• Tag Archives printer

  • Not Too Plugged In

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane                                                                Waxing Garlic Moon

    A new printer, a laserjet.  Cheaper to operate than the color printers, necessary for producing manuscripts.  I bought one.  I spent a good while setting it up with no luck on the final leg, my print command to the printer.  Frustrated, I let it set for a month or so.  Today I decided to go at it again.

    I tried to print something.  Nothing happened.  I expected that.  Went to the HP website and had a bad moment when I wondered if I’d bought a printer that simply couldn’t connect to a Windows 7 operating system.  After a bit of stumbling around, I found that no, I had not done that and that this printer could be made to work with Windows 7.  Which left me back at the original problem.

    Instead of calling HP right away, I decided to give the troubleshooting guides one more try.  I put in my printers product number and sure enough, there was a fix for the very problem I’d encountered.  I followed the instructions to change the point and print setting (whatever that is) to disable and tried again.  No joy.

    Tired of the process I called HP.  Surprisingly, I got through to tech support with little trouble.  When the nice man from India had walked me through the process for him taking control of my computer to check the problem, he asked me, “What does the printer say right now?”

    “Let me look.”  I looked.

    That’s odd.  Doesn’t say anything.  Could it be turned off?  No, the on button was pushed in but it had no light.  Hmmm.

    Ooops.  I checked the plug.  Not plugged in.  I’d unplugged it before I went to Nebraska a week ago today.  So, I plugged it in, not saying anything to India yet.

    It turned on and, sure enough, chugged to life and spit out the test matter I’d sent through it right after I ran the troubleshooter tips.

    “Oh,” I said, “Gee.  I didn’t have it turned on and I tried a fix from your website.  Look’s like it worked.”  Chagrin.


    📂This entry was posted in GeekWorld 📎and tagged

  • More Fun With Computers

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Imbolc                                                       Full Bridgit Moon

    After 52 on Monday and a good deal of melting, with a good deal left to go, too, the red button on my status bar has lit up again with a winter weather advisory, a winter storm warning.  If all goes as predicted, we may end up with 8-10 inches of new snow.

    Today I spent a good bit of time installing a new printer, a multi-function HP, so-called plug and play.  Well, sort of.  I finally got it set up to print from all three computers on our home network.  Felt good to get it done.  Now I may tackle that old laserjet one more time before I buy a new one.

    Groceries, then time on the treadmill and time with the grandkids on Skype.  Now to bed.


    📂This entry was posted in GeekWorld Weather +Climate 📎and tagged

  • A No Good Day

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Imbolc                                          Waxing Bridgit Moon

    Some days.  You know.  This was one.  I got the printer cable.  Spent another 2+ hours fiddling with the printer.  Nothing positive.  Still.  I know it’s a breed fault, but I do prefer to be competent.  At everything I do.  Every time.  Not perfectionism.  It’s competencism.  Things don’t have to be perfect, but they have to display my general competence, or else.  Well.  You may have been down that hole, too.  It can get deep.

    Then, I went out to check on the bees.  I suppose I might have missed something, I did last spring, but I don’t think so.  All three dead.  Geez.  I didn’t stop to diagnose the cause.  I just closed the hive boxes up and walked back inside.

    I tried yet one more time on the printer.  Well, actually, several more times, flailing at different solutions suggested by this website and that.  Even went into DOS, foreign territory for me.  I got in and got out of DOS unscathed, but no closer to a solution.

    If I had any hair left, I’d be pulling it out right about now.  Guess I’m gonna have to call Steve again.  See if he say some words over the machines, toss some holy byte water at them.  I don’t know.  An exorcism?

    The good thing is.  Worked out.  Got my endorphins buzzing around the old synapses.  Sweat.

    Now.  I can be philosophical.  Never to fail is never to do.  Never to do is to be dead.  I want to be alive.  I want to try things that challenge me.  Guess failure is part of that.  Gotta be.  Otherwise no forward progress.  So, I’ve got two challenges ahead:  get the packages installed in early April.  Do the due diligence before hand to find out what killed the bees.  Fix what I can fix.  Get the printer installed.  One damn way or another.

    Grrr.


    📂This entry was posted in Bees GeekWorld 📎and tagged

  • The Color Printer Scam

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Winter                                                      Waning Moon of the Cold Month

    BF Skinner’s definition of creativity?  Noticing that the chicken is an eggs’ way of making more eggs.   This quip came to mind when I took my Canon pixma printer into the shop for repair.  The guy said, truthfully, too, that it may well cost more to fix it than to buy a new one.  Why?  Because a printer is just an ink maker’s way of making you buy more ink.  Color printers have low prices so folks will snap them up, take them home and print lots of color stuff, or, alternatively, print black and white stuff while the pricey color inks go dry anyhow.  I have an HP Laserjet 4m that handles all of my black and white printing, the toner, while not cheap, lasts 5-6,000 pages and I bought this HP in 1992 or so.  It’s one of the few things I own that is older than the Celica.  Gnashing of teeth on the pixma.

    Scurried over to the grocery store for that stuff I forgot yesterday, then back home for lunch.

    Now I’m going to pick up the Titian catalog, read some there, and spend time in Wheelock chapter 26, comparatives.  After that, the treadmill.


    📂This entry was posted in GeekWorld 📎and tagged

  • The DOW Goes Up; The DOW Goes Down.

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Winter                                                  Waning Moon of the Cold Month

    “I do not have what I own, nor do I have what I do. I only have what I am.” – D. Trinidad Hunt

    Rising temperatures, even rising toward freezing, activate the doer in me.  I want to get out and plant vegetables, check the bees, but that time is not yet, is still a long ways away, so I’ll focus on the hydroponics, Latin and Titian for awhile.  Colder temps activate the thinker, the reader, the researcher and they still dominate.   So, it’s to the books.

    The DOW goes up; the Dow goes down.  Life goes on; joy is found.  All I have to say about the market.

    I still have one printer in spasms.  I’ve tried fixes from the manual–yes, I RTFM!–I’ve tried fixes from the internet.  I’ve tried letting it rest and I’ve tried hitting with this and than for an hour at a time.  Enough to make me sputter.  Guess I’m gonna have to give and take the damn thing to a repair guy.  The shame of it all.  One other task defeated me, setting up a home wireless network.  That required the GeekSquad. I like to DIY electronics.  Not this time.


    📂This entry was posted in GeekWorld US History Weather +Climate 📎and tagged