Epson WorkForce 545/645 Series incapable of printing its own User's Guide

A retired Fire Dept Battalion Chief called me recently to help out with a few computer problems, mainly related to the new fully-featured Epson printer/scanner/fax he'd just purchased. I'd assumed he needed help installing it, but when I got there he'd already had that covered. His (odd, I thought) request was to help him print the detailed User's Guide to the printer, which (despite the inclusion of a "quick start guide" and a full-color brochure hard-selling the printer he'd just bought) was not included. 


We went to the support site, and found a link to the User's Guide. The manual looks like this but you can't print it! You'd have to expand all the little +'s and expand some more and some more and click print on each individual page in order to accomplish this. 

So I called Epson to request that they email us a PDF file, or some printable version, and the kind voice of Sanj from Pakistan told us over the speakerphone, "No, there are none, and please you should check the installation CD". When I explained that the CD only contains an HTML link (to the same page linked above) and no actual file for the guide, he asked why Chief wanted to print a 100+ page technical user manual...

He's interested in all the detailed features and in learning about the Epson product so he can access them, naturally. 

So why then does he not visit our site and search for it that way?

Because he likes to read the actual manuals, and print things out; that's a reason he bought a printer.

email accounts, mail programs, and The Stamp

Hi Adam --

Hope you're well.  I started teaching at TheUni this semester and am forwarding my .edu mail to my .com account.  I'm just wondering if I need to set up my Uni email in my email program.  It does forward, but I don't have a separate icon for TheUni email account.  Part of the problem is I don't know if it's a POP server, etc, and couldn't seem to determine that.  What is the advantage of having the separate icon/account?

Thanks,

Jane

adam@computersWTF
to Jane

Hi Jane-

It's purely a personal preference. Think of the Mac Mail program (aka The Stamp or technical term: mail client) as an old mail room in a big office building- sorting, filing and ultimately providing you with your mail as you like it. If you want to have a separate "box" for each of your accounts, each with it's own inbox, sent folder, and so on, then Mac Mail can do that. If you want to have TheUni forward their mail to another account and come in that way, you can obviously do that too as that is your current setup. Each computer has a different mail client (or more than one, like Thunderbird, Outlook, etc), as do mobile devices and tablets. Conversely, web-based email can be logged into remotely from any device or computer with Internet access. Most email accounts can be accessed either way, although some companies/orgs choose to go with one or the other.

Best,

Adam

...but what happens when your car kills someone?

Tom Vanderbilt's new Wired cover story on robotic cars is a must read:

The last time I was in a self-driving car—Stanford University’s “Junior,” at the 2008 World Congress on Intelligent Transportation Systems—the VW Passat went 25 miles per hour down two closed-off blocks. Its signal achievement seemed to be stopping for a stop sign at an otherwise unoccupied intersection. Now, just a few years later, we are driving close to 70 mph with no human involvement on a busy public highway—a stunning demonstration of just how quickly, and dramatically, the horizon of possibility is expanding. “This car can do 75 mph,” Urmson says. “It can track pedestrians and cyclists. It understands traffic lights. It can merge at highway speeds.” In short, after almost a hundred years in which driving has remained essentially unchanged, it has been completely transformed in just the past half decade.

As an extremely alert and aware driver this scares me quite a bit, but as a tech-geek I'm completely mesmerized by the idea of being able to read on a drive somewhere while knowing that the computerized-cars are probably (more than) twice as safe as all the bad drivers out there.

I just can't help the nagging thought: what will happen when someone's car freaks out (or worse, is hacked into) and goes on a rampage?

Google's new Terms of Service leaves us shrugging

In the handful of reviews of Google's new TOS we've looked into, it all comes back to one sentiment expressed in just one of the reviews [Bianca Bosker's piece on HuffPo] - what are you gonna do, not use any Google Products or Services? That would be like trying to avoid vegetables at this point- doable but extremely arduous. And really, why? If marketing bothers you that much, train your brain to avoid its influence.

iPhone, call waiting, and disconnect problems

When I'm on my Verizon iPhone 4, and get a call waiting beep:

If I press IGNORE, it doesn't send the 2nd caller to voicemail (VM) as stated in Apple's out-of-date support doc, but instead it beeps AGAIN interrupting my phone call, and sometimes even a THIRD BEEP before it finally goes to voicemail. This is also annoying for my caller as they have to wait 6 or 7 rings before VM picks up.

If I accept the 2nd call, it puts the first on hold, and I am able to SWAP calls / switch back and forth, or even MERGE calls. However, I am UNABLE TO END only one of the calls, regardless of whether or not I merge them. If I press END, it disconnects all calls. There is no option to END only one of the calls.

If I am simultaneously on with 2 callers (merged or separately) and one of them hangs up, my line remains tied up and my on-screen menu continues to display options for simultaneous-dual-calls.

For example: I'm on the phone with Jack, and I put him on hold to quickly take a call from Jill; after she hangs up and I switch back to Jack, anyone who tries to call me receives a busy signal. In addition, my on-screen menu continues to display options to merge the two calls, or swap back to Jill (who's no longer there and if I do, I get dead air silence). As I stated at this point I cannot "END" only the call with Jill (or I risk disconnecting Jack as well) and here's the strangest part: Most of the time in this kind of scenario, when I switch back to Jack I'll just leave the "2nd" line tied up after the call is completed... and when I do finally wrap up the call with Jack and hang up (thereby disconnecting both lines) - the SECOND ("dead") LINE CALLS ME BACK! The phone rings with an UNKNOWN number, and when I answer it's just the dead air silence calling. If I let it go to voicemail it leaves me a 3+ minute voicemail message of nothing but white noise. [OK OK audio-sci geeks, I know dead air, white noise, and silence are different sounds but youknowwhati'msayin here.]

I called Apple Support and they said for CDMA (Verizon) phones they can't troubleshoot call waiting issues. Just spoke with a tech at Verizon Support, but unbelievably he told me the following:

1. This is not unusual.

2. These are fairly common issue complaints.

3. This is not something that can be fixed, but is programmatic to their network.

Apparently this is not only just how it is, but it's actually working as it's supposed to! The rep said he will file a complaint with the internal IT group at Verizon who deals with the coding of the voicemail and the way it works with the phones, but could not transfer me.

He speculated that the next (4G) iPhone will have working call waiting features, as Verizon's forthcoming LTE (all 4G) network treats voicemail and call waiting completely differently than CDMA.

Sigh.

To follow this discussion, visit Apple's Support Forum and view the original post and all replies:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3542384?start=0&tstart=0

Hewlett Packard packs a punch

Had to share this recent Hewlett-Packard experience from a wonderful client of ours:

I paid extra for the 2 yr in home tech warranty [on a less-than-year-old HP desktop PC]. They refuse to send an in home tech unless I let guy in India with script walk me through a dis-assembly and diagnostic.  Appearantly the "in home techs" can't diagnose--- only come with a spare part and insert. Worthless warranty. I gave up arguing after 3 hours on phone.

I bought another cheap desktop tower and am sending this broken one in by mail for and overhaul......

Awesome plumber

OK, so not exactly computer-related, but LA has a superstar plumber and his name is Robert Jaramillo. Between Robert and his uncle Russell (it's a family business started by Robert's late father twenty-plus years ago) they can fix anything at a totally reasonable price. Bobby's Plumbing comes highly recommended.