Past Meetings

July 22, 2009 - Hammondsport Mac Users Group

TOPIC: PRINTERS

ATTENDING: Tom B, Bill N, Bob S, Bob G, Don H, Jerry L, Diane B and Henry B.

A LITTLE HUMOR (very little): A Sans Serif font walks into a bar. The bartender says, 'Sorry, we don't serve your type here.'

Over lunch, the group chuckled at a short video called 'The First Ever Help Desk' (2:30s).

DEMO - Using an HP-940c Deskjet, Tom showed how to connect a USB printer to a Mac. (Read Mac 101 step-by-step).

COMMAND P - keyboard shortcut that opens 'print' dialogue for any file

HOW TO SAVE INK (and Paper)
-----Change printer's default ink 'Standard' presets to minimal black ink, then Save As.
-----Decrease Font size/ style when printing long web articles (Command -)
-----Turn off unwanted web images (Safari>Prefs>Appearance> uncheck Display Images)
-----For animated ad images, turn off Javascript (Safari>Prefs>Security>uncheck Javascript)
-----Use Print 'Preview' to view pages in job before you print. Eliminate unneeded pages or select specific pages to be printed rather than all.

INK - refilled cartridges can be purchased at great savings from a variety of on-line sites. Sometimes the refill colors are not quite as bright as the original manufacturer's ink. So choose what works best for your needs. Example: HP15 Black sells for $13. HP78 Color $18.

PRINTING PHOTOS - takes a lot of ink. If you desire beaucoup prints from your digital files, try one of the on-line photo companies such as Kodak, Walgreen, etc.

PDF files can be created by using the Print options (Command-P, select Options>PDF)

CREATE A DESKTOP PRINTER ICON - go to Desktop Menu> Go> Utilities> Printer Setup Utility> Create Desktop Printer (you can drag/copy it to the Dock as well). Read more here.

DRAG, DROP & PRINT a file in one step. Just drag a file onto the Printer Icon and it will automatically produce a single copy at Standard quality. (Hint: drag a Folder to the Printer Icon and it will print a list of the folder's contents.)

CUPS (Common Unix Printing System) - Test your printer using this built-in software hidden in every OSX system. For more info about CUPS, read this PDF.
1) Open Safari (No need to be on-line)
2) Type the following into browser address or just click on link: http://127.0.0.1:631/
3) Select 'Printers' in top menu.
4) Try Print Test Page.

CONVERT - Classic Apple Serial Printers to USB for use with newer Macs and OSX (10.2-10.5). For example, an Apple Color Stylewriter 1500 can be used for printing via the USB port on an iBook G3 or PowerBook G4. See step-by-step instructions.
-----Need Keyspan USA-28X serial-to-USB adapter
-----Need Foomatic for StyleWriter (download - 134KB)
-----Need ESP Ghostscript 7.0.7 (download 5.5MB
-----Read more about Foomatic and Ghostscript here.

LEGACY Apple Printer Manuals (1985-1997)

BONJOUR - software built into MacOSX which automatically finds and connects your Mac to any printers being shared wirelessly via an AirPort Base Station

iFELIX - great site for troubleshooting wireless printer setups for Macs & PCs

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OTHER DISCOVERIES

Find Out How - short video tutorials from Apple on a range of subjects
-----Example: How to Use Your Mac First Time

Why and how to format a disk to FAT32 for Mac and Windows use -CNET tutorial (3 min)

Laptop Aid (recommended by Bill N.) - computer parts eBay store - great prices - fast shipping -quality stuff - highly recommend A+++++ : )

World Clock (recommended by Bob S.) - see tallies by the second of just about everything happening in the world

Casio CD/DVD Label Printer (recommended by Jerry L) - prints permanent professional-looking labels directly onto your finished CD or DVD disk - cost $60

Graphene -imagine a carbon sheet that's only one atom thick but is stronger than diamond and conducts electricity 100 times faster than the silicon in computer chips.

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