Speed Bumps

I've encountered my first hiccoughs on the road toward dumping Windows for Ubuntu.

A recurring issue that crops up whenever I'm accessing certain web sites and typing text into pop-ups or other boxes is that I lose control of the cursor and am unable to close the popup window. At first I thought it was a browser issue and installed Aurora to give it a try instead of FireFox. The same issues occur there as well. I'm not sure what causes it and therefore have no idea how to prevent it from happening. So far, it's merely an annoyance, but it usually results in my having to close the browser and starting over, which is counterproductive to say the least. A computer is a productivity tool for me. When something becomes an obstacle to productivity, I have to consider alternatives.

The other problem I've run into is that Ubuntu is unable to print to my network laser. We have two printers on our network: the monochrome laser, which is our productivity workhorse, and an all-in-one that we use for scanning and color printing. Ubuntu communicates just fine with the Epson all-in-one and it detected and installed the Brother laser printer, but it can only print to the Epson. I mostly use the Epson for scanning and avoid sending black-and-white print jobs to it because the ink cartridges are expensive. That is, after all, why we have the laser workhorse.

I spent nearly an hour last night troubleshooting the printing issue, but it's just not working. I'll have to do some additional research and see what I can come up with.

This means that I will continue to dual-boot with Windows. I must have access to that laser printer. There's no productivity sense in switching to an OS that doesn't allow me to use all the devices I need in my day-to-day work. And I also can't spend hours a day troubleshooting problems that prevent me from doing my work. Again, that's counterproductive. I have too much work to do to be fiddling with the tools that are supposed to be helping me work instead of impairing my work.