• Hi all and welcome to TheWoodHaven2 brought into the 21st Century, kicking and screaming! We all have Alasdair to thank for the vast bulk of the heavy lifting to get us here, no more so than me because he's taken away a huge burden of responsibility from my shoulders and brought us to this new shiny home, with all your previous content (hopefully) still intact! Please peruse and feed back. There is still plenty to do, like changing the colour scheme, adding the banner graphic, tweaking the odd setting here and there so I have added a new thread in the 'Technical Issues, Bugs and Feature Requests' forum for you to add any issues you find, any missing settings or just anything you'd like to see added/removed from the feature set that Xenforo offers. We will get to everything over the coming weeks so please be patient, but add anything at all to the thread I mention above and we promise to get to them over the next few days/weeks/months. In the meantime, please enjoy!

Home office renewal

A

Artiglio

New Shoots
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Good day all

I’m not a tech savvy chap, relying on an ipad and an old hp desktop running windows 7 to do all i need. However it rather seems that HP has decided my desktops printer no longer needs to carry on its duties as it’s too old. That my HP wireless printer has to have its every action monitored in real time , that they really want me to have an ink subscription but don’t have a package for my needs.
Plus HMRC sees fit to make me go “making tax digital”.

I don’t do a lot of word processing etc but do need to have the ability to do so and for people to be likely to read what i send them. I’ve stuck with windows 7 as the upgrade to 10 has been seen to be very problematic by many and i don’t like the subscription system for web based windows.

Do I have any way round it in this day and age?
Anyone have a recommendation for Making Tax Digital software provider?
Recommendations for new desktop?
A printer that’s reliable, is’nt tied to the net, ideally has wireless/ airprint, scans and copies. Don’t mind using print cartridges as overall i don’t use many in a year.

Desktop is primarily for my dealings as a landlord and tax returns etc.

Any guidance much appreciated, many thanks
 
Your main issue with printers is, they pretty much ALL work like that now, so unless you buy old and second hand, then spend time finding drivers and making them work, you won't get away from the net linked printer issues.
 
There are some Brother printers that don't require an ink sub, I believe.

I have an old Epson XP 760. Although the Epson cartridges are small and very expensive, generic me-too ones are not so bad (I use Prink in Stoke). I do so little printing now it doesn't really matter.

The printer has been great. I bought it originally when I was printing onto DVDs and there was little choice. But it has a suicide chip in it, it dies after so many cycles. 8450 or something like that - anyway it's not very many.

However, I have a piece of software which accesses the printer and I can reset that value to zero. It's currently 193 into its fourth life. It's getting a bit rattly, so when it goes next time, I might bite the bullet and go laser.
S
 
How about considering changing your desktop operating system to a Linux. You would have a complete office suite for free and many other applications, and maybe even there are MTD applications now developed for Linux. It's been a few years since I used Linux Mint, so I'm out of touch.

It seems that refurbed Windows machines can be value for money these days with W11. The same Open Source apps used by Linux for office suites are equally free for Windows users and almost as good as if not as good as MSOffice. Use LibreOffice for all my office apps, even drawing wiring diagrams for some of my special stuff in my workshop.
 
Malc2098 said:
How about considering changing your desktop operating system to a Linux. You would have a complete office suite for free and many other applications, and maybe even there are MTD applications now developed for Linux. It's been a few years since I used Linux Mint, so I'm out of touch.

It seems that refurbed Windows machines can be value for money these days with W11. The same Open Source apps used by Linux for office suites are equally free for Windows users and almost as good as if not as good as MSOffice. Use LibreOffice for all my office apps, even drawing wiring diagrams for some of my special stuff in my workshop.
Click to expand...
I've just upgraded Carolyn's laptop from Windows 10 to Linux Mint (the laptop is too old to run Windows 11). She seems very happy with it (and amazed at how much faster it runs).
 
johnward said:
I use Windows10 and apart from day to day stuff such as online banking I am particularly worried about losing my extensive world birding records on Exel. Help!!
Click to expand...
Most banking sites will work on any computer/operating system (they just need a browser). Excel files can be opened in lots of alternative applications (including LibreOffice).
 
Pete Maddex said:
Hp laser jet.

Fast, plugs into your router, no print heads to dry out.

Pete
Click to expand...
We have an HP B&W which we have had for 15 years or more. Still going strong. We then bought the HP colour laser printer and it died after a few years. I looked into buying another laser printer from HP only to discover that I'd need a second mortgage now for the colour refills. Hence going for the Epson which is the newer refillable ink one. Not had any issues with blockages.
 
RogerS said:
We have an HP B&W which we have had for 15 years or more. Still going strong. We then bought the HP colour laser printer and it died after a few years. I looked into buying another laser printer from HP only to discover that I'd need a second mortgage now for the colour refills. Hence going for the Epson which is the newer refillable ink one. Not had any issues with blockages.
Click to expand...
I looked at your model Roger, mentions needing regular maintenance if you don't use it lots, to clean the heads etc. Is that your experience?

Also what's the photo quality printing like?
 
We don't use it that much TBH. We might print out a few sheets every few days. I try to always print a photo each week to use all the inks. Photo quality seems OK on plain Xerox paper. Better than the previous HP that died. I can stick one in the post to you if you like
 
I've got an Epson inkjet & when it dies I'll be going back to laserjet & almost certainly not Epson. The inkjet works fine mostly, but we use it infrequently enough that it often clogs & needs to run its cleaning routine. It also seems to crash quite often & needs to be rebooted. Thankfully it does allow third-party ink though.

One other reason I'd choose laser (apart from reliability) is that you can use it for photolithography or press-n-peel etching, which you can't with an inkjet.
 
AJB Temple said:
We use an HP colour laser. Knock off cartridges though - which are fine. Dead reliable, cheap to run, drawer holds a ream and has a good photocopier. Used pretty much daily. Similar to this one: https://www.printerland.co.uk/produ...pping&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=22396647107

Recommended. Connects via wireless to all computers in the house.
Click to expand...
As did my Brother for 4 years, until recently when NOTHING has changed, but it's decided it will not print from my Mac whatsoever, but is happy to print from some but not all iPhone apps...

It's very close to being punted through the window if it continues...
 
AJB Temple said:
We use an HP colour laser. Similar to this one: https://www.printerland.co.uk/produ...pping&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=22396647107

Recommended. Connects via wireless to all computers in the house.
Click to expand...
Or you could buy the same printer in France:

HP Color LaserJet Pro M479fdw All-in-One Colour Laser Printer - Automatic Document Feeder, Duplex / WiFi, Copying, Scan, Print, Fax. : Amazon.fr: Computers

HP Color LaserJet Pro M479fdw All-in-One Colour Laser Printer - Automatic Document Feeder, Duplex / WiFi, Copying, Scan, Print, Fax. : Amazon.fr: Computers
www.amazon.fr

I'm coming to the UK in a couple of weeks, I might just treat myself.
 
Steve Maskery said:
Or you could buy the same printer in France:

HP Color LaserJet Pro M479fdw All-in-One Colour Laser Printer - Automatic Document Feeder, Duplex / WiFi, Copying, Scan, Print, Fax. : Amazon.fr: Computers

HP Color LaserJet Pro M479fdw All-in-One Colour Laser Printer - Automatic Document Feeder, Duplex / WiFi, Copying, Scan, Print, Fax. : Amazon.fr: Computers
www.amazon.fr

I'm coming to the UK in a couple of weeks, I might just treat myself.
Click to expand...
If you want it delivered to us Steve feel free. Get a spare set of inky powders at the same time. Sealed, they last years and years.

We are close to the channel tunnel / dover route.
 
Thank you Adrian, that is very kind of you. But it was the price difference that made me post, it shocked me, €690 vs £299.
I usually use the Newhaven-Dieppe route. How far are you from Newhaven?
S
 
I have the HP M452nw very nice it doesn’t do duplex but it was free with extra cartridges so I can't complain.

Pete
 
50 minutes at a guess Steve. Lewes is not far for us. We are close to Tunbridge Wells. I will make you a bacon sandwich or something and some top notch coffee or tea.
 
I've booked a room at South Downs YHA, but checkin closes at 10pm and I don't dock until 9pm, so I hope I don't get held up at customs.
It will be too late to visit anybody on the way up, but coming home may be a different matter. I'll be in touch.
S
 
My main A3 Laserjet 5000 printer is around 35 years old. It's networked (HP JetDirect card), will do double sided, and is still fully supported by Linux's CUPS drivers, and I have even used it for small runs of a paperback book. My wife prints to it from her iPad, as do I from my Android tablet (both via a linux print queue). I refill the toner cartridges I have, with no apparent loss of quality.

Regarding tax filing online, I have found TaxCalc products to be superb (from Acoyah Software). The licence I have lets me run it on linux as well as Windows (and Mac, I think), and it's inexpensive. Quick Books is recommended by others. Personally I dislike Sage and wouldn't use it.

Your mileage, etc.
 
HP Inkjet, cartridges expensive.
When it runs out of colour, refuses to even print B&W.
Then the print head packed up, fixed so cannot be replaced. "Sorry Sir, you need to replace the printer".
Ok, so we will replace but not HP Inkjet.

Bought a Canon MF230 laser B&W, printer + scanner and is wireless. Was on a special.
Cartridges not that cheap, but then we both don't do a lot of printing.

The scanning can be controlled from the laptop or at the printer and lets you select the laptop where the scan needs to to go.
 
Thanks for all the replies gents,

turns out my current desktop is over 10 years old, monitor is even older, printer must be similar, so had my moneys worth really.

I’m not tech oriented , nor have any real interest in learning enough to be so, ( too many other things i’d rather do), making tax digital would appear to be a mess waiting to come to fruition, picking the right software akin to pinning on the donkeys tail hoping that you’ve chosen the product that will survive the eventual buyouts and mergers. ( quite why a government forces people to use a third party product for something they are forcing on people, rathe rthan actually provide the software they want you to use, it should not be legal, but hey ho.)

Rather looks as though i’ll end up going the hp route again but ignore the ink subscription route and just buy cartridges as required. I don’t print that much and when i do it’s multiple pages at one go ( anew tenancy agreement and all the associated bumpf being the usual , then tax return stuff)

I’ll start doing some research , many thanks again.
 
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