Epson Stylus CX6600 Photo Printer, Copier, Scanner

The EPSON Stylus CX6600 is the ideal home or office All-in-One solution. It combines high speed printing, scanning and photocopying with the flexibility of a memory card reader, the quality of EPSON DURABrite inks and the cost-efficiency of separate ink cartridges.
Customer Review: Beware All Things Epson
Unfortunately, we have an Epson printer, the older brother of this model (the CX6400). Epson had a class-action suit brought against them a couple of years ago, and with good reason--their ink cartridges register empty when they are nothing of the sort. You can hear the ink slosh around inside after the printer tells you it's out. The result of the suit was a coupon for $45 of Epson swag...obviously, printer manufacturers get you on ink, but Epson's the king. The printer doesn't even fade, it simply refuses to go another step. Perhaps the Epson Jackass would be a better name? What's more, the nozzles clog regularly, the print quality suffers consistently, and you have to perform diagnostics and cleaning routinely. Avoid this model and anything like it, lest you have a giant money-sucking paperweight anywhere near your workspace.
Customer Review: Run away from any CX6600
I bought this printer because of the good reviews it had on several magazines. After a year or so it would not print in black. I tried several times cleaning the head. It wouldn't budge. Now it stop printing all together. I bought a Canon that gives me superb photos unlike any that I printed on the CX6600. Next time you see a CX6600 run away from it.

Barcode scanners have been on the market for a number of years. You can pay as little as $50 for a scanner up to several thousand depending on durability, scan engine and whether it's laser or CCD. How do you choose what
barcode scanner is right for you?

Laser scanners have typically always been more expensive than CCD scanners. Both have advantages and disadvantages. CCD scanners have no moving parts internal like laser scanners. A CCD can take a drop or resist shock more so than a laser scanner. Laser scanners have oscillating mirrors that are subject to wear and mechanical failure. CCD scanners use LED's for illumination and can last ten times as long as laser scanners. CCD scanners have come a long way. They used to only be able to cast a fixed width wide beam and the operator would have to hold the scanner within touching distance to the label to get the barcode to scan properly. Today, CCD's can scan up to 45 scans per second or faster (depending on the model) which is equiviltent to laser scanners.

Laser scanners are traditional better for long range scanning which isn't always a requirement for people scanning barcodes. I have used both CCD scanners and laser scanners over the years. I would much rather purchase a good CCD scanner knowing that it's going to last me longer and be less resistance to having to repair it from dropping it on my warehouse floor.

There are many manufacturers of
barcode scanners on today's market. Some questions to ask yourself are: What type of environment will I be using this scanner (warehouse, office)? What size/symbology of barcode that I will be scanning? Is long range scanning a requirement in your application?

These questions will help determine what barcode scanner is right for you.

Brad Hole is President of Eversio Technologies; http://www.eversio.com a distributor of hardware, software and supplies for bar coding and data collection.

Scanners