Codename: Chicago

Things I hate:
– Googling “hp 1020 vista drivers” and coming across 1,000,000 posts from people who want to let me know they hate Microsoft but have no useful information to share.
– Being told by HP that Microsoft’s new operating system does not support my laser printer (but don’t worry, we’re working on it), and by the way, your scanner is too old to ever be supported – please buy a new one.
– Deciding to use my printer and scanner on my XP machine after all, only to find out the driver downloads are 50MB each.

Things I love:
– Googling “linux hp 1020” and coming across foo2jzs; then being able to print in less than 5 minutes. 8 minutes including downloading foo2jzs; on dial-up (1.4 MB) thanks to SLMODEMD.gcc4.1.tar.gz, but that’s another story.
– CentOS 5 already knowing everything it needs to know about my ancient scanner (HP ScanJet 2200c) and just working.

OK, so Gnome/OpenOffice is not nearly as pretty as Vista/Office 2007 to use, and I have to start my modem using a shell script for now, but at least I can make simple photocopies using the equipment I already own… I can’t wait to plug in my digital camera to see what happens.