The Blog Within

I need to make a choice: my new job offers to give me a Blackberry 8703e or to let me keep my Palm Centro and get reimbursed $50.00 a month.

I really don’t know which way to go, so if you have an opinion, click this section, which is a link, and leave me a comment.

Blackberry 8703e
Palm Centro

We have a Canon Pixma MX700 all-in-one printer that works great…in Windows. I run Linux on my laptop, and I want to print to it wirelessly, without having to share it through a windows PC via Samba. I had to do a bunch of googling, but I finally found the pieces needed to get this done:

1. Install the cups-bjnp backend coded by Louis Lagendijk.
   There are rpm and source versions, and the README file has very straightforward installation instructions.
2. Install cnijfilter-common. This comes only in an rpm version. For my Slackware setup, I installed it with
   rpm -i cnijfilter-common*.rpm –nodeps
3. Install the cnijfilter-mp520series printer driver from the same place.
   Again it comes in rpm only, and again I installed it with
   rpm -i cnijfilter-mp520series*.rpm –nodeps.
   With the network backend and drivers installed all that remains is to detect and configure your printer:
4. With your web browser, log into your cups print server at 127.0.0.1:631
   
5. Click the ‘Administration’ tab, and then click the ‘Find New Printers’ button. If steps 1-3 were successful, the MX700 will be found and selected. Click the ‘Add This Printer’ button.
   
6. The next screen will let you customize the name and description of your printer. I kept the defaults.
   Click ‘Continue’
   
7. You will now be allowed to select the Canon MP520 driver installed in step 3. If it is not preselected, find it in the dropdown list. Then click ‘Add Printer’
   **If you get a login prompt, use ‘root’ and the root password**
   
8. This completes the printer installation, and displays printer options. The only default option I needed to change was to set the ‘Page Feed’ from ‘Rear Tray’ to ‘Front Tray’
   At this point, you can change other options as needed, print a test page, or simply start using it as your default printer.

Yes, I am starting a new job, but just like the title says, it found me, I didn’t find it. I wasn’t even looking for a job, as I’ve been enjoying my time at Quantum, but right at a time where they are struggling financially this opportunity came along. At Quantum I work in level 3 tech support, which is admittedly a little boring, but now I will be running a data center for Fidelity National Financial. It should be challenging and stimulating, and the Provident timing is just icing on the cake.

The new GPS has arrived, and so far it looks like a winner!

Because judging by the 2008 election map…

Everybody hold on…we’re in for a bumpy four years

Having recently acquired and old Thinkpad T20, I decided it would be nice to have it for a personal laptop and be less tempted to mess up my work laptop.

This particular specimen is a Pentium III 700Mhz, with 256MB of memory and a 40gig, 5400 RPM hard drive. I was a little nervous about how a machine this old would perform, but I decided to go for it as a proof of concept. Surprisingly, it works quite well! It needs, and will be getting, a memory upgrade to 512MB, but it is definitely usable for day-to-day tasks as-is.

What is this “new operating system” you might ask? It’s Linux, specifically Slackware 12.1. After deciding to make this into a linux laptop, I had narrowed my choices down to either Ubuntu or Slackware, having used both extensively in the past. In testing them in VirtualBox on my Windows laptop, I was impressed with both, but had decided to install Kubuntu 8.10 with KDE 4.1.2 once the hardware arrived. I downloaded the ISO. I burned it to a blank CD. Put it in the laptop and turned it on. The language selection and the ‘try it out or install’ menu came up. I chose install and waited…and waited..and waited some more. All I had was a plain black screen??? Tried to get a tty terminal at <control> <alt> <F2-9> but no luck there. Tried the live version rather than install, still a plain black screen. I have a very low tolerance for annoyances like this, so the Kubuntu CD is now here.

I already had the Slackware 12.1 installation DVD ready to go, so I fired that up, and it proceeded as it usually does, with complete success. Here is where there is a slight twist, however:
Slackware comes with KDE 3.5 by default, but I really like KDE4, and had settled on that as my desktop of choice. Slackware includes KDE4 in /testing, but there are a few steps involved to get it working. I will provide step-by-step directions for installing it in my next post, but for now, here is a screenshot of the end result:

A new GPS is on the way. I can’t wait to try it out, and I promise to bore you with all the details once I do!