I was reading a blog today where a geek rather nicely explained the mechanism for getting a Lexmark printer driver to work under Ubuntu. It was quite a techy sounding answer and in the comments on the blog was the question (allegedly from the chap’s father), “How do you KNOW this stuff!!?”
The blog owner’s answer: I know how to use Google.
Which is such a valid point. The vast majority of “geeks”, aren’t, in fact, true geeks at all. People call me a geek, and yes, on the face of it I probably look like a geek. I have a whole raft of computers and whirry buzzy things in my house doing seemingly cool (and pointless) things. And let’s face it, I’m writing a blog, about techy/geek things. But in the same manner as the guy above, I only worked out how to do that stuff by pretty much copying / adapting what someone else has already done before by hunting it out on Google. And no doubt that guy copied / adapted it from someone who copied / adapted it from who copied / adapted it who, maybe, just maybe, got it from the person who actually figured it out in the first place. Those guys are the true geeks… and without them the world would be a pretty sorry looking place.
A while ago, I posted something about a Ford advert, which touted their new design methodology called “Ford Kinetic Design.”
Apparently, the point of Ford Kinetic Design is to “make every Ford look like it’s moving, even when it’s not.” In reality, what a crock. Why would you want your car to look like it’s moving, when it’s not? How annoying would that be? You’d park the car and wander off, and have to keep going back to check you’d put the handbrake on. It’s stupid, wanky, marketing BS.
And now, Ford are at it again, this time with the new Kuga. They started a while back with the “why can’t we start with a blank canvas nonsense
and now they’re doing it again with the blank canvas idea, asking why things have to look like things
In this case, why does a parking meter have to look like a parking meter? Elsewhere, they’ve asked “why does a bus stop have to look like a bus stop” ? Well, Ford, I’ll fucking tell you. If a parking meter looked like a shopping trolley, then people’d get a bunch of parking tickets for not paying to park. If bus stops looked like a bucket of chicken, then you’d get a lot of really pissed off people standing about wondering how to get to work, and a lot of very confused bus drivers, driving about wondering where to stop. Plus, there would be buckets of chicken everywhere. Not something I’d be particularly against, but can you imagine the mess, the rats and the birds?
And to add insult to injury, Ford are touting some thing about how they’ve ignored all design rules and completely rethought car design. Seriously? Someone tell me how they’ve done that. The new Kuga has 4 wheels, some doors, a windscreen. It goes forward and backwards. Costs a fortune to run and will inevitably look a little shabby after the kids have vomited in it and you’ve scraped it along a fence post.
So, seriously, Ford, stop it. It’s a car. That’s all.
If like me you found that your previously perfectly working Canon IP5200R wireless printer is broken after upgrading to Snow Leopard – don’t worry, there’s (now) an easy fix. The long and the short of it is – in 10.6 they included an old version of the Canon printer driver. Useful, huh?
These tips are for UK based people – if you’re elsewhere, you should find the appropriate place on the Canon website to get the updates.
If you don’t have it, get a copy of the Canon IJ network tool v2.6.* from here.
Now, get yourself a copy of the latest printer driver, currently 10.26.1
If printer previously working fine
Install network tool (if you don’t already have it)
Restart machine.
Install printer driver.
Go to System Preferences > Printers. If your Canon printed is listed, but as USB, then remove it by cliking the – icon in the pane.
Next click the + to go to the Add Printer screen. Make sure the Default panel is selected.
Wait for about 30 seconds – your Canon printer should appear in the pane – you can then add it – and after that, all should be right in the world.
If you’ve never installed the printer
As above except that you’ll need to configure the network settings before trying to add the printer.
Plug the printer in to your Mac via USB (if you have Growl installed, you’ll hopefully see a notification)
Navigate to Macintosh HD > Library > Printers > Canon > Utilities > IJ Printer tool
Run that – it should find your printer on USB
Use the Network Setup to set your wireless settings. I won’t go in to the details, but by far the most reliable method I’ve found is to give your printer a static IP rather than DHCP.
Once you’ve done that OK the dialog to commit the settings to the printer. If all goes well, the above advice should work for you.
Hope that helps. Hands down, the first I’ve ever had to install a printer during my Mac career!
Italian Tomato Garden:
An old Italian lived alone in New Jersey . He wanted to plant his annual tomato garden, but it was very difficult work, as the ground was hard.
His only son, Vincent, who used to help him, was in prison. The old man wrote a letter to his son and described his predicament:
Dear Vincent,
I am feeling pretty sad, because it looks like I won’t be able to plant my tomato garden this year. I’m just getting too old to be digging up a garden plot. I know if you were here my troubles would be over.. I know you would be happy to dig the plot for me, like in the old days.
Love, Papa
A few days later he received a letter from his son.
Dear Pop,
Don’t dig up that garden. That’s where the bodies are buried.
Love,
Vinnie
At 4 a.m. the next morning, FBI agents and local police arrived and dug up the entire area without finding any bodies. They apologized to the old man and left.
That same day the old man received another letter from his son.
Dear Pop,
Go ahead and plant the tomatoes now. That’s the best I could do under the circumstances.
Love you,
Vinnie
I’ve read a lot of reviews of people hating this product, and generally I think they’re a little unjustified. It’s a perfectly reasonable wireless webcam – it does what it says it will do and it does an OK job. What you get in the box is quite impressive – the camera, power supply, ethernet cable and the camera has standard tripod mount sized holes on top and bottom and a mountable bracket with tilt/swivel so you can mount this anywhere you want. A few notes:
1) There are two versions of this – the original and the “Rev-R”. If at all possible get the original version. The original used Java to stream the video, whereas in the Rev-R for some completely unknown reason, they moved to ActiveX to serve it – this means Internet Explorer only (ish – see later).
2) You don’t need any software at all to set this up – you can do it all from the web interface. By default the IP address is set at 192.168.1.200 for the Rev-R devices.
3) If you do have the Rev-R version you can watch the video on OSX/Linux, Safari/Firefox etc. by going to
4) It’s simple to get it set up for viewing over the web, it has Dynamic DNS service built in, although you are limited to a single provider, which I think is chargeable after an introductory period. But most modern routers do this for you nowadays so you don’t really need it.
The device is a little flaky, though, and does tend to lock up now and then. This is usually fixed by cycling the power, but that’s obviously not ideal if you’re trying to view it remotely. There’s apparently a firmware upgrade available – but every time I try it informs me I’ve not got the correct type of file, despite downloading it from their website.
All in all, it’s OK and does what it says and is simple to set up, but it’s not worth the £90 that Amazon are trying to sell it for. I got one off eBay for £25 which is probably worth a punt, considering what else is out there. I’ve got it as one of three cameras running in my Ubuntu/Motion setup, and it all works pretty well (except when it locks up).
If only it had telnet/SSH access, it would be ideal – if anyone can point me in the direction of that, I’d be very grateful!
The PS3 is an absolute beast of a machine. It fully wazzes all over the XBOX 360 and the Wii. Not only does it play games, it plays Blu Ray video, outputs 1080P HD video, 7.1. HD sound, gets you online wirelessly, and, amongst other things, will play happily with DLNA servers, which, in short, is a protocol for streaming a variety of media, such as video, over a network.
To get streaming working, you need some sort of DLNA server, i.e., an interface between the actual video file and the PS3 – i.e., something which tells the PS3 what is available, the PS3 then does the rest. PS3 Media Server (PMS) is the best solution out there, apart from its unfortunate acronym. It’s free and multi-platform, which means that if you’ve got an old computer lying around (Linux, Mac or dare I say it, Windows) then you’ll be getting the most out of your PS3 before you know it. In my case I have an unused G4 PowerPC Mac Mini running 10.4.*. Installing the software is a cinch and then configuring it is a piece of piss. PMS literally spews out logging info, so you can usually find the problem if it won’t work. (Main thing is making sure UPnP is enabled.)
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A while back I posted an Applescript for iTunes which basically took a playlist of tracks, then created a playlist folder which contained a playlist for every album of the tracks in the playlist. It had been a bugbear of mine for a while when I had incomplete albums on my iPod. I would listen to a great song, want to listen to the album, but couldn’t. So I spent a lot of time writing that script, perfecting it, and getting it working.
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