2 posts tagged “hp”

• Go to Apple store to buy printer for printing out hipster-PDA cards for GTD and dealing with important documents
• See that Apple is pushing the Photosmart C3180, which seems to work for index cards; buy
  
• Set up printer according to instructions
  
• Insert driver disc
  
• Disc is scratched; MacBook can't read it
  
• Check if drivers came with OS
  
• Apple's UI makes the pop-up menu seem disabled
  
• Finally realize it's not disabled, and get a list of printers
  
• Nothing resembling this printer is on the list
• Start writing a bug report to Apple about the UI, but HP's site hangs the browser, losing the bug report
  
• Go back to HP site; try downloading drivers; they are not there
  
• Google around for drivers; they are not there
  
• Try to get on HP's support chat; Mac is not supported
  
• Wade through HP's support structure to send an e-mail
  
• "You'll get a response within 1 hour"
  
• Get a machine-generated form e-mail within 1 hour
  
• Try Tiger disc; it's no good on Intel MacBook
  
• Try MacBook disc; it doesn't have the driver
  
• Try HP disc again; no good
  
• Try HP disc in Mac mini; it works
  
• Mount HP disc over network and start install
  
• HP installer sprays thousands of files on hard drive
  
• HP installer steals the UI focus every 5-15 seconds, preventing use of any other application during the installation
  
• HP installer hangs
  
• Start over
  
• HP install finishes this time
  
• HP puts its dumb icons in the Dock without asking
  
• HP printer appears in printers list; printing works!
  
• Connect printer to AirPort Express
  
• Printer appears in list, but trying to print to it does nothing
  
• Printer also appears in Bonjour list; selecting it gives the unhelpful error "An error occurred while trying to add the selected printer."
  
• Go to Apple support site
  
• Try turning base station and printer off multiple times
  
• Try deleting and re-adding the printer; get "Error -9672" as if it's 1996 and this is System 7.5
  
• Go through Apple's troubleshooting steps; the last one is a link to a list of compatible HP printers; this one is not on it
  
• Remember that this is the printer Apple is pushing at the very front of their retail store, and giving away with new Macs, yet it doesn't work with their printer-sharing base station
  
• Try installing HP software on Mac mini
  
• For some reason the input menu changes from Dvorak to US when in the password field for granting access to the installer
  
• Google around
  
• Check Gimp-Print and HPJIS; printer not supported
  
• Check unofficial printer list; printer is not on it
  
• Try printer sharing on Mac mini; it works great
  
• Receive e-mail from HP, 2 days later:

Dear William,
Thank you for contacting HP Total Care.
I understand that the installation CD that came with your Photosmart C3180 was damaged. 
As yet, we do not have installation CD's printed for aftermarket distribution for the Photosmart C3180. Please continue to monitor our website for a free downloadable version.
Sincerely,
Jacqueline
HP Total Care

Later...

• Get an 8-page IRS document that needs to be scanned
  
• Put the first page in the scanner and push the Scan button
• HP Scan Pro starts up, scans the page, and then launches HP Photosmart Studio
• Whether doing anything or not, HP Photosmart Studio goes unresponsive for 15-20 seconds at a time
• Force-quit HP Photosmart Studio
  
• Launch HP Scan Pro again
  
• It does a preliminary scan of the page, then decides that a black and white IRS document would be best scanned in 24-bit color
• Change the setting back to 1-bit black and white
• The software decides that it would be best to scan an index-card sized area on the edge of the page, instead of the whole thing
  

  HP Scan Pro
• Resize the scan area to include the whole page
• The color-depth pop-up menu flashes 3 times and goes back to 24-bit color
• Try to scan; the scanner halts midway through the scan and the software stops responding
• Try turning off the device; the power light just flashes
• Unplug the device; the software crashes
• Plug the device back in and start over
  
• Repeat inserting a page, resetting the color depth, resizing the scan area, resetting the color depth, trying to scan, resetting the color depth, changing the preferences to stop messing with the color depth, trying to scan, getting stuck, unplugging the device, restarting the software, scanning again, until all 8 pages have been scanned
• Get so upset you crumple the document in your hand quite involuntarity