Possumblog

Not in the clamor of the crowded street, not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng, but in ourselves, are triumph and defeat.--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

REDIRECT ALERT! (Scroll down past this mess if you're trying to read an archived post. Thanks. No, really, thanks.)

Due to my inability to control my temper and complacently accept continued silliness with not-quite-as-reliable-as-it-ought-to-be Blogger/Blogspot, your beloved Possumblog will now waddle across the Information Dirt Road and park its prehensile tail at http://possumblog.mu.nu.

This site will remain in place as a backup in case Munuvia gets hit by a bus or something, but I don't think they have as much trouble with this as some places do. ::cough::blogspot::cough:: So click here and adjust your links. I apologize for the inconvenience, but it's one of those things.

Monday, March 31, 2003

Okay, smart folks...

Some of you may recall that the other day while shopping at Wal-Mart, I purchased a new printer for the kids' computer--an HP Deskjet 3320 for around 50 bucks. The installation process has been stymied by the fact that their (the kids') computer runs a mystical, 20th Century operating system known as "Windows95", and the installation disk for the printer does not have a driver for it, nor is there a driver on HP's website.

I figured that I would be a good slave to Beelzebill and upgrade to a new ~~piece of garbage~~ OS, and broke down and bought Windows Me. (I am a sucker for insipid, meaningless product names, and it was cheap). Over the long weekend, I attempted to install the New(ish) Windows, only to be told that since Old Windows was on a compressed drive (don't ask) that I needed to delete a bunch of crap and uncompress the drive.

Okay.

Deleted all the kids' games and went to uncompress, and got a message that errors in the disk made it IMPOSSIBLE to uncompress the drive, and I should scurry over to ScanDisk and fix those pesky errors. Which I did.

About six times.

In the Thorough mode.

ScanDisk always came back saying the disk had no errors. But silly DriveSpace said it did. Which meant that since DriveSpace was holding all the cards, it didn't really care how many times I ran ScanDisk, nor how nicely ScanDisk said there were no errors, because it wasn't ABOUT to let me uncompress the drive. In an added fit of pique, DriveSpace wouldn't tell me what sort of errors it had found--it just sat there with a smug impassiveness--"I'm thinking of an imaginary number between negative-infinity and infinity. Tell me the number, and I will allow you to do your childish business and install your silly printer."

Help me. Am I going to have to run a big horseshoe magnet over the whole computer? Is there a secret hiding place for disk errors that won't show up when ScanDisk comes to the door? Does anyone make a shareware Windows95 driver for the 3320? Should I just sob uncontrollably as my children are forced to lay a piece of paper on the screen and trace what they want to print?

Send me a note, tell me what to do, and you will reap the fame and fortune of having your name on Possumblog.

posted by Terry at 2:02:00 PM

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