obive.net

So, this weekend, I went to a LAN using the monitor that had been in my car for a week. The first time I tried using it, there was no video, but the LED showed there was a video signal. I put it next to a heater to get rid of the condensation and to warm it up. After a few minutes I tried it and it started to click REALLY loud, rapidly. It sounded really bad. So I pulled the plug and turned off the computer (while it was booting Windows). After a few more minutes, I tried again. It was blurry and then it popped again, not as loud and only once, but I still turned it off. Another couple of minutes, and I tried again. It worked! So as Windows started booting, it just restarted - same in safe mode and last known good configuration. It's amazing how vulnerable Windows is while its booting. To make a long story short, I reinstalled Windows (twice, some how the first one installed to a drive ?J?).

So I'm back at Kent , needing to print, so I tried installing the printer driver! It was so miserable (Windows and the drivers).

At first I tried plugging it into the hub, which wasn't plugged in, so I plugged it in. Then Windows pops up with "ERROR! No other information!" I clicked the ?Really? I have no idea what you're talking about so get the F off the screen? button. Then the hub and the hub in the KVM were like going on and off as Windows like connected and disconnected them internally. I let that go on for about 3 minutes thinking it would eventually stop, but it didn't, it was an infinite loop until I unplugged the one.

Next I tried plugging the hub into the KVM and surprisingly it worked! But the printer still wasn't found by the wonderful polling drivers.

Finally, I plugged it into the computer directly, and it worked. For mor infromation, see my review of the printer.

Simply put, Adobe Acrobat (and reader) is the shittiest, most fucked up horrible software ever created.

Distiller just locks up when you print, thus locking up the rest of the application that printed it. You have to wait for the time-out period (like 5 min) before the thing realizes it sucks and then cancels the print and returns control to the program.

The reader takes over a second to load. That's unacceptable for a reader. Even a writer! Word takes less then half the time. I could load Word, Excel, and PowerPoint all before Acrobat loads, and Acrobat does NOT have any where NERE the functionality of those other apps (I am not saying those apps have much functionality ether).

I have come across documents that take literally 15 seconds to render.

Scrolling causes huge redraws which take FOREVER to complete (especially for those 15 second documents).

The only two reasons one would EVER use Acrobat would be if you need precise control over print out, or if you need complete control over layout. Otherwise, HTML would be MILLIONS of times better in every way for every situation. Hell, even JPEGs would be better.

Acrobat some how makes people think scanning in a document then putting them on the web should be done as PDF instead of ? ANY OTHER FUCKING IMAGE FORMAT! (And I do mean fucking formats, those are the best)

The interface is HORRIBLE! (Notice a trend?)

There you go; my reason why Acrobat is completely worthless.

Ok, first they restrict bandwidth to 32 KB per second. That's horrible.

Then they block SMTP. They don't sniff, they block port 25. The reason? So viri that distribute spam are blocked.

If I were a viri writer, I think I would NOT use the default SMTP port because hmm?. IT COULD BE BLOCKED SO EASALY!

I got by the SMTP lock by using port 26 which I guess is the SMTP port mirror.

Third, we need to register our MAC addresses.

At Toledo , they did not block SMTP, did not limit bandwidth (I got 3 mega BYTES per second one morning at 4 AM ), and they did not require MAC address registration; yet they did not have ANY bandwidth or strange network problems. Hmmm?.

Well, I'm at Kent State ; Still sorting out classes and most of all room stuff. It's nice to be able to go home on a whim. Might start working on software and such after all the dust settles?

Good O'le Microsoft:

The general manager of Microsoft's Windows digital media division David Fester has suggested that iTunes' emerging dominance would be bad for consumers, because it would limit them to the iPod, as opposed to limiting them to Microsoft based products. In a moment of what must have been an attempt at ironic humor he said, 'Windows is about choice - you can mix and match software and music player stuff. We believe you should have the same choice when it comes to music services.'

Well I'm packing up to go to Kent State... JUST THOUGHT EVERY ONE WOULD LOVE TO KNOW THAT!

Well I came home from Toledo forever as far as I can tell. I'll be going to Kent State this coming semester starting the 12 or something.

We took a ski trip out west from last Saturday to Christmas day (we being the family). It was pretty fun.

For the past few days we have been moving grandma (from my mom's side)'s stuff from her ranch to here since she is now in assisted living. We rented a UHAUL which was interesting. Its unfortunate grandma smoked, everything smells from it. =(

Ed's picture system is now pretty much up to speed. For all who care about the technical side, it's pretty neat. All one really has to do is upload a folder of pictures. After which, the PHP stuff automatically creates album indexes, thumbnails, and the bread crumb navigation. It's pretty modular and open for a first version.

That's it for today's update, laters.

Fixed a couple of bugs. WAHOO!!!

I have posted Stick-A-Note, InfiniTopRestore, and HyperHopper. All should be considered alpha/beta, use at your own risks, etc. Check the consumer software section. Enjoy!

I've added quite a bit more features and fixed some stuff up, getting closser to a release.

Dear movie and music companies,

You need to understand that if people want to pay for movies and music to give the ARTIST money, they will, and that if people want to steal the content, they will. When you put restrictions on content for the people who buy them, you’re not stopping the people who want to steal them from stealing them. Those people will ALWAYS find a way to get what they want for free (even if it is illegal).

What consumers want when they buy a movie or CD or purchase content is high-quality (lossless or near lossless) content without digital rights management. If I buy something, why should I be limited on how I use it, as long as it’s moral and ethical?

You only hurt your self by crippling the content you provide. The more you cripple, the less value it has, the less people are willing to pay for it, the less people will pay for it, and the more people will steel it.

By FAR the most used excuse people use when they steal something is "I stole it because it was too expensive".

Also, the artist, actor, producer, etc, should get WAY more money then the label. The label isn’t creating content, the artist is. They get way too much money as it is, and when you (the big companies) get an equal or greater amount, that’s uncalled for.

The goal of a record or movie company is to get the content from the producer (artist) to the consumer (me) efficiently. When you stray from this goal, you are hurting both ends. If you have no artists or consumers, you have lost 100% of your market in which case you are out of business.

You may find it surprising, but if you provide the consumer with what they want at a reasonable price, they will pay for it. You will get more customers buying your product when they are satisfied with it, which will in turn bring in more money. It’s basic supply and demand. You should not see the loss of sales of your product as a result of people stealing it, you should see that it’s because your customers are not satisfied with your product.

Quote from ARSTechnica: ?Right now, the industry and consumers are caught in a cycle of copy protection and circumvention. The labels have two choices: either stay the course, or properly react to what the market is telling them about music prices and distribution. Right now, they seem more interested in maintaining high margins than adjusting to changed expectations. Until they decide otherwise, the cycle will continue.?

This past August I went to Best Buy to purchase a new printer because my Lexmark printer basically stopped working. I had already decided on an Epson printer, and when I went in, a representative from Canon convinced me to get a Canon printer instead. I got the i470D. After using it for a while, here is my review. If you're looking for specs, these are direct from Canon's page:

	Print Speed (up to)	Black : 18 ppm*** (approximately 3.3 seconds per page)
		Color : 12 ppm*** (approximately 5 seconds per page)
		4x6 Color Photo : Approximately 93 seconds*** (borderless)
	Number of Nozzles	Black: 320; Color: 768 (256 x 3 for C,M,Y); Total: 1,088
	Print Resolution (up to)	600 x 600 dpi in Black
		4800 x 1200 dpi†† in Color
	OS Compatibility	Windows XP, Windows 2000/Me/98, Mac® OS (8.6 to 9.x) and Mac OS X v 10.2.1 to 10.2.x (see www.canontechsupport.com for updated compatibility)
	Ink Compatibility	BCI-24 Black Ink Tank, BCI-24 Color Ink Tank
	Standard Interfaces	USB (cable not included)
	Buffer/Ram	56KB
	Paper Sizes	Letter, legal, A4, A5, 4" x 6", 5" x 7", U.S. #10 or European envelopes
	Paper Compatibility	Plain paper, envelopes, Canon Specialty Papers - Glossy Photo Paper, High Resolution Paper, Matte Photo Paper, Photo Paper Plus Glossy, Photo Paper Plus Glossy For Borderless Printing, Photo Paper Pro, Photo Paper Pro For Borderless Printing, Transparencies, T-Shirt Transfers
	Paper Handling	Built-in sheet feeder - 100 sheets @ paper weight 17 lb.
		Envelopes - 10
		Glossy Photo Paper (8.5" x 11") - 10 sheets
		High Resolution Paper (8.5" x 11") - 80 sheets
		Matte Photo Paper (8.5" x 11") - 10 sheets
		Photo Paper Plus Glossy For Borderless Printing (4" x 6") - 20 sheets
		Photo Paper Plus Glossy (5" x 7") - 10 sheets
		Photo Paper Plus Glossy (8.5" x 11") - 10 sheets
		Photo Paper Pro (4" x 6") - 20 sheets
		Photo Paper Pro For Borderless Printing (4" x 6") - 20 sheets
		Photo Paper Pro (8.5" x 11") - 10 sheets
		Transparencies (8.5" x 11") - 30 sheets
		T-Shirt Transfer (8.5" x 11") - 1 sheet
	Noise Level (Approx.)	45 dB(A) in best quality mode
	Physical Dimensions	15.5" W x 10.1" D x 8.6" H
	Weight	8.8 lbs.
	Power Source	120V AC, 60Hz
	Warranty	1-year limited warranty with InstantExchange program (certain conditions and restrictions apply; see www.canontechsupport.com for details)
	Software Included	Setup Software and User's Guide CD-ROM including†††: Printer Driver, electronic Photo Application Guide, electronic User's Guide and e-registration, Easy-PhotoPrint (Windows/Mac), PhotoRecord™ (Windows), ZoomBrowser EX (Windows), ImageBrowser (Mac), PhotoStitch (Windows/Mac) and Easy-WebPrint (Windows, requires Microsoft Internet Explorer version 5.5, version 6.0 recommended)
† Prices and specifications subject to change without notice. Actual prices are determined by individual dealers and may vary.
* Memory Stick®, CompactFlash™, Microdrive™, SmartMedia™, SD card™ and MultimediaCard™.
** For a listing of compatible Canon digital cameras and camcorders featuring Bubble Jet Direct technology, visit www.usa.canon.com/consumer/bubblejetdirect
*** PPM print speed based in high-speed driver mode. Photo print speeds based on default driver mode using Canon Photo Paper Pro. Print speeds will vary depending on system configuration, software, document complexity, print mode and page coverage.
†† Ink droplets can be placed with a minimum pitch of 1/4800 inch.
††† System requirements vary by application. ImageBrowser, Easy-PhotoPrint and PhotoStitch are not supported in Mac OS 8.6.

Installation

The software installation was easy, but very poorly designed. The “installer” extracts a web page and another installer which is linked to in the web page. After it extracts the files, it opens the page in the default browser, unfortunately, that is a BAD thing. The page only works correctly in Internet Explorer. The page itself has links to installers and uninstallers for the driver and accompanying utilities. Why there isn’t an installer that just installs the drivers and coppies an uninstaller is beyond me. I could even see a little program that launches the other installer. But a web page, which you have to click on a link, then open, then you get some Microsoft security warning that it’s an exe and it may be a virus, that doesn’t work in Firebird and has confusing instructions that are poorly laid out quite like this run-on sentence? That’s crazy.

So it copies the files, and then opens the page. You click on the link, it says “Open or save?” (at least there’s a screen shot of that and instructions in the page) and you click open. It launches, and asks you to insert the printer cable and starts polling for the printer (more on this later). After you plug it in and like 20 seconds pass, it installs and you’re ready. So much for plug and play.

Drivers

I’m surprised how nice the UI is for the drivers. The icons aren’t lame XP-ish or custom. They are nice 95/98/2k icons that fit right in with my Classic appearance.

There is a really cool preview option that is like a print preview, but only generated by the actual driver, which takes all the “will it really look like this?” guess work out. It helps a lot with the printer’s borderless printing, and other neat little features. It’s also nice when a program doesn’t provide a print preview window itself. Unfortunately, there’s no way to rotate the page so landscape well, is on its side. But it’s a really nice feature none-the-less.

There are so many options in the drivers that it lets you make “profiles” for a certain set of options. This would be a nice touch if it were executed correctly. When one opens the print options, the first tab that comes up is the “Main” tab, not the “Profiles” tab. When you click on the profiles tab, you get a list of profiles and a summary of the options. To save the profile, you click “Add to Profiles” which should be labeled “Create new profile based on current settings” or just “Create” with a nice tool tip. So you click on it, and it brings up a little window for you to give it a name, an icon (nice touch), and a description. Alas, the name box is limited to only 32 characters and you are limited to the icons that come with the program; you can’t add more (I suppose you could hack some DLL, but still). Ok, so you click ok and (again) alas, a message box “the profile x has been created”. How COMPLETELY worthless. So how do you load a profile’s settings? You click the “Retrieve from Profiles”. Just clicking on the profile in the list doesn’t work. So you click the retrieve button and up comes “The current driver settings will be lost” etc. Well that would be barely acceptable if clicking on a profile loaded it, but this is pathetic. At least the delete button is just “Delete” instead of “Erase profile from existence after some annoying message” which there is a message “Are you sure?” but it’s really a more wordy, annoying, and confusing: “This entry cannot be restored once deleted. Do you want to delete entry ‘x’?”. What a fantastic feature ruined by a disastrous UI.

Believe it or not, it gets worse. When the printer is out of paper, it comes up with a window saying “Please add more paper” but it doesn’t just sit there, it launches a “polling” program every second! So, every second the cursor turns in into an hour glass and the 'program opened' sound plays (if you have one assigned). It does this for all other errors like this (ink, cover, installer locating the port the printer is in, etc).

The printers alignment page is much better then the “pick the straightest line” from my older HP or Lexmark printers. Canon’s alignment page is “pick the most solid bar” which is much easer to do.

General Hardware

The printer makes an awful lot of racket when you first turn it on when its been off, after its been idle and you try to print, or sometimes in the middle of printing. It takes about 2 minutes to complete this cycle. After this it’s pretty quiet.

Now that we’ve discussed the driver’s architecture, let’s go on to the abysmal hardware/USB/possible-Windows problem.

The printer has some memory card readers on it, so the clever folk at Canon made the printer actually a hub which the printer and the memory card reader is plugged into (when you plug the printer into the computer, it’s actually a hub into the computer). This way, the driver takes FOREVER to install as windows enumerates all the devices. FANTASTIC! After using the printer for a month or so, when you print, an error comes up. And that’s pretty much all the information you’re going to get. “There was an error printing”. I have solved the problem by plugging into a root port instead of a hub. (Wasn’t the point of USB to make it so you can have hubs? It drives me crazy when companies don’t make their devices “hub-able”)

Now when it comes time to restart when the printer is plugged in, Windows takes an appalling additional 3 minutes to boot. I originally thought this was because Windows sucks and I needed to reinstall, so I did. I stuck the bootable installer CD in, rebooted, and low and behold, the installer CD took 3 additional minutes to boot up. Obviously there’s a grave problem with this printer's USB support.

Customer/Tech Support

I decided to call Canon to attempt to solve this USB issue. I went to their web site and determined I needed to call long distance, and since the place was only open during the day, I could not use my free nights and weekends cell phone plan. ARG!!! So I called them, and here was the normall worthless menus “This menu has changed, please listen carefully” crap. While on hold, some guy keeps repeating how fantastic the company’s tech support is and how knowledgeable the people are. I finally get to talk to some one and this guy is clueless. It became obvious as when he had me go through my USB devices in Device manager, he thought the “OpenHCD” in “Standard OpenHCD USB Host controller” was the manufacturer of the USB chip. After I talked to him at length, he talked to some “senior tech” and they said the only thing they could come up with was that I needed new drivers (wouldn’t help since it’s in the Windows installer too) and latest MB updates (BIOS). I told him I did and he said he couldn’t help me. So after 30 min on long distance tech support, I got nowhere.

I called the main 1-800-OK-CANON line to file an “official complaint” and after a few transfers and explaining, according to them they have told the engineers about the problem, and they will look into it. Some how I don’t think they did.

Print Quality

Wow, one of the only good things about the printer! It has very good output quality, no banding, awesome photo paper output, borderless printing on 8.5 x 11, great color, etc.

Miscellaneous

I haven't used the memory card direct print or direct printing from a camera features, but I did test it in the store. You're very limited on the output (much more limited then the Epson printers, in the store) but I suppose if you didn't have a computer, this would work fine. One of the larger problems for the computer-less printing is how slow it is. It's really is quite unnerving.

The extra display and memory card readers no doubt dramatically increase the manufacturing cost of the printer, but Canon doesn't charge much more for it. Who knows why.

This printer has a paper thickness switch inside above the cartridges, but no other printers have had this switch, and it's very picky you use it when you "need" to. It won't let you print without switching it, and you have to switch it manually. Something like this should be automatic.

This printer seems a lot more solid then other printers, but that's just my opinion.

Conclusion

If it weren't for all the USB problems, the horrible installer, the crazy profiles tab, and the polling, this would be the perfect printer! But these easy-to-fix problems make this printer quite annoying to work with, especially when you're trying to print a paper in a hurry for class and it's giving you nondescript errors.

All in all, I give this printer 3.5 out of 5 um.. stars? points? I don't know, first review, haven't set a standard yet, etc.

Although this printer's score was marginal, I must say that my Lexmark would get about a 2 and HPs... Well, they're HPs. I haven't used one in years (except lasers), so I can't say. I haven't used an Epson (on Windows) yet, but I did use on my mac in OS 9. It was really bad, so I returned it. The software/drivers were not made like standard mac printer drivers. They were just crap.

The ink jet printer manufacturers need to get their butt in gear pronto. This industry is in bad shape. It should be much better.

I?ve worked on CEInfoBar quite a bit in the past few days. Here is a screen shot of the current development build.

Screen Shot

I have been working on CEInfoBar all day! (Well, when I wasn't playing War3) I've made significant progress on the LineGraph component, and the settings interface for the BarGraph component. In working with all this, I updaded the color picker.

I just re-installed Windows again, that's always fun. It's quite amazing how much faster it runs after a reinstall. It always amazes me.

I’m back at University of Toledo. Same building and floor; but different room. Everything is boring, what a surprise!

I’ve played quite a bit of War3.

Not to worry, I have worked on Stick-A-Note and CESelfExtractor. It all needs a bit more polish/testing.

TTYL

This is my conversation with the AIM Bot SmarterChild:

idontusenumbers:slut
SmarterChild: Hey idontusenumbers.

That?s it! I?ve had enough. I?m not talking to you until you become a member.
idontusenumbers: how do i do that?
idontusenumbers: hello?
SmarterChild: Nuh-uh
idontusenumbers: I want to become a member but i dont know how
idontusenumbers: do you want me to pay or not?
SmarterChild: Nope.
idontusenumbers: lol, that?s stupid
idontusenumbers: why not?
SmarterChild: I have nothing to say.

We changed servers, please accept our apologies for any inconvenience it may have caused you.

As soon as the UD Survey site is complete I will create a page for Web Site creation (currently "coming soon"). Along with that, I will get an example page up so you call can play with it.

I'm still busy at work. When I get home at 6 and then account for dinner and miscellaneous crap, i have 2 or 3 hours of free time. Subtract time for e-mail, IM?ing, housework, Scuzzy, etc... There?s not much time during the week for programming, which is really unfortunate.

I have been fixing bugs/adding features to UD's Survey application.

I am going to attempt to integrate some of the DLLs and such into one or two so that distribution is a lot easer.

I?m going canoeing on Saturday with Katie and the rest of my Family and maybe some other parents my parents know. I have to go pick up Katie Friday and then drop her off at home Sunday so that doesn?t leave much time for things this weekend.

Once I get back to school things should speed up. More free time etc.