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Recently work had a problem involving the Lexmark X125 fax/copier/printer/scanner/telephone.
We mainly use it for faxing and it replaced an old fax-paper fax. A few years ago I suggested getting a plain-paper fax machine. Before this my boss had never heard of a plain-paper fax.
Anyway, the interface started displaying “ADD RIGHT CART.“. We could receive faxes but they could not print. We changed the current black & white cartridge with another one. The problem remained. I remembered a similar problem we experienced previously. On that occasion I followed the instructions from the support website and the machine fixed itself. This time, the problem remained, even after the 3rd and 4th attempts to fix it. For a short time we even resorted to using an ancient, last resort, fax machine.
Sevil telephoned Lexmark support in Istanbul. They suggested we should try with a new cartridge. The next morning Serkan brings a new cartridge and, wham, bam, thank you mam, the fax printer is operational again!
You may ask, where is the conspiracy in this?
The conspiracy is a new, genuine Lexmark X125 cartridge costs 50,000,000 TL whereas an unofficial cartridge refill is 5 times cheaper. What a fraud! I do not know how the fax machine differentiates between the cartridges. I do bet Lexmark spent time and $$$ ensuring the machine did differentiate.
The conclusion: printers and other ink consumers are not designed to be sold at great profit. It is the ink cartridges where the money comes from!
In this article, Irshad Manji’s perspective on Islam is very interesting. If ever her ideas were implemented properly there could be many positive effects including reducing the violence detailed in the previous post by better empowering women. I have not read the book yet so I can’t make a proper judgement and I doubt her ideas would be widely implemented by the Muslim world in my lifetime anyway.
Irshad’s official website is here.
A disturbing new report from Amnesty International concerning violence against women in Turkey is on their webpage.
I now have my Iranian visa and hope to visit Iran in August 🙂
The Iranian Embassy is open Saturdays as they are closed on Fridays (Iran’s Muslim holiday) and Sundays (Turkey’s secular holiday). Normally an Iranian visa is valid for two months. As I wanted to go in August I asked them to extend the validity and now my 30-day visa is valid until 28 August. As banks were closed the official accepted the USD $50 payment in cash after originally asking me to place the money in an account. As Iran does not require visas for Turkish people the embassy is quiet. I believe this is the main reason I was treated so well and why self-serve tea, coffee and water were available. I don’t think the German, American, Australian or other embassies of countries Turks require visas to treat their guests so well.
In other news from Ankara:
– I visited the Cankaya weekly bazaar on Sunday. This provides the same function as the Mersin bazaar described here. However, the Cankaya bazaar:
*Is under a permanent shelter in its own space as opposed to the ‘tent verandas’ on Mersin’s street. I don’t know if the Cankaya bazaar space is used for the other 6 days.
*Has a greater number of suppliers selling a larger quantity of a larger variety of fruit and vegetables
*Features artichokes (enginar) much more than Mersin bazaar.
*Fruit and vegetables are generally of a higher quality but at a more expensive price. Cherries were up to 8 million TL per kilo for the best ones.
*Creates a far bigger rubbish pile by the end of the night.
– On Sunday night there was an amazing sunset combined with an occasional lightening strike – I wish I had a good time-lapse camera and there were no apartment blocks in the way.
