Month: February 2008

Accolades For A Brother Product

In our current efforts to reduce the amount of clutter and “stuff” we have in our house, we recently traded in our old laser printer and scanner for a Multi-Function Copier (MFC for short).  You know, one of those machines that does it all: copy, print, scan, fax, etc.

After some research and figuring out what I needed versus what I wanted, I found and bought the Brother MFC-7820N.  Not only did it have (almost) all the features I wanted, but it was completely functional in Linux – a do or die criteria.

I have to say, I am impressed.  I’m able to not only print to this network printer, but anyone on my network can use it to scan, copy, print, and fax.  That’s right, I said scan and fax.  I walk up to the unit, specify what computer I want to send the scanned document to, and scan away.  It shows up on the computer via the network.  How freaking cool is that for a consumer-grade machine?!

I’m downright delighted with this machine – and that’s not something easily done.  So bravo Brother!  And give that support center fellow in Japan that I’m emailing back and forth with a little something from this Canuck – he’s doing a bang-up job.

For my reference, here are some resources I found useful when setting up the fax:

  • Test your fax’s sending ability for free – this site allows anyone to fax them something, and it will appear on the main page within a few minutes.  So I could fax something to them and verify they received it.
  • Test your fax’s receiving ability for free – this site allows you to upload a document (up to 3 pages, twice a day) and they’ll fax it for you anywhere in the US and Canada.  The free service pops a cover page on the fax with advertising, but for personal use who cares?  And they offer a premium service that removes the ads.  Just a really neat service.  I used it to fax myself something, to make sure I could receive faxes on my new fax number.

This was prompted by the fact that I just finished tonight setting up the fax capability after activating a distinctive ring on our phone line.  We have a fax number if you ever want to borrow it to send out a fax or if you want to send us something.

The Canadian Museum for Human Rights – Public Consultation

I’ve been passed a link to a public consultation on how to define and manage a newly-approved museum in Canada:

The creation of a new national museum, the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, is an opportunity to tell the story of the evolution of human rights in Canada and elsewhere. This story is a complex story to tell because human rights resonate differently with individual Canadians. A web-based public consultation will provide the opportunity to receive the views of a large number of Canadians and advice on the possible content and programming of this new institution.

There is a link there to a brief survey wherein you can have your say as to what you think about this new museum, what it should focus on, and how it should measure its success. It’s worthwhile and only takes 5-10 minutes if you give the questions a little thought.

Highly recommended! I think the museum represents an interesting opportunity for discussion and reflection (though I didn’t put reflection as my top priority for a museum – take the survey and you’ll see what I mean).

Stanford, You Had Me At $60,000.00

What an uplifting announcement from Stanford University today regarding changes to their financial aid program:

Under the new program, parents with incomes of less than $100,000 will no longer pay tuition. Parents with incomes of less than $60,000 will not be expected to pay tuition or contribute to the costs of room, board and other expenses.

The program also eliminates the need for student loans

Now the American and Canadian education industries are fairly different. But my limited exposure leads me to believe that access to higher education in the States is severely impacted by one’s ability to either pay or borrow large amounts of money. This announcement can hopefully be parlayed into wide-spread changes across the States and Canada.

Education, no matter what level, should be available to everyone, not just those that can afford to pay tuition and room/board.

The Story of Stuff with Annie Leonard

20 minutes.  That’s all I ask for.  A brief introduction, a story if you will, about the stuff we have in our lives.  Consumption is a national pastime in our culture and I believe we need to take responsiblity for that.  Oh, I also believe we need to change that.  Don’t run away, there’s cartoons!

I particularly like her Radio Shack analogy.  Yes, the radio costs me $4.99 – but was it really that cheap to make?  If it wasn’t that cheap, who actually paid the rest of the cost?

The Story of Stuff with Annie Leonard

It’s A Valentine’s Day Miracle!

After much time spent in my attic, discovering just how territorial wolf spiders can be … it is complete. I have moved back in time and and stopped using a wireless connection to connect my server to the Internet. I trudged backwards through the years to a time when good old copper wiring was used to connect machines together on a network, in the local area … a LAN if you will.

I simply got sick and tired of spotty connections, of slow transfer speeds, and, well, of slow transfer speeds. I listen to my music over that connection, and wireless was just not cutting it. I didn’t fall all the way back into the 90’s – I tried to be smart and used Cat6 cabling. This way when I eventually want to move up to gigabit speeds I won’t have to argue with that massive hairy beast in the attic. By the way, I already want to move up to gigabit speeds, in case you were wondering when that would be.

But why should you, the reading audience care? Well, no more slow streaming of music for one. You might find the site snappier and more responsive. No more unexpected periods of downtime either (whcih happened when someone stood in front of the server/TV – seriously). Essentially it should now behave like a server, rather than a roaming wacko machine.

Personally, I’m excited. But then I survived the trials with the black demon in the attic, so life just seems to be sweeter in every aspect going forward.

Birthdays!

Today is my 34th birthday – ta-da! In the spirit of birthdays, here’s a story about births – kind of. Those wacky scientists have gone and figured out how to make either sex unnecessary for conception.

Where will society take this? I can certainly see some benefits here, but again I have to ask – just because we can … should we? This may be valuable in some situations which then leads down the slippery slope of it being used in inappropriate situations. Human imagination can make for a slippery slope indeed.