A touchscreen was something only limited to high-end electronics at one point, but now they’re available on just about anything mobile, such as Nintendo DS, all automotive GPS devices, smartphones and so on.

Something that has been very slow to adopt the touchscreen are digital cameras. Canon in particular seemingly refused to do it, however that’s no longer the case as six new PowerShot line cameras will have touchscreens in them; you’ll see these on store shelves very soon.

Part of the reason why touchscreens have been slow to show up on digital cameras is for the fact they wash out easily in bright sunlight. And if your primary menu system can’t be seen while adjusting a camera to take photos, that’s no good to the user.

Camcorders with a touchscreen (Sony has had them for years) get around this by having a screen that flips out and tilts. The tilt eliminates glare instantly so you can get down to business and see what you need to see to make adjustments. This is more or less the exact same thing that will happen on digital cameras. Being that more and more of them have HD video recording capability, this is seen as a natural progression that they act more like camcorders do.

However the question remains as to whether this is actually a good idea or not. The answer is actually yes.

Canon in particular has not always had the friendliest of menu systems in their digital camera line. There’s nothing particularly wrong with it, but when compared to other makes you can see the differences. Certain features require the pressing of more buttons to get to depending on model, the icon legend is a bit confusing at times, and so on.

If the touchscreen menu Canon uses is on par with how other camera/camcorders are (which is a tabbed/paged layout), this will make for a far easier camera to use overall. You will be able to get to functions faster, easier, and moreover understand your camera better as to what it can actually do.

For those wondering if the PowerShot G11 will have an optical viewfinder in addition to the touchscreen, don’t worry, it does. For many this is an absolute must-have requirement. A camera of this caliber should have no less.

Situation: You’re going to install a Canon printer on a computer but you don’t have the driver CD for it. So, like anyone else, you go to Canon’s web site to download them. This should be an easy painless process, right?

Wrong.

Here’s what you have to do to download drivers for a consumer-grade Canon printer:

1. Go to www.canon.com
2. Click "Support" on the left (in the gray)
3. Choose your region from the map
4. Choose your landing site (e.g. Canon U.S.A.).
5. Another window or tab will open at this point.
6. Choose "Drivers & Downloads" from the left gray area.
7. Select your category as "Consumer Products".
8. Another window or tab will open at this point.
9. Next to 1, select category as "Printers".
10. Next to 2, select your series of printer.
11. Next to 3, select your model of printer.
12. Then click the almost unreadable gray "GO" button below that. AND FINALLY.. you’ll get to the drivers you need to download.

This is absolutely ridiculous I have to jump thru this many hoops just to get a STUPID DRIVER SET.

How easy are the others?

For HP printers:

1. Go to www.hp.com
2. Click "Support & Drivers" from the top.
3. Choose "Download drivers and software (and firmware)"
4. Enter the model of your HP printer and click "Go"
5. Download drivers

And that’s it.

For Lexmark printers:

1. Go to www.lexmark.com
2. Hover over "DRIVERS & DOWNLOADS" from the top and click "Driver Finder"
3. Type in the model of your printer
4. Click "SEARCH"
5. Select your operating system.
6. Click red "DOWNLOAD NOW" button.

And that’s it.

My personal score for each

HP
Score: Good

If you own an HP printer, the drivers are easy to get, the text they use on their support site is readable and easy to understand and you don’t feel like you’re getting lost at any time.

Lexmark
Score: Somewhat crappy

Light gray tiny text on white background = HARD TO READ. In fact, almost the whole site is in itty-bitty text with not enough contrast. Is this a nit-pick? Hardly. A support site should NOT have hard-to-read text anywhere.

Tip: When using Lexmark’s support site, increase the size in your browser by using Control-Plus. When done, reset back to normal with Control-0 (that’s a zero).

Canon
Score: Satan-spawned crappiness of doom

It is so easy to get lost in their support site it’s not even funny. Tiny text is everywhere and it’s not obvious where to click to get what you’re looking for (whereas it should be).

Case in point: After you selected your landing page, did you know you could also click on "Product Search"? Of course you didn’t. Want to know why? It’s not underlined or even a color that even remotely resembles a link.

Canon’s support site is a big steaming pile of you-know-what. To navigate it is a nightmare.

If you have a Canon printer and need drivers.. or heck.. even if you don’t need drivers I’d go get them now while it’s fresh in your mind from reading this article – because I guarantee you’ll forget how to do it later. Who could remember all that crap?

My suggestion for all printer manufacturers

There should be a big obvious search box right on the home page that says "Enter your model here to search for drivers". It should be that obvious because I can guarantee the vast majority of your web traffic is for driver downloads.