Being an tech guy, I get to do all kinds of interesting and not so interesting things. One of the more interesting things I get to do is set up new offices for people. Not all offices are the same and not all people have the same needs. I enjoy the change in scenery and embrace the possible challenges that may be lurking out there.
I had a job in a small office this past week that for some reason went way too smooth. I can't think of anything that didn't go well. All 4 computers worked, the printers worked, Telco had installed the fiber and the POTS lines, I didn't have to re-run any cabling, the phones worked, all the misc parts I ordered came in, it was sunny outside and the birds were chirping.
The thing that usually takes up the largest chunk of time is installing the silly printer software. Please don't get me wrong, its not at hard thing to do by any stretch, it just takes time. This install was incredibly short and smooth. Now maybe it was because I had done my job and fitted these folks with some serious workstations that made the owner of the company giddy when we started to take them out of the packing. Its not that these are the biggest machines out there, but they are big enough to be relevant for a good 3-5 years or more. Most people who are sending emails all day don't need this kind of machine, but the owner saw them and wanted them since they matched the decor. Who am I to argue with decor. I think it was a combination of good workstations and better HP software, if I can actually say that.
Basically these printers installed in a snap on Windows 7 machines with 8GB of RAM. No issues at all. Not even an errant ding sound. Smoooooth. The end users in this office were tickled when I gave them a guided tour of what they can do and how easy it is with the HP Solution Center. A few customizations on the default buttons and these people were scanning away and turning everything they could into PDFs. It was beautiful.
Not only are these printers nice and shiny, but they are fast too. 34ppm. Sweet. The wireless was set up in no time at all and 1 of the users was shocked to see how easy it was to print a preview of the pics on her SD card. I think it took about 14 seconds. We used some of the free paper and printed out some of the pics and even I was impressed. There is nothing like a high-res pic from a Canon PowerShot SD1400IS printed out on the correct paper. This camera has a 14MP sensor. Yeeesh. I think I will have to retire my 4MP Canon SD300 (which is about 6 years old) and drop $180 on the SD1400IS.
The last thing I did for this office was install a fax broadcasting software called COMMUNICATE! DELUXE. This nice little package lets you send literally hundreds of faxes a day from pretty much any application. The HP 8500 only stores like 170 #'s in the memory, but these users have a list with about 5000 #s in it. I thought e-mail killed the fax, but i was wrong. Apparently this company makes most of its $$ by faxing offers to people. I'm glad I don't have a fax machine.
If you are looking for a great All-in-One for the home or office,You Gotta Have the HP Officejet 8500.
