danny’s space

Crunch. Matt, Nate, Calvin and I turned around awkwardly in our seats to see a red Ford hatchback frighteningly close to the rear window. Foot finally pressed firmly on the brake, the flatline-like tone of the reverse sensors reverberating around the car’s cabin, my heart sunk. Not again! My second three-point-turn accident in North Epping. What a wonderful way to end the morning. After dropping off Calvin, Matt and Nate, I drove back to the scene and surveyed the damage more closely.

The crunch wasn’t wrong. A large furrow in the rear right door of the red hatch, 15cm long, 10cm wide and a few deep. I got out a Post-It pad and pen from the car, took a few deep breaths, and walked up to the house where it was parked. A doorbell and a barking dog later, a man came to the door. I asked if the car belonged to him, and he indicated towards his neighbour. Another few deep breaths and a doorbell. No dog, just a tall friendly-looking guy around my age.

“Hi, sorry to disturb you, but is that red car outside yours? I bumped into it doing a three-point-turn. I’m really sorry.”

Unfazed, the guy replied, “Hang on, I’ll get my shoes and come take a look.”

After more profuse apologising, we inspected the damage together. He leaned down to take a closer look, brushed the bruised door with a few fingers, and stood back up. He managed to get a few words past my blurts of “insurance” and “sorry”:

“It should be fine. Don’t worry.”

The relief. We exchanged names and mobile numbers, and shook hands. I waved to him as I drove past a few minutes later while he was getting into the car, probably just to check it still worked fine.

Forgiveness. Grace. Mercy. I know it’s only a very minor incident, but it highlights these well.

I especially didn’t expect it after my last three-point-turn encounter, that time with a car belonging to a man from the Chinese congregation at church. We’ll call him Peter. That time, there wasn’t even a crunch. Not a sound. The only sound came from Peter’s mouth after he stormed into service, demanding to speak to the person who drove the blue Volvo that one of his friends saw reversing into his car. We inspected the damage, and it was a mere 2cm paint scratch on the bottom bumper. I’ve had grazes deeper and larger than that. Peter, quietly and calmly fuming, demanded insurance and license details and kept emphasising that the bumper looked highly indented while pressing on it determinedly with his hand. He kept repeating what an inconvenience it would be to him to have the car in for servicing, and said that he would contact me with the quote from the repair shop because some internal damage may have occurred.

What a difference! What a shocker was the reaction from the ‘mature Christian’, and what an embodiment of mercy was the reaction from that friendly young man behind the screen door.

Makes you think.

I post this here in the hope that it might help someone else who is having the same issues as me with making Vista work with an old printer like the HP Deskjet 930C. It’s a lovely printer, quite the workhorse. But when Vista came, printing to the 930C through a networked XP computer connected to the Vista laptop didn’t work, at all.

After a bit of googling, came up with a few websites:

http://thevistaforums.com/lofiversion/index.php/t29452.html, which suggested having the most up to date drivers on the ’server’ machine.

http://www.computerperformance.co.uk/vista/vista_printer_install_problem.htm, which had general suggestions for making network printers work with Vista.

http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=1464064&page=5, which contained the solution that worked for me.

Basically, you need to make sure that the server machine (the networked computer to which the printer is connected) has the most up-to-date drivers for that printer. Then, instead of adding a network printer in Vista, use the Add a local printer option in the Add Printer dialog, and then Create a new port of type Local Port, and as the Port Name, use \\computername\printername, where computername is the network name of the server computer, and printername is the shared name of the printer.

Vista should then pick the correct driver - if not, select it from the list. Then install the printer, and print a test page - hopefully successfully!