Small Victories

I finally got my mom's wireless network running. The last hurdle was being able to print from the laptop to the HP printer that's hooked up to the desktop. It was a monumental pain in the ass. At first I would print. The print job would be sent to the printer and out would come a blank page. This happened about half a dozen times before I discovered the solution. Sometime after midnight, I managed to get a test page printed.

This whole endeavor has been a hassle because the desktop runs Winows 98 while the laptop has Windows XP. It wouldn't be such a big deal except I don't know shit about XP, or networking for that matter. For a long time, the issue was that the desktop could see the laptop, but not vice-versa. I don't know exactly how I solved it. Some combination of removing and adding network components did the trick.

Then there was this whole printer thing. I couldn't get the right drver installed because XP isn't that smart. I had to trick it by installing a dummy printer with the right driver and the applying that driver to the network printer.

The thing is, this whole procedure would be relatively simple if Microsoft had some competition and was fored to make an operating system that actually works the way it's supposed to. Good thing the Bush Administration is all about busting monopolies and taking on big business to the benefit of the little guy, such as myself. I breath easier knowing they are behind me. I bet you do too.