Saturday, September 30, 2006
Usual oatmeal breakfast. I just noticed/realized today that the default OS X icon (I believe) for a web page bookmark is an at sign with "HTTP" underneath which strikes me as really strange because there are no at signs in URLs unless it's a mailto URL. The easy majority of URLs in use are not mailto URLs, and they do not include at signs. Anyone know why? What I've been reading lately: After finishing Edmund White's biography, I believe it was Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five (still in progress) and Apple MacBook User Guide (finished). House chores in the morning. Patrick and I picked up the new laser printer I had ordered for home from the office. Afterwards, we went shopping in the Haight and bought some clothes at American Apparel where extra small (XS) sizes are surprisingly too small for me. Stopped for a savory crepe and ginger soda at some eating establishment on Haight. A quick grocery stop on the way home. I napped. Woke up, chatted with Nate. Set up the laser printer. It's a Brother HL-5250DN. It took several hours because I also needed to set it up with a wireless print server that I had bought—a SMC model SMCWPS-G and because neither company nor Microsoft nor Apple knows about or cares that you're trying to get all of their products to work together (but admittedly it's a complicated problem and I don't see any good solution at this time). It's particulary confusing because the HL-5250DN has built-in ethernet but not built-in wireless ethernet so instructions refer to network printing but they must be ignored. Consequently, after one computer is able to print, it's unclear what you're supposed to do to get the next one to print. Answer: You must also install the SMCWPS-G software on all Windows computers that need to print, but OS X computers don't need it (just point those to the proper IP address). Oh, and for Windows computers, install the printer driver software before you install the SMCWPS-G software, always choosing LPT1 (local printer) rather than network printer even though you really do have a network printer. Oh, and best if you can set up the SMCWPS-G through a wired connection for the first time to a Windows computer (just like the instructions recommend). Oh, and don't specify that you want to share the printer anywhere even though you are sharing it. (I told you it was complicated.) Finally all computers can now print to the HL-5250DN, and that's when we discover that the printer takes in normal 20-pound weight paper and very, very quickly spits out beautifully sharp printed pages with an unacceptable curl to the page which I've never seen before with any laser printer. The curl isn't the direction I expect, either. Instead of curling as though the paper were fed through a curling iron, the page curls 90 degrees from that. The curl is so annoying that we're considering returning the printer even though it will be a hassle to do so. It's annoying because you print, say, 20 or 30 pages, and they won't lie flat on a table. It also has the potential of interfering with the paper as it comes out of the printer—we can't be certain that as pages come out of the printer they won't get messed up because there's too much curl. Reviews on the web seem to indicate that this is a common problem with at least some Brother laser printers. Some people suggest using 24-pound paper instead resolves the problem, but I could not find anywhere in the user manual that 24-pound paper is required. I will pick some up tomorrow to see if this suggestion will work. Aside from this curling issue, we are very happy with this printer so far after just a few hours. After it was installed with at least one Windows computer, OS 10.4.8 installed it successfully as an IP address printer without requiring drivers from either the Brother or SMC CD-ROMs. I selected the Postscript emulation driver for OS X tho I think you had your choice of PCL (emulation?) as well. Watched an episode of Little Britain found on YouTube (Patrick likes it; I don't), followed by unwatchworthy stuff on YouTube and Google Video. Watched some movie trailers on quicktime.com.