Monday, August 24, 2009

The madness of Windows Vista and printers

My printer is connected to a Linux / Ubuntu computer running CUPS, which is software to offer a printer to other computers for easy setup. I haven't had a problem setting up printing from Ubuntu and Windows XP computers. When I set up printing from a Windows Vista computer, it was initially frustrating. But I eventually figured out how to do it, and it worked fine for several weeks. All of a sudden the printer quit working on only the Vista computer. I initially suspected I mis-configured something in CUPS that Vista just wasn't as tolerant of. But after lots of fiddling and googling for answers, in desperation I finally decided to delete the Vista printer and reinstall it.

There are 3 ways in Vista to install a printer, and a 4th way if you are printing to a printer connected to a Mac or Linux computer.
  • You can use the default auto-detect feature.
  • You can click on "my printer wasn't listed," and add the correct port (in this case an IP port), then manually install the printer.
  • You can click on "my printer wasn't listed," and specify the printer location by IP address.
Be warned, in my experience, though Vista will act like it correctly installed a CUPS printer using the first 2 methods, the printer will never work. You have to specify the printer location by IP address initially, and then for good measure, go into printer options and disable "advanced printer features."

The fourth way I haven't tried, but I have heard good things about, is to install Bonjour for Windows from Apple. It is Apple's implementation of auto-discovery for devices and peripherals. Bonjour will then automatically find the printer on the other computer and set it up to print from in Vista.

By the way, this isn't the first time I have had trouble with the Vista printer applet forgetting how to print to a printer. I've even had it randomly delete a printer from the control panel. So much for Vista being a better and easier to use computing experience. Of course we knew better already, didn't we.

Monday, August 17, 2009

More on Maxent, Sampo and Regent Televisions...

So this is my 3rd post on how crappy Maxent, Sampo, and Regent's televisions and their customer service is.

A couple of months after returning to us a reconditioned TV to replace the one they were to "fix" under warranty, the TV picture started turning off occasionally, though the sound would continue playing. To get the picture back, we would have to turn it off, and back on. Twice we have come home after departing the house with the TV off, and upon our return the TV screen was black but obviously on because of the faint glow and warmth radiating from the screen. We think this happens when the power goes out and comes back, though we have the TV plugged into a high quality A/V surge protector.

We discovered that if you are watching anything connected to the HDMI input, and switch to another input like the TV, then back to the HDMI input, it will only show a snowy/static picture until you turn the HDMI device off and back on. The same will usually happen if we turn on anything connected to the HDMI input before we turn the TV on.

We have cable TV with some digital and analog stations. The Maxent will sometimes not be able to receive a significant number of digital channels, and generally if you tune to a digital channel that is not receivable, any channel you tune to after that will not have a picture, but will have sound, until you turn the TV off and back on.

The DVD player connected to the component input of the Maxent TV developed a jittery picture, and on some scenes the sound gets scratchy. But the picture and sound are fine when the DVD player is connected to the Maxent HDMI input, or the component input of another TV. So I think the Maxent component input is going out.

Twice over a year's time, I have emailed the Maxent customer service address on their website telling them we have experienced some weirdness and asked if there are any firmware updates they would provide we could upload through the service port. I get a form email reply that Maxent doesn't provide email customer service, and to call that customer service phone number that no one answers.

And here is just an example of a stupid interface glitch. You can program it to skip inputs (TV, composite, component, PC, HDMI1, HDMI2). To me that means making them disappear from the menu right? No, the Maxent only greys it out. So you think it obviously skips those disabled inputs right? No, you can still select that greyed out input, it just won't work. So exactly what does the input skip function do? Yep, it just greys them out. How helpful!

These problems are known to Maxent here, and here. Once again I humbly suggest to steer well clear of this company's products.