Lenny, the best advice I can give you is to get a used laser printer.
Used B&W laser printers are about $100-200. My LJ 1100 is worth about
$150 and while it was a gift, if I were to have bought it and could
double my money on it I still wouldn't part with it.

The whole thing is, do you NEED color ? If you really need color go
used. You can get cheap and get a Tektronix Phaser, but I have heard
bad things about them.

At any rate, with an inkjet the ink is water soluble and one drop of
dew off you soda (or beer ) can can wipe out quite alot. Also if you
print something that uses alot of ink you get the wet noodle syndrome.

If you're dead set on keeping what you got, you might be able to clean
the head with a Qtip and some water, or even ink. Afterward you can
setup a scheduled task, for example a batch file.

I could find out how to write a batch file to make it print something,
anything every other day or so. Or, I wonder if there's a way to drag
"print test page" into the task scheduler.

I understand that you don't print that much, but I hate inkjet
printers. It seems almost as though if your coffee's too hot the page
smears, but get that stuff on your skin and it won't come off. I
spilled some on my foot one time and it looked like I had some wierd
disease.

I have a file called prin.bat that could probably be modified for your
purpose, and unlike trying to get it to print a test page I'm sure a
bat file will work fine in the task scheduler.

Let me know if you want the batch file.

JURB