Riley

Nothing like a new addition to the extended family to see if your equipment is working satisfactorily; I have been working all day to print a decent image of Riley to send to grandparents and other extended family and friends who do not have access to a computer. Sure enough when I dumped the test images the dreaded banding was present: the light horizontal lines which show through the print job making the image les then acceptable in your eyes and most likely everyone else’s. I have done everything I can think of: going inside the printer, running the tests printing page after page of test prints. I was dismayed that some of the tests did not even seem to run. I even replaced the color ink cartridge, the tri-color cartridge, with a new cartridge I found lurking in the back of my desk but still no change the bands are still there. Then I enlisted Dianne’s help who basically did the same things I did but no improvement. Then we decided we would just print the images with the faithful old HP and that printer is printing only pink! So we worked on that for an hour with still no resolution. It looks as if I send any images of the newborn to Mother Smith, the newborn will be decked out with stripes.

Why cannot the equipment just work like the equipment is supposed to? One should not have to be a design engineer or a master tech support person—or have to purchase a new printer every couple of years just because you want to print images of the grand kids. Deep down I think filing printers is just another example of “planed obsolescence”.

Oh yeah, I have also been trying to get selected pieces of software and hardware to work. I cannot install “Quick Time” or my web cam…it seems my system is dying for the “Service Pack 2 or later” and can I figure out how to down load SP2 and install—HELL NO! Trying to download and install SP2 has taken up the other part of my day. I am now going to start asking neighbors and family if any has a copy of SP2 on disk. I was going to have MS send me one but the cost was $10.00—noway!

So here I sit with no printers working worth a damn and only one system recognizing a camera. I may not need it. Shelly is going to hook her web cam up hopefully for a Riley show in the near future. I just want to be ready.

Yesterday I got a new back pack—the one I got from the kids just never worked out and I needed something I felt comfortable with. I found a fine red backpack on sale at a Recreation Outlet- a recreation close out store. And I think the pack will be perfect for my needs, lots o zippered pockets, strong carrying loop small yet large enough to carry all of my stuff I feel whole one more.