Almost Too Easy!

by | Jun 10, 2009 | Gear, Musings | 4 comments

Things are getting so easy! This is a good thing of course, most of the time…

When I first bought my Canon Pixus Pro 9500 printer, the first time I had to change an ink cartridge I was lost. I’d been used to having to press buttons for a number of seconds etc. to get the print head into a position that allowed me to change the ink cartridge. Once done, I had to press a button to get the head back to the home position and ready to go again. This of course is easy enough, but when I first got my old printer, I had to read the manual to find out how to do this.

With the Pixus Pro 9500 I opened the digital manual and started looking and it still wasn’t obvious. Being a tad on the impatient side, I stood up and lifted the top cover of the printer to see if there were any instructions in there. As I did so, the print head moved into the cartridge changing position and the cartridge that was empty was flashing at me!

A little cautious, because it really did seem too easy, I flicked the little plastic latch to pop the cartridge out, and dropped in the new one. The light in front of the new cartridge started flashing, and as I lowered the lid, the heads started to move and I could hear the mechanical sound of the heads doing their stuff to intake the ink from the new cartridge. (Probably wasting a load from the other good ones too!)

The point is, it was so easy, it was almost difficult!

Conversely, I actually like to open the top of the printer and look inside as my print develops. Of course, I can no longer do this, because I get shouted out by the printer for opening the top cover while printing! I guess a youngster could stick their hand in there as well, so it’s probably for the best. Ho hum.

Anyway, I was just reminded of this when this evening I printed a CD label, and started wondering again how I do it with the 9500. I don’t do this often, and had momentarily forgotten. I recalled that you have to pull a flap down on the front of the printer to reveal the CD tray slot. The tray itself is stowed neatly underneath the printer in special grooves.

As I pulled the flap down, again the printer started jiggling around readying itself for the CD. I cranked up the Canon CD printing software, attached the artwork from the new Paul Potts CD from iTunes, and arranged a makeshift label, pressed print, and got a message telling me not to put the CD tray into the slot yet. I whipped it back out quickly, because of course I’d already impatiently crammed it in, as you do. Then a few minutes later the message changed showing me where to stick my CD tray. In it went, and a minute or so later I had a beautiful new printed CD.

Easy as anything, and definitely much better than a few years ago, but really, sometimes things are so easy that until I get used to things, I sometimes find myself floundering.

Printing on a CD with my Canon Pixus (Pixma) Pro 9500.

Printing on a CD with my Canon Pixus (Pixma) Pro 9500.

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4 Comments

  1. Will Fly

    You’re one step ahead of me Martin, I don’t even know what sort of CD I need to print a label onto, can you do this with all CDs or just certain types ? I have a label machine with a push down plunger 🙂

    Roy.

    Reply
    • Martin Bailey

      Hee hee. 😀

      You have to buy printable CDs. I buy a brand called That’s here in Japan, but many companies make them. The label face is basically paper-like. They look very nice when they’re done. The labels that you print and stick on can cause vibration if they are not perfectly central. I haven’t used them in years mind!

      I have both a Blu-ray and DVD drive in my computer, and the DVD burner is Label Fish capable. Basically you buy Label Fish disks, and then put them into the drive with the label facing down to burn the label. The software uses the DVD drives laser to actually burn the label into the heat sensitive face of the disk. You end up with a silver image, not unlike a Daguerreotype. It’s a pretty cool technology but incredibly slow. Too slow to be really practical.

      Reply
  2. skotak1

    Hi Martin, what Canon software are you using? Thank you.

    Reply
    • Martin Bailey

      Do you mean for CDs? I no longer have this printer, so I can’t check.

      If you mean for printing in general, I don’t use the Canon software. I use Adobe Lightroom.

      Reply

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