PhotoSmart 8150 Cartridge Selection

HP doesn't help simplify selecting cartridges. It's been awhile since purchasing a cartridge, so looked in the original manual. Not much help there. The manual lists cartridge numbers like "343" and "348". When you examine the store shelf you see numbers like "95" or "96", and I don't see a ready source to translate these numbers ... hence, this posting. Let's see if the cartridge information can be made a little simpler.


There are 2 cartridge carriers, the left, and the right.


Left carrier
The left carrier can hold one of 2 cartridges:

• 95, Tricolor, with a larger capacity, 660 sheet rating (#343, I think)
• 97, Tricolor, with a lower capacity, 560 sheet rating (#344, I think)

Right carrier

The right carrier can hold a few different cartridges:

• 96, Black, with a larger capacity, 860 sheet rating
• 94, Black, with a lower capacity, 560 sheet rating (#339, I think)
• 99, Photo color, 130 sheet rating (#348)
• 100, Grey, unknown sheet rating (#100)

That defines the set of cartridges that are compatible with the PhotoSmart 8150. I leave the reasons for selecting the various options as an exercise for the reader.  ;-)  Most choices appear obvious. The 100, Grey cartridge is a mystery to me. Never used one.


The old cartridge numbers, used on page 15 of the original printer manual, are in parenthesis. My mapping is a best guess.

Linix Mint 12 on an HP dv7

Linux Mint? Why not the latest and greatest Ubuntu? After all, I've been using Ubuntu for several years. A simple, one word answer ... Unity. 

• Way too much UI fluff in the way of getting things done.
• OK, Unity is too heavy, so give me the old stuff. Nope. Apparently not possible.
• Well then, let's give Gnome a try on Ubuntu. No real improvement over Unity. Too much kruft in the way.
• Xfce on 11.10 was a workable configuration. Very similar to the pre-Unity environment.

Hmmm. I've wanted to try Linux Mint. Looks like this is the right time. What draws me to Mint?

• Options for a simple deskto
• Built from Ubuntu, so has the same packaging system and should enjoy virtually an identical ecosystem to Ubuntu
• It is possible to easily "upgrade" from a 11.10 installation to Mint 12. On a 11.10 system, boot from the Mint 12 DVD and choose "Install".

Ubuntu 11.10 installed just fine. The upgrade to Mint 12 also worked great. The only feature that appears to be missing is being able to vary the display brightness. On both Ubuntu and Mint, the adjustment bar appears on screen, but the brightness is not actually modified.

Canonical ... please listen ... give us better options than Unity or Gnome 3. I love you folks, but just can't work in those environments. I need better options.

OS X: Color ls() output, other shortcomings

I'm pretty new to the Mac.  Due to work demands, I've picked up a MacBook Pro.  I am also a long time Unix and Linux user and find myself frequently trying to get the Mac to behave more like the  *ix environment that I love.  My top 3 most annoying Mac'isms

• Focus follows cursor - No apologies, I like the behavior and have employed it for a long time.  Apparently, it is not possible on OS X.  Really?  My research on the web says "nope, can't do it".  There is a quite an exhaustive assessment of the topic.  Check there for the details.
• Window re-size - What?  I have to grab that little triangle in the one window corner?  Why, oh why can't I grab any corner or any edge?  
• Window move - Holy crap.  Only the title bar?  No, this cannot be true.  Other platforms allow a button and click combination to move a window, anywhere in the window.  I used "alt-left click" on Linux.  Another feature that that appears unavailable on the Mac.

These are all "little" things, right?  Perhaps.  But, they impact me hundreds of times each day.  They certainly seem like unnecessary shortcomings, since we know there is Unix and X under the covers! They affect my productivity ... and peace of mind.   C'mon, Apple.  You guys are definitely quality technical people, without a doubt.  The Mac platform is beautiful in many ways.  Please, massage this beautiful product and accommodate a greater degree of configuration and flexibility.

I found, and am using, BetterTouchTool, that helps with my resize and move gripes, but only when using the touch pad.  Would be an excellent solution if the same features were supported with the mouse.  I don't see a way to accomplish.  Let me know if I've missed something!


OK, OK.  Onto configuring color with ls() ...
The CLICOLOR environment variable controls the behavior.  Add this line to your .profile.  Depending on your configuration you may use a .bashrc or other appropriate "rc" file).

export CLICOLOR=cone25

That should work for your normal, OS X terminal window.  If you use a different terminal session, the "cone25" value may not work as desired.

VirualBox 4.0.2: Guest Additions needed for the Mac OS X

A VirtualBox guest OS is practically unusable unless the Guest Additions package is installed.  It allows a practical video configuration, access to the USB hardware, and more complete integration with the mouse.  There are probably other features I'm not listing.

Bad news ... Guest Additions are not currently available for OS X.  Yeccccch!

I have used VirtualBox on Linux host systems with XP guest OSs and have had good results.  Now, I have a Mac and want to accomplish the same.  No joy.   VirtualBox documentation, chapter 14 says:

VirtualBox does not provide Guest Additions for Mac OS X Server at this time.

http://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch14.html

If you find the package, please let me know!  Trying to save you a little searching ...

Error: "ActionController::InvalidAuthenticityToken"

Other resources have documented the details of why the error occurs. Rails is preventing a Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSFR). The resources were a little out of sync with my experience. Suspect the difference results from my environment configured with later SW versions.

Resources

• Blog
• Forum

Environment

• jruby -v : jruby 1.2.0 (ruby 1.8.6 patchlevel 287) (2009-03-16 rev 9419) [x86-java]
• jruby -S rails -v : Rails 2.3.2

Edit the file app/controllers/application_controller.rb and remove the comment character from the line beginning with "protect_from_forgery :secret => ".

Notes

• The file name is application_controller.rb, not application.rb, as mentioned in other resources.
• Added protect_from_forgery :only => [:create, :update, :destroy] to the application_controller.rb file.
  

I am new to RoR. Misperceptions may be showing through on this topic?

Jruby on XP functioning. Good progress.

Seems the required gems are installed. See dbc-adapter, jdbcmysql-adapter, and jdbcmysql are all listed.

E:\InstantRails\rails_apps\depot>jruby -S gem list --local

*** LOCAL GEMS ***

actionmailer (2.3.2, 2.0.2)
actionpack (2.3.2, 2.0.2)
activerecord (2.3.2, 2.0.2)
activerecord-jdbc-adapter (0.9.1)
activerecord-jdbcmysql-adapter (0.9.1)
activeresource (2.3.2, 2.0.2)
activesupport (2.3.2, 2.0.2)
jdbc-mysql (5.0.4)
rails (2.3.2, 2.0.2)
rake (0.8.4)
rspec (1.2.0)
sources (0.0.1)

Excellent! jruby -S rake db:migrate now creates the tables in MySQL. Progress, at long last.

Enjoying success with:

• jruby script/generate scaffold product title: string description: text image_url:string
• jruby script/server
• The basic CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) functionality works

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Very nice, finally! Appears I now have a functioning ruby. Can now concentrate on web development issues. Sweet.

Jruby on XP

Visit the Jruby site. Follow those directions. http://wiki.jruby.org/wiki/Getting_Started
Download a copy of the Jruby distribution, a .zip, for XP from that site. Version 1.2.0, which is ruby 1.8.6 patchlevel 287. Extract that archive into a directory, e:\jruby-1.2.0.

• Add e:\jruby-1.2.0\bin to the %PATH% variable.
• Add %JAVA_HOME% variable and set to c:\Program Files\Gava\jre1.6.0_07

Try to run jruby script\server. An error message: Please 'gem install -v2.0.2 rails'. Success. All the action* stuff is installed. All the ri and RDoc stuff reports successful installation. This is good stuff so far.

Try jruby script\server again. Failed because it could not run sqlite3. Fair enough. The app was built with MySQL. Let's gem install mysql.

ERROR: Error installing mysql:
ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension.

Rummaging around searching for solutions ... perhaps the MySQL connection is supported through the Java layer? Others say the JDBC adapter must be used. Let's try,
jruby -S gem install activerecord-jdbcmysql-adapter

Three things seem to have installed successfully, along with the ri and RDoc doc; activerecord-jdbc-adapter-0.9.1, jdbc-mysql-5.0.4, activerecord-jdbcmysql-adapter-0.9.1

Enough for today. More tomorrow.