Help me spend money

[liv]

I have stuff lust, but I'm not sure where to start; would appreciate any advice.

1] I need a printer for work. Given my financial situation, and the fact that I'm likely to end up using it for a mixture of personal and work stuff (and can't be bothered keeping track), I'm probably going to end up paying for it out of my own money at least some of the time. It probably needs to double as a scanner (so I can make digital images of some of my experimental data), but I don't care about photocopying or faxing. I'm willing to buy separate machines if that's a better idea, though I am somewhat pressed for space as well as money.

Desired features, in order of priority:

• Reliability, as I have no way of fixing it if it breaks beyond making puppy eyes at mechanically inclined colleagues
• Cheap running costs I very much don't want a cheap printer with vastly expensive ink and toner, or worse, ink that you can only buy from one special approved supplier. I'm willing to pay more up front for something that's economical to run and doesn't break all the time.
• Speed I am quite likely to be printing out dozens of pages at a time fairly often.
• Variable settings Would be useful, though not essential, to print things like letters and research articles where the visual parts matter a lot at high quality, and things like mostly text research articles or train tickets at low, ink-saving quality.
• Colour Colour can sometimes be useful, especially for articles with lots of red and green fluorescent labelled bits. But I'll live without if it's incompatible with my other desired features, and I do want to have the option to print out in black and white most of the time (and not use up all my coloured inks to make plain text vaguely dark grey).

I've had good experiences in the past with Brother and I'm neutral to positive about HP. I have had bad experiences with Epsom, and I'm inclined to avoid them unless there's a really convincing reason to change my mind. Can anyone recommend me a brand and/or a supplier?

2] Given that I'm putting all my work on my personal laptop at the moment, I need a backup system. Should I just buy a giant external hard drive, or what? And if so, what features should I look for and what brand should I get?

3] I think I need a breadmaker. I'm not sure I actually do need one; it's yet another kitchen gadget taking up my working surfaces. P'tite Soeur thinks I should just make bread the old-fashioned way, and I take her point. I like the idea of something that I can just set up and leave to run overnight, as opposed to a technique that, while it's not particularly difficult or time-consuming overall, requires attention at set times over a several hour period. I have great difficulty buying fresh bread here, though; there is one fairly nice bakery in town, but it's a bit awkwardly located, and I am rarely available during shop hours, so I usually end up buying supermarket bread.

I have absolutely no idea what features are worth having in a bread maker, though! I am inclined to just get the next-to-cheapest from Argos and see how I get on with it, but if someone has experience with these things, I'd be happy to know what makes such a machine more pleasant to use.

4] I've already spent some money on a replacement netbook. I got an Eee 900A second hand from eBay, running Ubuntu, but the problem is that the vendor has forgotten to remove her user settings. I've not had any replies to my messages asking her to let me have the password so I can actually get past the start screen. pseudomonas said that the best way to deal with this problem is to reinstall the OS from scratch (since obviously I don't particularly want someone else's data or user settings anyway). Well, that's sort of a geek rite of passage, isn't it, but I'm a little nervous in case I screw things up. Reading around, it seems that it's rather tricky to make an Eee running Ubuntu talk to WiFi, and that's probably the main feature I need anyway, so that puts me off.

Does anyone have experience of running or installing Ubuntu on Eee netbooks? Should I go for full-fledged Ubuntu or one of the cut down versions specially designed for netbooks? Assuming I do manage to install it, what software do I need? Pretty obviously a browser (Firefox has Linux versions, right?) and a text editor, and that maybe just about it. Desirable but not essential would be a music player, and an office suite (Open Office has Linux versions, but I'm not sure how to choose between them). I assume a new install of Ubuntu include things like a graphical desktop and some facility for installing and updating stuff, right? Do I need to go and find specific drivers separately, and if so where's a good place to look for them?

In other attempting to be a geek news, I now have an official Dreamhack (Dreamwidth development environment). So that means I have to figure out how to run the hack myself, so that I can test and submit patches, rather than just playing around with the code and getting other people (mainly the wonderful afuna) to do the technical bits. I think that means understanding Apache and having another stab at Mercurial, and quite possibly some other stuff too. I've had this problem a lot with programming; I'm reasonably good at learning how to write code by looking at tutorials and trying things out, but I keep getting confused by creating situations where I can actually execute my code. But I'm pretty excited to be trying this out.

Comments

[simont]

Backup system: yes, I would say a giant external hard drive is the right thing. A few years back I used to attempt tape backups on the grounds that that was what other people I knew did, but (a) this requires much more fiddly specialist hardware and software and procedures, and (b) hard disks then increased in size by an order of magnitude and tapes didn't. I eventually stopped bothering to run backups on tape because they were just so much hassle, but now I'm using external HDs I am actually capable of running a weekly backup as part of my housework routine without forgetting or oh-I-can't-be-bothered-ing. (And it's rescued me once already this year.)

Rather than recommending a specific brand, my feeling tends to be that having multiple external HDs by different manufacturers is probably a good idea. I think multiple ones are worthwhile because that way, even when the computer is plugged into one backup disk, there's still one copy of your data not connected to anything, so that if there's a dangerous power surge that takes out everything currently connected to the mains (which has happened to me), that one survives.

I can't say much about your various other points, I'm afraid. My printer requirements are so different from yours that none of my own printer thoughts are likely to help you; my breadmaker was chosen for the sole criterion "has a gluten-free setting", so apart from observing that the Panasonic SD-253 basically works and doesn't actually set the bread or the kitchen on fire I can't say very much else that's useful; and netbooks are a field I have yet to explore, though I vaguely plan to have a look next year. However, I can at least answer one of the easy ones:

(Firefox has Linux versions, right?)

Yes. I'm posting this through one of them :-)

[liv]

Yay, this is super-helpful, thank you. Giant external hard drive sounds good, and easy rather than hassly to run regular backups is a big advantage. It probably is worth having one that physically lives at work and one that physically lives at home, and if I'm going to do that kind of redundancy, then different brands seems a good idea. My 80s child heart is kind of delighted at the idea that I can just go out and buy a terrabyte or so of disk storage!

Also yay gluten-free bread and yay Linuxy Firefox.

[elainegrey]

BTW, my backups are done over a firewire drive, that is firewire powered. It does seem faster than the USB2 drives (bus powered and plugged in). If you have a firewire port (IEEE 1394 interface aka i.LINK (Sony), and Lynx (Texas Instruments)) you might find the premium price worth the time savings.

[green_knight]

I've worked for a company that was relying on automated backups with... interesting results. Such systems are nice when they work, but remembering to back up your data once a week or whenever you've done something important probably works just as reliably.

I have a portable HD for quick access - you don't have to mess around with power supplies and the like, plus it's silent - and a desktop drive for backup backups, which is *not* connected.

[lavendersparkle]

I have a bread maker and it is one of my favouritest possessions. We've got a Kenwood BM250 and it's still going strong after nearly two years. I can't compare it to other bread makers as I've never owned a different one. We don't use the overnight baking feature though because the loaves are always a bit denser than when we set it going straight away and it makes a lot of noise, which used to wake us up at 4 am in our one bedroom flat. Also, fresh bread is harder to slice, than bread which has had time to cool.

[liv]

OK, that's convincing, cos you're hippy enough to make your own bread if that were a sensible idea, so I feel less guilty about considering the breadmaker option. And good advice about the overnight setting, thank you.

[lavendersparkle]

I may give a slightly false impression. People seem to assume that I'm the kind of person who would hand make bread, because I'm a hippy and I love baking cakes and biscuits and crumbles. I actually can't at all be arsed to make bread by hand. I even make challah in the breadmaker on the dough setting and just braid it and bake it in the oven. This has vastly improved my challah as the breadmaker doesn't get bored after about ten minutes of kneading and decide that that's probably enough.

If you want a nice rationalisation for getting a breadmaker, they're more energy efficient than baking in the oven and possibly more energy efficient than buying bread http://www.lowcarbonlife.net/default.asp?page=40 (Of course, this doesn't take into account the embedded carbon in the breadmaker, so maybe it doesn't work overall unless you get a second hand one.)

[liv]

Ooh, I didn't know that you could do part of the job in the breadmaker and then take the challah out to plait and bake (and, well, take challah, which would kind of be the point of making my own)!

I'm not so worried about the energy cost of running the machine; small household appliances use relatively little energy. My reluctance is a lot more about the labour and environmental costs of making the thing, and the problems of eventually disposing it. IOW I care more about the rare and toxic metals in electronic goods, than the carbon in the plastic casing. For kashrut reasons I'm a bit reluctant to go for second-hand, sadly.

[green_knight]

I'm very happy with my HP all-in-one printer - the printing quality is good, the scanner works very well, the noise level is very moderate, and the running costs are so-so if you buy your ink online and in bulk.

For a hard drive, I'd reccommend Iomega. I've tried several brands, and I just found it all-round impressive. Doesn't the Eee have a 'reset factory settings' button hidden somewhere? Asus should be able to help with that one.

[liv]

Thank you, this is all helpful. HP all-in-one sounds worth investigating, and I'm happy to benefit from you experience of testing several hard drives.

I think the original Eees did have a reset button, but I assume that depended on having the Xandros OS installed. This computer has already been upgraded to use Ubuntu, and I don't think Ubuntu installs include that feature. I do have a recovery CD, which might (I think?) set everything back to square one. But the machine (like most netbooks) doesn't have an optical drive, so it would be a hassle to use it. What I've been reading on the subject suggests that the consensus is that it's worth having a full-fledged version of Linux, not just toy version that shipped with some of the earlier Eee models (Asus have more or less given up on that, I believe, so it's not really getting updated much.)

[green_knight]

My Eee is running the out-of-the-box because I hate Linux, and it does the things I need it to do - run Firefox, run Open Office, move files around a bit. If you're comfortable with Linux, then you'll probably want to do Linux-y things on it; I don't.

[liv]

That's very sensible advice; I did that when I had my first Eee (which died because I physically broke the screen and it costs nearly as much to replace as to buy a new second-hand netbook, not because of any problem with the software.) The trouble is that Asus are no longer supporting their Xandros easy Linux, and I am bit reluctant to install an OS that isn't being updated regularly, even if I don't really need the extra functionality of a full Ubuntu.

[ghoti]

*wanders in through network page*

ubuntu on a netbook is pretty awesome. depending on the size of the HD, i'd recommend one of the pared-down versions. ubuntu is also pretty awesome in that everything you need comes with the install -- firefox, open office, a chat program, a handful of games, a pdf/image viewer, and more.

sadly, i have no experience with drivers.

in regards to the wifi, it can be tricky, but sometimes restarting solves the connectivity problem. my main issue, actually, is unlocked public networks. if i'm using a private/locked one (at home or at a friend's), it's rarely a problem -- select network, enter password, boom.

[liv]

Thank you, this is really helpful, and makes me less scared of trying Ubuntu. I know it's supposed to be user-friendly, but sometimes Open Source people have a bit of a weird idea of what counts as user-friendly! And that's good info about the WiFi issue, too.

[ghoti]

the full install is so easy! i'm even inclined to let my mom try it out. mind you, she's the woman scared of dialog boxes. if she sees one, she stops, backs away, and waits for my dad to get home to take care of it. i wouldn't test her on the netbook install, but i suspect you'll be fine with it. :)

[liv]

It was fine! Thanks for the encouragement. It did require a couple of tries with different settings and such to get it right; I think that's the basic geek mindset, that if it doesn't work try again with a slightly different setup, rather than just panic or get frustrated. I'm about to take the netbook on its maiden voyage, as I'm setting out on a 4-hour trip this afternoon, and it's coming with me.

[ghoti]

yay! how'd the first expedition go?

[emperor]

I have a Western Digital MyBook 1TB external drive at work for backups, and I'm pretty happy with it. Unlike the LaCie which I had before it which kept breaking :(

[simont]

Mmm. I had a LaCie in my backup disk collection briefly, but it blew up, so I took it back for a refund.

(There, two anecdotes. That's practically data! :-)

[jack]

Well, it's unarguably dataums. This is why I think "datums" should be a word now :)

[liv]

Cool, negative recs are also useful. I'll look for other brands than LaCie, thank you.

[afuna]

Re: Ubuntu

I'd definitely go with one of the pared down versions! I have xubuntu on my eee, and it's treating me well. One useful resource I found: Ubuntu's wiki page for hardware support for the various eee models. The 900a just says no major issues which I guess is good? Ahahaha :D

That is, it's good unless there is a major issue that isn't listed there and you'll need to spend more time googling for it. However, they've been very good about listing wifi/sound/blahblahblah issues for a bunch of other models, so I am erring on the side of optimism, and considering the emptiness of that space as a good thing :)

Also yay Dreamhack!

[liv]

Thank you, that does look a helpful page. One of the reasons why I want to move into the Linux world (even though I'm intimidated) is that there are so many user-created resources available, I don't have to rely on Microsoft's completely impenetrable unhelp documents.

Bread

[403]

This recipe for no-knead bread requires my attention 3x. Once when mixing the ingredients (skip the second rise and just let it sit however long is convenient), once when putting it in the oven (you can leave the lid on the cooking dish, but it will take a bit longer to brown), and once when taking it out.

Re: Bread

[liv]

Huh, that does sound maybe doable. I could make the dough first thing when I come home from work, leave it over the evening and night, and then bake it first thing in the morning, setting the oven on a timer and just leave the bread there until I come home. Worth experimenting, thanks for the link!

Re: Bread

[forestofglory]

I was also going to suggest looking into No-knead bread. Personalty I enjoy kneading so I have not tried no-knead, or a bread maker, but they seem worth trying if one has less time, or simply doesn't enjoy the work.

Re: Bread

[liv]

Thanks. The problem is not that I hate kneading, or that I don't have time to knead in the absolute. It's that I can't easily plan my day around the small bursts of attention that traditional bread-making requires. The thing about trying no-knead bread is that there aren't any set-up costs; I can still go for the breadmaker if it turns out to be impractical or unpleasant.

[hatam_soferet]

I have easypeasy on my eee. It was super-easy to put on there once I figured out that it only boots from one of the USB slots and not the others. It comes with all the software I need for the transient stuff I want to do with it.

But I regret not having bought it with Windows, because I'm finding figuring out Linux to be very tiresome, and I can't get Hebrew to work on it.

[liv]

That's good experience to know, thank you. I am not so fussed about Hebrew; I'm happy to use the full-sized computer for that, likewise for running specific bits of software. I regard my netbook as a portable internet terminal, and not as a primary computer. So anything that looks awkward in Linux I will either not bother with, or use the internet to find tutorials and resources. I don't particularly want to give Microsoft money for Windows unless I really need it.

[hatam_soferet]

Oh, sure. I am fussed about Hebrew, it's most annoying to try and do my sort of thing without any Hebrew :) but that's just me venting.

[wychwood]

I have Ubuntu on my netbook, and it is lovely. Also, I'm more than willing to provide Linux tech support if required (and you don't already have that covered from other directions!). I'm running UNR, Ubuntu Netbook Remix, which is optimised for the smaller screen and all; regular flavour does work well enough, but it's definitely more convenient with the netbook specialisations. You don't need to worry too much about software, either - it will automatically come with nearly all the basics (Firefox, Open Office, chat client, email client, music/video player - though you'll need to install some stuff to get mp3s and other non-free formats working, webcam software, notepad program, terminal, games, blah blah blah).

Seriously, though: if you want any help with it, I'm more than willing to provide assistance.

[liv]

Thank you, this offer (and your support via IM) really helped me with having the confidence to try this. And if there's something I can't do, I'll search the internet for instructions and try stuff, and if that doesn't work, I'll feel secure that I can fall back on asking you for help.

(In other geek news, I have achieved a working dreamhack, so I'm feeling good about myself.)

[wychwood]

I'm glad I could help, even if only in the most minor of ways! :) As I said, I had a huge amount of help back when I was starting out, mostly from Turfers, and any way I can pay it forward is good.

Also: yay for Dreamhacks! :) I really should get back to mine.

[viklikesfic]

Oh man, breadmakers make it so freaking easy. Sure, you can make it yourself, and I have, but it's a completely different thing. With a breadmaker you can make bread any time of year, not just when it's warm enough in your apartment for bread to rise, and it requires no time at all and no workout. You can let it run overnight if you want (I wouldn't b/c of the noise but if your kitchen isn't near your bedroom you can do that, and mine has a timer so you could tell it to start four hours before you wake up) or on the weekend you can do what I do and start it in the morning so it's ready for lunch. I love mine because it has a setting that makes great 100% whole wheat bread so I'm all healthy with it, and there's no contribution required from the user after you enter a setting and hit start.

This is mine.

[liv]

Cool, thanks. Good point about the noise, and getting one with a timer. I'm a fairly heavy sleeper; I don't mind sleeping with the washing machine running, but having a timer available would likely be an advantage.

[aphenine]

In our house, we have a simple black and white laser printer (HP LaserJet 1200) attached to a print server which handles the bulk of our printing for the whole house. It's fast, reliable and very economical.

Because we use a print server (~£30 quid now), we also had a cheap colour inkjet connected for those colour jobs the other printer couldn't do. But we used it so little the ink cartridges kept drying out.

A few months ago, I did a bit of research and the HP LaserJet P1500 series looked very good for home office work and was available from http://www.scan.co.uk, who are a good supplier I've used for a long time. However, it looks like it's been obsoleted by a new range of printers and the price has gone up since I last looked.

A review of that HP printer links to the Brother HL-5240, which was better than the HP in everything but print first page time (laser printers need time to warm up, and if you aren't printing frequently, they do this every time you print) and electricity usage.

The HP 2014 also looks good.

[liv]

Thanks ever so much, this is exactly the level of detail that I was hoping for. I will definitely look up those options, and thanks especially for suggesting a good supplier.

[graydon]

Xerox Phaser 8560 solid ink printer; colour, very dense black, Adobe postscript, fast printing, per-page cost is excellent, best quality print is higher resolution than any comparable laser. I've seen a technical writing group put 5,000 pages/month through one for a year without so much as a paper jam. Much smaller ecological footprint than laser printers. (Solid ink is a generally superior tech, it just didn't get invented first.) There's a MFP ("multi-function printer") version that scans and copies and faxes.

Disadvantages -- the printer itself is not cheap (~1000 CAD, no idea how the pound tax will work), and it's a workgroup printer and officially a two-man lift; you probably can't pick it up by yourself.

If you're going to get a linux device that you'll want to talk to the printer, pick something that has good linux support, which is still not everybody. Try to avoid any printer that doesn't connect to the network; in the current market, USB printers are drifting in the "disposable only" category.

[liv]

Interesting, I had no idea there was such a thing as a solid ink printer, I thought it was pretty much a choice between laser and inkjet. So I've learnt something, thank you.

That said, although I did say I was willing to spend more on the printer up-front in order to get something reliable, I am not working on the kind of scale you're talking about. I print out scientific articles at the rate of a few dozen pages a week, I'm not talking about thousands of pages. Also, that two-man printer looks as if it would take up about half the volume of my office (I share a normal sized office with three others). I'll file away the information for when I pull in a big grant, I think.

Very useful point about networked printers, and ones which are not Windows only. I will bear those things in mind.

[graydon]

You might want to look at -- and I know you had little good of a prior experience with them, but the small disposable printer and the SOHO network connected printer are not in any way the same animal -- the Epson B-500DN; it's an inkjet, but a notably economical one (4 cents/page if you use the big ink tanks) and it has nice things like duplex and network connectivity.

<http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/store/consumer/consdetail.jsp?oid=63076601>

Still modest overkill but the degree of overkill that leads to reliability.

[syllopsium]

Printers : I have no experience of inkjets, but the general advice is cheap printer, expensive ink or expensive (100-200 quid) printer, cheaper ink. There are some very nice all in ones these days that even do things like automatic scan to PDF. We have a HP at work for this purpose.

Backup : I still use tape, but this requires a special type of masochism and data paranoia. I would suggest an external backup drive, and a large USB stick you carry around if the data are valuable enough that its loss in a complete house loss/burglary situation is a problem.

Breadmaker : Breadmaker or hand made is an AND question, not an OR. Breadmakers can be set up at 3am after a night of beer, so you can have lunchtime bread.

Eee : It's not too difficult to hack into a system you don't have the password for, provided you have physical access. All you need to do is boot in single user mode. However, you're not going to break it by installing a new OS - just make sure you have a method of getting it on to the Eee.

If you have plenty of time, you also don't need to commit yourself to one type of Linux. Try it, see if you like it, wipe it out if not..

Ubuntu is pretty user friendly, so it's not a bad choice. I like BSD Unix, but Linux wise I currently have a Debian system.

[liv]

You are so helpful, thank you! I think my plan is to spend money up-front and buy a decent printer with cheaper running costs, because I hope I'll also get reliability if I go down that route. And yeah, a couple of hundred was the sort of price range I was thinking about.

It's worth having big USB sticks in general, I think. I just bought a 10 GB one which I used to make a boot disk in order to put Ubuntu on my netbook. Since that worked (thanks for your encouragement!) I can reuse it to back up my documents. For software, music etc I am not so worried about redundant backups, it's experimental data that's the critical thing. I intend to insure against major burglaries or fires by having a back up hard drive at work as well as home.

I like the and approach to having lots of tasty fresh bread in my life :-)

Printers

[(Anonymous)]

My colleague swears by Brother. I was advised by Office World (now Staples) that HP and Brother are the two most reliable brands and the best value for money. I prefer Brother, partially because they use separate cartridges for each colour, which is more economical and less wasteful than a combined cartridge. Brother's technical help is superb.
My black and white laser printer, HL-5150D, cost £200 in Feb 2005 and is still going strong. For colour, I use an MFC-3240C ink jet printer/copier/fax/scanner, which cost £94 in August 2006. Staples sell compatible ink cartridges for some, but not all, Brother models, but I had some problems and stick to branded cartridges.
Five years ago, I was advised that, except for very light usage, it is cheaper to use a laser printer than an ink jet, despite the higher capital cost, because an ink jet uses so much more ink. I do not know whether this still holds for colour printing. I like the suggestion of using a b/w laser printer as primary and a separate cheap printer for occasional colour jobs.
Southernwood

Re: Printers

[liv]

£200 for a piece of kit that will last me five years is the sort of thing I'm looking for, yes. And you print out a lot of thick wodges of paper in order to work from the hard copy, so your volume requirements are probably similar to mine.

I'm not sure about a cheap colour printer, though, because when I do want colour printouts, I quite often also need high quality (eg printing out fluorescence microscope images). Also, with the limited space I am reluctant to get two printers if I can help it! But then again, I do very little colour printing altogether, so it maybe that I can skip that and be able to borrow colleagues' printers for occasional single pages.

[daharyn]

I thought, for the longest time, that a breadmaker was going to change my life. (And I'm enough of a hippie that I try to make my own bread, most of the time.) And the truth is, strangely, that I don't want one anymore. I think that if I were getting into complex breads, I might, but for the most part I make no-knead bread, and while my kitchen is bigger than those of most of my friends it is not enormous. Better to have the counter space free and to keep on making it for myself.

[liv]

Thanks, that's a really helpful perspective. Counter space is definitely a concern for me. I think when I was a PhD student a breadmaker would definitely have been the wrong choice; although I worked at least as hard as I do now, my hours were much more flexible and I was much more likely to be at home at the right time to move the bread on to the next stage. (Plus, when I was a PhD student I lived in Scotland where they still have proper bakeries; I could easily get fresh bread in the little shop between my flat and the bus stop, next to the little adorable post office where they knew all their customers by name).