We have a lot of discs around here that we like to have nice professional looking labels for. I also have a significant collection of iTunes video. With the new TV Seasons starting it was time to burn last season to DVD and then put them away. Two years ago I purchased an Epson Stylus Photo R280 which has an included CD printing tray.

After rearranging my off this week, I was having a difficult time getting the R280 to print the DVDs. So, I used that as an excuse to go buy a device that I hve been wanting for awhile now, the Dymo DiscPainter. So I ran down to Fry’s and picked one up.

So, when I got home I discovered a few things about the Dymo. The first thing about the Dymo was that it didn’t work with Snow Leopard. Because of this I had to connect it to my G5 PowerMac instead of my MacBook Pro. The next thing is that was annoying was the software.

The software seemed like it was a very old version of Discus. It really looked like it was written for OS 9 instead of OS X. It seemed to work ok but it was just ugly about it. It also didn’t seem to have all the functions that I was used to with Disc Cover 2. I eventually figured out that you can use the Dymo with Disc Cover 2.

So after getting it setup and working, I printed a disc. I was not impressed. Neither was Cody. So I played with the settings and printed a few more. Still not very impressed. At this point we were quite annoyed with the quality we were getting. The next thing was to try to get the R280 printing again so we could compare. Turns out the problem with the R280 was just making sure it was setup to print to disc and not to paper. But the settings were buried so it took some time to work.

Got it working and this is what we got. The image in the upper left is the R280 and the lower right is the DiscPainter.

Clicking on this image will give you the full size one and that will make the difference MUCH easier to see. You can see that on the DiscPainter disc color isn’t right, much more red which wouldn’t be that bad except you can see the lines of the printer as it spirals out. That’s NOT cool. On the Epson it looks like you took a regular picture and just pasted it on the disc.

So after working hard with both, trying to get the Epson’s Disc look BAD and trying to get the Dymo’s to look GOOD I gave up. The conclusion is this, the Epson can be a bit temperamental with it’s tray loading system and making sure all the setting are right. However, even with the mildly complicated setup, the results are far and away better. Cody said that he thought the Dymo looked like something printed on an inkjet printer from the early 90s. And really that’s exactly what it looks like.

What it boils down to is that the Dymo uses one ink cartridge to do it’s printing. The Epson uses 6. This gives much better color representation. I also think that by printing the way the Epson does, by simply printing it like a piece of paper instead of spinning it around (Which looks REALLY cool, don’t get me wrong) it just has more precise control of where the ink is going than the Dymo does.

Needless to say we returned the Dymo yesterday and got a refund from Fry’s. The only think that I think I would recommend the Dymo for is if you wanted to print CD/DVDs on location somewhere and needed something small to carry with you. But you will be sacrificing quality. And here is the last thing to know, where as both these printers printed in about the same amount of time, the Epson Artisan 50, which appears to be the closest current model to my R280 is $109.99 at Newegg. The Dymo was $249.99 at Fry’s. Hands down Dymo got its ass kicked by an $80 printer.

Something that I have noticed in many years of consulting and support is people who own a computer but don’t really know how to use it effectively. This is because people don’t view their computer as what it is, a tool. It can be an effective communication tool, entertainment tool, productivity tool, accounting tool, and a ton of other tools. What makes the computer useful is that it is so versatile.

However, this is all a complete waste of time, energy, and money if the person doesn’t know how to use it effectively. I am an extremely competent computer user. I know how to do all kinds of things with my computer. I do not, by any means, know how to do everything on the computer. Something that still to this day that causes me no end of grief is anything related to graphics. Yes, I can crop and resize a photo or even change formats and that type of thing. But don’t ask me to make massive edit on a photo. That’s not my thing. However, I know how to do many of other things. I do not expect people to know how to do everything; however, they should not be scared to learn when the computer can make a difference and how to make it get the job done.

I would love to help people know more about how to use their computer, but the problem is that I never know where to start. If you start at too basic of a level, you make people feel stupid. I don’t view them as stupid; I just don’t know what they know. And if they don’t have the appropriate level of knowledge then it makes it hard to add to that knowledge. It’s similar to learning to cook. If you don’t know how to operate a stove you are severely limited in what you can make. If you know how to use the oven, a bread maker, a toaster, a blender, a whisk and ingredients you can certainly make more complex and tasty meals. You shouldn’t have to be a sou chef, but, being able to make more than a peanut butter and jelly sandwich could be good as well. In the end, people need to look at the computer as a tool to be used and not as something that is too complex for them to understand.