I had an extraordinarily difficult time in trying to find a simple how-to for setting up printer sharing on Linux to Linux machines. There is plenty of information on setting up Linux to Windows and Windows to Linux printer sharing. So I thought I'd document my findings here. (This refers to the Lucid Lynx distribution, but should also work with earlier distributions).
Setting up the host
Open the System Settings utility and make sure that the printer to be shared is shared:
System>System Settings>Printer Configuration
Server Settings>Share published printers connected to the system
Local Printers>[your local printer's name]>Printer status>sharing
Make sure that port 631 is open on the firewall.
Setting up a Kubuntu client
Settings>System settings>New printer>Network printer>IPP
[enter host IP address] then find and verify.
I couldn't find any way under Kubuntu's tools to check the printer, so open a browser and go to:
http://localhost:631/admin
Select Manage printers, then the remote printer, then under Maintenance, select Print a test page.
Setting up an Ubuntu client
System>Administration>Printing
Add>Network printer>Find network printer
Host: [enter host IP address] then find.
The Ubuntu Printing applet gives you the option to print a test page.
Hope this helps someone :)
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Beer price increases
This is a follow up on my Beer prices in Pretoria blog. The price of Windhoek Lager has been pretty stable for more than a year, but I'm expecting price rises - mainly because of the Soccer World Cup due to start in less than a month.
On this page, I am including establishments on my old list that have increased their prices, establishments whose prices are totally out of line with other establishments in their area and establishments I visited for the first time since 1 May 2010.
Price increases since last visit
New venues since 1 May 2010
Current Makro price (15/05/10): R114.95/24 (R4.79 per bottle).
On this page, I am including establishments on my old list that have increased their prices, establishments whose prices are totally out of line with other establishments in their area and establishments I visited for the first time since 1 May 2010.
| Pub | Location | Price | Date |
| Ritrovo | Waterkloof Heights | R19.00 | 29/04/10 |
| Cuppuccino's | Brooklyn | R16.90 | 31/05/10 |
Price increases since last visit
| Pub | Location | Price | Date |
| Pikkies | Prinshof | R13.00 | 27/05/10 |
| Picasso's | Villeria | R12.50 | 13/05/10 |
| Hunter's Grill | Silverton | R12.00 | 28/05/10 |
New venues since 1 May 2010
| Pub | Location | Price | Date |
| LM in the East | Lynnwood | R14.00 | 15/05/10 |
Current Makro price (15/05/10): R114.95/24 (R4.79 per bottle).
Thursday, March 4, 2010
So I got a Kindle...
I'm actually pretty happy with it, but there are a few irritations...
It arrived at my door, here at the bottom end of Africa, within four working days of the order going through (the actual process was a whole lot longer, but that has nothing to do with Amazon, but rather my bank - however, that's another story).
First thing I did was to charge it, then read through the user guide. While reading through the user guide, I bought my first book, Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol (which is not the topic of this blog) via Whispernet - a really cool feature.
The next morning, I finished reading the user guide, interspersed with a bit of The Lost Symbol, but I did notice that the battery seemed to be getting depleted rather rapidly. That afternoon, I took it with me to the pub to show it off to the locals. They were especially interested, more so when I bought and downloaded a book (Dean Koontz's Sole Survivor) from Amazon in less than a minute.
The next morning, when I switched it on, I hit the first irritation - the battery was running very low. This after just over 36 hours since I'd charged it. What happened to the one week claimed by Amazon? Did I have a dud?
As Amazon's eBook prices seemed a little on the high side, I started browsing the free classics on Feedbooks, and downloaded a few of those onto my PC. I converted them from .epub to .mobi using calibre and uploaded them to the Kindle via USB. [edit]A colleague pointed out to me that if you click on the link to the book's title, rather than the download link next to the title, you get options for different formats, including .mobi and .prc [/edit]
I finished The Lost Symbol and started with The Invisible Man and Sole Survivor. Again, I was horrified that the battery ran down within 48 hours of the last charge. I started googling for info on this and found more than one reference to upgrading the operating system on the Kindle. The recommended OS version was 2.3.3, which was an upgrade on 2.3, both of which fixed battery issues. This gave rise to the second irritation - the OS version on my Kindle was 2.2.1 Why hadn't the OS been upgraded before the device was shipped? Is it a case of sending old/returned stock to the Third World?
Anyway, I downloaded the upgrade (11MB) and installed it on my Kindle. It definitely did fix the battery issues. I've now been running for more than a week (at least four hours per day, probably more) and the battery is still more than 50%. I do have Whispernet off most of the time, I must add.
I have found that the screen is slightly darker as mentioned by some folks on the Web, and I think this has something to do with the way the screen is refreshed between pages (probably how they managed to save on battery life through software). If the ambient light catches the screen in a certain way, there seems to be residual text on it, almost like burn-in on old CRT monitors. This is not too irritating as often in some books the text on preceding/subsequent pages can be seen through the page being read. I'd rather have that than continually having to recharge.
Ok, now I'm getting the hang of this and enjoying the experience, so I want to buy some more books. So I hopped onto Amazon from my PC and started looking through their recommendations. This is where I hit the third irritation - I can't buy more than 60% of their recommendations:
It arrived at my door, here at the bottom end of Africa, within four working days of the order going through (the actual process was a whole lot longer, but that has nothing to do with Amazon, but rather my bank - however, that's another story).
First thing I did was to charge it, then read through the user guide. While reading through the user guide, I bought my first book, Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol (which is not the topic of this blog) via Whispernet - a really cool feature.
The next morning, I finished reading the user guide, interspersed with a bit of The Lost Symbol, but I did notice that the battery seemed to be getting depleted rather rapidly. That afternoon, I took it with me to the pub to show it off to the locals. They were especially interested, more so when I bought and downloaded a book (Dean Koontz's Sole Survivor) from Amazon in less than a minute.
The next morning, when I switched it on, I hit the first irritation - the battery was running very low. This after just over 36 hours since I'd charged it. What happened to the one week claimed by Amazon? Did I have a dud?
As Amazon's eBook prices seemed a little on the high side, I started browsing the free classics on Feedbooks, and downloaded a few of those onto my PC. I converted them from .epub to .mobi using calibre and uploaded them to the Kindle via USB. [edit]A colleague pointed out to me that if you click on the link to the book's title, rather than the download link next to the title, you get options for different formats, including .mobi and .prc [/edit]
I finished The Lost Symbol and started with The Invisible Man and Sole Survivor. Again, I was horrified that the battery ran down within 48 hours of the last charge. I started googling for info on this and found more than one reference to upgrading the operating system on the Kindle. The recommended OS version was 2.3.3, which was an upgrade on 2.3, both of which fixed battery issues. This gave rise to the second irritation - the OS version on my Kindle was 2.2.1 Why hadn't the OS been upgraded before the device was shipped? Is it a case of sending old/returned stock to the Third World?
Anyway, I downloaded the upgrade (11MB) and installed it on my Kindle. It definitely did fix the battery issues. I've now been running for more than a week (at least four hours per day, probably more) and the battery is still more than 50%. I do have Whispernet off most of the time, I must add.
I have found that the screen is slightly darker as mentioned by some folks on the Web, and I think this has something to do with the way the screen is refreshed between pages (probably how they managed to save on battery life through software). If the ambient light catches the screen in a certain way, there seems to be residual text on it, almost like burn-in on old CRT monitors. This is not too irritating as often in some books the text on preceding/subsequent pages can be seen through the page being read. I'd rather have that than continually having to recharge.
Ok, now I'm getting the hang of this and enjoying the experience, so I want to buy some more books. So I hopped onto Amazon from my PC and started looking through their recommendations. This is where I hit the third irritation - I can't buy more than 60% of their recommendations:
"This title is not available for customers in your location: Africa"
If it's not available, why recommend it? I have subsequently found that a huge chunk of their eBooks is "not available in Africa". And then the publishers wonder why potential customers turn to pirate sources (which I will talk about in a later blog).
From the books that are available on Amazon, I started looking for a selection to buy for when I go on vacation later this month. I'm rather partial to Dean Koontz, so I started with his books that "are available in Africa" and then I hit the fourth irritation. Looking at the book Fear Nothing, I found that it costs $8.39 (it's a bit higher outside the USA because of a $2 Whispernet fee). However, and that's the reason for the irritation, a new hardcover version costs $3.92 and a new paperback $4.77. Why should the eBook be so much more? Milking a dead cow? At the rate at which Dean Koontz churns out books, he has to write them on a word processor, so they must already be available to the publisher electronically. The conversion of such an electronic document to an eBook takes less than an hour (I know, I've done it), so why is it so expensive? To reiterate:
And then the publishers wonder why potential customers turn to pirate sources.
From the books that are available on Amazon, I started looking for a selection to buy for when I go on vacation later this month. I'm rather partial to Dean Koontz, so I started with his books that "are available in Africa" and then I hit the fourth irritation. Looking at the book Fear Nothing, I found that it costs $8.39 (it's a bit higher outside the USA because of a $2 Whispernet fee). However, and that's the reason for the irritation, a new hardcover version costs $3.92 and a new paperback $4.77. Why should the eBook be so much more? Milking a dead cow? At the rate at which Dean Koontz churns out books, he has to write them on a word processor, so they must already be available to the publisher electronically. The conversion of such an electronic document to an eBook takes less than an hour (I know, I've done it), so why is it so expensive? To reiterate:
And then the publishers wonder why potential customers turn to pirate sources.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Virtualbox: SLOW shared folders
I have been using Virtualbox on Linux machines, with XP as a guest, for a while now. The only reason that I haven't moved away from Windows altogether is that I still use Paintshop Pro as a photo editor (Gimp is useless to me because of the way it handles TIFFs). One of the things I liked about Virtualbox was the ability to use shared folders to share files between the host and the guest. However, I have become increasingly frustrated by the speed at which large graphic files get loaded using these shared folders. This has gotten worse with the newer versions of Paintshop Pro, so I decided to do some speed tests with the different versions, and with different ways of accessing the same file. The file is a 22.9MB tiff.
Direct is the guest machine's C:-drive
SMB is using SAMBA on Linux to share the folder with XP
SFolders is using Virtualbox's shared folders
From this example, the file handling of the software has clearly changed with the newer versions, but the time taken to open files like this when using Virtualbox's shared folders is unacceptable.
Another example is using Canon's Digital Photo Professional to access a directory containing 41 RAW files from a Canon 40d:
Direct: 5s
SMB: 13s
SFolders: 49s
The time given here is the time taken from when the directory is opened until all thumbnails have been built.
Update
I've tried similar tests with an external USB hard drive attached directly to the VirtualBox (through Devices>USB devices). Here using VirtualBox v3.2.8 under Kubuntu 10.04 with Windows XP as guest, with the same 22.9MB tiff used in the earlier tests. Again, the time given is the time taken for the file to load completely in Paintshop Pro v9:
Direct: 5.0s
USB drive: 6.3s
SMB: 13.5s
SFolders: 29.7s
| v9 | x2 | x3 | |
| Direct | 5s | 13s | 11s |
| SMB | 12s | 18s | 31s |
| SFolders | 37s | 3m 6s | 4m 27s |
Direct is the guest machine's C:-drive
SMB is using SAMBA on Linux to share the folder with XP
SFolders is using Virtualbox's shared folders
From this example, the file handling of the software has clearly changed with the newer versions, but the time taken to open files like this when using Virtualbox's shared folders is unacceptable.
Another example is using Canon's Digital Photo Professional to access a directory containing 41 RAW files from a Canon 40d:
Direct: 5s
SMB: 13s
SFolders: 49s
The time given here is the time taken from when the directory is opened until all thumbnails have been built.
Update
I've tried similar tests with an external USB hard drive attached directly to the VirtualBox (through Devices>USB devices). Here using VirtualBox v3.2.8 under Kubuntu 10.04 with Windows XP as guest, with the same 22.9MB tiff used in the earlier tests. Again, the time given is the time taken for the file to load completely in Paintshop Pro v9:
Direct: 5.0s
USB drive: 6.3s
SMB: 13.5s
SFolders: 29.7s
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