Bed-shitter copiers, look back and lament....

[captainsblog]

..another Saturday's useful energy, spent....

Sorry to be so Moody, but corporate practices can get ya down. When I moved into my current office, I shared a Xerox copier with two other attorneys- then one, and for the past couple of years it's been minnne all minnne! Which meant that I got to get the news at the end of 2018 that Xerox had pronounced the machine clinically dead at the end of 2019.

News to me, since it worked fine at the time for everything I needed it for.  But this is one of the ways companies manage to move the merch: they deem machines at "end of life," and stop servicing them.  I'm more familiar with the software version of this, where Microsoft simply deems perfectly good operating systems "obsolete" and stops sending out updates to protect them from malicious viruses and to correct programming bugs. A physical machine like a copier is less likely to need online updates, but here, the manufacturer simply refuses to provide parts (even things like ink toner) or allow its authorized dealers to service them once they're deemed dead.  

Toward the end of last year, the copier started printing a thin unwanted line on the bottom of every page. Nothing I couldn't live with, but I figured, what the hell, I've paid for a year of service, so in December they diagnosed it as a worn-out drum (one of the two wearable parts in the unit, the other being the toner cartridge) and sent me a new one.  It immediately started blowing ink all over the place. A guy came out, still before the end of the "end of life," and either fixed or replaced the drum, cleaned it all up real good, and it seemed to be in hand- until by this month, all pages were coming out with a slight patina of grey ink across them, and envelopes and labels coming out of it were essentially unusable.  It took several calls to the service company to determine that it was indeed a bad drum, but that Xerox could not and/or would not provide them with any replacement parts for it because, dead.

I started getting my Lawyer up and asked for the invoice for the part, thinking I would take it up with the geniuses formerly residing in Rochester's famed Toner Tower.  The parts clearly still existed in Aftermarketland- but at $200 to $300 a pop.  Could I get the Big X to somehow make an exception for Little Old Me because they sold me a defective drum before the effective Death Date? 

We'll never know.  Because on the way to finding their service information, I came on a page of all new machines- which were going, including drums and toners, for between $250 and $350 all-in.  Even if they did replace the drum, the toner would only last so long and at least one other part was starting to show signs of decay. So I switched gears and ordered a smaller but still serviceable-for-me copier/scanner for under three fitty, with delivery promised sometime between tomorrow and the following Monday.

Surprise surprise, it showed up two days after I ordered it.  Even non-Amazon Prime orders seem to come faster these days.  This entirely changed my weekend plans.  First, getting it set up and working at the office: that took a good chunk of yesterday afternoon, dealing with a huge page of picture-only installation directions, and getting everything going except the scan function, which seems to require a double-0 security clearance.

Meanwhile, the old copier still sorta works (scans fine, copies are marginally okay except for envelopes, labels and letterhead), so I had the brilliant idea to bring it home where we've both been relying on a newish but still crappy Epson.  But first.... room needed to be made.

Behold the room.



The bookcase and file cabinet (with said crappy Epson now atop it) had to be moved several feet down one wall to create that well for the copier. Below them and behind them,.... OMG. Things that hadn't been cleaned since the second to last presidential impeachment. I got in there with broom and vacuum, but Eleanor did even more while I was out, cleaning the walls and baseboards, even moving this very heavy desk that she lovingly refinished ages ago. NOT shown in that photo are the many pounds of crap that I either relocated or pitched from both that bookcase (one of the few pieces of furniture from my own family I still own) and a much crappier particle-board jobby which we kicked to the curb once removing tons of 1990s seminar outlines (which might have been legal malpractice to consult this far out), off-air DVD recordings of tv series (which we haven't watched in a decade or have replaced with proper ones), and at least three phone books. Everybody but Steve Martin is happy about this.

We're gonna need a bigger boat, um, vehicle to transport the copier to fill that hole, and it will take more double-0 clearances to get our laptops here to scan to it, but I am very proud of what we got done.

----

Thursday was an even longer day, without as much labor but a bit more fun and success.  I had a Rochester day planned with two client appointments and a bunch of things to file, all done by 1:30 or so. Then, up against a deadline to get something served, I took a flyer and wound up making my shortest-ever stop in Syracuse.  Once I got there, I discovered I'd been given a bad address, but gods bless Google, it served up a new one and I had the papers in the proper hand by 3:30.  Then it was time to head back. First, a quick stop back at my favorite record shop, which was beginning a happy hour featuring Mikaela Davis:



(Yes, that's really her behind the harp.)  But I was already overbooked for the evening's entertainment back home: one friend, reading at a local college; another friend scheduled to come all the way from East Meadow for a reading of his own (found out that he canceled /sad); but the one I'd settled on, which was in the quaint village of Akron about 20 miles from our house:



Nickel City Frets is a small performance venue on the village's Main Street. No food beyond some cookies, and no alcohol, but walls of guitars and the occasional Muppet on the wall as well. And four performers, doing their songs "in the round." Each took a turn for three rounds, then they took a break, and finally two more trips around the stage ended the evening a little before 9:30.



Clockwise from left: Dave Ostrowski aka Davey O, who I've seen several times before; Phil Henry, Vermonter by way of Saranac Lake (enshrined in his song "25 Below"); the featured singer Maria Sebastian, who a friend specifically recommended to me and proved worthy of the words; and Greg Barresi, musician-in-residence at Roswell Park. All did original songs, told great stories behind them, and left a cozy crowd with warm feelings on a very cold night....

which I got to check out in the middle of the show.  Eleanor texted me to tell me she had hit the app on her phone and remote-started her car (which I was driving for my Long Day All Over). Sure enough, I went out, and Alanis's lights were blinking and the engine was on. I was a good 20 miles away from home at the time. 

Maybe this is a bug that Hyundai can fix..... or maybe they'll just declare the car dead and try to sell us another one:P

Comments

[warriorsavant]

Apple is the Grand Master of this. Since they make both the machines and the operating system, they gradually change each one, until no longer works. Plus any machine over 4 years old? "You're dead to us."

The UK government actually pays Microsoft to keep up support for an earlier version of Windows because that's cheaper than upgrading every freakin' machine in the country.

When I am the Evil Overload, I will have a new operating system created for my country / planet / galactic empire that will not be compatible with either Windows or Mac/iOS. My people (who are otherwise enslaved), will cheer my name for liberating them from the tyranny of Big Tech.

[captainsblog]

As recently as 2015, Orly Airport in Paris had a major shutdown due to a computer failure. They were still using Windows 3.1.