Saturday, December 08, 2007

PSA: Your printer cartridge is NOT empty.

Public Service Announcement

I just want to be sure everyone knows this. Just in case nobody has filled you in.

When your computer pops up a message telling you that your printer cartridge is almost out of ink, it is a big, fat, pernicious lie. You've got plenty of ink in there so leave it alone. Don't pull that old cartridge until the last page you print is all fadey and hard to read.

The people that make the ink cartridges are merely trying to get you to throw yours away early so that you'll buy more. They'll tell you they've got 8 kids and baby needs new shoes. They lie.

It is a scam. Kind of like insurance, atheism, and interest-free credit cards. Only not as bad.

2 comments:

IzzyBeth said...

Oh yes - it is a lie. My message comes on 3 times before it finally runs out of ink.

And a PS to your printer cartridge message - they can be RECYCYLED. Your local FedEx/Kinko's should have bags that you can ship them to recycle land in.

:-)

DaveG said...

Although... I have a Brother laser printer that told me that it was out of toner. I figured out that the way it thinks it knows this is by shining a light through a little window in the toner cartridge. A little white-out on the window stopped the annoying message for quite awhile, but finally one day everything coming out of the printer was black/streaky. This was months after the printer told me I was due for a $58 toner cartridge, so I was quite proud of my frugality.

Bought the new toner, but the printer was still making big black streaks on the page. I googled to see what was causing that, and foun some places that said if you let the toner run all they way down, it will "burp out" the last of it and ruin your print drum. Those cost $113. Ouch!!

Inkjets are different, of course, but I've been looking for an opportunity to share that story...