Year: 2009

Categories
News

Canon MP620 on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala

Earlier this year I got a cheap Canon MP620 all-in-one printer, which works great with Windows and works fine for Ubuntu. Canon released drivers as .deb files for the MP610 which work with cups. I remember sweating it out a bit because the printer does not work unless you track down a few pieces that aren’t in the Ubuntu repositories. Next time, I’ll check LinuxPrinting.org before buying a printer.

Anyway, I installed Karmic from scratch and found that I couldn’t install the Canon drivers because they want libcupsys2. Ubuntu renamed this package. I tried a few tricks to work around this, but the one works is to install the libcupsys2 dummy package from Jaunty. You can get it here: http://packages.ubuntu.com/jaunty/all/libcupsys2/download.

So, the new procedure is get the libcupsys2 .deb file and install it first. Then follow the instructions for Januty, such as Luca Gibelli’s Canon PIXMA MP620 Linux printing and scanning via wireless network on Ubuntu post from last April.

Update: check out Kevin Carter’s script for automating the process of adding support for the MP620.

Categories
Politics

He Isn’t Atlas, But He Does Need Help

Last March, I noticed a cynical political cartoon depicting President Obama as Atlas. I would have rather seen the producers of the world carefully stepping through a field of booby traps set by Obama.Daily Fitz March 4, 2009

Today, I noticed a new take on this upsidedown theme. This time, Patrick Corrigan shows Obama as pleading for help from the U.N. as the weight of the world bears down on him.Corrigan September 24, 2009

Truthfully, the weight of the nihilistic policies of the people who imagined the U.N. are crushing the wealth-producers of the world. Portraying Obama as Atlas is doublethink. Because it’s the same image Rand used for her famous novel, the misuse of this metaphor is particularly galling.

Categories
Marketing

Tender Victuals

tender-victualsRemember Tender Vittles brand cat food? It was a revolutionary feat of marketing…cat food that bridged the gap between wet, canned food and dry, bagged food. I didn’t think about it until now, but vittles (properly spelled victuals) means “food fit for human consumption”. Was the real purpose of the product to deliver low-cost, low-quality food to humans? It seems crazy. On the other hand, the product was discontinued in 2007 because it contained levels of sugar too unhealthy for cats. That’s what I read in wikipedia, anyway.

The following item description seems to disagree.

Tender Vittles® contains no added artificial colors or flavors, additives your cat doesn’t need. Plus, it has the great taste your cat loves. So you’ll love knowing that your cat is getting only the essential nutrients he needs, and he’ll love every delicious bite.

When it comes to convenience, you can’t beat our easy-serve pouch. It’s a cinch to open and pour and it keeps those delicious, soft morsels moist and tasty so your cat will enjoy every yummy bite from the first to the last.

With Tender Vittles, you simply tear open our easy-serve pouch and pour the tender morsels right in the bowl. It’s fast and easy for you and moist and delicious for your cat.

With regret we must announce that Tender Vittles have been discontinued by Nestle-Purina. Once our stock is gone we will no longer have them available for sale.

Even when I was a kid, I was suspicious of the Purina brand because it made both pet food and breakfast cereal.

Categories
Personal

Glad to be Dad

Henry and Tre

I’ve learned so much about myself since becoming a father nearly six years ago. Constantly striving to serve these two little guys has helped me understand my own childhood. I am honored to be helping them through theirs. It just gives me so much pleasure to be around their joyful creativity. So, with Father’s Day around the corner, I hope all my fellow dads are having as much fun as I am.

Categories
Marketing Programming

Annoying Anti-Piracy for Book from Manning

I bought Zend Framework in Action yesterday because the short tutorial isn’t quite enough to know how to architect an big application. I’m building an enterprise app at work for a client and picked ZF and YUI as core platforms. I’m pleased with the content of the book. Rob Allen is a fine writer and the organization of the text is logical.

Now that I’m about 80 pages into the book, I thought I’d grab a copy of the PDF version for easy reference whichever desk I’m sitting at.  The print edition comes with a “free” ebook. There are two ways to get this free ebook.

The way they want you to do it is as follows.

  1. Cut open a folded paper in the front of the book.
  2. Go to the URL printed on the paper.
  3. Type in a code they ask you for out of 9×20 grid.
  4. Type in another code from the grid.
  5. Type in your name and email address.
  6. Wait for the email to arrive.
  7. Find the email in your spam folder.
  8. Click on a link to start the download.
  9. Rename the file from “gi” (wtf?) to something rational, such as “Zend_Framework_In_Action.pdf”.

However, you could do the following.

  1. Enter “zend framework in action pdf” into Google Search.
  2. Click to some blog.
  3. Click the link into RapidShare.
  4. Wait for your 30 seconds to expire since you are a “free” user.
  5. Download the .rar file.
  6. Expand whatever’s in the rar file. (I didn’t actually go this far).

Typing in codes from a grid is pretty annoying. I threw down $45 to get the book. Maybe they should just trust me and print a direct download link inside the text of the book. After all, we’re all only a couple of links away from downloading it from RapidShare. What would have been really cool was if I could have downloaded the PDF for free first and then bought the print version when I decided that the book was of great value. I had that exact experience with another author recently.

If you are going to buy Zend Framework in Action (and you aren’t in a rush like I was), you might use the Amazon.com link above. It’s a lot cheaper than buying it off the shelf at B&N.