hasn't made any serious inroads into Microsoft's market share. But there is a better way... This isn't another of my rants.....well ok it is.

In earlier posts I've detailed my experiences using Linux as my operating system going back many years. One of the great things about using Linux is that it doesn't inherently promote hardware upgrades. Linux runs well on old computers with low speed processers and small hard drives and doesn't demand massive amounts of RAM either. Consequently, as a user and a not a rich one either, I used my NEC Versa LX laptop running RedHat 9.0 for years longer than I could have if I was an XP user for example.
But there comes a time.... I'm writing this entry on my IBM X41 Thinkpad which is running SuSe 11.1 seamlessly!

So the first two things a computer user needs to have for a great computing experience are a great operating system, and high quality hardware. The third and not the least is a technician/programmer who is knowledgeable about Linux....hey every user needs help once in a while!
If you have these three things at hand, you will be able to enjoy years of trouble free, secure and very low cost computing while staying right up to date with all the latest technology.

So what is SuSe?
The openSUSE project is a community program sponsored by Novell. Promoting the use of Linux everywhere, openSUSE.org provides free, easy access to the world's most usable Linux distribution, openSUSE. You'll find more information available in many languages on the project wiki.

Open SuSe is a free and Linux based operating system for your PC Laptop or server. You can surf the web, manage your emails, music, videos and photos, do office work.

Linux is a widely used Open Source Unix-like operating system. Linux was first
released by its inventor Linus Torvalds in 1991. There are versions of
Linux for almost every available type of computer hardware from desktop
machines to IBM mainframes. ...

My old computer runs RedHat 9.0

What is Redhat....Red Hat, Inc. is a company in the free and open source software sector, and a major Linux distribution vendor.