Computer Meltdown

I'm fairly recovered now--the men in the white coats have pulled up in the driveway--but my madness frightened them, so they drove away. (Safety First!)

You see, I bought a new laptop a couple of days ago--a Dell, from Best Buy--and, initially, things went pretty well. Smiley faces.

Then ... Frownie faces.

I had a problem getting my Quicken accounts active. Online help.

And then getting my Adobe Acrobat program transferred to my new machine. Online help.

No problem transferring my Microsoft Office program. No online help.

MAJOR PROBLEM: Getting my two printers working. I have a small b&w printer that I use for quick, generally unimportant printing. (Only a couple of months old.) I have a larger, color printer-scanner (HP), a few years old, that I use for, uh, scanning and printing things I need/want in color. (I use this sparingly: ink cartridges are expensive.)

Neither printer worked.

• Little Guy
• I used the installation disk that came with the printer. (Nope.)
• I downloaded the software from the Internet. (Nope.)
• I raged and swore. (Nope. But Joyce headed upstairs with alacrity.)
• I pulled out the USB cord. Waited. Put it back in. (YES!) Worked almost immediately, and I went to bed half-satisfied (the other printer could wait till Monday--yesterday).
• Big Guy
• I used the installation disk that came with the printer. (Nope.)
• I downloaded the software form the Internet. (Nope.)
• I raged and swore. (Nope. But Joyce headed upstairs with alacrity.)
• I could not try the USB dealie from above: It's wireless.
• I got on an online chat with HP, and the tech guy took over my mouse and was nearing a conclusion when ... lost connection
• I could not recover it.
• Got on phone with a very helpful woman who, after about 45 min., got it working.
• But it no longer works with my scanner program (which enables me to do all sorts of things that the HP scanner program does not).
• More Rage.
• All of this Big Guy work took me hours! Subtracted chunks of time from my life!

Today, I'm more mellow (more like the contemplative Ahab than the raging, raving one). I still want that scanner program to work, but I know it will take phone calls, much gnashing of teeth, more cursing, more quick trips upstairs for Joyce.

But, later, I suppose I'll do it. Can't let technology win, you know? Entropy is doing quite a fine job of that, thank you! And, of course, I well remember the end of Moby-Dick.