Dear Hewlett Packard,

I have a friend who owns both a Windows XP PC and a HP Officejet 9110 multifunction print,fax,scan,copy machine.

I’ve recently been asked by her to clean-up and reinstall her system for her, a task which took a little time due to the computer being the aforementioned Windows machine.

However, I have achieved this task admirably.

That is, until it came to reinstalling your printer.

Initially I thought that the Windows drivers might handle the printer; the system certainly popped up saying the system had found the printer with monotonous regularity. But alas, this did not work once I shifted the printer to the Apple wireless network. It didn’t even work when the printer was connected to the computer!

So, I reconnected the printer to the computer and started again, with your purpose-built HP Officejet 9110 CDs which came with the unit.

This took a little time to install, but it wasn’t an issue, I felt like a latte anyway. When I arrived back from the shop, I found the software had installed. A quickish restart, and there appeared to be no more complaints.

Being the arse-covering tech that I am, I tried to print. This worked. Good; just what I was hoping for.

So I tried to scan something.

The printer initially came up with an error stating there was no software installed.

Funny, I thought, I could have sworn I just had a latte while waiting for the software to install. A quick check revealed my empty cup and there, in the Start Menu, was HP printer software.

Odd, I thought.

So I tried the process in reverse by firing up your image management software. Another latte later and it was up and running.

I clicked the scan button in the UI and was greeted with a message saying there was an error connecting to the scanner.

I checked the cable. Yes, connected. But of course it was connected; it just printed something.

Right, third try; Let’s try someone else’s software: Apple’s Bonjour in this case.

This solved the printing, but not the scanning.

Back to the drawing board, or more accurately, the Control Panel and the Add Remove Programmes folder, where I attempted to uninstall the HP printer programmes.

But to no avail; An error message told me I would have to attempt uninstallation again once I’d restarted the machine.

I resisted the urge to go out and get another latte; the caffeine was beginning to make me twitchy (or perhaps it was the ongoing frustrating failures of your software to speak with your hardware?). No matter; I was made of sterner stuff, so restarted the machine once more.

Then I tried the same process: Start>Control Panel>Add Remove Programmes.

And I got the same error message.

I wondered briefly if I had offended some heathen god, but persevered, finding an unistallation programme in the Start>Programs>HP printer folder. This uninstallation worked, and required only one more restart of the system.

Like the dutiful hardware user that I am, I performed said restart, located the HP CD once more and commenced the software reinstallation process. I went for lunch, knowing that it would finish some time before I arrived back.

And I was right, it had finished, and required another restart to make things work.

So I restarted the system and tried printing again. This worked. Good.

I tried scanning again. This did not.

I’m at a loss why your hardware won’t talk to your software and vice-versa on a clean installation of Windows XP SP2. There’s a direct connection, there’s nothing wrong with the cable (as evidenced by the fact the printer can receive a print message and that XP goes freaking bananas and beeps repeatedly at me when it’s connected); so what’s the issue?

Perhaps it thinks I should be running Vista. Think again bozo.

Perhaps it misses the old installation of XP? So sorry, it’s dead; move on.

Perhaps even, it just doesn’t like the muttering and cursing I have allowed to be uttered in its presence while trying to get it to work? Well, to quote The Master: tough, I’m like that when I’m frustrated at inane plastic objects refusing to work.

Whatever the reason, one thing is certain: as long as there is breath in my lungs, as long as I have conscious thought processes going through my head, I will Never Ever purchase an HP product.

Yours with much love and kisses,

Lisa 4.0

Windows fanboys and girls need-not read any further.

I’ve been sitting here all evening — 3 hours — trying to get software and hardware to work on an XP machine. 3 freaking hours.

HP and Windows aren’t good bedfellows. Neither is Palm and PC. Never mind the issue that Symantec virusscan had trying to do a liveupdate.

Everything is so damn hard on a PC. Why is that? Is there some sadistic-streak within every windows user? Or is it the old male paradigm of battling with everything until it bends to your will.

As a female I don’t get that sort of thing. I just don’t have the inclination (albeit I do tonight because friends have made me dinner in exchange for hopefully fixing their PC), but honestly, having to fiddle for hours on end in the vain hope that the fixes you make in the evening are still standing come the daylight, and not sitting there in a gelatenous heap stretches the belief-systems a bit thin. They are the single greatest time-sucker on this planet, the single simplest reason why the hordes of the great unwashed have not yet risen-up, thrown their shackles off and nailed their masters to the nearest tree.

I kid you not, Evil Overlords rule #1: If you want your takeover of the world to go smoothly, give the population PCs (and don’t be using them yourself).

But there is a bright-side to all this:

‘You’ve convinced me to get a mac,’ said G, the owner of the computer.

Chaos and destruction: the PC’s work is done.

Very cool.

So you want to be a technical writer?

Well, it pays well, once you’ve been in the game for a while, and can be fulfilling as far as being able to describe yourself as a writer.

When you start on a project, you’re more than likely going to be dealing with software. Software can be badly designed, well designed or appallingly designed (thus making the word “designed” unnecessary).

However, whatever the state of the software is, you’ll always have a starting point, and then be able to further refine what’s on offer.

Let’s start with a simple window:

Okay, simple, eh? Two fields, a button, a checkbox and two links.

The way to approach any UI analysis (or any analysis at all to be honest) is to start at the top and work your way down.

This is called “Top Down Design” (among other things).

The principle is simple: You have the starting point, and you work-out what else you can do from there. Once you’ve worked-out where you go from the starting-point, you analyse each successive UI element (be it field, checkbox, button, link, whatever) in turn in the same way until you reach the point where nothing else can be done.

So from here, the starting point is the logon window.

What can you do from here?

• You can enter your username and password (Username and password fields)
• You can click login (login button)
• You can click Remember Me (remember me checkbox)
• You can go back to the website you came from (Back to Cake o’clock)
• You can request a new password  (Lost your password?)

So that’s five things on this little window. All of them can be used to form procedures — ordered lists of steps to achieve a particular goal — for example, Logging into your WordPress Blog, Obtaining a new password, etc.

Oh, and one last thing: never let anyone tell you that you can’t be a technical writer because you don’t know some bizarre piece of software (eg, Adobe distiller, Robohelp X5, and the pox of tools, Framemaker). The first and foremost skill of being a technical writer — or any writer for that matter — is the ability to write. And you’d be amazed at the number of people in the world who can’t string a coherent sentence together.

Or maybe you won’t…

A funny thing happened to me this morning after the 6am Bikram class.

When I walked out, I conversed with M, the owner. Can’t remember exactly how we got onto the subject but he said that he felt really relaxed after the class.

Relaxed.  It’s not a word I’ve ever considered for the aftermath of a class. Sometimes (less and less these days; I’m on the 30 day challenge) I feel energised, mostly I feel totally exhausted.

Or do I?

The word kept rattling around my skull as I cycled home (so I could eat something proper, not just take-out from one of the plethora of cafes around Fitzroy and Carlton; and besides, I have no money); Relaxed… Relaxed…

M mentioned the rewriting of internal tape-loops (this is another M btw), and how I keep putting myself down. ‘Perhaps,’ she said, ‘You should try thinking of another word?’

So here goes…

After an hour and a half of Bikram Yoga this morning I was relaxed.

After eating breakfast, I was content

I’m now at work and I’ve got some interesting things to do.

I am not wondering how long it will be before Ms.Cynicism rears her head and bags this entire exercise as being daft.

It takes a while to wipe tape; it’s not like deleting files on a file-system, where the first letter of a filename is replaced with something else. Unless it’s a mac running OS9: