We need the print server's IP, the printer's model, and, in this case, Murphy as a consultant.
On Linux:
1) Go to http://localhost:631 , or to System Settings - Printers
2) Select "add a printer"
3) Select "network printer"
4) Enter print server's IP
5) Enter printer model
Done. Fortunately, everything is left to the OS.
On Windows, running on VirtualBox on the Linux host:
1) Google and download print server drivers
2) Google and download printer drivers
3) Run the print server installer
4) Exit the installer, because it needs the drivers to be there
5) Run the printer installer
6) Exit the installer, because it looks for the printer locally
7) Repeat steps 3 to 6 a few times
8) Run the printer installer
9) Select "Advanced install"
10) Install the drivers together with a non-existent local printer
11) Run the print server installer
12) Exit the installer, because it cannot auto-detect the printer and does not let you enter the IP manually
13) Shutdown VirtualBox
14) Switch Linux to the same wireless network as the print server, which fortunately happens to be within range
15) Set VirtualBox to bridged networking rather than NAT
16) Turn on VirtualBox again
17) Run the print server installer
18) Select print server
19) Select printer
20) Print test page
21) Shutdown VirtualBox
22) Switch back to the secondary (bridged) wireless network
23) Put back NAT on VirtualBox
24) Turn VirtualBox back on
25) Realize that the test page fails even though you can ping the print server
26) Install a PDF printer and print from the host OS
The OS does have a nice and pretty printer installer, as well as a nice and pretty hardware installer, but noooo, everything has to be overridden by things that don't take all use case scenarios in mind...
Monday, September 13, 2010
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
THANK YOU, Flying Dog Records!
So I purchased the FictionJunction LIVE 2008-2010 CD. First of all, it had the beloved "Compact Disc Digital Audio" sign, which means it's probably not copy-protected. But the biggest surprise came when I opened it in my PC and... guess what?... It contained all songs in MP3, OGG and FLAC!!!! ☺ ☺ ☺
Nowadays, one of the most common things to do once you purchase a CD is to rip it so you can listen to it on your PC/phone/mobile device/whatever. Most companies try to stop you from doing that. In the process, they become so strict that we've probably all seen cases where you buy a CD, realize it won't play on your car stereo/old CD player/whatever, put it back into its box and download the music so you can listen to it. Of course, this means you probably won't buy the next CD because it will be useless anyway. And then you see great record companies such as Flying Dog Records saying "okay, these songs will be ripped anyway, so here you go". THANKS! ☺
A few links:
Nowadays, one of the most common things to do once you purchase a CD is to rip it so you can listen to it on your PC/phone/mobile device/whatever. Most companies try to stop you from doing that. In the process, they become so strict that we've probably all seen cases where you buy a CD, realize it won't play on your car stereo/old CD player/whatever, put it back into its box and download the music so you can listen to it. Of course, this means you probably won't buy the next CD because it will be useless anyway. And then you see great record companies such as Flying Dog Records saying "okay, these songs will be ripped anyway, so here you go". THANKS! ☺
A few links:
- FictionJunction LIVE 2008-2010 CD on Amazon (English link on the top right of the page)
- Flying Dog Records homepage (check them out, they've got a few more cool artists as well)
- Kajiura Yuki homepage
- FictionJunction homepage
Monday, September 6, 2010
A2DP, ALSA and Pulseaudio
EDIT: Upgraded to Maverick and everything works out of the box, like a charm, even without Pulseaudio! The only thing I still need Pulseaudio's volume control for is to switch between one-way high-quality A2DP and full-duplex low-quality on the fly!
Read on if you want to see how it was just a few months ago.
So I was trying to get my Bluetooth headset working on Linux. It was not easy... I used this guide, but using Blueman to pair my headset and connect audio to it. Unfortunately, .asoundrc and pactl still have to be typed in by hand. As a sidenote, if instead of "auto" you type "voice" in .asoundrc , the Pulseaudio volume control will let you graphically change whether you want one-way high-quality A2DP or full-duplex low-quality! However, this also seemed to change the sink name from "alsa_output.btheadset" to something with Bluez and your device MAC address, so just copy-paste the new entry from the manager instead of looking for that particular line. No big deal. Also, Blueman will keep saying that it cannot connect the audio source, but you can safely ignore that - it will work.
The plus side is that you can decide on-the-fly that this application should use the audio card and that one should use the Bluetooth headset. In practice, it means that you can have your music playing through the PC speakers while using your headset for audio conferencing, and then change your headset to A2DP mode and switch music playback there without even stopping your music. Pretty cool stuff.
I ended up ditching Pulseaudio some time ago. To me, it was a useless layer between the actual sound engine and the user. I'd just leave it there if it worked, but unfortunately, on all of my installations it would decide to just stop working eventually - and, off it goes. However, even though it's actually ALSA who gives audio to the new device, I cannot get it to appear in alsamixer or Phonon, so I had to reinstall Pulseaudio. If anyone has any clues as to why it might happen, I'd love to know!
If I had more free time, I'd write a few tools to automate A2DP and Bluetooth DUN [which, by the way, is yet another painful story - always configure your phone as a Bluetooth modem before you end up with no other Internet connection! You'll probably be able to connect rfcomm0 using Blueman, but mine didn't manage to dial up the connection afterwards. Graphical tools such as kppp somehow didn't work either, so I had to do a lot of experimenting with pon chatscripts.] However, since I probably won't actually sit down and code something meaningful, I'll just cross my fingers and hope that someone else will do it for me within a few years :)
Read on if you want to see how it was just a few months ago.
So I was trying to get my Bluetooth headset working on Linux. It was not easy... I used this guide, but using Blueman to pair my headset and connect audio to it. Unfortunately, .asoundrc and pactl still have to be typed in by hand. As a sidenote, if instead of "auto" you type "voice" in .asoundrc , the Pulseaudio volume control will let you graphically change whether you want one-way high-quality A2DP or full-duplex low-quality! However, this also seemed to change the sink name from "alsa_output.btheadset" to something with Bluez and your device MAC address, so just copy-paste the new entry from the manager instead of looking for that particular line. No big deal. Also, Blueman will keep saying that it cannot connect the audio source, but you can safely ignore that - it will work.
The plus side is that you can decide on-the-fly that this application should use the audio card and that one should use the Bluetooth headset. In practice, it means that you can have your music playing through the PC speakers while using your headset for audio conferencing, and then change your headset to A2DP mode and switch music playback there without even stopping your music. Pretty cool stuff.
I ended up ditching Pulseaudio some time ago. To me, it was a useless layer between the actual sound engine and the user. I'd just leave it there if it worked, but unfortunately, on all of my installations it would decide to just stop working eventually - and, off it goes. However, even though it's actually ALSA who gives audio to the new device, I cannot get it to appear in alsamixer or Phonon, so I had to reinstall Pulseaudio. If anyone has any clues as to why it might happen, I'd love to know!
If I had more free time, I'd write a few tools to automate A2DP and Bluetooth DUN [which, by the way, is yet another painful story - always configure your phone as a Bluetooth modem before you end up with no other Internet connection! You'll probably be able to connect rfcomm0 using Blueman, but mine didn't manage to dial up the connection afterwards. Graphical tools such as kppp somehow didn't work either, so I had to do a lot of experimenting with pon chatscripts.] However, since I probably won't actually sit down and code something meaningful, I'll just cross my fingers and hope that someone else will do it for me within a few years :)
How average is an "average user"?
Very often, you will hear software designers talking about "average users". In fact, many of them speak of an "average user" and think of a "dumb user". With this assumption, they lose many users at the high end of the curve...
It makes sense to take the really average user, take a certain confidence interval and make sure that both "pretty naive" and "pretty advanced" users will be able to use your software. However, there's also a limitation on the high end of the curve. As much as a "dumb" user will be confused by too many options or complicated operations, a "geek" user will be annoyed because the software will pretend to know what he wants to do better than he does. Advanced users often have a particular and complex use case scenario in mind. If the software is over-simplified, you'll probably end up losing them, just as much as you'll lose the naive users if the software is too complex.
In a few words, if you ask yourself "could my grandmother use this?", make sure it's not something that only your grandmother would use.
It makes sense to take the really average user, take a certain confidence interval and make sure that both "pretty naive" and "pretty advanced" users will be able to use your software. However, there's also a limitation on the high end of the curve. As much as a "dumb" user will be confused by too many options or complicated operations, a "geek" user will be annoyed because the software will pretend to know what he wants to do better than he does. Advanced users often have a particular and complex use case scenario in mind. If the software is over-simplified, you'll probably end up losing them, just as much as you'll lose the naive users if the software is too complex.
In a few words, if you ask yourself "could my grandmother use this?", make sure it's not something that only your grandmother would use.
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Wikipedia robot annihilating My Little Ponies
The Wikipedia page for "Particle annihilation" points to "My Little Pony" (try here if it's been fixed in the meantime). If you wonder who was having fun, it was just Wikipedia's robot trying to fix a supposed double redirection, as you can see in the page history. The page for "Particle Annihilation" redirects to the correct page. If you wonder what's different, yes, it's just the capital A. Now, you'd wonder why the robot chose to redirect to "My Little Pony"? Go figure... (In any case, poor ponies!)
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