In the Meantime, the Library Will Have To Do

I have nothing against the concept of the public library. The ability to check out and read books on just about anythign I can imagine is wonderful. The selection available, yes even here in Kitsap County, is really quite substantial. The library many times saved us during our homeschooing years. I loved brining the kids to the library for time away from home. They did quite a lot of research in the library.

On the other hand, there are some things the library provides I feel soemtimes I am much better off without. Some of the services provided end up feeling quite cheap. Of course, I would be typing this into blogger on Internet Explorer ( FireFox rules!) on the computer with the sticky keys. And when some oen logs onto the internet in here, everythign slows down, and many times freezes. On several occassions I have ended up loosing almost 10 minutes of time out of my one hour time limit.

My solution will be a little slow right now. I'm hoping all of my 1099's come in the mail this week. The soone rI get them, the sooner they get delivered to the accountant. The sooner I can deliver them to the accountant, the sooner my taxes get filed. The sooner the taxes get filed, the sooner I get my refund. The first thing I do with my refund, buy a new laptop.  YEAH!

Staples, That WAS Easy

The printer issue is finally fixed. Thanks to our good tech guy, Nate, at Staples, That Weird Woman now has the ability to print her pdf files from her computer.

I went back over to her house yesterday an once again uninstalled the darling printer. Today, I installed it once again. The good news coming out of that is that the automatic updates happened this time. YEAH! The updates included a correction in computer to printer communication. YEAH!

That still didn't solve the problem of the unprintable pdf files. Ok, I decided to check out HP tech support online. Wouldn't it be my luck that the precious Internet Explorer decided it needed to shut down as the chat module was loading. Nice. Calling HP didn't get me anywhere what so ever. That Weird Woman is not about to shell out $40 for tech service for something that shouldn't be a problem in the first place.

With the pdf printing mystery still unsolved, I finally decided to take a crack at calling Staples. If they weren't open, I figured it wouldn't be a big deal. Quite frankly, I don't think anyone should have been open today. But, what would I know? They were open, and our very wonderful Nate, the tech department guy helped us out.

I've learned...
when in need of computer brains, just call Staples. That was Easy.

Fixing This Crazy Printer

At one time, I was a sales rep for Dell to Best Buy. If there was ever a job I loved and never wanted to leave, it was my job with Dell. Unfortunately, that got cut short with an early termination to the campaign.

Now, everybody thinks I am the tech queen. I sold Dell, so I must knwo how to fix everything. Especially the HP living at my mom's house. Except now we have moved beyond the computer to the printer. This HP Color Laserjet 1600 printer will not cooperate with the printing of pdf files. I am not thrilled.

I have uninstalld and reinstalled this piece of mess delicate machinery. I have checked the connection cables of this mess delicate machinery. I have, to this point in time, no clue why every other type of file will print except a pdf.

In my endless earch for assistance, and the posting upon several massage boards, I have come across a very useful website aka www.rinkworks.com and plenty of discussion of printers.

I sympathize with these dear tech support people. They begin to remind me of my days at hell TeleTech working for Sprint. Just a few of the stories tell as follows:

Most of the kids in my graduating class did not receive the best computer
training while growing up. So when I was taking the required computer class,
covering basically Microsoft Word and Excel, I had quite the experience.

On our first assignment, we were required to print when we were
finished. This one guy was getting really frusturated.

Him: "I hit
print
but it won't print."
Me: "Well, show me what you did."
He
clicked
File/Print/OK, then stood and looked around the monitor and CPU.

Him:
"See? It is not coming out! Freakin' computers."
Me:
"Umm...maybe you would
have better luck if you looked for it at the
printer."
I directed him to the
printer on the other side of the room.
It turned out he had printed 24 copies of
his assignment.

I have been the technical support for a group of engineers for several years. In the beginning they weren't sure a female could be high tech enough for them. As a result they often spent a lot of time working on a problem before calling me for help. One day I walked by a cubicle and saw two engineers working hard over a printer. About an hour later I walked by and, noticing they were still puzzled by the problem, I asked if I could help. They began to explain all the steps they had taken to try to get the dot matrix printer to work. I still treasure the looks on their faces as I took one finger, pressed the cover latch into place, and it began printing.

Taken from www.rinkworks.com. Please do visit their site so he won't get on my case overcopywright issues.

Thanks,

Patience Little Puppy; The Internet Will be Online Shortly

Today, I have made technological history. I, for the first time in my life, am posting a blog entry from a laptop. I've had a laptop before; fourteen years ago. Those were my college days. Dad Dick gave me a laptop for my use in college. I remember this particluar portable computer being much smaller than what I'm using now. Color screens were a luxury, and public access to the internet was in its infancy. By the way, Windows 3.1 was advenced technology.

After my one year of college ( I decided having kids was a higher priority at that time.), Dad Dick took the laptop of old on a trip. Coming back, explicative Dick decided it was a good idea to check the computer in his luggage. He never did bother replacing the newly cracked lcd screen. Apparently, it wasn't worth his time to replace something that he didn't choose to own.

Please note, this computer situation is not why I strike out the word dad. That is for another post; waiting for a most opportune moment. This is a story about computers, not about why I disown Dick Fife as family relation.

With several factors to consider, including the growing internet needs of our family, Bigboy felt inspired to treat me to my very own laptop. After much consideration and shopping, we came to a life changing decision. Not only did I need a laptop, we needed a new desktop as well. The computer we've owned for the five years couldn't handle supporting the router for my computer. It's a well experienced machine, and probably be replaced.

The laptop came home Thursday. The new desktop came home Friday night. Today, Bigboy has been playing with his new toys. I honestly believe testosterone gets its kicks out of playing with things invloving cords and plugs. His side of the story may be slightly different. In his world, I was more excited than him. I can't say that is completely true.

However, I can say I wanted to take a short break from filing. The new desktop was connected to the internet. The perfect opportunity to check my hit counter had arrived. Bigboy would say I was more excited than he was; something like the dog in this:


This video has been provided by Disney Tube, the exercising of my skill in copying and pasting code, and my newly learned skill in inserting YouTube video into my blog. You can find this video my searching "Over The Hedge" in YouTube.

He caught me redhanded online, on a brand new desktop with no antivirus, firewall, or spam protection. Honestly, I didn't know. I figured that kind of important stuff was done already.

Eventually, he did tell me to calm down and turn on my laptop while he installed the printer, and a few other things for the network between all three computers. I turned out to be one happy puppy.