Print user sabotage

I spent the morning preparing an order of service for Monday's funeral and finishing my Sunday sermon. In the afternoon I received an email with photos of a hand-written eulogy for transcription and editing. In the meanwhile I found time to go to Lidl's for weekend shopping, and take a walk.

When I got around to printing everything off, the church office printer, a recent HP Envy wireless model, started announcing now and then that the print cartridge could not be authenticated as the correct one. By stopping and starting it, and rebooting the computer, I was able to print off what I needed to. Properly installed HP devices announce when printer ink is low and remind you to order new cartridges, but the message in question was on the small LED screen on the printer itself. 

This same printer was in use here this time last year, with no problems. I'm not even sure if it's had enough use to see a change of cartridges during the past twelve months. About six months ago, I read of this happening as a result of a software modification slipped in by HP when updating their devices to work with Windows 10 changes. Each 'authentic' ink cartridge carries a unique digital i/d to distinguish it from cloned bargain copies made in the far East. 

This has been so for some time for certain newer models, but the roll-out of the software modification that makes identification of the true from the fake has taken somewhat longer it seems. It's a printer ink equivalent to digital rights management for music and photos. Except. Except, that it doesn't work perfectly, universally, and I can imagine why this shouldn't be the case, number one reason being world wide inconsistency in connecting to the Big Data systems which harbour such tiny morsels of information, and handle billions of related enquiries daily.

I have no doubt that the office printer cartridge is authentic, and probably comes from the supplier which sold the printer. It's not even as if it's a new cartridge, but one in normal use, until a Windows update sequence a couple of weeks ago. If my memory serves me correctly, it's possible to roll back the most recent HP update to see off that error message preventing the machine from working. This takes time to figure out however. I am increasingly short of time, care and patience when it comes to Windows 10, and clever stunts like this pulled by giant money making corporations to protect their interests by placing their clients at a disadvantage. 

Past operating system updates have forced redundancy on older hardware, still working well. Great for profits, but it helps generate an ever bigger mountain of waste electronic hardware, much of which is not properly re-cycled. You think you own a system you bought, and are then informed you're no more than a leaseholder with limited rights over the software to drive your device Thank heavens for open source software alternatives, and the beginnings of open source hardware, both of which leave the owner in control of their assets.

Anyway, with a little messing around funeral texts and Sunday sermon got printed off. Then I began to wonder if I'd be able to get this sorted before I needed to print again, for next weekend. So, I set to, and produced a Remembrance Sunday sermon a week in advance, and printed it off despite the warning messages, just in case. Forewarned is forearmed!