The Numbers, They Are All Wrong

[dr_phil_physics]

Happy Swiss Independence Day!

August dawns with a pleasant enough breezy day, but overcast. Temp got up to 79°F, but then it rained and by late afternoon it was down to 68°F. Dog days of summer -- if you're a Newfoundland.

So Therefore...

Thursday gas was at $2.44.9/gal. Friday it was $2.59.9/gal. Fifteen cents? Except, of course, for the oddball Admiral gas station which went down to $2.40.9/gal. Today, everyone was the higher price.

Yeah. It's that hot summer weekend weather -- gotta gouge the vacationers and weekenders.

Damned Entropy

Thursday night I woke up and found myself looking at the clock at 3:47am when the power went out -- for about two seconds. Now I suspect the power might've cycled more than once, because otherwise why was I staring at the clock at 3:47am? In the morning we found the HP PSC-2355 All-in-One printer/scanner/copier was stuck in its bootup process. Turning the power off and on, and later letting it sit off for 24 hours, and it still got stuck in the same place in its boot cycle.

Sigh.

We like having a little copier in the house. We actually use it everyday to magnify and make two copies of the Sudoku puzzle in the newspaper so we can both do it -- and then I use the used sheets to make writing notes and checklists.

Sigh.

Might have to buy a new one. Maybe get one with wireless. Ooh, go shopping for a new printer/copier? Ooh, look at the shiny toys! Shiny!

OAS Project

Due Date: Thursday 20 August 2009


Dr. Phil

Comments

[dr-phil-physics.livejournal.com]

From the comments on the HP forums, the number one problem is that people don't follow the directions when installing the printer software, and connect the USB cable BEFORE the software load.

We lose the wireless printer from time to time, even though we have a fixed IP and don't use DHCP on the printer -- if you use DHCP it is likely to get lost when the printer goes to sleep.

Remember when hardware ran at 4MHz and never needed sleep? (grin)

Dr. Phil

[anothernathan.livejournal.com]

Yeah...except that this printer has been working fine on the wifi for about 2 years.

[dr-phil-physics.livejournal.com]

Ours works most of the time. But then sometimes it doesn't.

Dr. Phil

[stonekettle.com (from livejournal.com)]

Amen to that, Doc. When I installed the HP C7280 wifi printer, I had to follow the direction to the letter in order to get it to connect.

If you hook up the USB cable first (for testing, before I put it on the network), windows will install its default driver and then nothing will work until you uninstall the whole mess and start over.

On the other hand, the C7280 all-in-one is a great multifunction machine, truly excellent color, and quality for a jet. Not laser quality, but damned close. Only thing about it I wish was better is that it had a full sized paper tray or larger. I like loading an entire ream of heavy bond and not having to reload the damn thing all the time. My commercial Brother Laser printer holds two full reams in the main tray, and one in the extended tray - that's what I'm talking about.

[dr-phil-physics.livejournal.com]

What gets me about all the people complaining about having screwed this up on the HP forums, is that the directions make it quite clear do NOT plug in the USB cable first.

Directions...

What?

Dr. Phil