Hello, and welcome to William Harrel's Printers and Scanners bio at Lifewire.com. Harrel has been writing about computer technology for nearly 30 years. He has authored or coauthored 20 books—including titles in the popular Bible, Secrets, and For Dummies series. In addition to his duties as Contributing Editor writing many articles on printers and scanners (as well as laptops, desktops, and tablets) at Computer Shopper, over the years he has written for several other computer and business magazines, such as PCWorld, Windows Magazine, and MacUser. He also teaches several computer technology courses offered online and at over 2,500 colleges and universities.
For information about his recent and current projects, visit his blog, Communication Technology Watch, his Facebook page, his Twitter account, or his Google Plus account.
Harrel’s printer and scanner experience dates back nearly 30 years, when his desktop publishing firm wrote and published font cartridge and memory module manuals for HP laser printers. Several of his 20 books cover desktop publishing, where he included voluminous information on getting the best results from laser printers, high-end prepress imaging equipment, and typesetting machines.
Since then, he has written literally hundreds of articles, how-tos, round-ups, and reviews of printers, scanners, and all-in-one (multifunction) inkjet and laser-class machines, as well as several other types of hardware, including laptops, desktops, and tablets. You can’t really understand printer and scanner technologies without also comprehending how the devices that interface with them work, too. You can see Harrel’s latest reviews on his bio page at Computer Shopper.
In addition to studying writing at Ventura College and several other schools, Harrel’s experience with printers and scanners dates back to the very beginning of computer technology, when PCs had no hard drives and personal laser printers were huge and cost upward of $2,000. He spent the first 10 years or so of his carrier teaching folks, through his magazine articles and books, how to use the first computer-driven printers and imaging equipment.
“For the first 10 years of my carrier as a technology journalist and author, the pundits and talking heads of that era predicted that long before now, most offices would be ‘paperless.’ Instead, with the advent of the PC and desktop printers, we went through a period where by far more pages were printed by an ever-increasing number of people than ever before.
Printers, scanners, and multifunction machines continue, in terms of speed and output quality, to stride forward, while the machines themselves continue to get smaller, more efficient, and less expensive. Nowadays, nearly every family and emerging small business can afford a quality printer or scanner. Imaging technologies have changed our lives and our businesses forever. It’s been an exciting and gratifying ride to play my role as reporter and industry watcher.”
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