A Presidential Pardon - The President
Is Seeking My Help
By Dennis Eskow, former Editor-In-Chief Home
Office Computing and part-time technical
guru
By day, I'm the editor-in-chief of Home
Office Computing magazine. But, oh,
those nights and weekends! Follow me in
my secret life as an involuntary technical
guru, and I think you'll see something of
your own life.
Get this. The President needs a portable
printer - only it can't weigh anything. Zero
pounds. I am pacing the floor in her office,
trying to explain that they do not make
such a printer but she doesn't want to hear
it. Instead she folds her arms and says, "I
think you're being unreasonable, honey."
It's OK for her to call me honey. We're
married.
"I'm being unreasonable?" I do the math
again just in case she's right. "You want a
portable printer, but you don't want to add
weight to that laptop you lug around. Am I
on the right track here?"
She throws her hands up in despair.
"You're not going to bring up the laptop
thing again!"
I told her to buy a notebook. People who
travel should not lug around eight pounds.
A good 4.5-pound notebook would have
done the trick. But she purchased an
eight-pounder because it was cheaper.
This is the trouble with being an unpaid
technology guru. The President is always
asking me for advice but never taking it.
And who do you think gets blamed for
being right?
Why does she need a portable printer
anyway? She started her dog registry
business more than a year ago and has
been doing fine without one. When she
needs to print something on the road, she
can always duck into Kinko's and get it
done there.
Of course things are changing for The
President. Her business is growing and
she's starting to travel more. And some
towns don't have a Kinko's or anything
else that stays open late at night, which is
when emergencies arise. In fact last night
she was in Danbury, Connecticut, when
she got a bright idea that she wanted to
add to her presentation, which she did in
the hotel room. But then she needed to add
that new slide to her handout. Her morning
meeting started early, so the hotel's
business center wasn't open. Opening the
yellow pages, she looked for a Kinko's but
found nothing. She wound up telling the
crowd that if they wanted a copy of that
particular slide they could leave a business
card and she'd mail it. Naturally, all 53
people attending the meeting asked for a
copy.
I know of one possible solution to her
problem. Canon is about to ship its new
NoteJet laptop with built-in color ink-jet
printing, grayscale scanning, and
plain-paper faxing. The whole thing weighs
about one pound more than her present
laptop. The NoteJet IIIcx I have been
testing in the office costs about $7,500 on
the street. With the new Federal tax
regulations for business deductions, she
can reduce the out-of-pocket expense to
about $3,800. The Pentium®-powered
NoteJet is well-engineered, comes with
16MB of RAM, Windows® 95, a 28.8Kbps
modem, and an 11.8-inch active-matrix
color screen.
During two weeks of testing, I fell in love
with its graphical step-by-step instructions
and easy-to-handle printing, scanning, and
faxing modules. You follow the animated
onscreen instructions, point and click on
some icons, and the system practically
loads and unloads cartridges for
you - with no mess. This seems to be the
perfect solution. Everything snaps in and
out of the system with ease.
"What happens if a function goes bad?"
she asks. "What happens if it suddenly
can't scan or print?"
Welcome to the age of technology. Ten
minutes ago The President was looking for
a printer. Now she wants a system that
includes a printer, scanner, laptop, and
fax - all in a nine-pound package that is
guaranteed never to break down.
"But if the printer, scanner, or whatever
goes, then I lose the whole thing," she says
with impeccable logic.
The President is no different from any
other consumer of technology, always
expecting more for less. Often that sets
them up to be ripped off, because they
become willing to buy overloaded
behemoths in their lust for features. More
often, the expectation creates a monstrous
situation that I, as defacto technology
manager of my wife's little company,
cannot solve.
A growing number of entrepreneurs find
themselves in my wife's position - you
need to lug an entire office wherever you
go. There aren't many solutions to such a
problem. I'm not sure there'll be a better
one than the NoteJet for many years to
come, despite her objections. What do
you think? I'd still like to sell her on it. But
is she right? Drop me a note at
deskowhoc@aol.com
For more insights from Home Office
Computing editors on strategies,
equipment and other ideas for working in
your virtual office or from home, read on*:

*Articles reprinted with permission from
Home Office Computing.
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