I’ve owned an HP psc 2410 photosmart all-in-one “printer-fax-scanner-copier” for around 6 or 7 years—long enough to have the last major Mac OS update blow away my ability to scan. No, wait—make that: long enough that HP decided not to update their driver for this release. Maybe they were thinking “Hey, it’s about time these people bought a new printer!” or maybe “What. Ever. There really aren’t that many Mac users out there, anyway.” At least, that’s how it felt since I upgraded to Snow Leopard late last fall. How frustrating! I searched the boards to see if/how other folks have solved the problem. I downloaded software designed to work with any scanner. I even hauled out my old Agfa ScanPro and tried to find the power cable. No luck. If I had to scan something, I had to bring it in to the MAC to do it.

And the funny thing was, I sort of couldn’t get over it. Every time I drove past the HP campus here in Corvallis, I’d think, “I won’t be buying my next printer from that company.”

So, I was pretty surprised earlier this month to find that HP just released an updated driver for my all-in-one. Now, instead of feeling like a customer who doesn’t matter once the check has been cashed, I feel great! I get my seamless user experience back, and I’m not mad at HP anymore. In fact, the opposite. It feels a little like the Carly is wearing off and the old HP is showing through: the company that has always known that every customer matters. But in the end, I don’t really care why they decided to update the driver. I’m a customer! I don’t need to know why. I just need my all-in-one to work the way they told me it would in the first place.

Thanks, HP! Good work.

It’s a robot that changes shape so you can see what a shirt will look like on you…

Or it’s crazy! I mean come on if you are going to stay at home to try on shirts over the internet chances are you are not wearing a shirt and you don’t leave the house enough to need a shirt.

However, someone did have and idea and a vision and was able to take it from idea to fruition and that’s pretty awesome.

Check out the full story »

Our resident photographer, Danielle Anthony, known for her huge talent behind more professional cameras, is getting lots of questions about these simple 10 second pics. She snapped a few for us at the Collective recently and posted them up on her blog. While you are there, keep an eye out for the man in the suit.

Now, Danielle knows how to frame a shot, so your results may vary. But still, after hundreds of shots, your cat pics could use a little something extra, am I right?

Speaking of headsets, I should probably pick one up now that it’s no longer legal for me to drive with coffee in one hand, cell phone in the other. Let’s see, something like the Matsuhashi B400 should do the trick.