The Golden Pencil: The Freelance Writer’s Resource

The Goat Dance of New Equipment

by Anne Wayman on January 24th, 2008

A bunch of years I beta tested a hp psc 2410 photosmart all-in-one printer. (Yep, on the printer it’s all lower case.) When I’d finished the test, they gave me a brand new one which I’ve used ever since. Yesterday I went through one of the goat dances we all face from time-to-time.

A client wants an actual fax from me, complete with paper and real signature on a non-disclosure agreement.

I prepare and sign the fax and place it on the scanner.

Because I’ve never figured out how to keep the fax hooked up, use my phone, my computer, and my answering machine, I plug the printer’s phone line into my phone line.

I press the button to fax, enter the phone number as instructed and instead of dialing, the thing goes into some sort of clicking clacking loop that I know from experience I won’t be able to fix in a hurry.

I check with my neighbor who tells me where the closest fax store is, get in the car and rush over there. (Geeze I hate this sort of thing.)

Of course, either I wrote the number down wrong, or the client didn’t really turn his fax on or turned it off but in any case, the fax wouldn’t go through.

This morning, sure enough, the printer still clicked and clacked, but since I had some time I visited hp.com and following some instructions, cleaned this and that… and it worked, so far. But the machine is five or six years old and I may need to replace it.

My goodness printer prices have come down. If I replace it in the next week or so I’ll probably buy the hp in the ad here. But I’d really rather not.

Write well and often,

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POSTED IN: Business of Freelance Writing