HP network printers in Ubuntu Linux

So this weekend I discovered home printers are coming out right and left including internet connections. I had look a few years back for this and did not find it. I guess the home network/laptop explosion got the market on the move. I wanted one because with a four computer in the house I don't want the printer hooked to one. I also wanted one that work nicely with Linux (Ubuntu). After looking at some ads I saw an all in one hp photosmart C7280 that looked good. The printer and scanner where the parts I wanted and the networking. I did a google search on a c7280 and Ubuntu and turn up good new. I did not believe the scanner would work in ubuntu, but the blog sound good otherwise. After a quick to office max I had a print. I then setup the printer to connect to my wireless with WPA2 using the LCD on the printer. I scan and found the wireless and asked for the password and connected right up. I then browsed to the ip it got and found this


It turns out you can scan with no options from the web interface. I thought that was cool. Even if I don't have drivers I can scan in linux. I then install the package the blog talked about to see what would work in Ubuntu(sudo apt-get install hplip-gui). I went to System -> Preferences -> HPLIP Toolbox and opened it.


To my suprise I found the above. It was just a couple of clicks an the software found my print on the network. I could then print from any linux program that I tested. The software also provide a gui scanning program. It worked while and I was soon scaning a picture at 1000dip. The 300Mb file took some time over the wireless (5-10min), but it worked! Below is a screen shot of the scanner at work.


I also used a power meter and found the printer runs about 6 Watts when on and 5 Watts just plugin. Keep if unpluged to save power.

In the end I am happy. As long as the printer part works well it will be great. I have a cheap network printer/scanner with great Ubunt Linux support. I guess hp has great Linux support in general. It is good to know. I will support them for sure if they keep up the good work.

The Game that Became Portal

Narbacular Drop was developed as a student project at DigiPen by a team of developers called Nuclear Monkey Software. This game was noticed by Valve which eventually hired those students, and later went on to fully develop this game's core concepts as a commercial product now known the world over as Portal (teaser trailer).

You can download Narbacular Drop for free at the website. This game is much shorter than Portal, and can probably be finished in less than an hour. Noticable differences are that the character cannot jump, there is a turtle that you must steer over the liquid, and the player can also shoot portals through portals (this is important because some levels require this action in order to continue). There isn't as much hand-holding here either, the difficultly isn't as simple at the beginning as Portal's was. However, this game is JUST as fun as Portal, so check it out. Don't be a game snob just because it is Windows only or just because you've already played Portal.

Be sure to check out a few of the documents on the website too, including the Postmortem (c'mon, Spiffy McGee! Pull it together man!), the technical document, and whatever else you like. Since DigiPen is the college for training the world's next great game developers, these contain valuable insight as to how to bring a game together. They outline milestones, achievements, and specifications that must be met. None of this have I done for any of the games I've worked on in Pezad. No wait, I did some of this for Entrippy, I just forget to use it.

What other goodies did I find in the docs? Some of Narbacular Drop's "Product Competition" include The Adventures of Lolo, Stretch Panic, Ico, and The Legend of Zelda: Windwaker (woo!) (Game design document, page 4). Personally, based on the videos, I don't see it.

The programmer character pronunciation guide

There are so many names for so many characters and character combinations. Some of my favorites are asterslash (*/), slashterisk (/*), and bananas (for the parentheses).

All this and more at the ascii-table.com pronunciation guide. Useful!

Urbi

Why do the good things come to late? Or perhaps they did not.