My dad gave me a Mac Mini because my other computer sucked. I'm trying to get things set up, so I went out and bought a printer yesterday. An hp. I set it up, plugged it in, initialized it, and tried to install it. Nothing. The computer wasn't seeing it as a printer. So I tried a few things and couldn't get it to work.
So I went to bed.
Today, I decided on a more direct route: I called hp tech support. Yes, it's plugged in. Yes, it's on. Yes, it's plugged in the USB port. No, it's still not working. We tried a few other things and nothing worked. The problem turned out to be either the USB port on the printer or the cable. So I took it back to Sam's Club and exchanged it for a Lexmark. I set it up, put the paper in, put in the ink cartridges, printed out a test page, and went to install it. I put in the installation disk. The only problem (and one that's not printed on the box): there are no drivers for OS X for this particular model. Not only is this fact not printed on the box, but it's also not printed on any of the materials that come with the printer. I had to go online and look for the drivers, and only when I saw a list of Lexmark printers that are supported by OS X (and my new printer was missing from the list) did I realize that I'm at strike two. So tomorrow it's once again back to the store to get another printer.
Oh, and to make life even better, apparently my dad didn't have Word on this mini, and I need to spend $250 to buy Office for Mac. This creates all kinds of cross-platform problems, and defeats the main purpose of my computer--word processing. Ya know. 'Cause when you write, you kinda need some kind of word processing program.
Grr.