If you're wondering why I missed my usual upload on March 24, 2000, read on.

I bought an Epson 9000 ink jet printer and installed it on March 23, 2000. Everything went well until I tried to use it. There was a conflict between their driver and some other software I had on my system. I ended up not being able view directory structure with any program in Windows (like Word, Paint Shop Pro, Windows Explorer, etc.) This made it impossible for me to do my preparation for the web site uploads. I uninstalled the Epson driver, but this did not fix the problem.

The next morning, I called Epson support expecting them to help me work through the problem and get my system back. Instead, they ended up telling me to reinstall Windows and that might fix the problem. If not, they suggested that I reformat my hard drive and start over from scratch.

When I said that this was both Epson's and my problem and that I expected them to help me get my system back, I was referred to Customer Relations. Customer Relations told me in no uncertain terms that this was exclusively my problem and Epson didn't want anything to do with helping me out of my predicament.

Well, to make a long story short (I know, "too late"), I got advice and help from my friends and I was lucky. As I uninstalled programs trying to get back to a working system, the program that had the conflict was one of the first I uninstalled. Now my system is operational again (minus a few programs) no thanks to Epson. (If this page doesn't look quite right in IE, that's because I don't have IE installed on my computer anymore.)

So, if you're installing an Epson printer, be forewarned: