There was a time when traveling with a printer was a pain second to none. You needed to haul around a desktop printer the size of a large dog, you could try to bring along a famously temperamental ink jet, or you might decide that you needed a thermal printer, like the printers that grocery stores use to print out receipts.

All of these printers had their drawbacks. For instance, thermal printers needed their own special type of paper and the results were often strange. Ink jets gave you good results, but changes in temperature, humidity or set up could have you spending hours cleaning the heads. Similarly, ink jet printing could get very pricey very quickly. These were all problems that you might have had to deal with.

On the other hand, you might have had a laptop printer that would last you about three months and need a lot of care for those three months. They might not have been great solutions, and from hearing the IT departments grumble, they were a pain to support as well!

The nice thing, though, is that desktop printers have actually shrunk from being upwards of seventy pounds down to compact printers that are around twenty pounds. You can find ink jet printers and laser printers that are this small, and the ink jet printers are much sturdier than they were before.

The real gem in this lineup is the shrinking laser printer, however. They were initially produced for college students who had little space and these small personal printers worked out quite nicely, produce pages in the rage of 12 per minute. They had good durability cycles and they could be packed up tidily at the end of the semester.

Cost per page on consumables for a laser is about 7 cents per black and white page with 10% coverage – typical reports (or papers) won’t strain them. For some of the more robust photo printers, the cost per page is upwards of a dollar, but it is kind of neat to be able to print out hard copies of your photos on your vacation while you’re there.

When we say that these things are small – we mean it. The HP 1006 Personal LaserJet is tiny – it’s a bit bigger than a toaster. It gets thrown into the demo kit when we go to trade shows, so that we can print sales reports and data sheets on the fly for customers. It measures about 14″ wide by 8″ deep by 9″ tall, and it folds up readily into its box.

Though the pass through tray is something that you can use, we leave it off, as it is something of a pain. The ease of getting it set up, the low cost of its ink cartridges and the impressive functionality all make this a great printer and when you are on the road, these factors are all things that you need to look for.

The market for small small mobile printers is still in its infant stage and you will need to be careful before purchasing a portable printer. If you’re in a hurry read our review of the HP h47wbt mobile printer. It has received raving reviews from a lot of people.

For the English Teacher in Taiwan There’s abundant information on the internet about teaching English to children in Taiwan, but there is very little information about the ’special events’ that an English teacher might find themselves roped into by their school. This is the story of a ’special event’ that I did when I was a teacher at Hess Educational Organization.

Cami, you would like to tell a story in the park on Saturday? says my Taiwanese branch manager. uhm what? I say, looking up from a stack of papers that I’m grading. Yes, I think you will like very much. And maybe you sing song too. If confusion was apparent on my face, my manager showed no signs of knowing it. So yes, I think we will meet at sports park, 10am. Huh? Okay good, my manager walks away from this baffling exchange, satisfied. I later asked my western manager, or Head Native Speaking Teacher, what this was all about. I think it’s like, an event for the children of the community. You just go to a park and read a story. It’ll be fun.

Far be it from me to turn down an ‘event for the children’. I pictured a quaint scene- me and perhaps 10 children, sitting under a tree in a secluded area of the park, reading a book of my choice. On Saturday morning I show up at the park around 9:59. Looking around, I spot my manager. I wave cheerily as he rushes toward me and grabs my elbow. Why you are so late?!? he hisses at me. He’s steering me toward a very crowded public square next to the pond. People are enjoying meals at a cafe. Families stand at the waters edge, feeding ducks. Lovers are embracing on park benches. All is quiet, except for the pleasant mingling of voices and children’s laughter. In the middle of the square are about 5 Taiwanese staff from my school. They are inexplicably wearing little plastic light up devil horns, as if we are advertising a school of Satan. Balloons are tied to the trees near them, and there is…this is where it gets bad…a portable public address system.

One of the Taiwanese staff rips my carefully chosen book out of my hands. My dreams of awakening a passion for good literature in the minds of the children slip away. A set of horns is set atop my head. A Hess story book is shoved into my hands. The public address system gives a whistle. Wakka wakka wakka! Shim shimmy roo! shouts one of the Taiwanese staff in Mandarin Chinese. People turn to stare. She continues to speak, and I can tell that she’s building to some sort of finale. Wingle wingle wop dimple dong down do… CAAAYMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! I recognize this last word as my name. She smiles and tosses me the microphone. I manage to say, Uh, before the ear-splitting opening notes of ‘Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes’ are emitted from the PA system. I’m vaguely aware, as I begin gesturing toward my head, shoulders, knees and toes, that the crowd has grown exponentially. There are perhaps a hundred adults standing in a half circle before me, and people are standing on benches to see better. There are, as I had imagined, perhaps 10 children. A rousing rendition of Do Your Ears Hang Low begins to play. I seem to have an out of body experience during the song. I am marching proudly, swinging my arms energetically as if they were an incredibly long set of ears.

The crowd watches me solemnly. The children, who are sitting before me, may have only rudimentary English skills, but they communicate clearly with their eyes. You are an idiot, they are saying to me. How true it is, I think back at them. The song ends and I sit woodenly in a chair, no longer mercifully blessed with that out of body experience feeling. Did I just dance, alone, to ‘Do Your Ears Hang Low’ in front of a hundred adults in a public park? I think I did.

I read the story. The crowd stares politely. I finish and they disperse. The bad news is, this was not the last special event I did to promote this English school in Taiwan. The good news is, there was somebody in the crowd that day who offered me a better job.