My New Printer
I just recently purchased a Canon PIXMA MP500, and it arrived yesterday!
It came in a box the size of my coffee table, inside of which was a slightly smaller box, containing the actual printer (which is bigger than I thought it would be). I pulled it out last night and set it all up. Because of the number of things this printer can do (aside from printing normal documents, which is really its lowest priority, as far as I can tell) it took a little time to get it going. I had to install the print head and five printer cartridges (or “ink tanks”), install software and drivers, and then fight with my computer when I thought I could get by without restarting it (see, you don’t have to restart a Mac just to get things to work, but in this case, it would not work unless I restarted it).
There was no USB cable in the box, which is a bit of a drawback for most, and I’m not sure if it was a mistake (I’d have to find the list of contents). It was not an obstacle, however, as a) I am a computer tech’s wife, and if I can’t find a USB cable somewhere in this house, there is something very wrong, and b) when Comcast installed my cable TV, they left behind a brand new USB cable, which I put in a memorable place. It’s even black, to match the printer. 
After that, I scanned my first image. Then I played with the photo manipulating software that came with the printer (ArcSoft’s “PhotoStudio 4″), especially since I needed to resize the image and change its extension.
Just an aside: I am ECSTATIC to have photo and image manipulating software again. It has been too long! After playing with it a bit more, with and without my Graphire pad, I’ll post another review. So far, I’m happy. 
I had to print out a bunch of stuff this morning, and that required pulling out the manual when it didn’t just work automagically. Reading the manual revealed that the problem was totally an ID10T error. I hadn’t changed the printer preference in the utility. It was trying to print from our HP, which is in the other room. That, of course, is just not going to work.
The printing is clear, quiet, and FAST. So is the copying and picture printing! It’s set out of the box to copy 4×6 pictures, so I had to play with the settings when it only printed out a small 4×6 section of my document. However, when I printed out a picture, it was incredibly easy to fix it up through PhotoStudio and set the feed tray for the new size of paper. There’s also an LCD panel on the front, which is very fancy, and pretty easy to understand. It is most useful for printing pictures directly from a memory card. Veruh nahce.
I recommend this printer! It’s a little on the large side, but it is well worth every pound and inch. There is a duplexer and two paper feeds (one is a top feed, which is PERFECT for perforated paper, like business cards, and the other is a cassette for paper that is kept inside for normal printing (can also be sized to hold small photo paper for immediate photo printing)). It take a little time to warm up if it hasn’t been turned on in a little while, but you can do other things in the meantime.
One more thing: For the purpose of this review, I tried printing out a photo. Five sheets of 4×6 glossy photo paper came with the printer, which is a nice bonus. I chose a pic of Sweetie with his LLVI team and the mountains in the background (it’s an impressive picture), and sized it in PhotoStudio. Just before printing it, it gave me a preview of my image. It was just slightly too small to take up the entire paper, but there was an option to add text! I printed out this cute little photo with “Sweetie’s LLVI Team” written underneath it. The quality is INCREDIBLE.
That is SO COOL. I might be making a bigger deal out of it than should be made, because, well, photo printers have been around a while. But I feel like I’m just looking at the tip of the iceberg of potential uses for this little feature, especially for scrapbooking.
I am STOKED. 
March 19th, 2006 at 6:53 pm
I an anxious to see this toy! We missed you at the Scrapbooking retreat–it was fun and productive (and the food was wonderful!).