USB Device Sharing: Solution for Old Printer Driver
I had a situation where we have a perfectly fine Epson Stylus Photo R2400 that is a few years old now but still a quality printer but we had been using it with 3 iMacs in a lab area. The Epson printer driver has some nicer features than the Gutenprint one that ships with the Apple drivers and we wanted to have the printer driver be set to that.
Via direct USB, the printer driver worked fine. The Epson driver was developed for PPC I believe and since it is such an old printer, it probably is the last version we will see. Rosetta also needs to be installed to handle it, but that is pretty-much automatic. So direct USB is fine and if you do printer sharing on the iMac that has a direct USB connection, you could get the machine that was piggy-backing on the sharing iMac to work with AppleTalk. But, when we upgraded to 10.6.x we lost AppleTalk on those iMacs and we lost the Epson driver nice stuff on two of the three computers. Sharing via Bonjour or IP did not work for the Epson driver, so we had to figure another solution out or re-purpose the printer.
So, enter the IOGEAR GUB431 4-Port USB Automatic Printer Switch
It can be used without software, but the software is a critical piece because it can be set to do automatic switching. After setup, we got the old R2400 going and the three iMacs into the switch. Each iMac sees the native USB so the driver is happy and shows all the options the users like and the USB switch is smart enough to handle switching between the computers when a print job is dished to it. The default software setup is to have the computer printing grab hold and own the printer for 3 minutes then let go, but I changed the settings so it would automatically let go when needed by other iMacs. It seems to be working well and we will keep testing it with users to see if it can handle what we need. I like the solution and well worth a try to keep a perfectly good piece of hardware going even if the vendor might have some driver issues across the network. We could have tried a print server on ethernet, but I was hesitant to try it since printer sharing wasn't even working. To clarify, one could print via Bonjour printer sharing, but NOT with the extra driver features Epson bakes-in to the USB type of connection which is a major deal for us.
The device has Mac and Windows software and seems very solid. So far, so good.
For more info checkout
Getting Symantec Backup 2010 R2 Agent on OS X 10.6
Symantec's Backup Exec 2010 R2 just came out and it was a huge deal for us because we have an Xserve we have had to have on a different backup cycle because Symantec did not support it. So, when R2 was released with 10.6 support, we were eager to get it going. Only problem is, the Agent didn't install.
After Anthony (works for me at Lick-Wilmerding) banged around on it for a while with Symantec Tech Support, there was still no resolution. We tested on my MacBook and it did install. It had to do with the kernel and 32 bit vs 64 bit. Symantec's installrams install script checks for x86 and if it doesn't find it, it kicks up a big 'Not Supported'
installrams on os x 10.6 (64 bit)
So, one way we got around it was to boot the machine in 32-bit mode for the install. Get into a Terminal and then
# sudo systemsetup -setkernelbootarchitecture i386
sudo systemsetup -setkernelbootarchitecture i386
and reboot. Then re-try the agent install. It will run. After you get some confidence, in backups, etc. you can kick it back to 64 bit
# sudo systemsetup -setkernelbootarchitecture x86_64
sudo systemsetup -setkernelbootarchitecture x86_64
and reboot. The beremote process will run and you will see it as a backup option in your BE Job Creation screens.
DISCLAIMER: Messing around with system internals can cause all kind of bad stuff, so if you are not comfortable with it, there is probably a reason so don't do it. Switching stuff like this can really do some crazy damage, so you are on your own and we just wanted to put it out there for those who are capable and willing to take the responsibility.
Personalizing the Kerio Connect Web Interface Login Page
Kerio changed some things in the latest major version beyond the branding of Mailserver to Connect. The way one could modify/personalize the login screen for users also changed. It used to be that you could just edit the .css file in a directory and insert a logo, etc. and it is similiar to the way it was done in pre-7, pre-Kerio Connect, but the files are different.
I am running Kerio Connect on OS X currently, but Linux installs should be the same path.
First files you want to backup and then mess with is located here:
/usr/local/kerio/mailserver/web/webmail/login/loginAdvanced.css
/usr/local/kerio/mailserver/web/webmail/login/loginBasic.css
These are the main css files for that login page. You will be able to change colors and backgrounds, etc. here. I always copy the default one off to the side as well as the customized one to have around after updates reset them back to defaults.
The other file is right next to the other:
/usr/local/kerio/mailserver/web/webmail/login/loginDialog.inc
This file controls the page title, and design content of the page. Always good to change some stuff so it isn't so generic.
Good luck and it takes some time to play with it to get it the way you want, but backup and always keep something off to the side for quickly being able to swap it back in after Kerio updates are played. I always create a directory in the vicinity that houses optimized logos, etc. and backup files just in case the get hosed during testing.
We took the bubble images and turned them black since we didn't want to mess too much with the design knowing that Kerio will stick to this for a while. I also did sym-links (ln -s) to the file names so those symlinks will get hit with the same filenames on upgrades but not the actual image files.
Synology DS410 Review and Experience
Here are just a few initial notes on setup of our Synology DS410.
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- Packaging
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- Out of the box
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- Installing the drives
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- Drives in and chassis off
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- Running LEDs
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- Building the RAID-5
Drives: Installing easy, one drive lower than fans, notice it runs a littel hotter too. To install the lowest of the 4 trays, you need to remove the back fans, but no biggie. The sleds are nice and simple. The kit comes with little baggies of screws so that is great. Also, the drive sleds slide right in and the SATA connector is aligned perfectly so you can just nudge the drives into place without any stress on the drive or sled. I went with some Western Digital 2TB Green drives. I have never had great luck with WD, but the power consumption on these newer drives seemed like a good call and the price point was great.
Operation: It is just amazingly quiet! Geez, you put in 4 2TB drives and you expect the thing to be noisy, but it is super quiet. This is a huge benefit for me as I hate the electronics sounds around the house, so this is great even though it will be the garage. I have a Nextstar simple RAID-1 with a couple of SATA drives and it is super loud in comparison.
Building the RAID: RAID-5 took forever due to size of the logical volume. I could have gone with the fast/rapid option, but anyone who has ever been burned by a bad RAID setup because they did the quick format only to have to do a full low-level format later knows why I went this route right off the bat.
Little Things: There are many things to appreciate throughout their setup process I wanted to note. After setting up a ton of different network devices, we all know changing network address is a pain because the device can get confused during the process and if the configuration is web-based, it can get messy when you lose contact with the old address. I was waiting for that to happen when I went from DHCP to fixed IP through the web GUI, but to my surprise it redirected to the new IP address (nice!). I am so used to HP, Cisco, Linksys and other that don't care to take this into account and force the admin to enter the new URL / IP address but when it is done right, it is so nice to see. Nice GUI touches throughout. They use AJAXy stuff, but not overdoing it. Linux support in documentation. Date and time already correct due to network time.
Initial Setup: The box came with CD with a Mac, Windows or Linux installer. I am really happy that Synology has Linux 'baked-in' to everything they do with their products and I really want to support that. My DS410 came with DS v 2.2, so had to upgrade to latest 2.3. I downloaded the updated firmware (v2.3) and in the expansion process, Archive utility expanded a little too much so it didn't keep the .pat file in-place for the GUI to recognize that the update was a legit firmware update. But, in going to their support site and FAQ, they had an article for that and I had change archive utility to not expand more.
Support Site: As mentioned above, their support website rocked. The FAQ area was great and exactly what I needed. They have this down.
Testing: after initial setup, I went to move the DS410 and the power cable was loose causing the DS410 to lose power. Plugged it back in and all was well! Copied some files across the network and the drives and throughput felt great. I also turned-on the various applications and have been testing with a great success on the internal network, from work and from remote on my iPhone using the Synology iPhone Apps. Being able to consolidate music and stream anywhere will be awesome the more I consolidate it on the Diskstation.
Very happy camper right now...
More On FFMPEG Settings That Work For Me
After more and more testing off HD video, I am finding the best bang for the download speed buck is sticking with qscale 10 and chopping the frames to 15 while sizing the image size down to hd480. Here is an example -
ffmpeg -i 051810Perf1.m4v -qscale 10 -s hd480 -r 15 051810Perf1.flv
Using a standard resolutuon that is based on 16 seems to be the best way to go. There are so many intricate elements to encoding video to flv to try and make it decent quality, but still large while having it load quickly for people with various speeds of broadband!