You already know I’m a propeller-head. I heart technology. I’ll love any gadget as long as it’s black. Or has wings. Preferably both.
So there I was, ready to write a serious blog post about sexism and whatnot, and decided that I needed to scan the cover of a certain magazine (that, coincidentally, starts with ‘N‘). So I fired up the new, shiny black wireless HP all-in-one printer|scanner|copier thing; that sits next to the new, shiny black Bose speaker system; that in turn accepts the not-quite-so-new-but-still-shiny, black iPhone (or indeed the rather scratched and tarnished-but-still-black iPod), thinking that I could wirelessly squirt some pixels all of ten feet across the living room to the shiny, aluminium MacBook Pro (it has a black edge to the screen and black keys. Close enough).
And it’s having none of it. I can wirelessly print to the printer, I can copy from the printer; I can even do a preview scan in the embedded web server (you can tell it’s the Twenty First Century: even printers are sodding web servers); but I just can not get it to scan.
I can access the printer—see how I access the printer! </Eddie Izzard>—but I can’t scan.
I’ve prowled around the HP support web shite site [You were right first time—Ed.] and discovered once again what a living hell life must be for Windows users, but to no avail. I’m currently downloading the latest drivers—although because the ‘About’ information of the applications and utilities I already have says I have version 4.4.2, or 2.0.21 (5), or Benny Goodman and the fucking Andrews Sisters; but NOTHING AT ALL that looks remotely like ‘10.3 (Released 10-2009)’ I can’t tell if this is a waste of time or not.
Of course, the smart money would be on traipsing my sorry arse ten feet across the room and plugging in the USB cable, but goshdarnit, that’s not what I just paid a hundred quid for.
Happy New Year.
Welcome to my world 🙂
And I refuse to have anything to do with HP because their customer support is nonexistent.
Well, I’d like to refuse to have anything to do with HP but at least their products usually work, unlike, say, Epson.
Yeah. After writing that I realised all the printers I use are HP, as is my now ex-PDA (not Mac compatible, so languishing in a drawer unused…)
I can’t get my printer (currently plugged into my shiny white Apple Time Capsule – LIKE!) to scan wirelessly either. It’s pretty old, though, and is having difficulty coping with this brave new world.
HP works fine, it’s the users.
(Serious answer: HP things don’t like Mac, it seems. On my PC I could scan things directly to pdf, but on my macbook that is no longer an option (the feature is greyed out) with the same printer/scanner. It works otherwise, and I can scan images, so I can’t complain.)
Scanning over a network (even a wired one) can be touchy on a lot of MFPs (except for Brother, with which I’ve had decent luck). I’d say go for the USB cable, or scan to a flash drive (if you can) and walk it over to your Mac.
At the Maison Des Girrafes we have a Dell Printer which, supposedly, connects wirelessly to the various PCs in the house. Yeah, right. It’s hardwiring by USB all the way, but that’s before we can get the printer to actually print things. It hates Mrs Gee, and I am the one who can, with suitable propitiation, get the sheet feeder to feed sheets. Scanning, though, is a doddle. Funny old world, eh?
I might plug the damn thing back into the desktop PC, then.
Heh, Eva can’t come up with an original retort…
Cath, I heart also the time capsule stuff, even if it is white. Considered plugging the printer in to it, but there are space and power outlet issues.
Ken, I was seriously tempted to plug in a card and do it that way: great bandwidth, lousy latency. Henry, I think ‘Dell’ and ‘hates’ are two words made for each other.
As it happens, installing the version of the driver from the website seems to have done the trick—at least the scan software can now see the scanner… and indeed, Photoshop now has an ‘HP Scan’ thingy in the Import menu (which it didn’t previously) and I am, as I type, scanning wirelessly. Blimey, that’s quite fast actually.
All is well again with the world.
And in other news, I notice that I can scan directly into ‘Preview’. ‘Rah.
Maybe the HP doo-dah was feeling a little inhibited by being located so close to Bose technology…?
Anyway, what model did you get? I’ve been thinking of such a device, though we have a mixed Mac/PC ecosystem in our house and I’m rather dreading the installation hurdles.
Heh, quite possibly, Stephen.
Anyway, it is the, eh, HP Photosmart WiFi Special Edition. I’d link to it but the PCWorld website has those stupid session IDs–so go to the website and search for product code 124090. I didn’t pay the list price, btw.
As for installation, I reckon if you ignore the CD that comes with it and download appropriate drivers from the HP website you’ll be fine.
Cautionary tale: a very old friend of mine is an IT guy in a big law firm, so he spends a lot of time connecting things together. His advice is that if you have kit that stays in the same place (printers, desktops etc) then it’s a no-brainer – hardwire it.
His advice is that if you have kit that stays in the same place
bingo. All laptopped and wireless, here.
_ you ignore the CD that comes with it_
Heh. This is my standard MO with all technological doodads. Except when absolutely necessary (e.g., Canon video camera which insists on shooting in its own proprietary format – speaking of “doesn’t play well with others” – nice camera tho’).
At Chateau W we flip-flop back and forth between HP and Epson printers – currently on an HP all-in-one, which is ok, but eats (expensive) ink and is absolutely sh*t for scanning photos from prints. We’ve wanted to go wireless on the printer but haven’t quite gotten there yet… and your cautionary tale isn’t making me more confident. 😉
The stupid thing is that it worked first time: when I just plugged everything in and used the built-in drivers sigh. It was only when I decided to see what were the extras on the CD that it decided to die.
Now that you’re scanning, (and if you’re running Snow Leopard), give the Image Capture application a try. You may be pleasantly surprised by what it can do.
Heh. Who says Macs have no applications? I’m spoilt by choice.
Actually, I was also seriously impressed by the crop and adjustment functions in the HP utility: they’re the same as in iPhoto, so HP have obviously used the system hooks. Which bodes well.
Am I being stupid? If you want to scan something, don’t you have to walk over to the printer and place your hardcopy onto the doo-dah anyway?
I’m waiting for a wireless butler to do that for me.
I’m finding balancing the laptop, juggling cables (each time you plug/unplug a USB cable you’re dicing with death. SRSLY) and arranging things on the scanner simultaneously a little bit tiresome. And then traipsing back again, trying not to slip on the ice and drop the laptop.
Ken, just tried Image Capture and can’t see any benefit over Preview, HP Scan or indeed Photoshop. It seems to use the same engine as them all.
The problem comes when you want to save the scanned image onto your wirelessly networked laptop, though.
Um… no?
Not here anyway.
That’s my problem – I can’t control the scanner from the MacBook, or save files from the scanner directly onto the MacBook.
Right. I see your cunning plan, Cath, and you’re not tricking me into doing tech support for you.
I thought that was what we were all talking about…?
It’s actually not that big of a problem in my life, I rarely use the printer/scanner at home as we have a very good one at work.
Now, the iPod app on my iPhone suddenly starting to crash this morning within a few seconds of start-up? That’s a problem. Bus travel sucks by an order of magnitude more when I can’t listen to podcasts. Normal re-starts and hard resets don’t fix it. I’ll try re-synching to my laptop when I get home, but do you have any other suggestions…?
Me? No, I was just having a rant.
For once in my professional career I have better computing facilities at home than at work. This could be because I am forced to use Windows at work, of course…
Not seen that problem on the iPhone. Quick google suggests restoring once connected to iTunes, which is what I’d have tried next.
Yeah, I read those help pages too, but most seem to be about 3rd party apps crashing, not the native ones. Never seen the latter before. I’ll see if I can fix it tonight.
Pretty sure one of them mentioned the iPod, but I must admit I wasn’t paying attention. I’d say restore it, but this advice is worth precisely what you’re paying for it.
Good grief, I turn my back for just 24hrs and it’s all gone mad in here.
I have a black Time Machine thingy fr my Mac 🙂 saved my arse the other week when I accidentally deleted a bunch of files from our web server :/
I wish I had a time machine so I could go back in time and have a Time Machine in summer 2005 so that when the external HD which contained all my photos died in the two days between dumping 100 photos of Kew Gardens onto it and my scheduled backup it wouldn’t be so painful.
Ah, for those of you who don’t mind the Google way, I bought 20 Gb storage for my photos through Picasa: $5 + VAT per year. Any change I do is automatically synced to the big G’s servers, if those all go down we have a bigger problem than saving photos. Cheaper but not as convenient as DropBox.
DropBox is nice. I have a Flickr pro account for my serious photos (which is unlimited, AFAICT). iPhoto automagically syncs the changes with Flickr (provided it’s in one of the appropriate albums). I also have a Picasa free account; does iPhoto sync with that too?
Back in 2005 I don’t think anyone had heard of ‘cloud computing’.
I’m not sure iPhoto would work nice with Picasa, I’m not a Mac user. Maybe if you tell Picasa to always scan the iPhoto folder. They do seem to do the exact same thing though, so the best is probably to pick one and stay with it rather than risk conflicts/database corruption. I do know Picasa is cross-platform, and recently acquired the face detection I was yearning after, so it is possible to switch to that. Horses for courses.
DropBox is really nice, but $10 a month for 50GB is just too much I think. Other providers charge according to the storage you use (JungleDisk and others), usually with Amazon Storage providing the back end so reliable.
I am a sucker for cloud storage stuff, so I use DropBox for stuff I am working on and need easy access to (anyone wants an invite? extra 500mb for both of us!), Picasa for my photos, MyDrive.ch for my Zotero references and drop.io to share big files with friends. I also have 10 GB on Asus Webstorage that came free with my Eee, but I found it slow and buggy, maybe should try again now that they’ve updated the client.
I did consider Flickr, but the free version limits (or used to limit, haven’t checked) the quantity of data you can upload in one go, whereas $5 Picasa doesn’t, so I sent my 6+ GB in one go (well, in three days).
and recently acquired the face detection I was yearning after, so it is possible to switch to that.
That’s a really cool tech. It’s in the latest version of iPhoto, and comes up with some really interesting matches!
I don’t pay for DropBox, by the way. And I haven’t sorted it out on this Windows machine so don’t use it for work-home file transfer any more. A USB stick works well (huge bandwidth, poor latency).
Yes, the face detection can confuse people of such different background as white and black, but I’ve noticed never black and oriental! Not enough black developers at Google maybe?
I don’t do USB sticks any more, mainly because either a) they get borrowed and not returned or returned with viruses; or b) I lose them. Call me selfish, but my DropBox account is mine and mine only, and virus-protected! I actually struggle to upload files to DB (web) from Nature HQ, but it works flawlessly from home, maybe a firewall issue there.
Viruses? What are they?
It’s not so much the different race matching that causes me laughter, but inanimate objects being suggested as some people, and my children being flagged as certain (adult) friends.
But some vegetables do look like people! Or is it the other way around?
Viruses are what you get when your laptop isn’t powerful enough to run a virtualized session of Windows on top of a real OS. Instead I have a real OS installed alongside Win, so that when it borks up I will still have access to the internet and the help that resides there!
ha!
Update on the iPod app: re-synching it did the trick. No restore necessary – yet.
Yay!
Isn’t it nice when things turn out to be easier than feared? A friend of mine has just tweeted that he’s about to perform brain surgery on a Mac Mini. I’m crossing all relevant bodily parts for him.
I missed a lot of stuff here…Mac Minis are the ultimate in requiring patience and steady hands. I’ve dissected several Ti PowerBooks and a MacBook, which were a joy to work with, but a Mini is something I wouldn’t attempt without a few stiff drinks first.
Re: Image Capture: You’re right, it is the engine behind Preview. The reason I like it is that most Mac users I know don’t even realize it exists, and when I show them that they can scan perfectly well without Photoshop or even the (usually) crappy scanner software, it’s fun to watch their expressions.
Ken, just tried Image Capture and can’t see any benefit over Preview, HP Scan or indeed Photoshop. It seems to use the same engine as them all.
Don’t they all use the same TWAIN protocol anyway?
Richard, don’t confuse the protocol with the engine that implements the protocol.
Ken, I’ll keep that information re the Mini to myself, then 🙂 I must admit, I am seriously impressed with Preview. It reads Photoshop files, exports various formats, and obviates the need for Adobe Acrobat Reader (_shudder_). The only downside is that when you crop/adjust and re-save it doesn’t actually save the altered version, somehow.
I knew Image Capture existed, but seeing as I have all the other stuff anyway never thought to use it.
Update: “Bong! It’s alive! Mac mini booting off DVD; new 500Gb drive seems to have thawed out from the journey here. Yay!”
Congrats! See, the stiff drinks helped 🙂
I love this vicarious tech support thing.
Happy New Year. Hi! Richard I see, you’ve technological renovation. For me it is real difficult “technologically” to update, I think I have an small drama there.
But I had to renew my GPS to my work. I’ve always really busy during my Post Graduate in Biogeography (many year behind) and now in other areas of engineering, topography, etc.
Small dramas can work on radio, Alejandro.
You are right, Richard, but nobody understands me and love me in NN, sniff … sniff …. Boooh, Hoooo (Blorp!, excuse me)
Hey Alejandro! I love you! No one takes me seriously either (that’s why we have Jenny and Henry on NN).
I think it’s time for a cute pet picture.
That looks like a caption competition to me.
I’ll start the ball rolling:
Just try! I'll get you, my pretty; and your little dog too!!“I can haz ur dog. Fight me for it.”
“I don’t CARE what you all say. We’re in LOVE!”
Also – regarding TWAINS and the engines that drive them… ok whatever, I wave the White Flag of Technological Surrender(TM). I’m just pleased I figured out how the new integrated email and calendaring works around here.
Now, if anyone can recommend a good scanner for making shiny digicopies of old 4×6 photos… please let me know. Hint: HP MX300 series does not qualify, nor does an ancient HP ScanJet 4100C.
I think Canon generally make better scanners. Agfa used to be good too.
Canon LiDE scanners are pretty good. At home, we have an Epson that’s decent (I don’t remember the model number but will look it up).
I remember a serious scanner we had in the department back in about 1996. Seriously good, thousands of pounds.
Can’t remember the make though. Me