Not so much “tech” as “moral” support. Presumably.

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So last summer we bought an all-in-one printer/scanner/fax, the HP LaserJet 3390. It worked fine for months, but for some reason decided to stop scanning while I was out of town. There’s nothing wrong with it mechanically — it still faxes just fine using the same apparatus — but when I ask it to scan, it lies about there being no paper in the document feeder, and pretends not to remember that it can just scan the glass anyway.

So I try their email support first, because frequent interruptions don’t really matter with that. I get a reply a couple of days later with some things to try. None of them make any difference. I email back to tell them this. No response to that. A few days later, I email again. Still no response. So I call for support by phone.

I’ve had this thing less than nine months (even now, let alone when the problem first started three weeks ago), but they tell me it’s already “out of warranty” and that if I want support by phone (or by live online chat, as it turns out), I have to pay for it. I feel like I’m being fleeced. So I said I’d just wait for the email response. Still waiting.

Shoulda gone with a different brand. I believe I’ll avoid HP in the future.

All Your LJ Icon Base Are Belong to Us

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I watch a couple of icon communities, and I sometimes see something that puzzles me (like here, for example): A person posts a bunch of LJ icons that consist entirely of resizing and cropping someone else’s copyrighted stuff, then they turn around and insist that the icons can only be used under certain conditions.

Requesting to be credited makes at least a modicum of sense to me, even for a simple crop job like these; someone’s looking to promote their own journal, or even just looking for some recognition, fine. But the part about how they “are not bases” — and I assume what that means is that they don’t want folks to take one of these images and add text or modify it in some other way, then promote it as their own creation — is that not just the height of hypocrisy?

It bugs me a little every time I see it. I never bring it up, because it would undoubtedly generate some flames in response, and seem like I was picking on the individual and singling them out of the crowd. But I really just don’t understand how they rationalize this in their mind, I’m curious about that. I mean there are only two possibilities I can see: they’re oblivious, or they lack integrity. Am I missing some magical third explanation?

Grandpa Bill

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I found out yesterday that my Grandpa Bill has cancer in kind of a late stage. He’s at the Mayo Clinic right now getting looked at, and within a few days he’ll decide what course of treatment to take, if any. He cared for his wife Jeanette through her death by lung cancer, and so he knows only too well what he’d be facing with chemo.

Grandpa Bill is my hero. He’s funny, creative, and adored by pretty much everyone. His personal theme song is “Accentuate the Positive,” and he actually lives it. I try to follow that example, but I’m not nearly as good at it as he is.

And the man knows no embarrassment. He’ll throw pride out the window to coax a smile from a child. And he sure can; children love him perhaps best of all.

He taught me how to fish. He helped me feel better when I accidentally swallowed a quarter. He came to all my performances and cried with pride. He let me drive his tractor.

And the thing is I know I’m just one of so many people he made feel special. He’s a light in so many lives. It couldn’t be less fair. My aunt Brenda said “He’s had a hell of a life, I’ll tell you that. But the thing is, he isn’t finished. He just bought a plane!” And it’s true, he’ll never be at a good stopping point.

So we’re all trying to accentuate the positive. His life is full of blessings and adventure, so we’ve got some good raw material in this effort. I have so much more to say about him, but I don’t want to sit on this post for another day trying to write it better.

ETA: If you’ve ever seen the movie Big Fish, Ed Bloom reminds me a lot of Grandpa Bill. (And if you haven’t, you should see it, it’s an excellent movie. I really need to read the book.) Except Grandpa’s more jovial; more like a cross between Ed Bloom and Santa Claus. And I don’t have quite the same feeling that the son Will had of not knowing the real him, but I do wish we were closer.