Category: Hardware

“Plug and Play” on Windows

I had occasion to reinstall Windows2000 the other day and got a chance to see what the rest of the world endures when using anything but the most basic standard peripheral devices.

I have a two monitor setup, one a Dell 17″ flat screen, nothing special. The other is a 19″ Dell UltraSharp.

My reinstall was done from a ghost image, made from the install disk that came with the machine. A stripped, basic reinstall, which only had my network settings and network software added on, so at least I didn’t have to do that again.

So, the reinstall went quickly, but then came the endless trips to Windows update, restarts, and back to Windows update for more. Quite a few of the updates have to be installed separately, then the machine restarted.

Oh, did I forget to mention, after the reinstall, the left monitor, the digital Dell Ultrasharp, was black. I figured it would be OK, once I got around to opening the display control panel and setting it to use both monitors.

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Wacom Tablet Driver fails to load in OSX on startup…

I have a 6×8 Intuos 2 Wacom tablet, a real hand-saver. I use it on my right hand and a Kensington Orbit (the smaller version) trackball on my left, for easy tasks like scrolling and big mouse moves. This has saved me so far from the fate of many of my graphic designer/computer programmer friends who are virtually crippled now by hand problems, like carpal tunnel syndrome.

However, I have had a problem since getting the tablet: it would intermittently fail to load the driver on startup. I’m using Jaguar, and a dual screen setup – and the tablet is plugged into the back of one of the screens.

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