Seems I’m falling into bad habits again, well over 2 weeks since my last update…

Personally I blame technology, you wouldn’t believe the bother you can have with something as simple as a printer!

All I did was upgrade my printer, because the photo paper I used to use was “improved” (ie, made cheaper and of lower quality and sold for double the price).

The end result was, to print a photo on my normal printer with the same paper I had always used (only now new and improved) meant that after printing it too 10 hours before it was dry enough to touch it without it smudging everywhere.

Since I’ve been printing a lot of photos lately, well, it wasn’t really practical. So naturally I changed my photo paper.

Problem!

(naturally)

The new photo paper didn’t have tabs attached (you know, the little tear off strip at the back of the photo that the printer uses to hang onto because it can’t print right to the edge.)

So now I’m getting rather short photos with a white strip down the edge because the printer has nothing to hang on to.

Long story short, I bought a new printer that could print true borderless.

Easy, right?

Not likely! But then anyone who knows me, would be expecting there to be a disaster somewhere.

New printer arrived (an HP just like the last 3 I’ve had)

First it wouldn’t install.

Then it partly installed, but I had to reinstall the software every time I wanted to send something to the printer.

Then I start getting random errors asking me to insert a memory card (the printer had one of those built in card readers, which seemed to feel under appreciated).

Next order of business, format and reinstall the computer to get rid of all the old printer drivers and try again.

Format drive…

Hard drive dies on me…

Return laptop for repair…

Wait 3 weeks to find they’ve lost the laptop…

Wait another week to finally get it back…

Install system…

Printer works (yay!)…

Start getting random errors from card reader in printer…

Printer starts printing yellow over everything…

Ink runs out after printing 4 photos…

Spend 3 weeks telephoning backwards and forwards between manufacturer, the store and trading standards to try and get permission to return the thing.

And can you believe, that HP’s technical support centre is in India, and the person I spoke to had so little English they couldn’t understand a single thing I was trying to explain to them… But that’s a rant for another entry…

After about 5 weeks I finally get permission to return the printer, get it collected, and manage to buy a different make, which is now working perfectly.

All this because some photo paper was “improved”.

I hate my life!