New Printer: HP Tango

I have had problems printing for a while. Everything worked OK until I moved from a direct connection to my printer to WiFi wireless printing.

I tracked down the problem: my WiFi printer only supports 2.4GHz WiFi, not 5 GHz. I can print if I set my WiFi router to use 2.4 GHz.

I want to use 5 GHz for WiFi. My download speeds are about 6 times faster with 5 GHz vs. 2.4 GHz.

What to do? I decided to upgrade my printer and get one that works on 5 GHz WiFi: The HP Tango.

Tango is a very different printer. It does not have a screen. It does not support a direct connection. It is designed for use via WiFi, both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz.

My favorite thing about Tango is how you can hide it when it is not in use. This is what it looks like when I don’t need to print (i.e. most of the time)…

I bought an Indigo linen cover that fits the printer like a book cover. You wouldn’t know it is a printer. It is out of sight/out of mind. No lights. Nothing digital.

The printer is small enough to easily fit on my bookshelf. The only cable is a white power cable that blends in with the wall.

When I need to print, I take the paper off the top of the printer, open the cover, open the printer, place the paper in printer…

Here is a video of the process…

There is something magical about this printer: how does it connect to WiFi in the first place? It does not have a display or buttons for you to choose a connection and enter a password.

I actually do not know the answer to this question. The HP setup app showed that there was a Tango printer that I could setup. How did my computer know there was a printer it could setup?

Once I selected to setup my new Tango printer, I was asked if I wanted to use the same WiFi my computer is using. I said I did, and then my printer started working.

Magical.

There is a Tango and a Tango X. What is the difference? The Tango X is a Tango with an included cover. The Tango is $150. The Tango X is $200. A cover is $50.

Print quality is great. It is very fast. It is out of the way. And it works.

5/5 stars

What I use: Text Editor

My previous choice for text editor was Sublime. I paid for it. I liked that I could learn one text editor and use it on Windows, Mac, and Linux. It came with dark mode by default and looked good.

Then Visual Studio Code happened. VS Code works on Windows, Mac, and LInux. It has a dark mode by default. AND…it is free and open source.

The pace of development is amazing. New features are released every month. It is hard to keep up with all the goodies they cram in.

When you start VS Code, it comes lean without any plugins. As you open different file types, you get recommendations to install plugins that will improve the experience for that particular file type. Just click “install” on the recommendation and the plugin is installed and enabled very quickly.

Here are the plugins I am currently using…

If you look at the most popular plugins, the top plugin is Python with 18 million downloads…

If you look at the Stack Overflow Developer Survey for “Most Popular Developer Environment,” Visual Studio Code is tops and growing quickly….

Year% of respondents that choose Visual Studio CodeRanking against all developer environments
201950.7%1st
201834.9%1st
2017 (calculated from original source data)19.0%6th
20167.2%13th

I use VS Code for Python, PowerShell, and C# development. I highly recommend Visual Studio Code.