September 22, 2003

Remember those dialup users

I helped my wife’s Aunt and Uncle with a hardware (memory + CD-RW) and software (Win98 ->>WinXP) upgrade this weekend. It went okay (I think), but one annoyance was their net access. Since they’re out in a relatively rural area – if Amish are parking buggies in your barn, it’s rural – they only have dialup access. So I tried to anticipate everything I’d need and burned it to a CD beforehand. I got most of it, but the things I had to contend with were Windows Update downloads, other custom software they use with ebay, and the printer driver. Being naive, I figure the printer driver can’t be too big, right?

Wrong -- the thing was 5 MB! And for a low-end laser printer! In my day-to-day this would seem a drop in the bucket. I grab stuff like this without a second thought, even if I'm not sure I'll need it. (Sure, bouncing bear videos are great!) Granted, I'm sure it contained more than just a printer driver, but it would have been nice for them to include a separate driver-only download.

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