A couple of weeks ago, I imported all my old saved email from my indiana.edu account while searching for a receipt from an order I made before moving to Alaska, and promptly forgot about it. Today, while searching through my mailboxes for an order I had just placed with Apple, I stumbled upon this message:

From: Apple Mailing Lists Info
Subject: Info – Apple Mailing Lists
Date: January 22, 1996 8:51:18 AM AKST
To: Ryan Ridge

Here is the current listing of Apple Mailing Lists maintained in the
info.apple.com domain by the Apple Support Information Services group. Thank
you for inquiring!

How To Subscribe to Apple Mailing Lists
Article Created: 12 May 1995
Article Reviewed/Updated: 20 December 1995

Apple Computer, Inc. provides a number of mailing lists that can keep you
informed of the latest information in the following areas.

NEWS FLASH: AS of 21-Nov-95, all commands (subscribe, unsubscribe and help)
for Apple Directions Express mailing list should be placed in the Subject
field.

NEWS FLASH: AS of 23-Oct-95, all commands (subscribe, unsubscribe and help)
for infoalley, pressrel, newhdw and swupdates mailing lists should be placed
in the Subject field.

1) Apple Press Releases – receive copies of all press releases created by
Apple.

2) Apple Information Alley – receive notification, a table of contents and the
a compressed text file of the Information Alley, Apple’s technical support
journal, twice per month. Important Note: In order to use the compressed text
file of the Information Alley, you’ll need to know how to de-binhex a file
using either a commercial decompression utility like Stuffit by Aladdin
Systems or a freeware utility like DeHQX by Peter Lewis.

3) Apple Software Updates – receive notification and descriptions of each new
Apple software update posted to the Apple Software Updates areas on Apple
supported online services and Internet
sites, including eWorld. We’ll also send you information on fee-based Apple
software upgrades not posted online.

4) Apple New Hardware – receive information on the newest Apple hardware
releases, including Macintosh computers, printers, and imaging devices. All
information is extracted from the Apple Tech Info Library, Apple’s official
technical support database, which is located in the Apple Technical Support
area (shortcut: support) on eWorld.

5) Apple Developer Directions Express – Summarizes the latest Developer News
from Apple – what’s happening at Apple, how we’re doing, what we’re thinking
about, and where we’re headed. What we send you will be the latest, most
interesting, and–we hope–most useful information Apple has to offer. We’ll
try not to bug you too much–three or four times each month is what we
currently plan, but both the content and the frequency of this mailing list
may change, depending on reader feedback.

6) What’s New on Apple Developer Web Pages – receive a weekly mailing
detailing What’s New on the Apple Developer Web Pages.

7) Newton Press Releases – receive copies of all Newton related press releases
created by Apple.

8) WON (World of Newton) Weekly – a weekly review of Newton platform
information, software updates, online chats and resources, compiled by the
Newton Platform Marketing group at Apple.

Let’s see, in January of 1996 I had just been put on academic probation at IU for spending more time fiddling with my Power Macintosh 7100/80 than sitting in class during my first semester there. My parents had moved me out of the dorm room I shared with Mr. Sean Bartel, and I was living back at their house in Nashville. I was still taking a few classes, including the one required to get me off of probation, “Fundamentals of Academic Success,” or something like that. It met in some decrepit and long-forgotten one-classroom building in Ashton, with a giant furnace that never worked and a ceiling-high pile of boxes along the back wall. That building has since been bulldozed and is being replaced with something much nicer. I was also taking 2 computer classes (I originally enrolled as a biology major, with an eye towards being an optometrist – ha!), because technology captured my attention in a way that no other subject had.

Within a few months, I would start a job in landscaping and continue to perform just above adequately in whatever classes I was taking. I was still a year and a half away from making the jump from proto-geek to geek-apprentice when I would take a job at the campus computer store. But you can see the roots taking hold, right in that email up there. And this was in what we call “Apple’s Dark Days,” when they were on a serious downhill slide. A stagnant operating system (System 7.5 woo!), mundane hardware (which beige box do you like better?), and lackluster leadership. The following year would see Apple’s stock price drop to $12 a share, and then the return of Steve Jobs. I loved it all, the good and the bad.

Life, Tech

Seriously, what is it with me and printers?

I just bought an Epson Stylus Photo R1900 because I’m going to seriously pursue selling my photos. I eagerly loaded some Epson Velvet Fine Art paper into the manual feed, and then spent the next 45 minutes trying to get the stupid thing to print. First, it told me I couldn’t actually select the paper type (grayed out in the Printer Settings menu). Once I figured that out (see below), it would pull in the sheet, move it up and down, and then tell me there was a paper jam. Constantly. Now that’s quality.

Here’s how I managed to “fix” the problems:

First, go into Page Setup and select the Epson R1900. Then, from the paper size, select “Manual – Roll” for whatever size you’re using. That will allow you to select the Fine Art papers.

No matter what I do, the printer always reports a jam the first time I attempt to print anything. So, I clear the “jam” by pressing the blinking paper button on the printer, and wait for it to stop ejecting the paper. Then, I press the button again to clear the error. Then, I push the same piece of paper back into the printer, and gently but firmly keep pressure on the top of the sheet, allowing it to move up and down freely, but still applying pressure. The printer should pull in the paper and begin printing. I’ve managed about a 95% success rate with this method.

If it doesn’t work, keep trying. Whatever you do, don’t clear the error on the computer, or delete the job and start over. I tried that many times, and it will *never* print on the first try.

Update 5 minutes after posting: Okay, it just printed on the first try of my tenth photo tonight, with no interaction on my part. So much for “never.”

Tech

Time for one of my occasional tech nerd posts.

It took me a couple of hours, but I managed to get comment flagging to work on the Homer Tribune website, using Flag Comments and Wordpress 2.8.4. Following the instructions included in the Flag Comments documentation does not work. Starting with a post on the Wordpress support forum (those instructions are incomplete as well), and then pulling bits and pieces out of the comments-template.php file, I managed to get it working.

First, install the Flag Comments plugin. Next, there are three files to modify in your theme: functions.php, comments.php, and style.css (or whatever your theme’s style sheet is named).

1. functions.php: add this batch of code after the end bracket (}) of the first function. The lines are longer than my post width, so download a text file of this code.

function mytheme_comment($comment, $args, $depth) {
      $GLOBALS['comment'] = $comment; ?>
      <li <?php comment_class(); ?> id="li-comment-<?php comment_ID() ?>">
      <div id="comment-<?php comment_ID(); ?>">
      <div class="comment-author vcard">
      <?php if ($args['avatar_size'] != 0) echo get_avatar( $comment, $args['avatar_size'] ); ?>
      <?php printf(__('<cite class="fn">%s <span class="says">says:</span>'), get_comment_author_link()) ?>
      </div>
      <?php if ($comment->comment_approved == '0') : ?>
      <?php _e('<p class="mod-mesg">Your comment is awaiting moderation.</p>') ?>
      <?php endif; ?>
      <div class="comment-meta commentmetadata"><a href="<?php echo htmlspecialchars( get_comment_link( $comment->comment_ID ) ) ?>"><?php printf(__('%1$s at %2$s'), get_comment_date(), get_comment_time()) ?></a><?php edit_comment_link(__('(Edit)'),' ','') ?><br /><?php do_action("flag_comment_link"); ?></div>
<p class="comment-p">
      <?php comment_text() ?>
</p>
		<div class="reply">
		<?php comment_reply_link(array_merge( $args, array('add_below' => $add_below, 'depth' => $depth, 'max_depth' => $args['max_depth']))) ?>
		</div>
		<?php if ( 'ul' == $args['style'] ) : ?>
		</div>
		<?php endif; ?>
		<?php
}

2. comments.php: replace the line <?php wp_list_comments(); ?> with
<?php wp_list_comments(’type=comment&callback=mytheme_comment’); ?>

3. style.css: this is how I modified my css, but you’re welcome to make it look like however you want. I’ll describe each style below.

li div.comment-meta div.flag-comment a {
	color:#BF0112;
	}

.mod-mesg {
	color:#BF0112;
	}

.comment-p {
	padding-top:6px;
	}

• li div.comment-meta div.flag-comment a: this controls the color (or more) of the Flag text. My particular theme has an overarching style for links, so that’s why I had to dig down and grab the exact div to override.
• .mod-mesg: this controls the color (or more) of the “Your comment is awaiting moderation” message that’s displayed after a message hits the flagging threshold you’ve set in the admin panel.
• .comment-p: this allows me to push the comment text a little further down, so longer comments don’t overlap with the added flagging line.

Tech Tech Support, web design

I just launched the new Homer Tribune website, the making of which has been consuming many of my work hours (the few that weren’t dedicated to making the printed version of the paper awesome) over the past few months.

Yay!

Okay, onto the next project.

Tech, Work

Introduction
Installation
Color Management
Uninstall

– Updates –
12/31/2009: Added a section on uninstalling the drivers.

11/23/2009: Added a section detailing how to get around some errors people have been encountering during the process.

09/27/2009: After numerous reports of no printing, I tracked the problem to the new version of the drivers. Updated link to old version until compatibility can be worked out. Added boldface to the code bits to help differentiate them better, and added a donation button for fun and profit.

09/21/2009: Changed some information about downloading XCode, depending on your OS version.

09/07/2009: I received Snow Leopard, and the printer works fine after upgrading. Once I finish downloading XCode for Snow Leopard, I’ll redo the installation process and see if anything has changed.

02/11/2009: A new version of one of the software installs used here causes some printing problems, so I’ve updated to link to the last working version. I’ve also enabled comment RSS, so you can subscribe if you have a question instead of having to check back here to see if I’ve answered.

02/01/2009: I’ve added another section on getting better color management from the printer. This is by far the most popular post I’ve ever made, garnering several thousand hits in the past month, so HP really messed up with this one!
– End updates –

Introduction
When I moved to Alaska, I bought a bunch of technology equipment for my little home office: an iMac, an Epson scanner, and a little HP Color Laserjet CP1215. I eagerly unpacked it all and set it up after FedEx and UPS delivered everything to my door. I was particularly excited to have my own color laser printer, especially having found a great deal on it from HP. Imagine my dismay when, upon trying to add it to Mac OS X, I could not find any sort of driver for it on my computer. The printer install CD was only for Windows computers. HP’s website only listed Windows driver downloads.

Having spent the last 10+ years of my life working almost exclusively with HP LaserJets and Macs, I was surprised to find that this particular printer was not and would not ever be compatible with a Mac, according to HP. I apparently overlooked that little tidbit of information in the 3 days I spent researching it vs. the other cheap inexpensive color printers out there, assuming HP would have to be crazy to release a laser printer without Mac compatibility.

Much cursing ensued.

Since then, I’ve been saving everything I want to print as a PDF, opening Windows XP in a Parallels VM, and printing from there. It’s a hassle, and today I reached a breaking point. I created a nifty little business flyer in Pages (I’ll post it later), and the resulting PDF looked totally different than my original design! I needed to print directly from Pages, so I decided to see what Google would bring me. The news was good, if complicated. I’ll post my steps here, with links, for the betterment of humanity.

How to do it:
Note: I’ve only tested this on OS X 10.5 and 10.6 (Leopard and Snow Leopard), so I can’t guarantee this will work if you are on a different version of OS X.

You’ll be installing some Unix-based software, so say hello to the command line!

1. Install Apple’s Developer Tools, if you haven’t already. It’s a free download (about 1GB!), but you’ll have to create an account on the Apple Developer site to get to it. Once you have your account and are logged in, go to Downloads, then Developer Tools, then click on whatever version of XCode Developer Tools (disk image) they list for your OS. For Snow Leopard (10.6.x), 3.2 is the latest; Leopard (10.5.x), 3.1.4 is the latest; and for Tiger (10.4.x), 2.5 is what you want. If you already have an ADC account and are running Snow Leopard, you can go straight to the XCode download site.

   After it downloads, it will open up and you’ll have to double-click the XCode Tools package installer to start the process. No restart is required.

2. Download GhostScript, just click on the latest version I’ve updated this to link to a specific working version, 8.63. The 8.64 version disables color printing for some reason. I’ll file a bug report and update this when it’s fixed. It’s okay to use the linked version.
3. Download foomatic-filters.
4. Download foo2hp. The download link is a little ways down the page, and the downloaded file is actually called foo2zjs. I’ve updated the link to point to the last working version of the drivers, until I can work out some issues with the latest version.
5. Compile the software you just downloaded. To do so, open Terminal in your /Applications/Utilities folder
6. Navigate to wherever your downloads are stored. In 10.4 it’s usually on the Desktop (unless you’ve changed it), and in 10.5 it’s usually in the Downloads folder. Just type:
   cd Desktop or cd Downloads and hit Enter.
7. The bits of software you downloaded should have automatically unarchived, so you should be able to go directly into their folders:
   cd ghostscript (after typing a few characters of the folder name, you can hit the Tab key and it will fill in the rest of the folder name)
• If your computer didn’t automatically unarchive the downloads, type tar -zxf nameofdownloadedfile.tar.gz to unarchive them (replace nameofdownloadedfile.tar.gz with the names of the actual files you downloaded).
8. Next, type: ./configure and hit enter. A lot of text will scroll by. It will eventually stop and hopefully there won’t be any errors.
9. When you can type again, type in make and hit enter. More text, hopefully no errors.
10. Finally, type sudo make install and hit enter. It will ask for your password. Enter it. If you don’t have a password set on your account, and you’re running Mac OS X 10.5, you’ll need to set a password in System Preferences: Accounts before this will work.
11. Now we have to do almost the same for the next piece of the puzzle, the foomatic-filters. Type cd .. to go back one folder, then cd foomatic-filters-3.0.2 into the foomatic-filters folder.
• Note: if you have trouble getting Terminal to get the full folder name after hitting Tab, that’s due to having two items that start with similar letters (eg. the downloaded file “foomatic-filters-3.0-current.tar” and the unarchived folder “foomatic-filters-3.0.2″).

  There are many ways to solve this. You can delete the downloaded tar.gz files after you’re sure the folders have been unarchived, you can type out more of the folder name until it is differentiated from the tar.gz file, or as Roger notes in the comments, you can type cd in the Terminal, then drag the folder icon to the Terminal window and it will fill in the correct path.

12. Repeat the “./configure,” “make,” and “sudo make install” steps from before, hopefully receiving no errors!
13. Now, navigate into the foo2zjs folder (cd .. then cd foo2zjs)
14. This time, you start by typing make.
• Note: Some people have reported receiving an error about ghostscript not being installed during this step. If this happens to you, please skip down to the Adding To Your $PATH section, then return here when you’ve completed those steps.
15. Next, you’ll need to download the actual drivers for your printer. Since I have a 1215, I typed ./getweb 1215 and it downloaded the drivers.
16. sudo make install one last time, and you’re almost ready to go.
17. Restart your printer software with sudo make cups. An alternative to this is to just restart your computer.
18. Open up your Printer Utility (10.4) or Print and Fax PreferencePane (10.5), and add the printer. OS X will see the 1215 attached via USB, and after searching for drivers, will find the foo2hp for 1215 driver!

Color Management

Now, to get better colors on your prints, you’ll have to change around the color profile for the printer. To do this, print something and in the print dialog box that opens, select “Printer Features” from the third drop-down menu (you may need to click the blue arrow button beside the printer drop-down menu). Here’s what it will look like (click to enlarge):

This is where you can set whether to print in color or black and white, what sort of paper to use, etc. Click on the menu named “Feature Sets,” and select “Adjustments.” This is where you can change how the printer decides how to print colors. These .icm files all contain color management instructions for the printer, and most of them don’t work very well. It was pointed out in the comments that the ones that aren’t specifically labeled for the CP1215 actually work the best, which makes this even more awesome.

I found that the .icm file named “HP 1600/2600 – hpclj2600n-0.icm” gave me smoother gradients in the test photo, but the file named “HP 1600/2600 – ICCFactory1 (default) gave me more vivid colors. If only we could combine their powers and make a super .icm file! Anyway, select the one you want to use.

After you’ve set everything the way you want, you can save it as a preset, so you don’t have to go through and set it all again the next time you print. Just click on the second drop-down menu that probably says “Standard,” and Save As…

You can make a preset for each type of paper, color option, etc. so life will be even easier after all this hard work.

Finally, if you’re keen to get a custom color profile made specifically for your printer (even printers of the same production model will have slight variations in printing), you can buy a custom profile from this ebay vendor: fotojimbo’s Custom ICC Profiles.

In my short bit of testing, I have found a couple of caveats:

• To print in color, you’ll need to set it to color in the print dialog box, under “Printer Features” in the drop-down menu.
• In “Printer Features,” setting the Bits Per Plane to “2″ will waste a lot of toner
• Setting the paper type to HP Photo Paper and using HP Photo Paper is a disaster. All three of my test prints didn’t turn out: some of the toner didn’t get correctly applied, and spilled everywhere. I’ll still have to use Windows to print photos.
• Color matching isn’t the greatest, I’ve had some trouble getting dark blues to turn out dark. But, it’s better than not being able to print from OS X at all.

See, Macs are simple!

If you found this helpful, please consider encouraging me with a donation or even better, buy a photograph (everybody wins!).







Adding To Your $PATH

This section is specifically for people experiencing an error saying ghostscript isn’t installed during Step 14. Ghostscript is actually installed, but Terminal is dumb and can’t see where it is. Let’s correct that!

• Mac OS X 10.5/10.6
1. In the Terminal, type cd /etc/paths.d
2. Type sudo pico local and enter your password.
3. You’ll be given a mostly empty window where you can type. This is the pico text editor, one of the simplest command line text editors. Type /usr/local/bin and do not hit Enter or any other extra keys.
4. Press and hold the Control key on the keyboard. While holding the Control key, press the ‘X’ key and then let go of both keys. Pico will ask you something like “Save modified buffer?” That’s nerd-speak for “Do you want to save your file?” Press the ‘Y’ key to save.
5. Restart your computer
6. Return to Step 14 and try again. Be sure you navigate back into the foo2zjs folder with the Terminal first!
• Mac OS X 10.4
1. In the Terminal, type cd (this puts the command line back in your home directory)
2. Type pico .profile
3. More than likely, you’ll be given a mostly blank window. If not, hit the Enter key once to make some space, then the Up arrow key to put the cursor in the space you just made.
4. Type export PATH=/usr/local/bin:$PATH and do not hit Enter or any other extra keys.
5. Press and hold the Control key on the keyboard. While holding the Control key, press the ‘X’ key and then let go of both keys. Pico will ask you something like “Save modified buffer?” That’s nerd-speak for “Do you want to save your file?” Press the ‘Y’ key to save.
6. Restart your computer
7. Return to Step 14 and try again. Be sure you navigate back into the foo2zjs folder with the Terminal first!

Uninstalling

If you need to delete the drivers, please copy and paste the following command in the Terminal:

sudo rm -r /usr/local/bin/gs /usr/local/bin/foo* /usr/local/etc/foomatic /usr/local/share/ghostscript /usr/local/man/man1/foomatic* /usr/bin/foo2* /usr/share/foo2* /usr/libexec/cups/filter/foomatic*

Tech Macintosh, Tech Support