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dodoskido says...

I test drove my old HP 920C printer with 3x5 index cards and it did an admirable job. However, it wasn't built for the task so I may get something like this Pixma to make index card printing easier.

Originally from 43 Folders...

The Hipster PDA has been extended and improved beyond my wildest dreams thanks to things like GTDTiddlyWiki, Douglas Johnston's D*I*Y Planner, and John Norris's very creative templates. With this growth and interest have come a lot of requests from readers for the best, cheapest, and most Mac-friendly printer for printing directly to ordinary index cards. I've shared this interest since, frankly, I've been buffaloed as wellâ??crippled by the crappiness of my old Epson and unsure what to try next. So I did what I always do: I asked for help.

Even as I started asking for reader advice on inexpensive printers that handle standard index cards well, I had a feeling this was going to be a tough post to put together. This was borne out by the very wide range of suggestions you all submittedâ??over 30 different models by most all the major companies were mentioned (although only 4 got mentioned more than once)â??as well as the plain fact itâ??s virtually impossible to give meaningful advice on a product youâ??ve never used. Duh, right?

Anyhow, to put this together, Iâ??ve adopted a blended approach. First, I took everyoneâ??s suggestions (and warnings), compiled a tally count, and then did a bit of extra research on CNET, Epinions, etc. (including a couple phone calls to sales support and some assorted friends).

But, in the end, I decided to put my real-life money where my mouth theoretically should be: I popped in to CompUSA on Saturday morning and bought the recommended model that looked best to meâ??the Canon Pixma iP3000â??and then spent the rest of the weekend testing it out. See how much I love you guys?

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The Winner: Canon Pixma iP3000 Photo Printer

• Basics: Ink jet; 22 ppm b/w; 15 ppm color; 2 paper sources; automatic duplex
• Street Price: about $80 (after current rebate)
• Home Page : iP3000 @ Canon
• Compare:
  • Froogle
  • Price Grabber
  • Epinions
• Buy (your purchase supports 43 Folders) :
  • Buy.com (Best deal: $59.95 after rebate)
  • Amazon ($69.99 after rebate)

This sexy little number looks like a toaster oven from 2001 and has an awful lot of cool features given its sub-$100 price tag. Most importantly for our purposes, it takes a big pile of regular old, drug-store index cards and prints whatever you want onto them at a clip of about 10 seconds per card. It also has a 150-sheet, cassette-loading paper drawer (similar to those on the old LaserWriters). This means that you can load up the tray with plain printer paper without removing your blank cards from the top loader â??no juggling, and no disruption to your â??normal printing.â?�

Itâ??s a great photo printer and a fast, middle-quality text printer, but if youâ??re looking for a cheap way to print index cards from your Mac, I think this is a great choice.

iP3000 Pros

Iâ??ll leave the details and deeper nerdery to other reviews and the spec sheet, but hereâ??s a few of the reasons Iâ??m really satisfied with this decision.

• Mac friendly - Included CD installs drivers and a handy little utility app (available from within the Printer Setup Utility)
• Cheap - After rebate, itâ??s around $80 most places (currently $59.95 at Buy.com)
• Flexible - Cassette feed paper tray and top loader handle multiple media sizes nicely
• Camera-compatible - â??PictBridgeâ?� (a/k/a, the USB port on the front) lets you plug a Canon camera (like my beloved PowerShot A95) directly into the printer for easy 4x6 printing
• Great photo print quality - Used for its primary purpose (photo printing) it makes beautiful 4800x1200 DPI prints in less than a minute per
• Duplex support - Easy to print on both sides of a sheet (with automatic room for hole punches or binding) without manual feeding

iP3000 Cons

My beefs so far:

• Cheap paper (including most index cards) comes out feeling â??wet,â?� and the ink needs a minute or so to dry. Kind of annoying and easy to smear if you're on the run.
• Likewise, the text and images are not quite as sharp as Iâ??d like when printed onto cheap paper (easily remedied by buying some nice, superwhite inkjet paper).
• Page Setup can be kind of a pain. Index cards are not a stock option (although, quizzically, â??credit cardâ?� size is).
• Reportedly due to patent reasons (a/k/a â??cheapnessâ?�), American versions of the iP3000 have their ability to print directly to CDs disabled. Apparently, you can hack this, but itâ??s still kind of dumb that Aussies get CD printing and we Yanks donâ??t.

Other Interesting Canon Options

• Cheaper - The Canon iP1500 got a couple votes, and it is, indeed, even cheaper than the iP3000 at a street price under $50. Some reviews complain of low print quality, and it lacks a lot of the 3000â??s features, so caveat emptor. Still, it looks like a solid model if you want a fast bargain (and are averse to rebates).
• Faster - The next-generation up from the iP3000, the iP4000, features slightly faster print times (25 ppm b/w vs. the iP3000â??s 22 ppm) and slightly higher image quality. The iP4000r, it should be noted, comes with bulit-in wireless. (N.B.: Buy.com has a screaming deal on the iP4000 right now: $79.99 after rebate.)
• Higher quality - The spanking new iP5000 has the same modest speed increase as the iP4000, but also jacks the image resolution up to a tasty 9600x2400 DPI. Personally, I donâ??t think itâ??s worth the $200 retail, but if you have the coin and want very high-quality photo output, this may be your model.
• Great rebate deal - Canon has a rebate running through Octoberâ??buy any iPX000 series printer and a PowerShot camera (like the A95) and get a $70 rebate. Also, as mentioned above, this mail-in rebate takes $20 off the price of any standalone iPX000 printer. (Note also: most all Canon printers and cameras areâ??unbelievably to meâ??eligible for Amazon Prime delivery for participating members.)

Summary

Given that Iâ??ve been using the iP3000 less than 48 hours, I canâ??t promise Iâ??ve covered every angle here, but I can say it looks swell, prints fast, and spits out index cards like a freaking demon. It also has a variety of features and flexibility normally found only in more costly models. Considering the price and extra incentives available right now, this is a splendid deal and my top recommendation, especially for Mac users.

• Home Page : iP3000 @ Canon
• Buy at Buy.com (Best deal: $59.95 after rebate)
• Buy at Amazon ($69.99 after rebate)

The Also-Rans

• Samsung - The ML-1740 was mentioned a bunch of timesâ??more than any other model, in fact. It appears to be a solid laser printer that reportedly works great with index cards, and is a bargain at less than $150, retail. Unfortunately, reports of its Mac compatibility are spotty at best. Its home page states â??Windows and Linuxâ?� support only, and numerous online sources suggest it doesnâ??t work (out of the box) with Macs. Clearly, itâ??s possible (as Reader AP verifies), but Iâ??m not confident in recommending a printer whose manufacturer doesnâ??t explicitly support Macs. Windows folks: this looks like a great home-office unit.
• HP - These were really hard to reduce down to a single printer. There were about a dozen different recommendations, plus Iâ??m assured by HP sales support (for what itâ??s worth) that virtually all their printers can handle index cards (as with most of this stuffâ??I have not personally tested this information). Reader Maneesh pointed out the Multifunction PSC 2175, which appears to be a pretty good bargain at about $70; he claims it "Does a great job in feeding in multiple index cards" although Reader McGroarty warns of Tiger compatibility issues and some special setup fu.
• Lexmark - As with the HPs, there were numerous suggestions for Lexmark printers, but they fell off the top billing because a) there wasnâ??t a single, currently produced model that got more than one mention, and b) their lame attempt to put DRM in their toner cartridges strikes your author as quite sucktastic. Having said that, if youâ??re looking for a crazy cheap bargain, the Lexmark Z25 can apparently be got for under $25. About this model, Reader Debbie said: â??I have even put a small stack in the envelope feed with success.â?�
• Brother - A couple people mentioned the HL-1440 Laser Printer, but despite mostly strong reviews elsewhere, itâ??s well over our price limit at ~$200 retail. Still, CNETâ??s editors gave it a 8/10 rating, and it sounds like a real workhorse if you want a full-time laser printer for your home office.

More Input?

I encourage you to read all the suggestions in both the Google Group and last weekâ??s thread to get a fuller feel for what people recommended. Also, if you caught any errors or if anything in this was confusing, please do let me know (this was a lot more ground to cover than I had anticipated). Many thanks to everyone who made recommendations and helped to shape this review.

The floor is still open, of course, so feel free to add your favorite index card printer here in comments.

Technorati Tags: 43folders, canon, hipsterpda, indexcards, printers, reviews

There's been quite a bit of buzz in the blogosphere about the hipster PDA. What praytell is this you say? It's basically a lo-fi handheld device for note taking (aka a pad of paper and pen). Yes, retro has come full circle and Palm is definitely sunk. I've oft wondered to myself, why oh why would someone go to the Franklin Covey, drop a lot of cash for calendar pages with little cartoon themes on them. I know, people want to be organized, but that's a lot of dough to drop on organized. I used to carry around a little plastic box with a pen and pad of paper and my own little filing system. It was like a beginner's DIY Getting Things Done. It was cool for a while, but the bulkiness eventually got to me (anyone who knows me, knows that I hate bulky pocket hogs or even worse...things that need to be held in my hand while I walk around). I've been scribbling ideas, notes, to do lists on whatever I could find ever since. The problem is that I'd go down the list and cross things out, but I'd always leave a few things that would not be finished. Then I'd transfer them to a new piece of scrap paper and add more items. It sort of works, but I think I'm going to take a look at Getting Things Done to see if I can improve my "things-to-do to done" ratio. And of course, I'll need a little note card system courtesy of a million monkeys typing » D*I*Y Planner Hipster PDA Edition. Thank you, Douglas.

Guest Check PDA: closed
Originally uploaded by atduskgreg.

This is a clever variation on the Hipster PDA that I picked up over on the HPDA wiki page. Use a cheapie, pocket-sized pad of restaurant “Guest Checks” to take notes. The hack is to use the kind with old-school carbon copies, so you’ll always have an archival copy of any notes you take.

Check out the full set on Flickr.

Personal Mantras - 43FoldersWiki

I’ve been digging the personal mantras that people have been adding to the wiki.

It’s interesting to see the different approaches and interests people have been taking; for some it’s an affirmation, for others it’s a motto or creed, and for many it appears to be a persistent reminder about the right thing to do.

My mantra—if you can call it that—is “Smaller, smaller.” It’s a principle more practical than spiritual, I suppose. I say it to myself several times a day to try and always remember that small things are easier to do than big things, and that most big things are really just a pile of small things if you break them up right. In real-world terms, “Smaller, smaller” means:

• sub-projects
• small-sized teams
• modest, achievable goals
• granular tasks, TODOs, and, yes, “next actions”
• fast deadlines
• frequent, but very short, check-in meetings
• understanding how one piece leads to the next
• making it hard to fail

There’s been very few times that “Smaller, smaller” has done me wrong. No matter how ambitious a project, idea, or problem is, there’s usually a way to break into very small pieces. Anyhow, that’s mine.

Got a personal mantra or motto of your own? Why’d you choose the one you did?

(And, no, “I believe I’ll have another beer” probably doesn’t count.)

A long and involved way of saying \"keep it simple\"

Quick Verbal Tactics Dot Com Got People Skills

Instruction manual to communicating with others (because schools suck nowadays).

College really screwed up my internal clock. I'd stay up until all hours of the night studying, hanging with my friends, and just playing video games. It took me a long time to fix my internal clock. What did I find to be the most effective thing to get me to wake up at a decent hour? Go to sleep at a decent hour. Simple.

How to Become an Early Riser -- Steve Pavlina's Personal Development Blog

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