Day off To Relax and Trouble Shooting the Photoprinter

Sleeping till 8 AM on Monday, I went out with mother to have breakfast on the way to Kroger. Stopping off at a semi-new McDonalds where a harried manager trying to work both the drive-thru and the front counter as her employees were little short on understanding English, had her work cut-out for her. I can understand the difficulty in finding employees to work on a holiday, but at least try to get enough to work the counter to serve the non-Spanish speaking crowd who is expecting some decent service.

After finally getting our order fixed correctly, we headed for Kroger and did the morning shopping. Stocking up on essentials, we finally finished the grocery shopping by 10:30 AM and headed for home. With the left arm still in the sling to prevent movement, it took several trips to get everything inside and sorted for the freezer and refrigerator.

Catching up on my previously recorded shows, I watched Code Lyoko which seems to be getting better as it goes. I hope that there will be another season of the series as it explores the Internet in a unique way never done before. Leave it to the French animators who produce the series to go where not even a Japanese animation house ever has gone before. For more on this anime series which airs on the Cartoon Network visit the website for the show at http://www.codelyoko.com . You will enjoy getting to know the characters and if you cannot get Cartoon Network, the series is available on DVD from several sources including www.amazon.com .

Taking a break from watching the boob tube, I headed for the Wal-Mart Supercenter and picked up some new shirts and pants which were on sale. Because I needed front button shirts, because they are easier to put on; I got a few good deals then head for home to wash the purchases. (One might question the reason to wash new clothing, but years ago a woman purchased surplus jeans for her son. He of course wore them, but became deathly ill shortly after arriving at school. Doctors removing the clothing noted immediate improvement and so he was released. The next day the same thing happened, this time doctors on a hunch checked his clothing and discovered that they had been “soaked” in a chemical during a traffic accident involving several trucks. The cargo sold to a surplus store for disposal had been sold to the public without the knowledge of anyone. Another buyer who had been located by investigators reported she never would have anyone wear new clothing until it had been washed. None of the jeans she had washed showed any trace of the deadly chemical. So always wash new clothing, because you never know where it has been before you bought it off the rack.)

Returning home, I focused my attention to the problematic Photosmart HP Printer Model 475. There is definitely something wrong with the HP provided CD that came with the printer so I decided to download new drivers from HP for the printer and the updated HP Photosmart Essentials. After downloading the Essentials, I was able to get that installed and working.

Then the problem with installing the software and it has to do with automatically updating the software during installation. Do not select the automatic update since there are no updates in the first place. Another problem with the software is that it wants to get registered to a non-existent website. One can ignore the registration request once you have completed the software installation; however there is no way to get the registration to shutdown from Windows itself. You have to shut down the computer and restart which is not a good way to have a work around for this kind of problem.

Still I have been able to get the printer to work and now can printout my trip photos to Indiana.

Finally, I read with interest that Wal-Mart will be conducting background checks on all of its 1.5 million employees after a recent incident involving two employees who were convicted of molesting two children. The two employees were in fact registered sex offenders but had not revealed that fact to Wal-Mart before being employed.

Working in the criminal history field, it is not uncommon to have people request a three, five or seven year criminal history. Unfortunately there is no such thing, at least in the State of Georgia. You have two levels of criminal history, and they are; general employment background which will show both misdemeanors and felonies and then there is felony only. A felony only in the State of Georgia can be run by anyone with the knowledge of that person who is having the background run on them.

There is of course another form of background checks and it is a national background check. However, the national background check cannot be run by name alone requiring that the person be fingerprinted. (This is how it is done in the State of Georgia, so check with your local law enforcement agency.)

One common problem I see all the time with criminal background checks being done through an Internet service, is too many similar names can return results that if misinterpreted can result in a serious error and probable denial of employment. I urge those who do not use law enforcement agencies to verify all information received before denying employment to anyone based on “unofficial” results. If a person seeks recourse from a law enforcement agency to determine their official status, and they are cleared of having a criminal background be prepared to reconsider your source of information.

Have a great week, and of course back to work we all go.

Stephen E Sauls

Chamblee, GA USA