Who knew that FedEx delivers on Saturdays, even when it's not Christmas?
Saturday the FedEx guy delivered my new printer. I unpacked the box and looked over the directions. A little more complicated than my last printer set-up, but shouldn't be too bad. I placed the printer in its new home and removed all the tape holding it together (I swear that HP must own stock in Scotch Tape).
I read the directions some more and discovered that I had to set up the CD portion before hooking up the USB cable. So I took out the CD and on one portion of the edge I felt roughness. In turning over the CD, took a look and thought, "just my luck, a screwed up CD." I was looking at a jagged edge that was about 1" long. Well, nothing for it but to try the CD anyway.
After 10 minutes the CD was only at 1% loading. Something wasn't happy so I popped out the CD (there is not other way to abort the loading of the software - even c tl-alt-delete gave me nothing). The computer grumbled that installation hadn't been complete and I would need to uninstall the portion of the software that had installed. Sure. Fine, Go ahead.
Although I figured the screwed up CD was at fault, I gave it another shot. This time I put the CD into the CD burner, figuring maybe it could read the CD even if the regular CD player couldn't. After disengaging Norton's Internet Security, I held me breath and tried again. (note, the first time I didn't disengage NIS because the directions only said to do that if installing to a network, but it apparently wasn't supposed to be neccessary for a single computer).
At 49% installation (and longer than it took me to install MS Office 2003!), the program complained because it couldn't read something. "Well, shit, that is the part of the CD that is screwed up," I thought. But, the program offered to send an error report to HP, which I did. HP sent a notice back saying it was a known problem but they didn't have a fix for it. Great! JUST MY LUCK! Now I have to box everything back up, send the printer back and figure out what printer would work.
However, HP kindly sent me to Microsoft, who had a work around for the problem. I wrote down all the steps (not having a printer to print them out on) and set about fixing the problem. Actually, I didn't see how the work around was supposed to solve the problem, but I gave it a whirl.
Somehow it worked, and after only 2 hours (and connecting the USB cable) I was able to print the envelope out for the fourth customer invoice. I haven't tried to use the scanner, but at some point I will see if that works (when you see pics of dogs/cats we had in Kansas, you will know that the scanner works - else you will hear me cussing!).
No! No! Anything but that (cussing)! *laughing* I get enough of that stuff from your dad! Hope that it all works great, for you, and I'm looking forward to pictures of Shiloh (or, however her name was spelled).
Posted by: Cop Car | January 16, 2006 at 12:59 PM
If the printer showed up any other way, I'd be suspicious. Maybe even call out the bomb-squad.
Glad you got it up and running. Now lets see if it works. Be neat to see the older pics.
Posted by: Wichi Dude | January 17, 2006 at 03:26 AM
There was slight cussing until I figured out which software to use for cropping the pictures (unlike all the old scanners I have used, this one scans the whole document area THEN you get to crop to size). All in all though, it wasn't too bad.
Posted by: bogie | January 17, 2006 at 03:51 AM
I bow to a more talented computer user!
I see it worked, despite having to play around with it. I loved the pictures of Shilo. I would have had to pack it all up and send it back!
Posted by: buffy | January 19, 2006 at 05:42 PM
Buffy--Surely your step-son would have set you aright. I have faith in him.
Posted by: Cop Car | January 19, 2006 at 06:50 PM
Oh, yes, I have two sons who would have made it work for me, but if it was left to me, I'd pack the darned thing up and demand a working model. It's the principal of the thing as much as a matter of techno-idiocy. IF you pay what they request, they should sell you something that works! The first time round!
Posted by: Buffy | January 21, 2006 at 12:33 AM
I was still waiting to send a bill to a customer, and I had waited a week for the darn thing to get here. If I had packed it up and sent it back, I would still be waiting!
However, I did know when I ordered the printer that sometimes it has problems installing the hardware (I read reviews on several different websites). I figured I was savy enough to work thru any problems if they arose, and otherwise the printer was rated very well. If I wasn't used to fixing computers, I would not have gotten this printer after I read about the potential problems.
Posted by: bogie | January 22, 2006 at 08:03 AM