indifferentWhat's going on at work? Whole lotta nothing today punctuated by high priority customer issues. I think that's become a joke because there isn't an issue with a priority below 'High'. Doh well. But hey, plenty of time to read scanner reviews on the web.
Went home for lunch and installed XP service pack 1 and the Wacom tablet driver on the new PC. Yes, the graphics tablet works! I may not be able to scan anything but maybe I can doodle something in Painter. Yeah, just like the old days. :)
Also took a good look at the bundled software. Microsoft Word 2002?? What's that doing there? As far as I know, Microsoft Office is not part of the bundled software so it must have snuck in with Microsoft Works. Yes, they are just throwing application software around these days. Paint Shop Pro 7 is in here too but that's only an evaluation copy. Man, I figured they'd provide a registered version. Since it's not going to be useful after 30 days, I might as well uninstall it and install my registered copy of PSP4. Other than those, there are Streets and Trips 2002, (Oh good, I don't need S&T 2001 any more.) Picture It 2002, Encarta 2002, Money 2002, Norton Antivirus, Musicmatch Jukebox, Dell Image Expert (yet another piece of software that disables features after the evaluation period), and Roxio Easy CD Creator. (This I can use.)
Also installed Quicken Basic 99, which is what I was using on the old computer. Every time it starts, there is a rather disconcerting error message saying that Quicken could not repair my data. As far as I can tell, no transactions are missing and all the balances are correct. Maybe it is the Enron/Worldcom edition of Quicken that gets rid of certain records while covering its tracks.
Other installs done later today: Lotus Smartsuite, Acrobat (Distiller, Exchange, PDFWriter), TclockEx, Servant Salamander, The Wonderful Icon, Mozilla, Opera, WS_FTP LE, and Pulse. Still need to install most of the graphics software but it's taking shape.
Went to Office Depot to buy a scanner this evening. That store didn't seem to have much of a selection but I picked up a HP Scanjet 5400C. Took it home, installed the drivers, unlocked and plugged the scanner in. Tried scanning the registration card a few times. On the fifth time, the motor got stuck. Boy, do I know how to break things or what? Since I'll be busy tomorrow evening, I'll return it to the store on Monday and try another model. In the meantime, the store has a weekend to disperse the Where's George dollar bills I paid for the scanner. Bwahaha!