AirPrint Server with Ubuntu - The easy way

With an AirPrint enabled printer, you can easily print over wifi from your Iphone, Ipad, and Ipod Touch.

If you don't have a printer, or your printer is on its last leg, the easy way is to buy a $69 HP Wifi Printer, Scanner, and Fax.


However, many of us like our printers and don't want to buy another. So here is the real easy way to make your old printer AirPrint compatible.

You need to have:

• Ubuntu installed (10.10 was tested)
• The printer working in ubuntu. Usually not difficult, but it is beyond the scope of this blog post.

Steps:

Copy and paste this line into the terminal. You can find the terminal by clicking applications, accessories, terminal.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:hughescih/ppa && sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install airprint-daemon

This will ask for your password to continue. After entering the password, you will see hundreds of lines fly by.
Finally open your printing manager by clicking System, Administration, Printing
Open the printer server settings by clicking Server, Settings
Check the box for 'Publish shared printers connected to this system'
Check the box for 'Allow printing from the Internet'
Click Ok.

Thats it. You can now print from your iphone, etc.

This is based on the blog post here: http://gtk-apps.org/content/show.php/Apple+AirPrint+Support+for+Ubuntu?content=136756

Major surgery! My hack job on my network switch to make my life better

My switch has always been noisy. However starting yesterday it has been ridiculously loud thanks to an aging fan.

I pulled the switch off the wall and tore it apart to dig out the fan and dust everything off. Turns out I only had one fan the right size but it was obviously not powerful enough for the job. My other choice was to step up to a fan I keep stocked... the standard 80mm case fan.

I grabbed my trusty drill bit from back in the days where I would put 80mm and 120mm fans on the side of my case (they didn't come on the side back in those days.) and got to work.

I made sure I found a spot on the switch cover where I would have enough clearance with the internal components to fit the new fan. Then I got a punch and hammer to make an indent for my drill bit.

Ouch. As soon as the inner drill bit made it through the amazingly thick sheet metal, the bit grabbed and spun it right out of my hand cutting me in the process. I'll live, thanks for the concern.

Well it took a few minutes of drilling to get the bit all the way though, then I took fan grill (I stock them too) and used that to mark the location of the screw holes. Using the punch once more I made my indents, then drilled all the holes. The holes can be bigger than the screws if desired because the fan grill will actually be there to hold the screw.

Finally I put the fan and grill in place, had to adjust the wiring order on the fan plug (the old plug was reversed in polarity) hooked it all back up and tried it out. Now the switch is quieter than ever before!

I know a few potential issues with what I did. 

• The airflow will not be identical to the old fan but I did close off the old fan hole with clear tape to try to keep it close to original. A baffle inside the switch could be easily constructed with duct tape to direct the air in the exact same path it had before but I think this is close enough.

• The old fan was 5 volts and the case fan is 12 volts. From what little I understand this is not an issue, the fan will just turn slower than if it had all 12 volts.

• The old fan was .24a @ 5 volts. The new fan is .13a @ 12 volts. I'm not sure what the final draw is though since the new fan isn't actually running at 12 volts. I'm more concerned about startup current.

• Finally I know a larger fan moves more air at less rotations but I have no way of knowing if I am moving more or less air than before. I don't want to over heat.

That's all folks. And yes my network is a mess. I sure don't have time to clean that up.

I'd like to share my annoyance with Ubuntu

Ubuntu is a superb replacement for windows. The hardest part about using a new system though is getting used to it's quirks. Windows has a ton of quirks but we've all had it for so long we are used to them. So I use Ubuntu on a daily basis and I'm used to the quirks, there aren't that many. When I am forced to use windows (@ work) the quirks I was once used to and accepted now annoy me more than anything Ubuntu may put me through.

So to say the least, I'm not giving up Ubuntu, but just sharing some of the what to expect.

I use an internal USB card reader to get my digital files off my camera and into the computer. A few days ago I had several memory cards to copy. I got through the first one, right clicked on the card and chose eject. On to the next one, when finished I ejected it too. On the last card my mouse slipped and I clicked 'Safely Remove Hardware'. Wow, this 50 pixel slip caused the entire card reader to be removed from the system. The only way to recover after this is a REBOOT.

It seems that this 'Safely Remove' Option was added here:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/404185

Now it's causing more bug reports to show up:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/nautilus/+bug/525190
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gvfs/+bug/504440

I don't see the point in allowing the entire reader to be disconnected. I mean there is no data to loose on a reader. The original solution seems to be about making ipod and kindle users happy. They also seem to be focused on determining if the drive/reader is internal or external as a solution. Even if it was external, I wouldn't want to unplug and replug the reader every time I switched cards.

A suggested solution (perhaps easier said then done).
Have a single Eject option. Don't completely remove the hardware/reader from the USB bus. However allow devices to be identified in the USB manager or nautilis to be flagged as 'Remove Completely' on a user preference basis. And automatically flag the kindle and the ipods, but still allow the user to unselect this as the option later for these devices. Any flagged device should then be completely removed when 'Ejected'. Then the majority of devices are simply unmounted without causing the user a lot of pain.

Well, that's my Ubuntu pain of the month. Surprisingly while trying to find the solution, I came across windows users with a similar problem. It surprised me to find windows problems in the first page of google results although I included 'Ubuntu' as a keyword.

Wow. Now this would be a great mini server!

I'm a little slow catching some news, but looking at the specs of the Fit-PC2i has me amazed. This tiny computer (4"x4.5"x1") packs a 1.6ghz Atom processor, two LAN, one wifi, a 2.5" drive bay and more. It only consumes 6 watts of power and has everything you need to setup your own firewall, router, or an Ubuntu FTP server ;). You are going to have to wait a little unless you can settle for the Fit-PC2. The older model doesn't have dual lan ports, but is nearly the same machine.

http://www.fit-pc.com/web/fit-pc2/fit-pc2i-specifications/

Mini-server follow-up.

I got my mini server together and everything is working right. I noticed the motherboard had a capacitor that obviously struck the heatsink and I worried that the board may have been DOA. I decided to try it anyways and luckily it all worked.

The Rosewill case I ordered from newegg is nice. It is very cramped after getting it all in there but it fits. I realized Rosewill designed the case to easily accept a 2.5" harddrive as well and I would recommend that instead of the 3.5" WD Blue. The Blue drive is wonderful and cool, but it just makes this case that much more tight. The only gripe I have about the case is the CD rom bay is uncovered. If you don't put in a CD, when you push the front latch you will be greeted with a big hole in your case.

Power. One of the reasons I wanted the smaller computer was to save power over the old computer. The old computer was a Dell Dimension E520 (Intel Core 2 Duo, etc). The Dell is nice except it is huge and it sucks some power. According to my killawatt the dell sucked 90 watts at peak, and 65 watts idle. The new computer sucks 30-35 watts consistently. I was surprised actually by the low wattage of the dell. But I still have a savings and a lot more space!

Thanks for reading.

Building a Mini Computer at a Mini Price

I have been excited by the idea of Mini ITX computers recently. These motherboards usually have everything built on them with the exception of drives and memory. So put one of these in a case, add some drives and a stick of memory and viola, you have a great little computer. (hopefully cheap too).

Mini ITX motherboards start at around $60 for older models and go up to about $200 for some graphics beef. However I have really liked Intel's newest offering (Released 12/09). The Intel D510MO Mini ITX. This latest motherboard boasts a 64bit Dual core hyper-threaded 1.6ghz CPU. It's not the fastest but it draws under 20watts of power and is passively cooled, meaning no fans are needed. The price of this board is supposed to be around $75 but this early in the release, the cheapest I could get one is $79 + $9 shipping from mini-box.com. Mini-Box also sells one of the smallest ITX cases too, the M350.

With this design it's possible to build a decent computer with no moving parts. I however decided I would spend a little less and opted for a 250GB WD Blue hard drive and a Rosewill Mini ITX case. Solid State drives are still a little pricey.

Since my purpose is for a low power linux server with nice upgrade options, I skipped the DVD drive. I have an external DVD I can use to load the OS and after that all upgrades and new software is installed online.

I managed to build the entire computer for $220. Though I know some of these prices may fluctuate and it could cost up to $260 for the same computer depending on the day of the week.

Here is my parts list (shipping included) as well as possible upgrade options for those who want them:
Intel D510MO Motherboard/CPU $90
Rosewill Mini ITX Case $40
Crucial 2GB DDR2 800 $40
Western Digital 250GB Blue SATA drive $45
Ubuntu Linux 9.10 - FREE!

Total $215

Optional Upgrades:
Internal Mini PCI Express Wireless $15
Wireless Antena - Get the antena and pigtail cable from the bottom of the wireless card page. about $10
Slim Internal DVD Reader/Writer $45
Broadcom HD Mini PCI-E decoder Card $25 on ebay.
m350 Case and powersupply $79