Share a Windows Printer with a Mac January 25, 2011
Posted by Robert Harder in : Utility , 78commentsThis page used to reside on a SourceForge page, but I moved it here because I believed a comment trail would be useful to the community. -RH
How to Use a Printer Attached to a Windows XP Computer in Mac OS X
This document gives a detailed explanation of how to set up an HP DeskJet 722C printer that is attached to a Windows XP computer so that the printer can be used by a Mac OS X computer on a local area network (LAN). If your printer is slightly different, or you have a different version of Windows, or you’re using a different Unix than Mac OS X, or you’re sharing to another Windows computer, you’ll have to adapt these instructions with your own creativity.
Be aware that these procedures may not be necessary at all if the printer you have has Mac drivers, and other Microsoft incantations are working properly. You may be able to get off easy, but then, you probably wouldn’t be searching the Internet looking for these instructions. Your mileage may vary.
Thanks to the detailed directions at http://pnm2ppa.sourceforge.net/PPA_networking/PPA_networking-4.html which gave me most of the information I needed to make these detailed instructions.
The process falls into these five general steps:
- On Windows: Make sure you have a working printer set up on your Windows XP computer (this is not covered here).
- On Windows: Install the software needed to emulate a Postscript printer and redirect printing ports
- On Windows: Set up an emulated Postscript printer on Windows XP that will actually print to the (probably non-Postscript) printer set up in step one.
- On Windows: Set up Unix LPR Printer Services on Windows XP that will point to the emulated Postscript printer in step three that in turn points to the real printer in step one.
- On Mac OS X: Set up an LPR over IP printer in Mac OS X pointing to your Windows XP computer.
Locate Your Mac Laptop If It Is Missing January 19, 2011
Posted by Robert Harder in : Utility , 7commentsThere are commercial services to help you locate lost laptops, but I wanted a feature that required less software to be installed and fewer Big Brothers helping me out along the way. Using a few free tools and shell scripts, I cobbled together my own LoJack-type system that notifies me whenever my laptop awakes (I can’t help you if your computer is turned off).
Tools Used:
- SleepWatcher: Executes commands of your choice when computer wakes, sleeps, etc
- bash: Shell scripting
- LocateMe: Free command line tool (from me) using Apple’s geolocating API
- Notifo: Lightweight notification for iPhones, etc
- Google Maps: Displaying your laptop location
Downloads:
Total Frustration with Eye-Fi Card December 7, 2010
Posted by Robert Harder in : Utility , 19comments
Rarely have I been so frustrated with a piece of technology, particularly with one that is supposed to make things easier on me. I had the opportunity to borrow an Eye-Fi Pro X2 8GB SDHC +Wi-Fi card for my camera, and boy am I glad I am not out the $150 it would have cost me to buy one of these.
The Eye-Fi series of SD cards for digital cameras lets you transfer photos wirelessly from your camera to your home computer or one of several online photo services all while leaving the memory card in your camera. This sounds like such a neat idea. I was really excited to get to try it out. Imagine taking a bunch of pictures and then going to your computer to find that the pictures are already waiting for you there. Yeah, keep imagining.
Let Front Row Access Other User’s iTunes Account on the Same Computer November 17, 2010
Posted by Robert Harder in : Utility , 14comments
I wanted to set up my main iMac in a central location to replace an aging “half basketball” iMac that’s used for playing kid cartoons and music. I would like for this computer to play all the content in my iTunes library, but I do not want my account wide open for (little) people to muck about in.
Fast User Switching to the rescue! Kind of. If I leave iTunes running in my account and switch to the Kids account, their iTunes can see my shared library; that’s a good start. I want Front Row to be able to see that item under “Sources,” but it does not.
(more…)
Titlecase at the Command Line (and Mac OS X Services) September 24, 2010
Posted by Robert Harder in : Utility , add a commentSometimes I want to change a line of text to titlecase Where Every Word Is Uppercase, and I am rarely in a program that offers that feature natively. I am usually at the command line or in a web browser or some such thing. To that end I put together some command line scripts and an Automator Service so that I could have an appropriate filter.
(more…)
NCSA Mosaic on the Mac September 14, 2010
Posted by Robert Harder in : Utility , add a comment
A nostalgia article on PC World, Finding Stuff Online: 20 Years of Innovative Search Engines, reminded me that I should share my running version of NCSA Mosaic v2.7 with others. I don’t know where I got it, but it might have been from the Floodgap guys.
(more…)
Be Notified of SSH Logins with Notifo September 11, 2010
Posted by Robert Harder in : Utility , 6comments
I’ve been finding all kinds of neat uses for Notifo, a multipurpose notification tool for the iPhone, and I wanted to be notified when anyone (should only be me) logged in to my home computer via SSH. I wrote a Pluggable Authentication Module (PAM) that sends a notice to Notifo whenever someone logs in or activates the PAM module another day (yes, I know that “PAM module” is redundant).
Check it out on SourceForge at http://iharder.net/pam_notifo. I developed it on a Mac. I don’t know if it will compile properly on Linux. Please try it out.
iMovie HD Available Here August 17, 2010
Posted by Robert Harder in : Utility , 8comments
The last good version of Apple’s iMovie was version 6, later called iMovie HD. At least that’s my opinion, and it’s shared by a few others. The later versions became more of a video manager (and not a good one), and a very rudimentary editor (and not a good one).
Realizing, but not admitting, how much people hated the new iMovie, there was a period when Apple would let you download the previous and now-abandoned iMovie HD, but it is no longer available from Apple, even on their Old Software List, so until I’m given a Take Down notice, I’m putting iMovie HD up for grabs here. Of course you’re trusting that I haven’t embedded some kind of nasty malware or anything, which I haven’t.
(more…)
Run SpinRite on a Mac July 29, 2010
Posted by Robert Harder in : Utility , 20commentsYes, I succeeded in running SpinRite 6 on an Intel Mac!
Here’s a screenshot:
Create Animated GIFs with Mac OS X Preview.app October 22, 2009
Posted by Robert Harder in : Utility , 23commentsIf you open an animated GIF in Mac OS X’s Preview application, the default application for viewing images and PDFs, you may know that you can see individual frames of the animation, but did you know you can also create animated GIFs with Preview? Here’s how.
