Update to my New HP Printer

So after an hour of downloading software on my XP netbook, I have finally installed the software, used a USB flash drive to sync the printer to my wireless network settings and established connection to my netbook. Once that was completed I was able to go to my Win7 pc and search for a printer and not to my surprise it found it and established connection. I printed a test page from the Win7 pc and it worked just like it was suppose to. So HP, thanks for the help, but you were no help at all!

My New HP Printer

Well the other day I decided that I would grant my wife’s wishes and buy a new printer. I have been eyeing this printer at my workplace that has been on clearance for quite some time and finally the price dropped low enough so I decided to get it! Yeah I know what a cheap SOB, but hey it’s a nice looking printer. One problem though, the printer has software only for XP and Vista, not Win7 and just recently we decided to upgrade all of our PC’s to Win7.

So I contacted HP to find out if there was a work around but to my dismay, there is no such work around for installing the printer on a fresh Win7 pc. There only solution was to network it directly to the wireless hub, which to me is unacceptable as I bought the printer for the wireless capabilities so we can establish the printer in a different room. So my brain starting kicking in overdrive and I remember that I have an XP computer at my fingertips. My netbook can only run on XP as it does not have a hard drive large enough to handle the Win7 software so I was never able to upgrade the software on this pc. So with this thought I decided to look on HP’s support website to find the software to download as the netbook also does not have a CD-ROM drive and therefore in order to install the software I would either need an external CD-ROM drive, which isn’t readily available to me or download the software via HP’s support site. Fortunately the software was available to be downloaded via the HP website and I am currently downloading the software now.

My thought process here is that I can get the printer setup on the netbook, access the wireless settings and adjust to my SSID and WEP code so that the printer is visible on the network. Getting these settings setup, Win7 has a nifty little tool to allow wireless printers to be visible to any system running Win7. I have run the tool and I can see the printer, but as the printer has not had the network settings adjusted to match the network I cannot print. Hopefully adjusting the network settings on an XP system will allow me to print off a Win7 pc.

I will keep my blog updated on my progress, but I honestly feel that this is the best work around to accessing the printer and if I am right this will be a win for me! Woop, otherwise I will have to return the printer and purchase a more expensive model that is compatible to Win7, which is something that I am hoping to avoid at all cost! Yup, I know you are saying it again, what a cheap SOB! But hey what can I say?

My New Toy and Win 7 Upgrade

Today is the first day that I ventured into the world of owning a netbook and so far I have found that I like it. I opted to stick with Win XP and purchased a system that has a 16 gig flash memory and 1 gig of ram which is well enough to run XP! I have customized XP to run similar to how I operate Vista. Which also brings me to another point, I also made the decision yesterday to order a copy of Win 7 which I will install on my main laptop and the other machines in my home with the exception of my netbook! It will be interesting to see how much more of an imporvement Win7 is over Vista! So far initially everyone that I have spoken to has only positive things to say, so could Microsoft really have gotten something right? I will keep you posted as I travel through my upgrade and how my systems handle the newer improvements. The biggest thing I would like to see is less CPU dedicated to operating an the OS.

Tech Notes from Josh

So I purchased a Samsung Epic I907 Window’s Smartphone offered by AT&T about 2 months ago! I have been steadily using it for quite some time and have found that I do like the phone! However there are some negatives about this product that I think Samsung should address.

• First off the glossy finish on the phone makes it very susceptible to numerous surface scratches making the fairly new phone look years old after just a couple months of use.
• Secondly the QWERTY keyboard is significantly smaller than most of its competitors and not to mention the keys seem rather stiff, even after 2 months of use leading to a number of misspelled words while texting, twittering, blogging or anything else.

There are some options however that has made me look past these flaws and really enjoy the phone:

• I really enjoy the integrated mouse that Samsung has developed, it makes using this phone that much more enjoyable and I think its a feature they should start to integrate within other smartphone models that Samsung offers.
• The larger screen also makes reading through material easier
• The battery life seems to hold well enough for a strong 8 hours worth of constant use however falls short of the 12 hours that Samsung boasts.
• The phone also has a touch screen with a stylus, however with the mouse it almost seems redundant to even include this feature as part of the phone as I have only used the stylus a handful of times.

Overall I would give the phone a favorable review, an 8 of 10, nice job Samsung!