Hi Ballscrewbob,
First of all, thank you for all the tips I've seen you post around the forum about this issue.
Almost all boards are PRE-LOADED with the BLINK example sketch so an LED should be flashing about 1 second intervals.
Yes, the 'orange' LED is blinking at a 1 Hz rate, so I assume the 'BLINK' example came already loaded.
You did remove the antistatic foam before use ?
Yes: I've tested the board without the foam, both on and off a breadboard.
Is your USB cable both power AND DATA or just power ?
It needs to be BOTH.
Yes it is: I've tested the cable with my smartphone first, and I'm able to transfer data to/from my laptop.