Sorry For The Bad Language!

I reckon you could have heard me going off even down in Melbourne at our Canon printer on Monday morning.  There was ink almost everywhere, on the rollers, all over the paper, smudge marks and then the paper feed stopped working.  That was the straw that broke the camel's back.

That was it, despite having around $80 worth of Canon ink cartridges left the decision was made to get a replacement printer.  On Saturday I sent an email off to a shop which does my ink refills for me asking whether the Canon Printer I had been looking at could have its cartridges refilled OK.  He replied that yes they could but his recommendation was to consider Brother as their cartridges were larger and thus better value to refill.

The internet was my friend as I did a quick search and found either the Brother J515W or J525W would suit my purposes.  Our local "Good Guys" stocked the J525W so I dropped in and spent $88 and bought the printer.

The refill guy only refills 'genuine' cartridges so I bought a set of genuine replacement cartridges, Each set has 3 separate color tanks, Cyan, etc.  I nearly fell over when the cartridges (LC73's) totalled over $100. At least to have them refilled was going to cost around $50.

We now have a new Brother DCP-J525W.  The W indicates it is wireless. This means Trish can access the printer from her laptop directly and doesn't need to have my PC turned on so she can print.  It is reasonably compact and fits on a shelf in the office.  Previously the Canon was on top of the fridge which made getting to buttons etc a little difficult.

I spent some time Monday afternoon installing all the software on both computers and just getting to know the printer.

Earlier in the week I was discussing cheap refills with a mate via Skype and he said he bought his cartridges on eBay at a cheap price.  He gave me the link to the eBay website.  When I had a few moments later in the afternoon I decided to check out the price of replacement LC73 cartridges from his online store. I nearly fell over.     http://stores.ebay.com.au/cqi-tech/

The online eBay store will sell me 4 x large size black cartridges and 2 large size of each of the 3 color cartridges (compatible cartridges, not genuine) for a total of $24 delivered!  Later this morning I am returning the $100+ genuine cartridges to the store and getting my money back.

The prevailing wind here is again from the south east and blowing in from the sea.  Today the morning is a lot milder but we have showers sweeping in every couple of hours.  A steady shower an hour ago has left everything wet so any bike riding is delayed.  However there is blue sky right now and Trish is hoping to get some sheets dry.  She has one eye on her laptop and another on the weather outside.