A little insight on HP printers

[Old and In the Way]

I've been using the All-in-One printers from HP for the past 5 years. Honestly, I can say that they've served the purpose very well and very reliably. I finally traded my T45 printer in this year for the Photosmart 2610; basically, the same class of printer. I did it because the software interface for XP was pretty crappy and crashed a lot.

The new printer works well and for the most part, the software is much better. But one place where it is noticably worse is that when I receive a fax, I can't retrieve it from the printer memory and e-mail the contents. I have to print it out, scan, and then forward it by e-mail. I've gone back to HP and their suggestions/patches just don't work.

I had to do this to a 15 page report today....and while I spent a good 20 minutes on this task, I had time to stew about it and the fact that it would take 30 seconds to manage it before (and not waste 15 pieces of paper that went in the trash as soon as the scan was complete.

Then it dawned on me....of course they don't want you to have this feature...they wouldn't sell any printer cartridges if you just pulled the fax data out of memory....:grr:

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

1. I do not like HP all-in-ones.

I've seen brand new machines reject their own driver cd, and refuse to install because they wouldn't recognize the software. And even when they do install okay, it takes forever for it all to install, and it seems to take over the entire system even when not in use. They've built in way too much complexity and interreliance between the components that IMHO should have never been tied together in the first place. (And that's a statement that's good for ALL all-in-ones, no matter which brand.)

[TaleWgnDg]

2. I am trying to figure out WHY you cannot retrieve your received

FAX from your harddrive then email that same received FAX to someone else? Why? Do you know where your HP printer/FAX/scanner (here, the HP FAX receive feature) is storing your incoming FAXs on your harddrive? Is the file association the problem? What's the problem?

Certainly, you shouldn't have to "re-enter" (by scanning) the same document onto your harddrive a second time as you describe, only to send it as an email then to eventually delete it! That's a hell of a "work-around!"

[Old and In the Way]

3. Interesting, they use the same core software between the T45 and

the 2610.....when you access the fax log, you can access your sent faxes as a tiff files. It looks exactly the same on both versions of printer software. However, the "received" tab in the 2610 only shows the history, but there are no buttons to access the received file as a tiff file. The patch didn't work. I can only surmise that they deleted this feature in the software on purpose. It really is an inconvenience.

Also, I hate getting faxes for 2% mortgages and hot stock tips. In the T45, I defaulted the fax not to print and I could delete those useless faxes without having them printed.

It's the ink sales, no doubt.

[TaleWgnDg]

4. hhmmmm, interesting . . .

btw, why not place your fax telephone number on both state and federal do not call lists thus alleviate your not-wanted fax receipts. I believe the only exception to an incoming call block (via the do not call list) is if you've done business w/ that entity or it's a charity. Check it out.

_______________________

edited to add: Maine Atty Gen'l's do not call list url: http://www.maine.gov/ag/index.php?r=donotcall

[Old and In the Way]

5. Thanks!

As a Mainiac, I appreciate the state link!