All for Naught...

I hate technology. While I will readily admit that many of the technological advances over the last 100 or so years have definitely made my life easier, it still frustrates me to no end.

I consider myself a fairly intelligent person. I have a pretty equal amount of book and street smarts. But technology mystifies me. I try to wrap my brain around it and it is ever elusive. Like there's a wall and I can see what is on the other side but I can't get over the darn wall. Ugh.

Clearly, there must be a reason for this rant. And there is. We just bought a new printer. And I spent countless hours researching pre-purchase on Consumer Reports, newegg, and cnet. I wanted an all-in-one that could also print photos in a fairly decent quality (I'm not real sure why because I can get them cheaper on shutterfly, I'm sure).

So I finally narrowed it down to either the Canon pixma mp830 or the pixma mp500. Of course, who wouldn't want the mp830? Automatic document feeder, fax machine, two-sided printing; it also will scan directly from slides or negatives. An office supply collector's dream machine. But it is about $100 more than the mp500. And I don't need the fax machine if I can scan to pdf (Adobe Acrobat). Clearly, the automatic document feeder and scanning from negatives options are luxuries I don't need. So I went with the mp500.

Of course, as I am setting it up, I figure out all the things it can't do. I probably don't need these things, but DAMN! It doesn't print 8x10 photos (again, I shouldn't care when I can get them from shutterfly for about $1.99 plus S&H). And it won't print 11x17, but most personal inkjets won't from what I've found out since. So really these are stupid complaints, but again, DAMN!

That's technology for me. Nothing does everything. There are too many choices and decisions. We bought a new Dell computer a few years ago which is very nice, but don't ask me what features are on the darn thing, because I couldn't really tell you. I did the research then but can't remember a thing. It just....falls out of my head once I'm done.

So, I sit here setting up my new printer wondering what I don't have that I'm gonna miss - isn't that the opposite of how it usually works? Forgive my ranting about dumb stuff. Just had to vent. Really, anything is better than what I had before.