Technology Hates Me

It does. Technology hates me. Or at least it loathes me enough to want to toy with my sanity. Yesterday it was a problem with burning CDs that gave me fits - today it was installing my new combo 3-in-1 printer. I've needed a new printer for a very long time; we finally broke down and bought one yesterday.

I get this thing home - now the last time I bought anything mildly technical was about 3 years ago back when everything you needed for the hardware to work came in the box. Apparently this is no longer true. No, apparently now you need to buy your USB cables separately. So the new nifty printer sat on my desk next to my PC and waited for a cable.

We bought the cable today. I came home and while boy napped I followed the directions to the letter. . .yet the printer would not work. I tried to find the printer - no printer existed as far as my PC was concerned. I uninstalled the software. I reinstalled the software. And again - we had problems. Of the five icons in the printer's management interface I had two. Try to print a document and the printer wasn't even showing up as an option. This DESPITE the fact that the installation program had actually acknowledged looking for and finding the drivers. I'm telling you, the folks on my IM list must have thought my PC was possessed today with all the opening and slamming of virtual doors. I must have rebooted a zillion times - each time closing out of all programs including AIM that had auto-launched when the computer started up.

Well what does a girl do when these problems arise? Call customer service? No. In my house we call Dad. . . and Dad comes to give it a whirl. If he can't fix it, then you call Customer Service. So Dad comes over this evening. He looks at the computer for a moment. He reads some of the manual. He uninstalls. He reboots (slam that AIM door again.) He reinstalls the software. . . The screen shows the little box that says its looking for and then locating the drivers.

"Yeah, that's what it said when I did it too. And then I clicked there." I said gesturing to the big green check mark saying "Click me."

But Dad clicks it anyway in defiance - as if this time it'll work just because he clicked it. The computer pops up a new window, one to register with HP. One, my friends, I had never seen before.

"Huh, that's new" I said as I took Dad's place at the computer to register myself. "Hey, look it already filled in the serial number."

Dad, trying hard not to gloat behind me said "Guess it recognizes the printer now."

We register. We click open the management program and what do you know - all five icons are there. I open a press release I had been working on and I click the little print icon. It prints. Yes, it works.

"But I didn't do anything different than what you just did!" I protested.

"Guess computers just like me," Dad said.

Like him? I guess so. And hate me. . .