Tag Archives: Crap

Installing a HP LaserJet 1505 printer on Apple OSX Mountain Lion

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What a problem this was! We had a user with a MacBook Pro that had a new copy of Macintosh OSX Mountain Lion 10.8.2 running on it. Plugged in a rinky-dink HP LaserJet 1505 and nothing. Even though there was the exact same printer installed before, from the user’s home, the system refused to reuse the connection for the printer at work. Obviously that has to be because the system notices it’s a different device and refuses to play along, which I find stupid.

Plug in the printer, try to add it, and the Add Printer function goes out to Apple Software Update to look for the driver and then comes back and tells us that nothing is available. Then commence zombie debugging via muzzle flare, wandering around in the dark trying to fix what shouldn’t be happening but apparently is beyond all logic and reason.

So how you do diagnose a Mac? Here’s a handy-dandy guide which anyone can use to fix their Macs. I seriously doubt any issues ever survive this particular procedure:

  1. Clear PRAM – Turn off computer, turn on computer while holding down  Command-Option-P-R. The computer will restart and you’ll hear the startup chime twice. Let go of the keys. ~ For this, just do it. It doesn’t matter if you don’t think doing this will fix your problem, it will. Just shut your pie hole and do this. If you don’t do it, I don’t want to hear about your problems. It’s magical. I don’t care if Apple says it won’t do anything. This thing DOES EVERYTHING IN CREATION – apparently. That and it cannot hurt. Lots of fluids and plenty of bed-rest. 
  2. Repair Disk Permissions – Start Disk Utility, find your “Macintosh HD” and click “Repair Disk Permissions” and wait. Do this. Often. Regularly. Lots. Weekly. Now.
  3. Download Onyx. Pick which version of OSX you are using, download it, install it and use it. I recommend skipping everything it wants to do and going right for the Automation button. Uncheck “Repair Permissions” and “Display of folders content” and check the rest. Click Execute and wait. When the system asks for a reboot. Reboot. Everyone should do this weekly. Think of it like vitamins for your Mac. Plus, it can’t hurt.

At this point your system should be all spic and span and whatever niggling bit was bothering you should be dealt with. Of course, for the problem I had to deal with at work, there is one little thing extra, one thing more. Open Finder, click Go on the Menubar, then Go to Folder… and type in /Library/Printers and click Ok. You’ll see a list of folders. In this list find the folder named “hp” and KILL IT WITH EXTREME PREJUDICE. Y’arr! This !@#$ folder is at the very center of my hatred for all that is Hewlett-Packard. I’ve started to unceremoniously refer to them as Fudge Packard. Bastards. Anyways, killing the folder does the trick, it clears everything up and Mountain Lion can download software from Apple again for the HP Drivers – blah blah blah. I’d rather just get a sledgehammer and pound the HP LaserJet 1505 into foil, but hey, you have to cope or have some sort of attack. I regret buying HP. I regret the LaserJet 1505. What a piece of crap. Steaming.

Addressing Balance In The Force

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You can’t really have a lot of negative things in your head just mobbing out all the good things that also have happened. To that end, today I have a particular real humor-based life preserver brought to me by the Apple Spotlight twitter account. Pictures are worth a thousand words, and this is worth a million billion bajillion lulz:

 

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This pleases me.

 

LJ – Cheap Chinese Plastic Crap

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From 12/14/2007

It all began earlier tonight. We drove into our driveway with our fake christmas tree in the front window stooped over like a drunken sailor. We discovered to our chagrin that this plastic base had warped and cracked from the stress of holding up this fake tree and all it’s ornaments and had toppled while we were out.

I had a flash of handiness and decided to haul out to the garage and set up the power miter saw. Once I figured out how to get the spring arm to pop up so I could use it it was just a matter of finding two 2×4’s that were long enough. I found two, exactly 16” long. I left one alone and cut the other in half, allowing for the 2×4’s width, which is 3.5. Silly wood. So I cut the 2×4’s to shape and headed downstairs. How to get these to turn into a christmas tree stand was a challenge. I needed something with strength to hold all the pieces together. The perfect way would be to cut a groove into both original 2×4’s so they would fit together like a matched set, but I don’t have a radial arm saw to accomplish that feat, so instead, and without the next option which would have been nails and metal brackets and reinforcing triangles I decided to toenail the pieces together, used up about 15 nails, not a pretty or proud job, but it did the trick. I thought about drilling the hole for the post that the fake tree was going to fit into and it hit me, I just needed another 2×4 small piece on top that could ride over the base and keep it together. I pounded 15 more nails into the bastard and at that point it was acceptably together.

Then came the hole. I had regular drill bits that went up to “big size” but that wasn’t anywhere near the hole I needed to make. I found a kit with hole bits and pulled the 3/8ths, the 5/8ths, and the 7/8ths bits. I ran upstairs and put the bits in the dead plastic stand and the 7/8’s just barely fit and rotated around. The post was just shy of 7/8ths. I got my “dangerous and cheap” drill since my cordless drill is deader than a doornail and put the bit in, then went to town. It dug out a nice pretty hole right in the center where I wanted it. I shook the drilled wood out and brought it upstairs. The tree? Fwomp! Down into the hole nice and easy, like it was meant to be there. The wooden stand? Pleasantly hiding just underneath a christmas tree skirt.

That sum-bitch won’t fall over now! Of course if anyone with an ounce of woodworking skills or handiness took at look at it they’d likely puke a little in their mouths. Nails jammed in, some pounded down with about 1/4” of their heads laying on the wood (I got impatient) and still other ones with nice round impact impressions of the hammer I used to drive the nails. It’s NOT PRETTY, but dammit, it’s solid and I dare say could survive a hurricane, especially since I unloaded about 35 nails into the damn thing, it’s 80% 2×4 and 20% nail. 🙂

I am quite proud of myself, even if it’s an eldritch horror of woodworking. 🙂