Late for work? Blame HP

So, the dog didn't eat my homework. What made me late to work today was the new Windows Vista-compatible printer driver for my HP all-in-one printer.

My editor happens to have the same model I do, the Photosmart 3210. We've both been waiting for a full Vista-ready driver for a while now, making do thus far with a basic printer driver.

This morning, he sent me a note that the driver was finally ready. Throwing caution to the wind, I decided to try and install it in the half hour I had before I needed to leave the house for work.

It wasn't so much the 15 minute download for the 163MB file that irked me; I needed to eat some cereal anyway. And the download included not just a driver but other Vista-compatible software, such as an update to HP's Photosmart Essential. What did irritate me--and made me miss my bus--was the further half hour it took to install the software collection.

And to top it all off, when I tested out the scanning function, it gave me all sorts of error messages. I guess tomorrow, I should set the alarm half an hour earlier and try and figure out the problem. Or maybe I'll just go back to scanning files onto a flash drive and hit the snooze bar...