RIP HP 845c February 24, 2010
Posted by a1291762 in : Uncategorized , 2commentsThe other day we had a big storm and there was a lightning strike on a nearby power pole that threw the main circuit breaker. Unfortunately, it seems there were a few casualties.
Our trusty old printer, a HP DeskJet 845c is dead. The printer itself wasn’t on though so I wouldn’t be surprised to find out it does still work and that it was just the power dongle that has died (another power dongle died so that theory has some credit). At this point though I doubt it’s easy/cheap to find a new power dongle and Bree wanted to print something so we just got a new printer.
The thing I loved about the 845c is how cheap it was to run. Unlike previous printers it could print lots of pages from a tank and didn’t dry out when it wasn’t used for a month. It was our first printer that did color but we never really used that. It certainly wasn’t any good a printing photos.
I hate trying to pick new things so I did the same thing I did the last time we needed a printer, I asked someone I knew what they had (and confirmed that it worked well for them). That let me to get a Brother HL-2170W.
This printer is a mono laser that does network printing and has wireless built in. Brother has a USB-only, network only and this wireless version so it’s possible to see how much each feature adds to the price. $100 for the base model, $70 for networking (and an extra 1kg of weight), $30 for wireless. The networking was high on my priority list because while I have hardware sitting around that could operate as a network print server it’s not actually setup and running and the last time I tried to setup this kind of system it failed. Wireless wasn’t much extra and meant we’d have more flexibility in placement.
In it’s “low quality, low toner” mode it produces results that are better than what the 845c gave and it does it quicker too. We can now print from anywhere instead of the previous routine of walking over to the printer, plugging it in then waiting until the job was done so it’s way more convenient.
Isaac says… February 16, 2010
Posted by a1291762 in : Uncategorized , add a commentIsaac: What’s that? (pointing to chest)
Me: That’s a nipple.
Isaac (to Bree): Do you have pickles?
1GBPS FTTH from Google February 11, 2010
Posted by a1291762 in : Uncategorized , add a commentIf the government won’t force the lazy, monopolistic telcos to compete you need someone with deep pockets to come along and show them how it’s supposed to be done. The state of broadband access over in the US is just terrible and I have high hopes of Google bringing about real change (even if it’s only by forcing the telcos to compete and invest in the required infrastrcture). I just hope the telcos don’t manage to derail this in the courts (as they’ve done to other attempts to launch small-scale high-speed broadband access).
Story here.
If Telstra wasn’t so up themselves they could have done something likw this in Australia and actually lived up to their claims of being the most important business in this country. At least our government had the balls to tell Testra to bugger off when it was clear they were going to be dicks about it. Our broadband future should be in good hands thanks to the NBN.
Update 11 Feb 2010
Well… bummer. Seems there’s a lot of negative opinion on the NBN. I don’t really care if it fails though, as long as the situation here gets better instead of descending into the kind of craptastic situation the US is in now.
Avatard February 10, 2010
Posted by a1291762 in : Uncategorized , add a commentOh noes, I’ve been Avatard.
For much better examples (some of which are NSFW) check out the Avatardation blog.
Singing in the rain February 8, 2010
Posted by a1291762 in : Uncategorized , add a commentOn Sunday I sang in a concert. It was supposed to be a nice sunny day on Mount Tamborine and we were to sing in the botanical gardens.
Unfortunately things didn’t quite workout that way. The weather wasn’t exactly great and record rainfall the night before cut off most of the roads there.
Nevertheless, the show went on and it was good.
Symbian’s open source promise realised February 5, 2010
Posted by a1291762 in : Uncategorized , add a commentCongratulations guys. I didn’t think this’d happen so quickly or completely.
I’m really starting to lean back towards Symbian and away from Android. Of course some decent, modern-spec phones to run it on would be nice. Hopefully we’ll get some more manufacturers doing Symbian phones because Nokia’s focus seems to be on cheap handsets for emerging markets.
Maybe now the platform is all there we’ll start to see Symbian getting ported to existing phones (like how Linux gets ported to everything). A Nexus One or (for less money) Liquid A1 should make a great Symbian phone.
It might even be worthwhile to look into running it on my Treo 650. Now that would be an interesting hack. Not sure if I’ll have the time though…