Friday, June 19, 2009

Never Let HP "Fix" A Mac

Wednesday night I tried to change the settings on my HP Photo Printer. I needed to connect it through USB instead of over the network shared by a Windows machine.
The printer software refused my request.
In fact, it refused my request so hard that it demanded a re-install of itself.
No big deal, right?
Printer software gets swapped out all the time.
Except this printer software encountered an error. It was unable to install due to a permissions issue.
Now, there was no permissions issue. The software was running as me, and I'm allowed to do whatever.
Sometimes the permissions database gets a little stale though, and running a clean up and verification is something you just do on a Mac.
However, the HP software attempted to do it instead.
A few hours later, I found myself purchasing a new hard drive and downloading a beta copy of Snow Leopard, having lost my original install media in the move.
Yesterday afternoon I discovered that Snow Leopard doesn't fit on a DVD, so I went back out to buy an 8GB flash drive.
After booting from that, I was able to install an operating system on the new hard drive.
But wait!
Possibly due to the OS upgrade, my AT&T Aircard would only work without the software required to use it. So not at all, really.
By 8pm, I had committed to another 2 years of wireless internet in order to purchase a new AT&T aircard.
And then we got sandwiches, because that seemed the thing to do.
The important thing is this: I have my computer back.
Also, Snow Leopard (even in beta) is awesome. Unless you have an Option GT Ultra Express internet card, in which case it sucks a little until you replace that.
I missed you, internets.
I'm so happy to see you.
Let's never be apart again, okay?

4 comments:

Leslea said...

Snow Leopard??

Garrick said...

Mac OS X 10.6, the world's most advanced operating system (according to Apple).
It's a lot like 10.5, but smaller.

I love your profile picture!

Joe said...

"It's like 10.5, but smaller".

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Garrick said...

What, no "that's what she said"?

I'm so disappointed.