She's out of phase! I think there was a solution for this on Star Trek, either you have to use tachyons or reverse polarity, maybe both.

And a transporter, and Data. Or some red matter.

However, if my goatee vanishes and I start being NICE, I'm going to be CRANKY.

It wasn't the rez messing with you, was it, Steph? 'Cause Navajo doesn't observe daylight savings, so it would be on Pac time...oh, wait, that's the wrong direction. I have no idea.

I actually thought about that - but we weren't anywhere near there.

eta: that was to Liese. I like the star trek ideas but alas, I have to tachyon field or anything else.

pssst Steph, what are the winning lotto numbers for the multi-state lotto?? We could buy a Buffista Island!!!!!

Yeah, I figured. Oh well, no clue.

Today I am being eaten starting with my behind by my printer. My BRAND NEW PRINTER.

Which, being also an HP, is still refusing to acknowledge the presence of my computer. I can ping it, I can get to its config page through the ip address, I install it through Windows' add printer. I can print to it. I can get status on it.

Oh, and it works flawlessly on the SO's newer than mine laptop, which is also running Vista.

But I can't run HP's software, which says there's no appropriate device connected, and I can't scan from it to my computer. And I can't do the photo stuff, either, nothing that involves the printer seeing the computer.

So far I've reinstalled, levelled up the uninstalls to the point of HPs 4th level cleanup, dinked around in regedit to kill its registry entries, manually killed all the folders, deleted the port, and reinstalled again. Nada.

It is to pull the hair out.

I'd suggest HP support, but having dealt with them, you probably don't have that kind of time to spare. Although sometimes they can be a little better when dealing with installation issues because of the whole "many stores accept returns within the first few days even when its not their official policy" thing.

Well, if you're digging into registry, odds are that I'm not going to think of anything you haven't already tried. But so often weird stuff is caused by firewall and anti-virus software. Have you tried disabling it all?

The last crazy making printer problem I had turned out to be the USB cable. Since I'm running Windows 7 64-bit, I figured that was the problem and went round and round. Then I switched cables and Win 7 automatically configured everything in a few seconds without me having to do a thing.

Of course, that's totally unhelpful since this is over a network.

Any suggestions on what is the best software to run Window apps on Mac? I think there are a couple and I don't know anything about them.

I'm thinking that if I get the corporate job I'm interviewing for I will need to learn some Windows programs.

Liese, if it is over a network, have you tried disconnecting the printer from the network and connecting directly to your computer?