Monday 01/05/2026
First thing, drove down to FOPAL and spent 2+ hours getting my section all ready for the sale weekend coming up.
On return I found the tiny lapel mic system I had ordered had been delivered, so I took it into the auditorium and tried it out. It works. The sound quality isn’t great and it only works on one channel of the board, so we can’t have any more of them. But it should be enough for the drama group.
After lunch I took a tech squad call to help install an HP printer for Gloria. The tech squad is unanimous, the HP printers are the worst for installations. Don’t buy them. Here was what I wrote in an email closing this incident,
GIVING UP
Earlier I somehow got past the screen that says “Install HP software to complete setup”. I think I did it by a long-press on the power button. I was into the setup menus. I got the MAC addr I gave you earlier.
It was still in the menu when I went back after supper. I pointed the wifi to Channinghouse-Resident (which it already was, but with no password). I entered the password Craig gave me and triple checked it. Tapped Go and waited.
Incorrect password.
And now I cannot get back to the menus. I have pulled the power cord multiple times, I have held the power button down for a minute or more, I just cannot get it to go back to the setup menus. All it does is show that fucking “Install HP software” screen with a QR code.
I have installed the HP software on Gloria’s phone and her iPad. Same result on both — you walk through the setup to where it starts looking for the printer. It looks for it on wifi and of course, it does not find any printer, because the fucking printer isn’t connected to wifi and you can’t get into the menus to fix it.
I told Gloria rather loudly and insistently that the Tech Squad was at its limit, we are done. Maybe she can pay Paul Ma, or maybe she can get HP to send a tech. She has paid $300 for a “subscription” to some kind of extra support.
I should mention that she dialed the supposed support number earlier today and listened to hold music over 20 minutes. Hung up because that was when I had gotten what I thought was the MAC address.
Why didn’t Craig’s password work? I fear it is because the MAC address I wrote down was from the ETHERNET info. I never saw a MAC address for the WIFI interface. Could it have a different MAC for wifi? Lots of luck finding out.
Oh, I should mention, I tried multiple times to get it to print “Details” of the setup. There are multiple menu options for “Details” with a “Print” button. Other printers would print a nice page with all the numbers and MAC address and all.
This thing shows a progress indicator, a circle, and only fills in the first quarter of the circle and stops. So that function is fucked as well.
It’s a piece of shit. I would recommend we establish a tech squad policy — we don’t install HP equipment. Epson, Brother, anything else, sure, but no HP.
Anyway, that was not fun.
Codgerville 