Still a pack of cheap bastards December 10, 2008
Posted by Dale in : It's A Bug, Printing , Comments
HP’s Universal Print Driver (UPD) v4.7.0 has finally been released. You might remember that I wrote that HP designed UPD because they are a pack of cheap bastards.
The one thing HP have been consistently great at is their Laserjet printer range. They just work. And now HP want to trash all that built-up good will by wanting to reduce their costs.
Now UPD 4.7.0 is supposed to be iPrint compatible.
Except that you need to deploy a new version of iPrint to all your desktops.
And a Microsoft patch as well.
Oh, and UPD 4.7.0 has issues with Citrix. Namely CPU spiking and StressPrinters test issues. HP know this and acknowledge it. The fix (UPD 4.7.2) will be out in March 2009.
So why is UPD being promoted again? Oh that’s right, HP are a pack of cheap bastards.
(previous UPD posts here, and here.)
Free paper templates. December 3, 2008
Posted by Dale in : How To, Printing, Utilities , CommentsI find incompetech a really useful site because it lets me create lined paper templates, which I can use to print out on good quality paper.
Why is that important to me?
I hate writing on those 40GSM lined notepads. With a printable template, I can print lines on any paper I want.
The site also offers the following templates:
- Graph paper
- Mailing labels
- Monthly and Yearly Calendars
HP Office Jet Pro 7590 November 4, 2008
Posted by Dale in : Printing , Comments
Occasionally a printer lands on my desk, for me to evaluate.
There’s not much wrong with the OfficeJet 7590 except:
- standard black print cartridge only lasted 400 pages
- the install program for the printer software is truly horrible.
Aside from that, I’d buy one.
Officeworks (Australia) are selling them for $419.
HP still dragging their feet on the Universal Print Driver. November 2, 2008
Posted by Dale in : It's A Bug, Printing , CommentsFolks might remember my post on HP Universal Print Driver - shame it doesn’t work with Novell Netware.
Late November, HP plan to release an updated driver (v4.7) which will partly fix the issue, but you’ll still need to:
- apply Microsoft patch The Print Spooler process (Spoolsv.exe) crashes while it is copying print driver files on a computer that is running Windows Server 2003 or Windows XP
- wait for Novell to release an updated iPrint client (no, I don’t know when).
HP Universal Print Driver - shame it doesn’t work with Novell Netware. October 22, 2008
Posted by Dale in : Hardware, It's A Bug, Printing , Comments
Being cheap bastards conscious of the support costs of maintaining device-specific printer drivers, HP has come up with the HP Universal Print Driver (UPD).
Works great on Microsoft Windows based print servers.
Absolute rubbish with Novell iPrint.
When you install a Windows based UPD, the UPD says to the printer
What features do you have?
With iPrint, the UPD software tries to speak to something called IPD, and NOT the printer. Because the UPD isn’t speaking to the printer, it fails to determine what features your printer has. In the worse case, your printer won’t print.
HP have known about this issue since at least July, and we’re not seen a fix yet.
Shame really. The CP6015 would have been a nice printer.
Ref(s):
iPrint - Vista - HP UPD - Supported- - NOVELL FORUMS (July 2008)
Novell Support TID 7001400- iPrint and HP Universal Printer Drivers (Sept 2008)
Not enough memory to complete this operation (adding a printer with Vista) September 25, 2008
Posted by Dale in : It's A Bug, Printing, Vista , CommentsTrying to install my Lexmark X215 multi-function printer results in this error message under Vista:
I don’t know the actual cause, as I have 3GB of memory installed, but this workaround works:
- Select “Add New Printer”
- Select “Local Printer” instead of “Add Network Printer”
- Select “Add New Port”
- For the port name, type in the network path to your printer.
ie. \\homeprintbox\lexmark - Click Next, and follow the remaining prompts.
And this is not the only way to resolve the problem. Over at VirtualTechSupport.ca, Simon writes about another way to solve the issue. The printer he was having problems with was a Samsung ML-1710.
VirtualTechSupport.ca: Error when connecting to a shared printer with Vista
15 Screen Capture Utilities September 11, 2008
Posted by Dale in : Freeware, Printing, Utilities , CommentsI use PrintKey 2000 as my preferred display screen capture utility. The version I use is free.
I like FREE.
But I asked people around the office what they use, and the responses were:
Free
- "It offers a resizable, translucent capture area that can be moved and sized freely to capture the portions that you want to grab."
- “Greenshot is a revolutionary screenshot tool optimized for productivity.”
- automates the capture of screenshots.
Microsoft Snipping Tool
- Free with Windows Vista, and you can download it for Windows XP
- For those times when you just want to “snip” part of a screen.
- Free, multi-language
- Donationware
Was free
- it just works and is the one I use all the time. See my previous blog post about it.
Commercial
- captures the whole screen or part of a screen
- can capture of a window which doesn’t fit on a screen (think web browser)
- built-in editing
- easy share the captures.
- "Automatic Screenshot Journal"
- I use this on my work PC to track my tasks during the day.
3rd January 2009 update: added Greenshot & Microsoft Snipping Tool
The colors I see on my screen are not the same as what prints out! August 18, 2008
Posted by Dale in : Printing, Psychic Troubleshooting , Comments
So you have a nice new shiny printer which can use CMYK color processing. CMYK is also known as four color processing.
And you wonder why:
The colors I see on my screen are not the same as what prints out.
Here are four reasons why:
- You’re using an application which only supports RGB colors (typical application: Microsoft Word/Publisher/Excel/Visio).
Your printer needs to convert the colors from RGB to CMYK. This color conversion is not always accurate. - How your computer display (CRT/LCD) is setup.
Ever wondered why your display screen manufacturer shipped color card(s) with your monitor? Color print matching is a reason. - Your using a PCL print driver, and not the Postscript driver.
Postscript printer drivers are more accurate at page/color rendering.
PCL is faster, and not so good at page/color rendering. - Paper being used
Photographic-type paper behaves differently (better) to normal paper.
Solutions:
- Use RGB if your printer driver supports it.
- Match application colour types to output color process type (CMYK to CMYK, RGB to RGB)
- Calibrate your computer display to the correct colors.
- Use a Postscript driver if you have it.
- Use RGB. Seriously. Use this color option if your printer supports it (almost most do).
- Get a printing consultant in.
If you need to do this you’re likely to be a graphic designer, and know all about things like four color processing & PANTONE colors.
Reference(s)
Digital Expert - Color Space Fundamentals
Dry Creek Photo - Monitor Calibration and Profiling
The Case Of The First Problem April 12, 2008
Posted by Dale in : Printing, Psychic Troubleshooting, Stories , Comments… or the customer’s Postscript printer prints gibberish.
By now, you would think, that all printers would ship with Postscript as standard. After all, Postscript has been out in the market since 1985.
So I was surprised when I received my first support call in my new job, “Postscript printer prints gibberish”.
After some psychic debugging, the answer was clear.
“Your printer does not have Postscript installed!”
The why? It’s an optional extra for this particular printer model. In the end, we told the customer to buy the Postscript option if they wanted it.
Print Screen Utility, I use PrintKey 2000 December 29, 2005
Posted by Dale in : Printing, Utilities , CommentsWhen I want to capture a computer screen, I use 
PrintKey. Version 5.10 is freeware, and you can snaffle a copy here.
Safe to use, I know several large corporations which use it.
The (now) commercial version is available from here.
Thanks goes to this site for reminding me to blog it.
September 2008 update
Do not believe this:
Printkey 2000 will not work with XP, Vista or Windows2003.
It does work, I used PrintKey 2000 regularly through the Longhorn client -> Vista Beta -> Vista SP1 test cycle, and it just worked.