I am going to do this Until I get it right

Late tonight I was able to finally get a printer alive at my desktop,

I fired up dad's old epson 2200 and as expected it needed new cartridges around. It did. Dad left me a slew of new cartridges. So I patiently replaced them all and ran the head cleaner about 6 times and sure enough I was getting a good pattern from the printer.. This was all being done through the use of my computer ordering it up and the printer doing it. So one would think that running a print order through the computer to the printer should work just as well.....

NO...

When it came to actually printing something the printer turned up its toes and said no go. So I had a printer that was similar could do similar work as one of the photography students in my dad's adult photography class did.. He was able to shoot test cards and gray scales..but when it came to do real work.. couldn't see it. I was able to print epson bar designs.. that was it..

So.. I was thinking the problem must be the print driver.. at least that is what I tell everyone else that is in this situation. I am sitting here with a DSL connection to the internet so my first inclination is to navigate to the Epson site and download a fresh driver. I did this.

Did that fix the problem?... No No No

So I thought well it must be because I didn't turn everything off and let it lose its settings.. so I did that.. No it didn't work with that.. all I was getting was an insidious message that said.. "printer has lost communication with the computer. Turn the computer on or reset the computer".. So I did it again..

Did it work no...

So I changed the port that the computer used to connect to the usb printer.. still the same problem.

So I thought..well I must be getting closer, but I have probably corrupted the printer driver so I will download it again. Again.. everything was off.. refired back again..

Did it work? no.. I had to get off to work.. so I turned everything off again.. I thought well I must not have waited long enough..

I return home from school and Back to school night.. still the same issue... so I was thinking at this point.. I need to buy a new printer... when the technology gets challenging sometimes the best thing to do is to buy new and not have to fight through the problems of the old. I was carefully was examining the specs for a new one.. even how am I going to get it through the door without a lot of questions?. yada yada..

Then I thought to my self.. self.. lets go through the Epson troubleshooting phases.. So I went through each variable on line. Is this button lit? No.. then it gives you another question.. and its little sequence changed depending upon my answer to a series of questions.. just like we learned to do in teacher AV class where we were working on power learning and using a feedback loops on paper instead of a computer. So I went through its little sequence.

18 questions later.. it states.. "We recommend you uninstall the old driver before you install the new."

It even gave me a live link to a help screen that showed me where the old driver was.. the old driver was unceremoniously dumped in the trash and the trash was swept away (electronically) and a new driver was downloaded.. The computer was restarted.. I agreed to the installation of the new driver and son of gun if it didn't all work,

What a ton of words in this blog to come to the conclusion that I stated at the beginning. I write this only to remind you that I still have to relearn the basics of software like drivers over and over again.. just like you..

: ) Pat