It’s hard to believe that yet another Friday is upon us. What may be even harder to believe is the super weather of the past couple of weeks is continuing, at least through most of this weekend. I credit our super weather on an event that took place just a couple of weeks ago. My fearless friend returned from a few months in Florida. It seems that ever since he returned that string of just awful stormy weather came to a sudden end.
He and his wonderful wife did us all a favor. Not only did the weather break but he’s helped me out on a couple of computer problems I had encountered. He came back again today to help with a couple situations we didn’t get finished last week.
Speaking of computers, my main printer told me yesterday that it was tired and had enough. Like me as I grow older, it developed the shakes. Yes, I’m beginning to notice some shakiness in this old body, but as long as I wake up in the morning, I’m not concerned. The printer, on the other hand, is another story. I have all my computers attached to it for printing. But a few days ago, I noticed that much of the printing was coming out rather blurred, like it was shaking as I sometimes do.
My wife reminded me that when I bought my other laptop, a free inexpensive Canon printer was included. I bought that little computer several months before MS Vista came out. That new Canon printer was XP compliant, but it did not have any Vista drivers. I didn’t realize that when I opened the box for the first time. It never occurred to me; in fact, I even had forgotten it was pre-Vista.
The old printer was disconnected and removed from its resting place. My wife, who was giving me a hand, said, “Have you ever dusted this shelf?” I think there was a message there. The new, at least new out of the box, one went to the shelf and all the connections were made. I set to sharing on my home network and began to try it out. All my XP machines found it easily and printed to it. I was amazed at its speed, probably at least twice as fast as my 15-year-old HP printer.
But my Vista computer was another story. It not only wouldn’t print to it, it couldn’t even find it. For the first time I’d found something that wouldn’t work on the Vista computer. The solution seemed simple; a visit to the Canon web site to unload Vista drivers would resolve the situation. Well, it didn’t. I chose “printer” as the choice for the driver I wanted. But then my printer wasn’t listed. A little message said that if my printer weren’t listed, no Vista driver was available.
Well that was a real let down. After stewing about it for a couple of hours, I decided to give the search a second try. This time I noticed on the selection list something called “Combination.” I tried it and Voila! There was my printer. This new printer is a “combination,” a combination printer, flat bed scanner, and copier. Not bad for the price. I got the Vista driver and loaded it. Looked for the printer on my network and found it. Connected to it and it prints like a charm. That was a fascinating learning experience.
My fearless friend and I did get all my left over situations fixed. We did have a “wonderful” time getting Outlook to work the way I wanted. He knew what had to be done, but he had never worked in Vista before and so it took a whole lot of trial and error to accomplish what he called a very simple task in XP. He actually did the same thing in moments on my XP computer, but translating that to a slightly different make of Vista was a challenge.
One more day left in this week and it sort of looks like the weather gods which blessed my friend’s arrival back in Maine have decided enough is enough. The showers that may beheading our way for the weekend and into next week won’t be storms like we had a few weeks ago, but we will get a little much needed dampness for our lawns.
And all is good!
GiM
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