Category: work

Me and printers. It’s just a never-ending tale of woe, lately.

Given the total failure of my new Canon machine (no, still no word from Canon support), I pulled my old Hewlett Packard machine out (it hasn’t yet been sold/FreeCycled) so that I could print some urgent and vital colour documents. The fact that I’ll also have to get out my old laptop to do this is an aside.

Upon putting it back on the shelf and powering up, the printer began its normal initialisation sequence. However, this didn’t seem to go normally and resulted in a rather unpleasant grinding noise from under the cover. Not good. A quick look revealed that the scan head was moving all the way to the right and banging against the casing of the machine. Repeatedly. It only stopped when it over-heated and cut out. Hmm.

A quick look at the HP support pages (which are generally pretty good) revealed that this can occur if the lamp is not reaching its correct operating temperature or is not bright enough. They give a set of possible causes, mostly related to the power supply. Well, since the machine is plugged in in exactly the same way that it has been for the last five years, I wasn’t convinced, but I checked anyway. Nothing doing.

So, as usual, Google is your friend and I found my way to this site. The problem with this sort of site is that you have to work your way through lots of discussion in order to extract a workable solution. Essentially, what was happening was that the scan head was looking for its zero-position marker and not finding it. This marker takes the form of a white strip on the underside of the glass, just to the right of the visible section. So, in order to assist others, here is a clear point-by-point method to fix the problem:

• disconnect the printer from the mains and USB.
• using a small screw driver, pry off the control panel cover from the end nearest the LCD display.
• using the screw driver, depress the tab found in the square hole (centre front) under the panel and slide the panel forward to remove it.
• unplug the ribbon cable from the circuit board on the underside of the control panel, making a note of its orientation as you do so (so you know which way to plug it back in later!)
• remove the two star screws exposed by the panel removal (one at the front, one right rear) and the screw near the rear left corner of the printer. (This third screw is described as being at the rear right on fixyourownprinter.com, which set me hunting around for something that wasn’t there for five minutes. Also, if you don’t have a star screw driver, a small flat screw driver might just work. Otherwise, head for your nearest electrical specialist for the correct tool – I got one for £1.26).
• look through the glass with a torch at the center front of the printer and you will see a U-shaped tab sticking down from the top cover that engages a projection on the main cover. Using a thin blade inserted between the covers (I used a very small screw driver which marked the case a bit, but I’m not that bothered), push the U-shaped piece gently towards the rear and carefully lift off the cover complete with the glass.
• you can separate the lid from the glass assembly by simply popping the hinges out (obvious when you look at it).
• carefully clean the glass on both sides, paying particular attention to the white strip. Yes, I know that it looks clean, but clean it anyway. Mine had a thin greasy residue across the entire underside surface which came away nicely using those tissue computer screen wipes.
• VERY carefully, using a cotton bud, clean the mirror that is underneath the lamp in the scan head assembly. Some users of fixyourownprinter.com said that they used an alcohol solution to do this, but I just used two clean dry cotton buds. Be very careful, as that lamp would be expensive to replace and is fragile.
• now to reassemble: place the glass assembly back on the printer, taking care to feed the ribbon cable back through the slot that it goes through.
• reconnect the ribbon cable to the circuit board on the control panel.
• now test that the printer works. Reconnect the mains (not USB yet) and switch on. Hopefully, it will initialize correctly. If it doesn’t, disconnect the mains, remove the ribbon cable and control panel, lift the glass assembly off and have another go at cleaning – you missed something and might need to use alcohol to get it really clean.
• assuming your initialization went well, turn the machine off and disconnect the mains again (better safe than sorry).
• replace the three star screws, taking care not to over-tighten (I actually haven’t tightened mine all the way in order to facilitate any future removal).
• replace the lid (the hinges just pop back in).
• replace the control panel by pushing it towards the back (taking care not to catch that ribbon cable).
• replace the control panel cover by inserting the front tabs first and then pushing down at the back (you may need to use a screw driver to gently help the tabs on their way).
• reconnect the mains and USB and you’re ready to go.

I shouldn’t be surprised if this trick doesn’t work for other scanners and all-in-one machines, although of course the assembly/reassembly will be different for every machine. However, it seems from fixyourownprinter.com that these instructions hold true for several models of HP machine.

Whatever you say about Canon and Canon products and services, taking a week to not answer an email of complaint/support request is indefensible. I sent my email last Thursday. So far, I’ve had nothing more than an automated "we’ve had your email, here’s a reference number" response.

The impression I’ve received so far from Canon is that any problem with their product must be the result of something I’ve done wrong or a problem with another (third party) piece of hardware/software that I’ve installed. The possibility that the problem could be with their product or software does not seem to have occurred to them or even be part of their psyche.

Furthermore, surely if a customer has a problem (and thinking about what I was taught in college by the CIM), the first thing you do is bend over backwards to help your client in order to retain that customer and turn them into a corporate ambassador (people tend to remember problems that were solved quickly and helpfully more than things that went right in the first place) and also to identify a potential product fault and rectify it in a future product revision (perhaps by issuing a software/firmware patch in this case, or at least by giving support staff information to help them identify a similar problem with another customer).

But this doesn’t seem to be part of the Canon culture, based on my experience from the three tech support people that I’ve spoken to and my use of tech support areas of their website.

And it is this, even more than the failure of the product itself, that irks me.

I have some simple advice for you. Don’t ever, ever, ever buy a Canon product. This evening, I have fired off this missive. To say that I’m furious would be an understatement:

I’ll let you know what they say. Don’t hold your breath, though.

Man From Canon eventually called me last Thursday afternoon. All well and good, except I was at a trade show in Angers, France. Even though I politely explained that I was 500 miles from my non-functioning multifunction, he still tried to talk me through the problem. I politely explained that my WLAN doesn’t have that sort of range and it was very difficult to resolve an issue in a noisy exhibition hall whilst propped against a window balancing notebook, pen, mobile, laptop bag and a collection of brochures. We agreed that he should call me yesterday when I was back in the office.

On reviewing my emails yesterday, I noticed one from Man From Canon. It told me that he would be out of the office until Thursday but had asked a colleague to call. He also offered a possible solution to the problem. Unfortunately, the "solution" was simply another walkthrough of the same steps that we had been over before. For the sake of completeness, I went through it one more time with the same eventual outcome. I emailed a reply to this effect stating clearly what the problem was/is and saying that I was looking forward to a new call and some new ideas.

This morning, he called. Strange, considering he was supposed to be out of the office. Essentially, he told me that, since my multifunction functions just fine on my old XP laptop, it clearly wasn’t a hardware problem. And Canon were satisfied that there was nothing wrong with their driver. And that the problem must be with my laptop hardware – a USB port driver problem, perhaps. So I should call Dell.

What crap. We’ve established that the USB port is functioning correctly and that the issue is that the Canon driver installation software does not complete its process fully.

So, using my not-particularly-extensive knowledge of computing, I’ve got the machine working on my XP laptop via USB and via WLAN to both print and scan. I have then succeeding in reinstalling it on my Vista laptop so that it wil print via the WLAN, although there is no communication via USB and no scanning functionality at all. Thankfully, I use my machine 95% of the time for printing. But for that 5% of the time when I’m scanning, I’ll need to power up the old XP machine, scan the document and then transfer the file to my Vista laptop by email or using a memory stick.

Verdict: the Canon PIXMA MP600R is not a good machine for use with Windows Vista. Canon tech support leaves much to be desired, both online (due to assumed knowledge) and by telephone (whether overseas or in this country – they only seem capable of dealing with known issues and then can only walkthrough the normal setup and installation procedures). In short, I won’t be buying another Canon product and wish I’d forked out the extra cash for the HP C7280.

I finally got through to Canon support and went through the usual re-installation on drivers, checking of settings, etc. I spoke with them twice before, eventually, they upgraded my complaint so that it would be dealt with within the UK and not in Bombay (I’m not opposed to outsourcing per se, but I generally feel that you get a better response from someone in your own timezone and not from somoeone sat at their desk at 2am local time).

On Friday afternoon, a Canon tech person called me and we went through the problem. Unfortunately, I could only spend about 45 minutes with them, as I had to get a train to The Smoke to meet with a bunch of weirdos in a pub. We walked through uninstallation and reinstallation, twice, without success. We also verified that everything was working properly. We left it that he would call me back today (as of 3.30pm, the phone remains silent) after he had investigated the problem further at Canon Tech Guy HQ UK. But his last words were "nope, I’ve not come across that problem before", which did not fill me with optimism.

The current situation is this – I can install my new Canon MP600R multifunction on my old XP laptop with the supplied driver and get them talking to each other via USB or via WLAN, both to print and to scan, which is lovely. I can install the downloadable Vista driver (from the Canon website) on my new Vista laptop and get the laptop and multifunction working with the printer driver over WLAN only, not via USB (I have to use the Add Printer function in Control Panel because there is no USB functionality)- and the scanner driver works not at all. I’ve checked the obvious – the USB port is functioning and I have used the same cable that I used for the XP machine, so I know that is ok. Am I missing something?

So, I’ve taken delivery of a shiny new Canon PIXMA MP600R because my old HP multifunction is no longer supported and has no Vista drivers. The Canon does not come with Vista drivers included, but a full set are available from the Canon website. I checked before I ordered, just to be sure.

So, will someone please explain why I have been sat here for four hours trying to get this thing to work? And why, when I call Canon, if I select any option on the menu that would allow me to speak to a human being, I get cut off?

Not Tom, but my business, which celebrates its fifth birthday today.

I’ve certainly come a long way in five years, although some would argue that I’ve not come far enough. It’s taken a long time to get off the ground, much longer than expected, but it is going in the right direction. When I go to trade shows now, I don’t have to work hard to try and get appointments or persuade people to be interested in what I do – in fact, there is generally a good number of people who want to see me and discuss what I do. Now all I have to do is make some money.

Anyway, Hels and I are going out for dinner at the weekend, so I suspect we might have a beer to celebrate the birthday.

A few days ago, I linked (via del.icio.us) this post about laptop cases and bags. I then spent literally days trawling back and forth through the list of links that it contains, as well as several that it doesn’t.

I had originally said that I would prefer to get a backpack-style bag for my new laptop. However, having pondered it a little more and looked at the available options, I decided to explore messenger-style bags instead. The reason for this is that I wanted something that looked quite stylish, that would be comfortable and that would be easy to use “on the hoof”. I spend a fair bit of time at trade shows and exhibitions – it’s difficult to talk to someone whilst standing or walking and reach into a backpack to find a notepad, business card, brochure or whatever. A messenger style bag seems to overcome this.

In the end I came up with a shortlist of four.

• Kensington Contour Terrain Notebook Messenger. Actually ticks all the functionality boxes but it’s just too widely available and not really “down wiv da kidz” enough. It has been given some really good recommendations though, so might be worth investigating if you want a bag in a hurry and want something you could pick up in a local pc store.
• The Dreadful Embarrassment by Crumpler. Evidently, all the cool kids have bags by Crumpler, although a few bag purists now say that they are (to quote one that I read) “mass produced crap”. Checking out the spec did suggest that this would fulfil most of the requirements listed above (including holding my 15.4″ laptop and the sundry crap the I lug around) and the build quality seemed quite robust according to most reviewers. But the lack of a handle on the top of the bag (meaning you always have to wear it over your shoulder and can’t convert it to a hand carried bag for crowded environments, such as trains, planes and narrow doorways) and the fact that *all* the cool kids have one already rather put me off.
• A Freitag messenger bag coupled with a suitable sleeve (probably the highly-acclaimed Waterfield). Oh god, these are unspeakably cool. I liked these because they were utterly individual (each and every bag is unique) and because they are made of recycled materials, namely old car seat belts, bicycle inner-tubes and the tarpaulins from the side of lorry trailers. I particularly loved the F-Cut concept where you could design your own bespoke bag from whatever lorry tarpaulin they currently have in stock. Incredible. But they somehow seem just too cool and not really suitable for a business environment. The price was also a factor. So, yes, Hels talked me out of this. Maybe if I was a cool kid in the city, this would be great. But I’m not that cool, I’m not a kid and the burghers of Ruralville wouldn’t really *get* it.
• The Spire Endo. Not the bag that every kid has. Insanely practical. Smart styling. Has that important grab handle. Gets rave reviews for build quality and comfort. Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. Be warned though – UK distributors (the very few that there are) are still only offering the 2007 edition of this bag. If you want the 2008 version, which I consider to be superior, you must order from the US site and then get delivery within the US to a friend or relative that won’t steal it from you. I needed it quickly for various convoluted reasons and my preferred choice of black was out of stock, so I’ve gone for the blue with black piping. I had it sent on to a colleague in California who has arranged for it to be shipped (in with a consignment of plants, hence the hurry!) to me here. All things being equal, it (and the plants) will be ready for me to collect at Heathrow on Monday night or Tuesday morning. Customer service is excellent (I had a problem getting their server to process my credit card, but it was all dealt with quickly) and they ship via UPS who I have always found to be reliable.

When the bag arrives, I’ll give you a full review. It’s going to have a baptism of fire as I’m off to Germany later this week for the biggest trade show in the business.