greg hughes - dot net
Note that the contents of this site represent my own thoughts and opinions, not those of anyone else - like my employer - or even my dog for that matter. Besides, the dog would post things that make sense. I don't.
 Thursday, 09 December 2010
I recently went on a trip across the country with a good friend, and ended up in the town where we grew up – Los Alamos, New Mexico. My final stop before returning to Oregon was the Four Corners area – Farmington, Durango and Shiprock. Here are a few pictures from the New Mexico portion of the trip, which a few people have asked for hi-res copies of. You can click on each one to see the full size version, and then right-click on the large version and choose to save it to your computer if you like. And since it comes up more often than not eventually, please note that commercial or publication use just requires asking nicely. :)
Shiprock, New Mexico Front Hill Road view, Los Alamos, New Mexico Clines Corners, New Mexico Fence, 210 North Allen 
 Tuesday, 23 November 2010
Yesterday I wrote about how I enabled my MacBook Air to share a wireless laser printer in my home office so I could print to it using the new Air Print feature in iOS 4.2 on the iPad. That works great, but since my MacBook is only *almost* always on, I started thinking about other options. I have a first –generation (Power-PC-based) Mac Mini in my living room that basically doesn’t get used at all, but I don’t think OS x 10.6.5 is really an option for that. So, I turned my attention to the other always-on computer in my home office, the HP MediaSmart Home Server. I wondered to myself, has anyone come up with a way to share printers accessible from a Windows computer with AirPrint-capable iOS devices? And, sure enough, someone has already done just that. The short tutorial covers Windows workstation versions (XP, Vista and Win7), but the instructions apply to Windows Home Server and other flavors of Windows Server, as well. My Win Home Server is based on the Server 2003 OS. I’m going to add to a couple of the original steps here, since there are a few things I did that were not included in the instructions on the original post. First of all, you need printer drivers installed for the printer you want to share on the system. You may not have printers already installed and shared on your Windows Home Server. To do this, you can make a Remote Desktop connection to your WHS machine, and from there follow the standard steps to set up a local printer. In my case, I downloaded the Brother printer drivers and set up the network printer and printed a test page from the WHS machine to make sure it was working properly. Next, I followed the instructions on the port referenced earlier, and then I enabled sharing on the networked printer. The first time I connected to the printer, a little padlock icon appeared on the iPad (see beow), indicating a Windows account user name and password were required to access the shared printer. This, of course, can be controlled and changed on the Windows computer in the printer sharing security preferences: After entering the account information, the printer was accessible and printing of various content (text, graphics and photos) worked flawlessly. One big difference I noticed between sharing the same printer through Windows vs. the Mac is that when connected via the Windows AirPrint share, an option for double-sided printing appeared. That option is missing when connecting to the same printer shared via the Mac. Here’s the Windows-connected printer options as seen on the iPad:  So, I now have my laser printer shared across all devices on my LAN, including iOS 4.2, via the Windows Home Server, no extra charge!
Related Links: Technorati Tags: Air, Print, Airprint, iPad, Windows, Home, Server, Apple, iOS, AirPrint, 4.2
 Monday, 22 November 2010
UPDATE: Check out my new post that describes how to enable the AirPrint support for Windows shared printers, including on Windows Home Server. I was pretty excited, based on reports in the community in the past about being able to print from my iPad in the new iOS 4.2.1 operating system via my Mac computer. My WiFi laser printer in my home office is a good printer, but it certainly is not Airprint enabled. So leveraging my MacBook (which is pretty much always up and running) was to be a good option for me. But, alas, iOS 4.2.1 is here, and OS X 10.6.5 is installed and running on my MacBook (after some troublesome issues that finally got resolved)… But it looks like Apple removed the Airprint capability from the 10.6.5 release of OS X. It was in the beta versions, but not in the version they finally released. Lifehacker has a brief article describing how to manually enable Airprint support in 10.6.5, so you can share your non-Airprint printers with your iOS 4.2 devices via your Mac. In a nutshell, you just do this: - Download a few files (which are pulled from the OS X beta)
- Copy them to a couple of specific locations (described in the linked site, above)
- Remove your printer from the system
- Restart your Mac
- and re-add your printer, and share it
Of course, this is not a supported configuration and undoubtedly there is some very real reason why it was not included in 10.6.5, so your mileage may vary should you decide to try it. For those who may not want to break open the Terminal app in OS X, someone also built a quick Mac App called Airprint Hacktivator that you can run, which will allow you to automagically install the proper files and configure the OS. Again, your mileage may vary. But I can tell you, it worked for me! I used the Hacktivator app and didn’t even have to restart my computer. I ran it, removed the old shared printer and re-added it, and instantly my iPad “saw” it and was able to print. So, I’m now printing from my iPad, via my MacBook Air on the WLAN, to my office laser printer. Pretty slick, and a nice feature to have. No more emailing links and copy/paste content to one of my other computers in order to print things I find or need from the iPad.
UPDATE: There's apparently also an option out there to enable the Airprint support on Windows. I may have to take a look at that one and see if it will work on my Windows Home Server, which is quite literally *always* on, as opposed to my Macbook, which *almost* always on...
If you’re interested in what else is available in iOS 4.2 for the iPad, I suggest you check out the Lifehacker review and video.
 Tuesday, 26 October 2010
Today marks the release of Office 2011 for the Mac, as described in the official release notice. And in a new feature twist, the software is also available for download to BizSpark (startup program) MSDN subscribers as of this morning. Typically Mac-based software has not been made available there, so this is a pretty cool change. It’s available to people with membership at the following programs and levels: - VS Pro with MSDN Premium (Empower)
- VS Premium with MSDN (MPN)
- VS Pro with MSDN Premium (MPN)
- BizSpark Admin
- BizSpark
- VS Ultimate with MSDN (VL)
- VS Premium with MSDN (VL)
- VS Premium with MSDN (Retail)
- VS Ultimate with MSDN (Retail)
- VS Ultimate with MSDN (MPN)
Of course, use is governed by your subscription license limitations and terms of use, so make sure you know what those are. Why Office 2011 for the Mac? There are a few reasons why you might be interested in Office 2011 on the Mac, but for me the number one reason is the brand new Outlook 2011. No more Entourage software, now we get the actual Outlook experience, which is enough for me to upgrade with no other changes in the suite. Add in all the other changes, and it’s a pretty slick new version. Mac user? Are you going to get Office 2011?
 Wednesday, 08 September 2010
I just got off the phone with Amazon, and they're sending an overnight box with a replacement Kindle 2 for the one I have. I hadn't used it for a few months, and when I recharged it and powered it up the other day, the screen had a whole section that was broken, displaying gray and garbled info.
So, with one quick call to customer support, a very brief set of troubleshooting questions they are sending a replacement. Great service, no wasted time and I'm one happy customer.
A friend's son is about to deploy with his company to Afghanistan, so my plan is to package up the new one when it arrives tomorrow and send it to them so he can take it with him when they go. I use the Kindle app on my iPad these days, so it will be cool to know that someone will be making good use of the one I'm not using.
Anyone else had Kindle display failures? Is this common at all?
 Tuesday, 06 July 2010
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