Sorry about this. I just remembered that it's iPad day in the US and decided to make a quickie post on it.
Are you ready?
Here it comes...
I'm not getting one!
Really. Nothing against the iPad, but I don't need one. I have a computer around me at almost all times, I don't travel that much, and I don't have however much money it costs to blow on something I don't need.
This has exposed me as a non-fangirl, I'm sure. To the true fanboys-and-girls out there, please save the trolling and hate-commenting. I'm sure there are bloggers out there who really do hate Apple; go pester them.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
The Scanner... Again...
Well. My scanner seems to be cooperating with Image Capture, at least... Perhaps it was a case of turn-off-leave-off-turn-back-on-after-a-week. Perhaps. I also had a computer update and restart, so that might have helped. In any case, the darn thing is working again.
It seems to be working in Preview, as well.
Now we'll check System Preferences...
Yep. I think the software update fixed it.
See, I feel slightly ridiculous for not bothering to restart my computer. I don't know that it would have helped, but I still should have checked. Shows you what sort of tech-savvy person I am.
Oye.
Related Posts:
Apple and HP: The Unholy Union
Image Capture to the Rescue
Temporary Fixes
It seems to be working in Preview, as well.
Now we'll check System Preferences...
Yep. I think the software update fixed it.
See, I feel slightly ridiculous for not bothering to restart my computer. I don't know that it would have helped, but I still should have checked. Shows you what sort of tech-savvy person I am.
Oye.
Related Posts:
Apple and HP: The Unholy Union
Image Capture to the Rescue
Temporary Fixes
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Temporary Fixes
Well, dear readers, it would seem that Image Capture was only to the rescue for a little bit. My printer is bloody well determined that I not scan anything, which is making life kind of difficult right now. In a vain attempt to force the thing to work, I opened the scan functions in Preview, System Preferences, and Image Capture... All to no avail. If any of you have found a new fix, by all means share it...
***Please see the next post.
***Please see the next post.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Since everyone else is putting up posts about Google, I figured I'd write something. Can't be left behind!
I'll include some links to pertinent blogs about Google. Lifehacker has a pretty coherent one, and "Harriet Jacobs" (the link is to a Gizmodo post, since the blog itself is protected) has some good reasons to be angry.
I, however, am not angry at Google. I don't have an android phone that hasn't received an update since it was released, I don't have any creepy stalker exes that use Google Buzz to find me, and, to be quite honest, this blog is working out pretty well for me. I like having things in one place. If I had an android phone, it would be even more convenient for mail and such.
NOTE: I don't actually have a smartphone. It's very sad, but since I can (and do) take my computer everywhere, I don't really need a smartphone. Want, yes. Everyone has to drive out in the boonies, where there are no internets, and I don't actually take my computer to the store with me. But! There is hope for me. I have T-Mobile, so I might end up with the famed Nexus One when my contract is up for renewal. Sure, T-Mobile's reception is less than optimal, but it's fairly cheap. Or it was when I first signed up. Don't be hating.
Back to Google. I have a plethora of gmail accounts (different accounts for different purposes, some dignified and one that a friend made for me) that all link back to my main email, a Picasa account for two of those (again, one for public view and one for a different online persona [I promise I'm not a creep. That did sound creepy.]), I think I have a Google Voice account somewhere, a Wave account because my friend sent me an invite, a few documents saved in Google Docs- handy when working with Windows users, since Word doesn't like talking to Pages documents- and a few blogs on Blogspot. I have a homepage with iGoogle, a Google Reader account, and I have Google Chrome as one of my browsers. Not my main browser, but it's not bad.
And Buzz. Buzz installed itself on my gmail account, although it did give me the option to opt out. I think. The day it came to me, I was a little fuzzy. But, since I could care less about social networking- none of my friends are that into it, and if they really want to tell me something, they text or IM me- I ignored it. Then I went on Gizmodo to kill some time and saw the post I linked to above, the one from the Harriet Jacobs' blog. While I disapprove of profanity in general, I couldn't really say anything about hers. I wouldn't let anyone under the age of 16 read it, but if anyone has a right to swear at Google, it's her.
Now that the righteous fury against Google is beginning to subside, the tongue-in-cheek posts are starting to come out. There's always a cycle, by the way. Fury, sarcasm, tongue-in-cheek, reason, jokes, apathy. It happens all the time with Apple and Microsoft. Now it's Google's turn to join the great companies. Here's a great tongue-in-cheek post from Gizmodo. (The Lifehacker link is a fair example of the reason stage. Hopefully this post is, too.)
The tongue-in-cheek phase is my favourite. I love watching the reasonable people put up amusing, intelligent posts only to be flamed relentlessly by fanboys and furious nay-sayers. Aside from the amusing interactions in the comments, the posts themselves are fun to read. Only with such catastrophes does such great wit show itself.
In summary, I think that Google will do alright, even with the Buzz fiasco, since they have a solid position as a search engine and email provider. Picasa isn't the greatest thing ever, but it's fine for casual photographers who want to share photos with friends and family without sending ten million attachment-loaded emails. The Chrome browser is decent, and the Chrome OS, if not game-changing, is promising. Google Docs is handy and even integrated right into my gmail account, hey! Buzz will almost inevitably fail, since Twitter and Facebook are so ingrained into society. "What's this "Buzz" thing?" "Oh, it's Google's facebook-y twitter thing." If it doesn't fail, it will probably live quietly on the side, used by the Google Faithful until the Next Great Thing comes out.
(By the way, almost all the non-sentence-starting words that I've capitalised are probably copyrighted, registered, or trademarked. But whatever.)
I'll include some links to pertinent blogs about Google. Lifehacker has a pretty coherent one, and "Harriet Jacobs" (the link is to a Gizmodo post, since the blog itself is protected) has some good reasons to be angry.
I, however, am not angry at Google. I don't have an android phone that hasn't received an update since it was released, I don't have any creepy stalker exes that use Google Buzz to find me, and, to be quite honest, this blog is working out pretty well for me. I like having things in one place. If I had an android phone, it would be even more convenient for mail and such.
NOTE: I don't actually have a smartphone. It's very sad, but since I can (and do) take my computer everywhere, I don't really need a smartphone. Want, yes. Everyone has to drive out in the boonies, where there are no internets, and I don't actually take my computer to the store with me. But! There is hope for me. I have T-Mobile, so I might end up with the famed Nexus One when my contract is up for renewal. Sure, T-Mobile's reception is less than optimal, but it's fairly cheap. Or it was when I first signed up. Don't be hating.
Back to Google. I have a plethora of gmail accounts (different accounts for different purposes, some dignified and one that a friend made for me) that all link back to my main email, a Picasa account for two of those (again, one for public view and one for a different online persona [I promise I'm not a creep. That did sound creepy.]), I think I have a Google Voice account somewhere, a Wave account because my friend sent me an invite, a few documents saved in Google Docs- handy when working with Windows users, since Word doesn't like talking to Pages documents- and a few blogs on Blogspot. I have a homepage with iGoogle, a Google Reader account, and I have Google Chrome as one of my browsers. Not my main browser, but it's not bad.
And Buzz. Buzz installed itself on my gmail account, although it did give me the option to opt out. I think. The day it came to me, I was a little fuzzy. But, since I could care less about social networking- none of my friends are that into it, and if they really want to tell me something, they text or IM me- I ignored it. Then I went on Gizmodo to kill some time and saw the post I linked to above, the one from the Harriet Jacobs' blog. While I disapprove of profanity in general, I couldn't really say anything about hers. I wouldn't let anyone under the age of 16 read it, but if anyone has a right to swear at Google, it's her.
Now that the righteous fury against Google is beginning to subside, the tongue-in-cheek posts are starting to come out. There's always a cycle, by the way. Fury, sarcasm, tongue-in-cheek, reason, jokes, apathy. It happens all the time with Apple and Microsoft. Now it's Google's turn to join the great companies. Here's a great tongue-in-cheek post from Gizmodo. (The Lifehacker link is a fair example of the reason stage. Hopefully this post is, too.)
The tongue-in-cheek phase is my favourite. I love watching the reasonable people put up amusing, intelligent posts only to be flamed relentlessly by fanboys and furious nay-sayers. Aside from the amusing interactions in the comments, the posts themselves are fun to read. Only with such catastrophes does such great wit show itself.
In summary, I think that Google will do alright, even with the Buzz fiasco, since they have a solid position as a search engine and email provider. Picasa isn't the greatest thing ever, but it's fine for casual photographers who want to share photos with friends and family without sending ten million attachment-loaded emails. The Chrome browser is decent, and the Chrome OS, if not game-changing, is promising. Google Docs is handy and even integrated right into my gmail account, hey! Buzz will almost inevitably fail, since Twitter and Facebook are so ingrained into society. "What's this "Buzz" thing?" "Oh, it's Google's facebook-y twitter thing." If it doesn't fail, it will probably live quietly on the side, used by the Google Faithful until the Next Great Thing comes out.
(By the way, almost all the non-sentence-starting words that I've capitalised are probably copyrighted, registered, or trademarked. But whatever.)
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Image Capture to the Rescue
For all of you that have been struggling to get your scanner working, try using Image Capture. Many sites advocate using System Preferences "Print and Fax" pane or Preview's "import image" function, but neither of those worked for me. If you have your new drivers from the apple site installed (see previous post for link), this should work for you. If it doesn't, well, try the others, then sue HP.
To find Image Capture, I used spotlight. Some of you clever people might have it's actual location, but I don't. It will ask you to select a device, the tells you to press "scan" to start scanning. Unlike Preview and the print and fax pane, this one actually recognised the scanner, and started scanning right away.
I was pleased.
Note: the page that told me about Image Capture can be found here.
One more thing- You will probably want to uncheck the "Detect Separate Items" box.
Related posts:
Apple and HP: The Unholy Union
Temporary Fixes
The Scanner... Again...
To find Image Capture, I used spotlight. Some of you clever people might have it's actual location, but I don't. It will ask you to select a device, the tells you to press "scan" to start scanning. Unlike Preview and the print and fax pane, this one actually recognised the scanner, and started scanning right away.
I was pleased.
Note: the page that told me about Image Capture can be found here.
One more thing- You will probably want to uncheck the "Detect Separate Items" box.
Related posts:
Apple and HP: The Unholy Union
Temporary Fixes
The Scanner... Again...
Sunday, January 10, 2010
HP and Apple- The Unholy Union
The other day, I tried to use my HP C6480 all-in-one (printer, scanner, copier) that came with my computer. Rather, I tried to use the scanner. The printer works fine, and I believe that the copier would work fine as well. I make few to no copies, however, so I shan't speak of that function. This post probably could have been written much sooner, but I hadn't tried to use my scanner since before Snow Leopard.
On the scanner, there is this nifty little touchscreen that used to let me scan or copy (and even print from a memory card in the printer itself) without needing to deal with the computer as a middleman. No more. The touchscreen is still there, but the computer doesn't like it. In fact, the computer refuses to recognise my scanner altogether.
This frustrated me. Therefore, after exhausting the offline support (including the manual, which only had trouble-shooting for Windows Vista), I turned to the all-knowing Internet. The Internet directed me to the HP website, which informed me, as if I didn't already know, that Snow Leopard has the printer files on the installation disc! There is no need for the HP software from the disc. I should not try to re-install the software- it won't work. I harrumphed and went to bed.
The next day, a friend was over. The discussion somehow turned to my stubborn printer, and he told me that a friend of his had the exact same problem. The problem was that the printer drivers needed to be downloaded- although the software tells me that there are no updates necessary, they are lying. They don't even know what they're talking about, since they're not designed to speak with Snow Leopard (and vice versa).
So today, finding myself with free time on my hands, I searched the Internet again- this time more specifically. "HP printer drivers for snow leopard" pulled up a blog whose author had the same problem. They informed me that the drivers had not actually been on the Snow Leopard disc and directed me to the apple support page, where I found the printer driver updates. Naturally, I tried the newer-looking one (1.1.1), but it didn't like my hard drive. So I went with the other one, which had no numbers in the name (shocking!). I managed to install this one with minimal hiccups.
In case you were wondering, I'm doing this as I type. The installation was practically a dream, but the system preferences "Print and Fax" pane still can't find the printer. Hhhm. Preview still refuses to "import from scanner", and I don't have HP software from which to try.
I'll keep you posted, imaginary readers. If you have any tips, let me know.
***See the next post, "Image Capture to the Rescue", for the solution.
On the scanner, there is this nifty little touchscreen that used to let me scan or copy (and even print from a memory card in the printer itself) without needing to deal with the computer as a middleman. No more. The touchscreen is still there, but the computer doesn't like it. In fact, the computer refuses to recognise my scanner altogether.
This frustrated me. Therefore, after exhausting the offline support (including the manual, which only had trouble-shooting for Windows Vista), I turned to the all-knowing Internet. The Internet directed me to the HP website, which informed me, as if I didn't already know, that Snow Leopard has the printer files on the installation disc! There is no need for the HP software from the disc. I should not try to re-install the software- it won't work. I harrumphed and went to bed.
The next day, a friend was over. The discussion somehow turned to my stubborn printer, and he told me that a friend of his had the exact same problem. The problem was that the printer drivers needed to be downloaded- although the software tells me that there are no updates necessary, they are lying. They don't even know what they're talking about, since they're not designed to speak with Snow Leopard (and vice versa).
So today, finding myself with free time on my hands, I searched the Internet again- this time more specifically. "HP printer drivers for snow leopard" pulled up a blog whose author had the same problem. They informed me that the drivers had not actually been on the Snow Leopard disc and directed me to the apple support page, where I found the printer driver updates. Naturally, I tried the newer-looking one (1.1.1), but it didn't like my hard drive. So I went with the other one, which had no numbers in the name (shocking!). I managed to install this one with minimal hiccups.
In case you were wondering, I'm doing this as I type. The installation was practically a dream, but the system preferences "Print and Fax" pane still can't find the printer. Hhhm. Preview still refuses to "import from scanner", and I don't have HP software from which to try.
I'll keep you posted, imaginary readers. If you have any tips, let me know.
***See the next post, "Image Capture to the Rescue", for the solution.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Cameras
This is technically not something that you "need to know", but I don't care. I recently became in need of a camera- cheap, hard-to-break, easy-to-use, point-and-shoot sort of thing (I can use more phrases that consist of three words stuck together with hyphens, if you like).
As any sane person would, I did some research. I hadn't purchased a camera since my old (now broken) film camera about, oh, 7 or 8 years ago. I've used digital cameras, even owned them, but they were all given to me by the previous owner. Therefore, I consulted the almighty internets to find out what I wanted.
I found that there are lots of nice things that I really don't need. There are also a lot of nice cameras that I don't need. I googled by price (low to high) to find out what was on the inexpensive end of the spectrum, and I found the Nikon "Cool pix" line (Spoiler- I didn't buy this one). It has plenty of nifty features, such as "smile recognition". I'm fairly certain that it would have been a good camera.
However, I also found the Samsung SL30. This one also had the smile recognition feature, which I was become attached to based on friends' cameras. The SL30 boasts 10.2 megapixel shots, which is actually kind of wimpy in comparison with, ah, a lot of other cameras. However, my above criteria included cheap. This was the least expensive- but still decent- camera I could find.
My camera is black. I believe there were other colours available.
It's really not that well-made. It has, however, been dropped on concrete while it was snowing. Aside from the batteries popping out and getting wet, it was fine. (Insider tip- wet batteries don't work. At all. Let them- and the battery compartment- dry thoroughly, at least overnight)
One startling discovery was that the camera did not come with a memory card. At all. It took about four pictures before flatly refusing to do more. Fortunately, I had a microSD card and adapter that came with a phone.
Also, the camera does not speak to OSX. However, the SD card can be placed in the SD card slot in my macbook pro. This makes it simple to put the pictures into the photo editing/viewing programme of your choice- either tell the programme to import them from the "Device" or drag-and-drop the files into the library, depending on the programme.
The actual pictures, for non-professional purposes, are quite satisfactory. The smile recognition works well, and the photos are less blurry than some hand-held point-and-shoots to which I am accustomed. As always, turning on the flash makes the pictures clearer and cleaner, but some fun effects can be achieved by turning it off. For example, a Christmas decoration hanging in my room made a bold contrast with the walls, and the fuzzy photo achieved without the flash emphasised this contrast.
The camera is by no means the best point-and-shoot, but I don't need the best. It works for a hardy camera to carry around and whip out when something photo-worthy happens.
As any sane person would, I did some research. I hadn't purchased a camera since my old (now broken) film camera about, oh, 7 or 8 years ago. I've used digital cameras, even owned them, but they were all given to me by the previous owner. Therefore, I consulted the almighty internets to find out what I wanted.
I found that there are lots of nice things that I really don't need. There are also a lot of nice cameras that I don't need. I googled by price (low to high) to find out what was on the inexpensive end of the spectrum, and I found the Nikon "Cool pix" line (Spoiler- I didn't buy this one). It has plenty of nifty features, such as "smile recognition". I'm fairly certain that it would have been a good camera.
However, I also found the Samsung SL30. This one also had the smile recognition feature, which I was become attached to based on friends' cameras. The SL30 boasts 10.2 megapixel shots, which is actually kind of wimpy in comparison with, ah, a lot of other cameras. However, my above criteria included cheap. This was the least expensive- but still decent- camera I could find.
My camera is black. I believe there were other colours available.
It's really not that well-made. It has, however, been dropped on concrete while it was snowing. Aside from the batteries popping out and getting wet, it was fine. (Insider tip- wet batteries don't work. At all. Let them- and the battery compartment- dry thoroughly, at least overnight)
One startling discovery was that the camera did not come with a memory card. At all. It took about four pictures before flatly refusing to do more. Fortunately, I had a microSD card and adapter that came with a phone.
Also, the camera does not speak to OSX. However, the SD card can be placed in the SD card slot in my macbook pro. This makes it simple to put the pictures into the photo editing/viewing programme of your choice- either tell the programme to import them from the "Device" or drag-and-drop the files into the library, depending on the programme.
The actual pictures, for non-professional purposes, are quite satisfactory. The smile recognition works well, and the photos are less blurry than some hand-held point-and-shoots to which I am accustomed. As always, turning on the flash makes the pictures clearer and cleaner, but some fun effects can be achieved by turning it off. For example, a Christmas decoration hanging in my room made a bold contrast with the walls, and the fuzzy photo achieved without the flash emphasised this contrast.
The camera is by no means the best point-and-shoot, but I don't need the best. It works for a hardy camera to carry around and whip out when something photo-worthy happens.
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