To Brother or not to Brother?

I'll have to say this in not so many words - buy a reputable brand.

As a dealer/reseller, I may not make as much markup - but I least I don't have come-backs such as we have had with a few other newer brands - ones more normally associated with phones and TVs than printers!

See this interesting discussion on why HP hasn't cornered the copier/MFP article:
http://blog.marketpoint.com/2012/07/22/is-it-a-printer-that-copies-or-a-copier-that-prints-how-the-convergence-of-copyprintfaxscan-has-blurred-the-lines-2/

Sometimes, you just have to get the paper out, no further fixing required - even if it was a 40 minute drive to site!

One droplet of oil..

Taking the lead from a great post : http://blog.marketpoint.com/2013/01/23/hp-color-laserjet-5500-51-2-error-on-the-display/ , and with nothing to loose, as I had already disassembled the printer down to the scanner, I decided to try a wee drop of oil... (The motor that spins up the laser scanner, had almost seized up and was screaming as the printer initialized). A light clean and oil and it was fixed :)

Here is the offending scanner. There was no documentation or labelling as to which was the Cyan scanner, but the the lowest toner in the set was Cyan, so an educated guess turned out to be correct   :)
In addition, to double check that error 52.1C was in fact the scanner (and not the DC controller as the manual suggested it could be), I simply swapped the two leads to the DC controller, and sure enough the error changed to 52.1Y - the yellow scanner was the next level up.
(I didn't need to put any covers back on to run this test, just the fuser needed reinstalling, and the front door reed switch needed to be held in.)

The customer was, needles to say rather pleased at this outcome - especially as I had some years ago ordered this very part for the same error, but the issue resolved itself so we didn't actually need to change the part till now, nearly four years later!.
And when it came to replacing it, somehow I didn't have the correct part :( Luckily a drop of oil and some perseverance was all that was required.

So now I have for sale a brand new laser scanner part number C2037-69008 as pictured:

Internet Radio - not just another little black box!

When you tun on the TV, it just works. Same with the radio. Mostly.

Its now just as easy to get Internet Radio.

My favourite device (last month) was a demure looking little radio. It has two dials, two buttons and a speaker. And a remote.

Difference is, once connected to the internet by wire or wireless, offers seemingly unending choice in free stations from all over the world. Many don't have adverts or other annoyances, some don't even have announcers!

Many of the major real-world radio stations (eg BBC6) have the internet version available. The sound quality is surprisingly good, and the device can be plugged into your normal home amplifier or sound system.

Choice of stations can be made by genre or country or by searching for a known station. Adding a station you like to your favourites is an easy way to build up a list for quick access.

This type of box is perfect for those unwilling (or unable) to use a computer, and would make a great gift for retired folk - or as an addition to the techno hungry home.

Available in New Zealand  are several even more useful versions of this idea. Think of an alarm clock radio with the features above, and perhaps add an iPod dock on top. Surely that's all you need?

The various models available all come with some type of small screen to aid navigation, so for those a bit more adventurous, why not choose from one of multitude of "tablet-ty" type mini computers, that will certainly be able to give you internet radio, as well as your email, what's on tv tonight and the current temperature in Seoul. And there are many to choose from - not just the iPad which you might just have heard of!?

See my blog for in-depth discussion on this : http://www.hha.co.nz/blog/?p=196

Windows Home Server

Having a computer server at home seems like something restricted to a home business or hardcore geek. Well not anymore. Windows home server delivers management, sharing and protection of our increasingly multimedia digital lives. It's a centralized place to store and share files on your home network. Manage digitally recorded TV episodes, downloaded movies and music content and stream these to other computers or provide access to them over the internet. Automatically back up all your computers at home. Log in to the server from anywhere on the internet. There are a large number of free extensions that can provide all sorts of useful services.

MediaSmart Servers when not in use go into standby mode and use as little as 1-3 watts and at a size smaller than a shoe box this is difinately a cool unobtrusive addition to any home multimedia entertainment setup.

I set up the system at home more out curiosity rather than to use a particular feature but quickly found it useful for a number of applications I hadn't considered. One extension I tried was called FirePlay and allowed me to stream my music to any computer. At a friends house talking about a particular song, a couple of clicks and it was playing on his laptop. Managing backups has always been a hassle but the home server made it easy.

This product has been out for a number of years but is only now becoming useful as our lives and entertainment are more and more being stored as digital files.



HP LX197 Mediasmart Server RRP $816.00

SATA drives - what you need to know on older systems

Modern motherboard cater well for SATA as do recent iterations of various operating systems, but older pcs can be a challenge.

It's good to understand the basics.

Drivers for the SATA type drive must be loaded in addition to the standard set provided by XP install disks.. see for example this good post on how to chkdsk a troublesome sata drive: http://www.windowskb.com/Uwe/Forum.aspx/windows-xp-support/99602/Running-CHKDSK-on-a-SATA-Harddrive.

The other little conundrum is when a cloning an IDE to a new bigger better faster SATA drive, all goes well until the system is rebooted. Assuming you remember to set the bios boot options to chose the sata disk, then you'd think all would be well.
But if you leave the old ide source disk connected, then Windows in its wisdom enumerates the original partitions drive on the old drive from C, resulting in the new operating system on the sata drive with a drive letter other then C - sometimes way down the alphabet (if there are partitions more or usb media card readers) .

I don't know about you, but I found it unnerving to have windows on the J drive!

Granted it may actually work, but why mess with things you don't gotta mess with? (Especially on a customer's system where you cannot possibly test all the programs)?!

The trick is to UNplug the old ide drive the first time you boot the system after cloning. AND you need to delete the partitions or format the old drive as well before plugging it back in.

Reading here shows others have found this out too: http://www.experts-exchange.com/Storage/Misc/Q_21664352.html?sfQueryTermInfo=1+10+30+drive+id+letter+sata+xp
Summary after cloning, remove the source disk, or else windows will see two identical volume identifiers and assume something is wrong..
So the moral of the story is: (a) clone the drive; (b) switch the drives or remove the source; and (c) THEN reboot. Delete the partition on the source using another PC (or with the destination disk removed). Then put the source back and the now clean original disk which will come up missing but can be added in again using the disk manager. This works even from IDE to SATA (where you want to put the old small IDE disk back in as a backup drive and use the new, fast SATA to boot and work from most of the time).

Another example
http://www.experts-exchange.com/Storage/Misc/Q_21281623.html?sfQueryTermInfo=1+10+30+drive+id+letter+sata+xp

Oh, and one other useful post I found summarises as:

once WinXP has rebooted in after a fresh install of the operating system get your motherboard cd driver disk and install the winxp Sata/ Raid drivers before you install sp2 or anything else.

NTFS, FAT FAT32 and large harddrives.

PROBLEM: connect a USB drive to a device that prefers FAT32 or FAT (and not NTFS).
Sub-PROBLEM: Windows cannot go bigger than 32GB using FAT32.
The possible solutions are copiously stated here: http://www.online-tech-tips.com/computer-tips/formatting-external-hard-drive-to-fat-32/, but I foundthe command line provided by http://www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/index.htm?fat32format.htm absolutley instantaneous.
Had I a Paypal account I would even have donated :)

Here's how easy it was.

Download and unzip

C:\>cd fat32f

C:\fat32f>dir
 Volume in drive C has no label.
 Volume Serial Number is 5F1F-5DF5

 Directory of C:\fat32f

06/01/2010  09:15 p.m.    <DIR>          .
06/01/2010  09:15 p.m.    <DIR>          ..
02/03/2009  11:47 p.m.            49,233 fat32format.exe
 1 File(s)         49,233 bytes
 2 Dir(s)  21,392,437,248 bytes free

C:\fat32f>fat32format g:
Warning ALL data on drive 'g' will be lost irretrievably, are you sure
(y/n) :y
Size : 40GB 78170242 sectors
512 Bytes Per Sector, Cluster size 32768 bytes
Volume ID is 1ce9:3957
32 Reserved Sectors, 9540 Sectors per FAT, 2 fats
1221111 Total clusters
1221110 Free Clusters
Formatting drive g:...
Clearing out 19176 sectors for Reserved sectors, fats and root cluster...
Wrote 9818112 bytes in 0.49 seconds, 18.94 Megabytes/sec
Initialising reserved sectors and FATs...
Done
C:\fat32f>

Love my Netbook

Netbooks have been around for a couple of years now and I have an eeePC 901. I have just started thinking about how much it has changed the way that I work.

I should say that my eeepc runs eeebuntu not xp which came with it. This is an Ubuntu distribution that is made for the eeepc and it work flawlesly. Super quick to boot and hasn't slowed down over time.

I used to have a full sized laptop that went everywhere with me. It had about an hour's battery life so needed to be plugged in to actually get any work done.

I now carry my eeepc around in my satchel as a matter of course. It is solid state so there is no HDD. If I drop my bag the netbook is fine. At a pinch I get 5 hours of work out of it which is enough for emergencies in my experience. If I am at a customer site for an extended period I either borrow an LCD, keyboard and mouse or bring my own. Then it is just like using a desktop. The eeeBuntu OS connects through my nokia 6600 slide to get the internet. I can work anywhere.

I still use my desktop for heavy development work but the old laptop has been seconded by my kids cause I never use it.

The key to the success of my netbook I think is the fact that it has no HDD and can handle the knocks. It is always with me and because of that I am always using it.