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Getting an HP Laserjet 1020 to work with Ubuntu
Topics: Interesting Tech, GNU/Linux, Linux, Troubleshooting, Printers, HPLJ 1020, CUPS, Ubuntu I recently clean-installed Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn on my Acer Aspire 5672 laptop. Works beautifully. The only problem of note I found was getting it to work with a Hewlett Packard LaserJet 1020 printer. I configured the printer and ran a test page. But nothing would come out. I checked the cables. Even booted into another operation system on the laptop and did a successful test print. I finally got it to work after doing some Web searches. I figure if anybody else may have similar problems, I'd post about the fix. One of the particularly helpful sites was the Open Printing database LJ 1020 entry at The Linux Foundation site. It pointed me to the foo2zjs driver home page. The foo2zjs page had a prominent notice: *** DON'T USE the foo2zjs package from Ubuntu, SUSE, Mandrake/Manrivia, Debian, RedHat, Gentoo, MacOSX, or BSD! Instead, one should download the driver from the f002zjs site. I did that and followed the installation instructions. I tried again to print a test page. Nothing came out. That was a disappointment, but I wasn't going to give up. A few more searches for the CUPS errors I was seeing (such an error 1028, whatever that is) yielded a clue. The problem might be in the CUPSYS. I reinstalled CUPSYS via the Adept tool and, Bob's your uncle, the test page worked. J.D. Abolins |
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Article on Troubleshooting GNU/Linux Audio
Topics: Interesting Tech, GNU/Linux, Troubleshooting, Configuration, Audio The LinuxJournal.com site has a helpful article on Troubleshooting Linux Audio (part 1). J.D. Abolins |
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A Tartan Designed for the Debian GNU/Linux
Topics: Interesting Tech, Linux, Scottish, Tartans, Debian Beside tartans for families and clans, there are many tartans that are deisgned for organisations or other groups. Under now, I didn't know of a tartan designed specifically for fans of a particular Linux family of distros. Apparently, such a a tartan was designed for the DebConf7 conference for Debian fans to be held in Edinburgh, Scotland 16-23 June. Although I haven't seen the final version of the tartan, there is mention of the design on a Debian list and URLs for a couple of graphics of the design. The idea of having the pattern include "Debian" in visual Morse Code is clever. The DebCon7 has some more info in its press release about the tartan.
J.D. Abolins
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David Harding on the Value of the Command Line Line
Topics: Interesting Tech, Computing, Interfaces, Education Fellow Linux Users Group in Princeton (LUGip) member David Harding had a good posting on The Command Line is Dead; Long Live The Command Line on his blog. The posting was a thoughtful response to a suggestion somebody made about teaching GNU/Linux newcomers how to administer their systems via GUI (graphical user interface) programs. He makes several excellent points, especially the "three mistakes we make teaching newbies systems administration via GUIs instead of command line. The the third "mistake" is particularly interesting because it is a socal rather than a technical issue. --- Spot on! Some might say, "Why not speak in the 'simpler' GUI terms?" But those "simpler GUI terms" are really nowhere as simpler as they might seem. Also they don't translate that well across versions, distros, or platforms. By the way, as I am dealing with several blind people, I also find the GUI references tend to lock out visually impaired people whereas the command line approaches are more accessible and understandable. (Yes, there are some adaptive programs for GUI environments such as JAWS for blind people. But they are nowhere as simple as the screen-to-speech output approaches for command line environs. Command-line is also quite Braille-friendly. If you are interested in GNU/Linux for Blind people, see the Blinux project.) J.D. Abolins
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The Register on How Google Translates Without
Topics: Interesting Tech, Languages, Translation, Programming The Register has a fascinating article on how Google Translate service works. The article discusses a couple of ways of doing computer-based translation of human languages: sheer brute-force statistical extrapolation versus "understanding". Google's programmers went the statisitical route.The article also explores the BLEU(Bilingual Evaluation Understudy) metrics. I particularly liked this comment near the end of the article: --- Also, chess itself is not evolving, but languages usually do evolve. The rules aren't changing over the decades or developing regionalisms as do human languages. For example, English has regional variations and forms of slang. E.g.; "He was pissed last night" generally means a different thing in the US (angry) than in the UK (drunk). [Some more more examples of UK-US English differences] At least Google and others seem to be doing better than the computer translations in an old jokes about a computer to translate English into Russian and back. Somebody suggests putting in "Out of sight, out of mind." That quote is keyed in and out comes something in Russian. The Russian text is put though for a translation back into English. The output is "Invisible insanity". Still computer tools can be helps for people with some familiarity with the languages involved. J.D. Abolins
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C-Shock Mobile Phone Software to Help International Students with Culture Shock
Topics: Interesting Tech, The Networked World, Cultures, Education, Mobiles Nipan Maniar, an academic at the University of Portsmouth and a games technology expert has devised a mobile phone game to help international students with culture shock. The "C-Shock" game is expected to be avialable for download on the University's Web site later this year. "C-Shock"challenges the player to reduce the game's international student character's culture shock from 100 to zero. To do this, the player has to complete various tasks on the virtual campus, each task will present a scene, such as public displays of affection, that might be culturally jarring. For foreign students coming to the UK. the sight of women smoking, drinking and being friendly with the opposite sex can be jarring. But things less obvious to Britons and Americans, like the informality of teacher-student interactions can take a while for adjustment. Mr. Maniar, himself, knows about culture shock. He arrived in the UK from India five years ago as an international student. Now, he hopes the game will serve as an act as an “e-mother” or “mobile mummy” for new students. See also the BBC News report on the game. I believe this type of software will be a help for many students by giving a chance to "process" reactions to various cultural differences in a neutral setting. Much better than having an in-person awkwardness or shock trying to figure out what's going on. There is a potential, however, for an unintended negative use of such software. Some people railing against the Western ways may use the scenes as exhibits of Western "waywardness and depravity". But, given the popular culture exports of the West, "C-Shock" would be quite tame. J.D. Abolins
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Handy Guide to Enjoying Media (DVDs, etc.) in Any Region
Topics: Interesting Tech, The Networked World, Media, Entertainment The Register has a useful article explaining "How to enjoy media in any region". Nice introduction to viewing foreign DVDs and other media despite video format differences, region code locking, etc. J.D. Abolins |
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