Friday, August 31, 2012

HP LaserJet Pro M1212nf All-in-One printer rated as best value by Wirecutter

The HP LaserJet Pro M1212nf All-In-One Printer Gives You Great Bang for the Buck [Stuff We Like]:
from Lifehacker 
We all need a printer every once in awhile, but for most of us, it's hard to care which model you end up with. Our friends at the Wirecutter have done the work for us, narrowing down the best printers for quality, speed, and price. More »

Outlook Configuration Analyzer 2.0 adds 75 new rules

Outlook Configuration Analyzer 2.0 adds 75 new rules:
from BetaNews 
Microsoft has released Outlook Configuration Analyzer 2.0, an excellent tool for troubleshooting a host of common Outlook 2007/ 2010 issues.
As before, the program works by scanning your current Outlook setup and looking for known problems (file sizes, DLL versions, missing updates, whatever it might be). But this release adds 75 new rules, helping it to detect more issues than ever before.
New support for automatic updating now sees the program’s rules maintained online. Outlook Configuration Analyzer 2.0 will detect and download new rules as they’re added, so its usefulness should improve over time.
And the package now comes with a couple of command line tools aimed at system administrators. CalCheck examines Outlook Calendars for problems, while OCATcmd.exe can be used within scripts to scan either the local or network computers.
As with the previous version of the program, its results aren’t always a huge surprise. On our test system, for instance, the Configuration Analyzer just reported that we were missing a few updates, and had some “orphaned files in the Outlook Secure Temp” folder.
If your Outlook setup is misbehaving, though, the program could provide useful information. And if nothing else, you will get a very detailed report on its configuration: installed updates, Outlook addons and their load time, Office security policy settings, application events (including recent crashes) and a whole lot more.
On balance, then, the Microsoft Outlook Configuration Analyzer 2.0 makes a welcome addition to every Office owner’s troubleshooting toolkit. Grab a copy and give your system a scan, see what it might uncover.
Photo Credit: sommthink/Shutterstock

Thursday, August 30, 2012

Solution to Error when adding 32-bit drivers to shared printer on Windows 2008 Server (64-bit)



Displayed Error Message 'ntprint.inf not found' when 'x86(32-bit)' Additional Drivers Are Added to Microsoft Server 2008 Driver Store


support.lexmark.com Document ID:SO5007



Problem

Ntprint.inf not found; Unable to install x86 32-bit drivers; Server 2008 x64 drivers will not install; Client drivers will not install; Cannot find driver files on disk; Cannot add x86 client workstation drivers; Not able to add driver in Point and Print environment

Environment

x64 Operating system; x86 clients; point and print

Solution

What you will see (September 2009)
You may observe an "ntprint.inf not found" error when trying to add additional x86 32-bit printer drivers to the Microsoft Windows Server 2008's driver store. 

Environment 

Operating System and function
Printing method
Affected Printers
MS™ Server 2008 x64 print server
Point and Print with x86 32-bit OS clients
All

Additional Identifiers

  • -Additional 64-bit drivers install without hesitation.
  • -The operating system prompts for the Windows disk; however, the path to the required file(s) cannot be located.

Suggested Remedy

  1. Download the desired product-specific 64-bit Server 2008 driver from the Lexmark.com and install it on the 2008 server.
  2. Download the matching product-specific 32-bit Vista driver from Lexmark website. IMPORTANT! Make sure the datastream (PCL, PS...) matches the driver you selected for the 64-bit driver, and then extract the file contents to a folder, but cancel out of the install dialog.
  3. Download the Lexmark Universal driver v1.4 or Vista x86, either PCL or PS. IMPORTANT! Extract the contents to a folder, but cancel out of the install dialog.
  4. Right-click the printer object in Server 2008 that you created in Step 1 and click Sharing.
  5. Click on Additional driver, select x86, then click OK.
  6. Locate the .INF file of the product-specific 32-bit Vista driver that you extracted in Step 2.
  7. Click OK to start installation.
  8. When it asks for the i386 folder, point to the i386 folder from the extracted contents of the Universal driver (in Step 3).
  9. The installation should complete successfully from there.
NOTE: This workaround does not require the 'USE' or 'INSTALL' of the x86 Vista or universal printer driver (UPD) versions. This solution only downloads and unzips the x86 Vista or UPD driver files to fill necessary voids found in the product-specific driver.

Further Explanation

The following helps explain this issue:
  • -In order to install a 32-bit alternate print driver on a Server 2008 x64 OS, certain 32-bit OS files must be packaged with the 32-bit driver.
  • -The product-specific driver package contains such 32-bit OS files, but they are an older version that did not support Server 2008.
  • -The x86 Vista and UPD 1.4 driver packages contain newer OS files that DO support Server 2008.
  • -This workaround uses the UPD package just for those system files.


Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Heads up controls for your iPod

Heads up controls for your iPod:
from Hack a Day 

[Cmonaco3's] girlfriend wanted a better way to control her iPod when driving. She didn’t want to take her eyes of the road and asked him if he could help. He ended up building a heads up display which reads out track information and offers a few simple buttons for control.
The display includes controls for track forward, track back, and play/pause. Those buttons, along with the LCD screen, mount on the windshield using a suction cup. This way the driver doesn’t have to completely remove focus from the road to control the iPod which is sitting in the passenger’s seat.
To accomplish this [Cmonaco] used a dock connector breakout board for communication between an Arduino and the iPod. The Arduino pulls song information to be displayed on the graphic LCD screen, and sends commands to the iPod when it detects a button push. See a quick demo of the setup after the break.


[Thanks Chris]

Filed under: ipod hacks, transportation hacks

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

How Can I Integrate My Smartphone into My Car on the Cheap? [Ask Lifehacker]

How Can I Integrate My Smartphone into My Car on the Cheap? [Ask Lifehacker]:
from Lifehacker 
Dear Lifehacker,
I'd like to integrate my smartphone into my car, but it's a pretty basic vehicle that's a far cry from technologically advanced. What can I do without paying a fortune to make my car and smartphone work well together? More »

Monday, August 27, 2012

Mod Your iPhone for Wireless Charging, No Bulky Case Required [Video]

Mod Your iPhone for Wireless Charging, No Bulky Case Required [Video]:
from Lifehacker 
You've probably seen wireless chargers like the Powermat before, but they require you to put a big, bulky case on your phone in order to work. YouTube user tanv28 shows us how to put the necessary parts inside your phone, so you can do away with the case entirely. More »

Sunday, August 26, 2012

Get the media you want on iPad or iPhone with VLC Streamer Free

Get the media you want on iPad or iPhone with VLC Streamer Free:
from BetaNews 
When all is said and done, Apple’s pretty restrictive when it comes to playing media on your iOS device. Out of the box, only Apple’s own formats are supported, which is fine if you’re wedded to iTunes, but not so great if you have media in a variety of different formats.
You could manfully try converting them all using a tool like Handbrake, but if you want a quicker, fuss-free solution, then check out VLC Streamer Free instead.
VLC Streamer Free takes the best bits of VLC Media Player -- namely the bit that lets you play just about any media file on your computer without installing loads of different codecs or media players -- and takes it one step further.
The app is paired with VLC Streamer Helper, which you install on your PC or Mac. Once up and running, your iOS device is able to access any media file on your computer’s hard drive and – after a short wait while any necessary transcoding is done – it can then play it over your wireless network.
The beauty of this approach is two-fold: first, you keep all the files on your gargantuan hard drive, so your iPhone or iPad doesn’t get cluttered up with media, and second, you don’t have to worry about converting your media by hand -- VLC Streamer Helper does all that in the background.
Both desktop and app work superbly -- you can queue up files using the desktop app, allowing VLC Streamer Helper to get on with the task of transcoding them so your iPhone or iPad can watch them without unwanted pauses, or you can select which files to watch, view or play using your iOS device. You can even choose a quality setting based on your iPhone or iPad’s resolution, plus network connection’s speed, enabling you to strike the perfect balance between quality and access times.
While it’s usually possible to start watching a video within seconds of selecting it, if time isn’t pressing, we’d recommend waiting until the clapperboard icon appears next to a movie file, indicating it’s been fully transcoded and is ready to go. We found this resolved some buffering issues, as well as lip sync problems, with certain media files. The app will let you watch any media that VLC Media Player can, but be aware that some obscure formats may not be supported.
VLC Streamer Free is ad-supported, but you can remove these by forking out $1.99 for the paid-for version. Another bonus of the paid-for app is that you can opt to save media to your iPad after it’s been transcoded, allowing you to watch it offline. It all adds up to an incredibly elegant and neat streaming solution, albeit one that’s suited more to smaller networks where the media is stored on a single computer.
VLC Streamer Free is available through the App Store for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, while VLC Streamer Helper is available as a freeware download for Windows, Mac and – albeit an unsupported beta – Linux.

Saturday, August 25, 2012

New Uses for Your Old Tablet [Repurpose]

New Uses for Your Old Tablet [Repurpose]:
from Lifehacker 
The tablet market is just heating up, but chances are if you were an early adopter you've already upgraded at least once. Even if not, plenty of people have purchased a tablet only to realize they don't have a really good use for one. So, what's that old touch screen good for anyway? Let's take a look at some of the more clever uses. More »

Friday, August 24, 2012

Learn to Code a Basic iPhone App [Iphone Development]

View all the steps on one page

Learn to Code a Basic iPhone App [Iphone Development]:
from Lifehacker 
Developing for iOS isn't the easiest task in the world, and it's hard to know where to get started. App developer and Instructables user A-Nony-Mus decided to help out and put together a guide to get you coding your first iPhone app as well as learn the basics of the Xcode platform. More »


See All The Pink On This Map? Those Are The 19 Million Americans Without Broadband Access

See All The Pink On This Map? Those Are The 19 Million Americans Without Broadband Access:
from The Consumerist 
  broadbanddeployment
The Federal Communications Commission (or as we insiders like to call it, the FCC) has released its annual report on the state of broadband deployment in these here United States and while there is improvement in getting to the point where all Americans at least have the ability to access broadband Internet, you can see there is still quite a bit of pink on that map.
We suggest you scroll down a bit and play with the fully interactive version of the map, that lets you zoom in on each county in the nation to see just how many of that county's residents have access to the various forms of non-dial-up Internet.
Of course, if you live in one of those pink areas, this page is probably still loading, so... sorry about that.
According to the FCC's latest numbers, approximately 19 million Americans (that's a little over 6% of the population, if you're into that sort of thing) are still without access to fixed broadband service.
The overwhelming majority of these people (14.5 million) live in rural areas. In fact, the FCC figures that around 1-in-4 rural Americans lacks broadband access. The problem is even more pronounced in tribal areas, where nearly one-third of the population lacks access.
Of course, just because one has access to broadband does not mean that one wants to pay for broadband, as the FCC found that around 100 million Americans have not subscribed to a broadband Internet service.
"Because millions still lack access to or have not adopted broadband," writes the FCC, "the Report concludes broadband is not yet being deployed in a reasonable and timely fashion."
"The U.S. has now regained global leadership in key areas of the broadband economy, including mobile, where we lead in mobile apps and 4G deployment," says FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. "but, in this flat, competitive global economy, we need to keep driving toward faster broadband and universal access."
Our cohorts at Consumers Union have looked at the report [PDF] and released the following statement:
It is critical for the FCC to continue to look at the progress of deployment of broadband, which is increasingly becoming a necessity for all consumers. The FCC has provided much needed data in this report. This progress report, however, indicates that millions of consumers are still lacking access to broadband. As access to high-speed Internet access becomes dominated by a cable monopoly and wireless duopoly, we hope that policy makers can address market shortcomings which have not provided the incentives to ensure that all consumers have access to broadband.

With one week to go the Humble Bundle for Android 3 adds four more games

With one week to go the Humble Bundle for Android 3 adds four more games:
from Android Authority 
With just one week to go the Humble Bundle team have added another four games to the Humble Bundle for Android 3. The four additional games, which originally appeared in the Humble Bundle for Android 1, are Anomaly: Warzone Earth, EDGE, Osmos, and World of Goo! This now means that the current bundle contains nine games (the original five games were: FieldRunners, SpaceChem, Uplink, Bit.Trip Beat, and Spirits). The bundle is truly cross platform and all the games work on Android, Linux, Windows and Mac OS X.
So what is the price? And here is the beauty of this deal… You pay what you want! Anything from $1 to $400… but there is a minor catch – to get all the games (including the four extra games and the bonus game Spirits) you need to pay more than the average price which is currently around $6.50. So, for $6.50 you get nine DRM free games which you can download for each platform. That is a cool deal. I downloaded my bundle earlier today (and yes, I did pay more than the average!)
The extra games are awesome:
  • Anomaly: Warzone Earth – This is a tower offense game. Unlike a tower defense game, this time you control the attacking force and fight your way through, against the destructive towers of an alien horde. The graphics are stunning and the game has won several awards.
  • EDGE: This puzzle-platformer challenges your skills as you push a Cube to freedom over 100 levels set in a geometric universe.
  • Osmos: You control an amoeba like creature  which you must grow by absorbing other amoeba like creatures… but to propel yourself you must eject matter behind you, causing you to shrink. The game is set in a universe of floating playgrounds, competitive petri dishes and deep solar systems!
  • World of Goo: This game doesn’t really need any introduction, but in case you don’t know… You need to build structures (being as creative as you can) using goo balls so that the rest of the goo can escape…  Sounds simple, but it is challenging. This game is a true indie classic.
But there is more! The amount you choose to spend can be split three ways between the developers, two charity organizations and the Humble Bundle team (which pays for the bandwidth and development of these promotions). The two charities are The Electronic Frontier Foundation (a non-profit organization that is made up of  tech-savvy attorneys and activists striving to  protect privacy and freedom of  expression online) and  The Child’s Play Charity (which provides video games for sick children in hospitals).
On top of all that you also get to download the music from these games in MP3 format! For those who have already purchased the bundle, the four new games have been added for free to your Humble Bundle download page.
Here is a video from the original Humble Bundle for Android which demos the four new games:

Related Posts

Humble Bundle 3 for Android brings 5 new games: FieldRunners, SpaceChem, Uplink, Bit.Trip Beat, and Spirits, Humble Bundle for Android 2 is now available, Name Your Price on Bundled Android Games for a Cause


This article, With one week to go the Humble Bundle for Android 3 adds four more games , was originally published at AndroidAuthority.com - Your Android News Source.

Thursday, August 2, 2012

From 0 to C: teaching programming without a computer

From 0 to C: teaching programming without a computer:
from Hack a Day 

It’s no secret that learning how to program is very hard, and teaching it doubly so, requiring the student to wrap their head around very unorthodox concepts. [Ubi de Feo] over at the Amsterdam tech collective Hello, Savants! has a unique solution for taking someone who knows nothing of programming and turning them into a computer aficionado capable of deftly wielding semicolons and parens. It’s called From 0 to C, and aims to teach students programming in an environment without computers.
For his class, [Ubi] made up a lot of wooden boxes with eight subdivisions representing the bits in a byte. By putting ping-pong balls in each slot, [Ubi]‘s students can grasp the concept of counting by powers of two and quickly move on to hexidecimal and more advanced concepts like bit shifting.
After learning the ins and outs of how stupid computers actually are, [Ubi]‘s students then learn the syntax of a language of their choice (C, JavaScript, or Python, for example), and write a few programs.
Although we’re sure most of our readers are far past the ‘learning programming from a blank slate’ portion of their hacker and maker career, anything that gets more people solving their own problems is okay in our book. [Ubi] has a pretty neat take on the pedagogy of teaching programming, and we’d really like to see his work expand outside his Amsterdam collective.

Filed under: Software Development

Rack Unit Measuring Tape

Rack Unit Measuring Tape:
from PacketLife.net Blog 
The other day I was taking inventory of servers in a data center, and the idea popped into my head for a measuring tape denoted in rack units. This would save a good deal of time when determining the position of a device in an equipment rack, or the amount of free space available. Of course, like nearly every idea I've had, I was not the first. I found a product called Rack Ruler on Amazon for $23.97:
rack_ruler.jpg
rack_ruler2.jpg
Neat, but $24 is a tad expensive for an obscure tool of undetermined quality. Knowing that a rack unit is exactly 1.75", one could easily repurpose a regular SAE measuring tape by marking it at the appropriate intervals.


· 7 comments

PNGGauntlet compresses images but keeps them looking good

PNGGauntlet compresses images but keeps them looking good:
from BetaNews 
When you create web graphics then it’s important to keep file sizes small, as that will cut page download times and reduce your bandwidth requirements. And you probably do this already by reducing an image’s pixel size, complexity, color depth and more.
But if you use PNG files then you might also want to try PNGGauntlet, which compresses files to make them more efficient. Savings can be as much as 50 percent, yet there’s no loss in image quality -- each picture should look exactly the same.
The program is essentially a front end for three open-source image optimization tools -- PNGOUT, OptiPNG and DeflOpt -- which means it gets to apply a host of low-level trickery on each of your files. It might strip out metadata, for instance, optimize palettes, minimise bit depth (where it won’t affect the image), and more.
But while PNGGauntlet provides access to the settings for each tool, for those who are interested (click Tools > Options), you don’t have to get involved with these technicalities at all.
And in fact the core program operations really couldn’t be much more straightforward. Just drag and drop your target images onto PNGGauntlet, choose an output folder, click “Optimize!” and wait to see how much you’ve saved.
Does it work? We found some large logo files online, expecting these to be a difficult test as they would presumably have been fairly well optimized already. But actually PNGGauntlet still performed very well. One file was reduced from 71.63KB to 39.44KB in size (a 44 percent drop); others were cut by 24 percent, 20 percent and 7 percent, and even the best compressed two were still reduced in size by a few bytes.
There is a small question about whether these size gains are really penalty-free. We’ve seen suggestions that in a few, rare cases, they can leave PNG images not rendering properly on a few mobile browsers, for instance. This isn’t an issue we’ve experienced ourselves, but if you do decide to upgrade your website with PNGGauntlet-processed graphics then we’d recommend you test the pages carefully, just to make sure that everything looks exactly as it did.
If PNGGauntlet really can cut images by 20% or more, though, that’s obviously going to deliver major benefits in website performance and bandwidth use. Go grab a copy of the program, see what it can do for you.
Photo Credit:  FotoYakov/Shutterstock