As a Unix admin who has debugged a million technical problems, the most common causes are hardware defects or human failings.
Setting up a wireless printer is simple. Might try RTFM or paying someone who knows how. Save yourself some frustration.
If you talk like you write, I can understand why phone support didn’t help you.
I’d imagine these things will all soon be done automatically via internet connection before long.
I have a samsung ml2525w. I had a problem getting it to work. 2 things to look at, is the ip address correct. you should be able to address the printer by a webpage. 192.168.x.x. look in your router and see if you can determine the correct address. On my printer the software didn’t work and I had to manually get it into setup mode which was to push and hold one of the buttons until it went into setup mode
FWIW, Samsung tech support is located in Geeenville, SC. Spoke with them yesterday. Not terribly impressed but they did set up a call back with a specialist for next Wed. That to accommodate my schedule, not theirs.
We are in our computer dark ages. They don’t do jack compared to what they could and should do. You should NEVER have to add a driver for any peripheral whatsoever. Never. If you have an internet connection every peripheral should be completely 100% self-installing and should be as simple as plug it into a running computer and it does all the work. All of it.
Every facet of your graphic interface should be capable of infinite customization by your grandmother who never saw a computer before in her life.
Every file or folder that is moved should automatically tell every program and piece of hardware where it was moved to. You should have to manually reassign names of links for anything. It should be automatic.
I could go on for a month with what computers SHOULD be able to do.
We are at least 50 years away from computers that work the way they should. Right now, we are still in our computer dark ages where advanced features are inaccessible to normal people and almost every task requires user judgment to perform.
Don’t believe me?
Go buy a computer and pull it out of the box and go sign up with your favorite Internet service provider, and see how far you get if you don’t know how to set up your pop and smp addresses. How freaking idiotic is that in 2012???? Unless you are on at least your 2nd computer, you still need a technician or savvy friend/relative to set you up. Good luck if you want to do something newer like set up a wireless router on your computer. My mother just had to call the Geek Squad to have that installed and they still took 2 hours and had trouble with it.
The internet is brilliant. It does 99% of the work for you.
Computer operating systems are still like tiny infants that can’t do anything beyond point and cry and shout because they can’t communicate yet in words.
We are in the computer dark ages. I don’t know how long we have to stay here until somebody like Apple gets a clue and takes ease of use to the next level.
Apple’s Macintosh was a huge leap from C:\shoot\me\in\the\head\if\I\can\ever\master\this\idiotic\DOS\syntax.
We need a new leap where computers do all connecting and backing up and installing and uninstalling and trouble-shooting on their own. Sure, a lot of support tech will be out of work, but then so will a lot of doctors who treat hypertension.
I still hate computers like the devil spawn they are. Not a day goes by that I am not frustrated by them in some way, shape or form.
Computer Dark Ages. We need an Enlightenment.
Not at all the same. While those drugstore tube testers were worthless, you as an owner could at least fix many problems by substitution and keep your TV going, or at worst case, hire someone to do so.
Now you’ve got throwaway hardware. Got a motherboard with bad electrolytics? Toss it. Lighting zapped your all-in-one? Take it to the curb. Maybe your drivers just got clobbered but your PC manufacturer was too cheap to supply actual restore CDs and now you can’t read that partition on the hard drive? Sorry Charlie.
It’s kinda like a stimulus, you know? It’s not that the Amish don’t get the job done, more like they use technology that can be repaired and maintained. The rest of us poor saps just get to buy new stuff.
The second computer I bought was a Gateway in 1996. I had trouble with the modem, but the tech support was stateside, and excellent. I was online within an hour. And, all the backup software was on the supplied CD's.
The third was an HP, the tech support was overseas, and not so good. It took hours for them to tell me I couldn't install a second internal hard drive and get it to work properly. The HP-installed software/OS wouldn't allow it. Maddening. Could have gone with an external drive if I'd wanted.
I’ve had very odd issues similar to yours with my HP OfficeJet. It will work fine, then develop a disorder. After I rant and rave and reinstall (the three Rs of fixing computer problems), it works again. This is with Windows 7, though. I didn’t have these issues with Vista. My guess is that the Win7 drivers were very half-assed by HP; they probably wanted me to buy the newer version OfficeJet.
Most all troubleshooting, whether mechanical, electrical, electronic or whatever is simply a process of elimination.
The reason most tech support is hunt and peck is because the customers don’t know how to usefully describe the problem. 90% of all support calls the info you get out of the customer is “it’s not working”, they can’t describe the symptoms, they can’t describe what changed (usually they say nothing which is almost certainly BS), most of the time they don’t even know what “working” actually means. This leaves the guy on the phone flying completely blind so they have to start with the big obvious ones and slowly work their way through a 20 questions-esque narrowing down of a problem that almost always boils down to you changed a setting you shouldn’t have, or you got some malware.
/rimshot>
Cheers!
If you think YOU have it bad, just imagine the millions of businesses small and large that have to deal with the enormous complexity of virtualization. VMWare, SANs, abstraction and the whole ball of wax.
They are simply overwhelmed. They and their IT staff don't even understand it conceptually.
Those who DO are making a very, very good living and have more work than they can handle or scale for in the near term. Fortunes are being made and destroyed.
Over 1/2 of the virtualization business now is rebuilding the initial, feeble attempts of in house staff with a new plaything.
Beware folks. Another very big economic era is about to hit where the average IT worker has no job.
A meritocracy of the very smart.
Everyone else will be dependent upon what they build and service.
Enormous virtual, portable computing in the cloud that anyone can use for a fee and only the top 1% in brains can invent, build and service.
There will always be a “tech support” it has been around along time, here is proof.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQHX-SjgQvQ
This little baby not only tests tubes but it allows you to match them, I also use a Tektronix 576 curve tracer to match tubes as well. The only solid state device that comes close is a MOSFET
The best “Tech Support” calls ever...
http://www.thewebsiteisdown.com/
Harsh language, but very funny. Be sure to watch episode 1 first.
Mark
Ah yes, tube testers, that was so --- high school.
There - dated myself!