printing on the HP Designjet 500

Printing on the designjet 500 has proved a little problematic as we are constantly coming up with "printer out of memory" errors. It has been mentioned that the "maximum detail" tick box fixes the issue but doesn't seem to fix ours. The print driver we're using is the "HP DesignJet 500PS42+HPGL2 Card"

After a few trials and errors I found there to be a limit on the physical size of the document you want to print. I have a 42" roll installed, for which there are no preset sizes so "Custom" size has to be made. When trying to print 42" by 58" it comes up with the error. But when printing the exact same document at 42" by 31" it works fine. I think the biggest successful print so far is 42" by 45". Here's a screenshot of the settings.

I've first tried changing the "print quality" settings but none seemed to fix the error. I did notice a slight difference in file size sent to the printer though.

After a few days, I set up the printer on another computer, still going through the print server, but this printer preferences looked different. It had an "avoid out of Memory" tick box, which upon clicking notified that processing would be done on the computer and may take a little longer. But, it worked! Here's a screenshot:

The only drawback was that when we tried sending a queue, they seem to all disappear! This could have been down to the Print Management system - PaperCut as I set up a release station for this printer (so no-one can print on our nice paper)

-Note 05/11/2012

Just a quick note. I noticed if I set it to Maximum Detail and unticked "autorotate" it seemed to print without problems.

Copying printers from one computer to another - windows

I've currently got a PC running windows server 2000 acting as a print server. It's essentially just sharing it's printers, but all computers in the department use the shared printers on this computer. It runs very well even though the computer is about 8 years old. We've also got PaperCut NG install with unlimited user license which gives each user £2 credit each week and deletes any jobs costing more then what the user has in credit. It's saved a lot of money down to wasted prints!

Just one problem we have now is that if this old computer fails, no one can print in the department. My plan is to copy the printers from this computer to another and if the server fails, simply rename the new computer to the old computers name and everything should go quite smoothly. The only thing which won't work is the print quotas, but this wouldn't take too long to fix.

So, after reading up on how other people do it (and also trying your simple copy and paste and other menu's on the computer) I found this where they talk about Print Migration Utility. Works like a dream. Load it up on the original computer, backup the printers to a cab file. Load the program on the new computer and restore it from the cab file. Takes a while as it installs all the correct printer drivers, but what amazed me was that it was from windows server 2000 to windows xp. Perfect.

Adding local users to OS X via Command Line - Apple Remote Desktop

Media wanted all apple macs to have a "Media" login, and show a list of users for the login window. As I'd done this before I thought it'd be pretty straight forward. I found the script I used to do an apple event previously:


dscl / -create /Users/apple
dscl / -create /Users/apple UserShell /bin/bash
dscl / -create /Users/apple RealName "Apple"
dscl / -create /Users/apple UniqueID 505
dscl / -create /Users/apple PrimaryGroupID 1000
dscl / -create /Users/apple NFSHomeDirectory /Users/apple
dscl / -passwd /Users/apple "apassword"

Unfortunatley it came up with an error:

Data source (/) is not valid

I figured last time I used the command it was on OS X 10.4.11, and we're now on OS X 10.5.8. I searched on the old internet and found this post, which might have been where I originally got the commands. I also found someone else having the same error. There was a few solutions, but by far the easiest was simply replacing the '/' with a '.'  . i.e.


dscl . -create /Users/media
dscl . -create /Users/media UserShell /bin/bash
dscl . -create /Users/media RealName "Media"
dscl . -create /Users/media UniqueID 505
dscl . -create /Users/media PrimaryGroupID 1000
dscl . -create /Users/media NFSHomeDirectory /Users/media
dscl . -passwd /Users/media "adifferentpassword"

The only problem I had after this (if you can call it a problem) was getting it to use a different picture. The one it seems to set is a networked picture. I did a little searching but found nothing. I'm sure the 'dscl' command could probably do it, but it seems to have a large man page on it, doh! If I get more time (unlikely) then you can get the dscl command to read the settings for a user already set up.

To set up the login screen I simply used the settings in Workgroup Managers computer management settings for "Login". Simple.

Anyway. this has definitely saved me a little time in the future!!

OS X change printer settings

So a printer IP address changed, and I print directly to it, so how do you change the IP address of a printer already in your printer list in OS X 10.5?

Well, I found this post which basically says you can change the /etc/cups/printers.conf file. This isn't too easy as first you need to change file permissions. I opened in textedit and changed the IP address only to find this did not change the settings, presumably some service needs rebooting. Looks like it works off the "printers.conf.0" file. So I eventually gave up and just re-added the printer!

Deploy Studio Set up RC20

So after my trials and tribulations with Deploy Studio RC20 we ended up uninstalling it completely so as to rule it out. But alas, it was needed and so upon reinstalling it, I found that I needed to set it up again. So refering back to my notes........ doh, didn't make many notes (in fact I only made one note), and so I am writing this 'note' on how I did it.

So, I worked out that you need to start the service before setting it up. It's because it gives itself it's name based on the server address, and does other things. So, after this I refered to the pdf I downloaded, which is a little out of date and NOT made by the people who made Deploy Studio (I have no idea why?). So basically:

This network sharepoint was setup previously

These groups were also setup previously

These settings are the default settings and haven't been tested. It did state in the PDF that the IP address should be that of the server, but this is incorrect. It has to do with multicasting.

So, hopefully this helps in the future. Let it be known that I have taken notes!

Deploy Studio set up and DHCP problems

I've been using Deploy Studio server for at least 1 year, perhaps 2, and it's fantastic. It's streamlined imaging perfectly, with workflows helping with different setups.

But all good things have their drawbacks, and upon upgrading Deploy Studio server from RC14 to RC20 everything appeared good, until two days later the Network Administrator rings me up and asks if he can unplug the Xserver, doh! It appeared to be the cause of much dismay for those two days, constantly giving all computers wrong DHCP information, for which is was not even meant to be giving!

We looked into it and the Xserver was responding to DHCP requests and giving "no-dns-server.example.com" as the dns server, overriding what the computers normally had set, which caused much much confusion. It was of course quite amazing that the network administrator managed to track it down to this problem, but I do suppose it took two days.

Upon closer examination, we noticed the DHCP service was "apparently" not running, but when we switched the "Netboot' service off it no longer responded to DHCP requests. So it was the Netboot service which was using part of the DHCP service, which Alan was sure was not 'usual'. Of course we were not sure what it did before the trouble started, whether or not it responded before of not, and whether it was just the fact it was dishing out the wrong DHCP information (IP Stack someone later told me) rather then no information.

We looked at the stopped DHCP service settings and saw one entry, which did have "no-dns-server.example.com" in it's properties. We deleted this entry, which was the only entry, but we still received responses. We measured these responses and it was now giving out the right information, which was better, but we would have preferred it not to give any information.

So to conclude, I whittled it down to the update from Deploy Studio RC14 to RC20, where Deploy Studio had changed, and perhaps added the "no-dns-server.example.com" entry the way Netboot used the  DHCP service.

iMac 21.5" - 11, 2 - 10.6.6 - Installation and deployment - Part 2

After NetInstalling OS X 10.5.8 on the new iMac I got a black screen. I still think it was worth a try.

So, I swapped the "fully updated" one for another new iMac so I could start at OS X 10.6.4. Tried Active Directory and it worked fine, as well as NHR login scripts. So I jumped to the conclusion that it was in the use of "Migration Assistant" that some 'damage' occurred. But, I was still cautious of updating the operating system any further. My plan is/was to update everything else, image it, then update the operating system to see if everything still works and carry on accordingly.

So, I had to start from scratch and installed:

• Final Cut Studio 2 - had to install at least 3 times to get 'all' the files
• Aperture
• Adobe CS5
• Adobe Acrobat Pro 9 - no serial number
• CeltX
• Audacity
• iWork 09
• Burn
• ClickView
• DivX
• Firefox 3.6.13
• Handbrake
• Office 2008
• Mplayer Ex...
• DeployStudio RC20
• NHRBasic
• Flip4Mac
• ARD Client 3.4
• PCclient
• Don't have "Logic" Disks on server
• VLC 1.1.7

Scanners:

• HP Scanjet 4370
• Nikon CoolScan 8000
• Scanwizard Pro 7.20

Printers:

• 5550
• 3110
• Canon Pixma IP4500
• Konica 7300

Tablets:

• PenTablet 521-3 - I think this covers all the tablets we have.

Forgot also to add "Media" user to the local users.

I partitioned the HD via Boot Camp Assistant and formatted it as HFS+ Journaled, named "Scratch Disk". Just going to make the first image now.....

.... and now just updated to 10.6.6, and student login worked just fine! So to conclude, "Migration Assistant" probably isn't good for transferring apps across operating system versions.

I am now imaging using Deploy Studio, but having to clear a bit of space on the server so it can fit on. The space taken on the iMac is 85GB, it needed more then 130GB (not sure how much more) for doing server side compression, I've now freed up 200GB on the server. 78 mins till it's uploaded, but then it'll take the old server, bless the poor thing, quite a while to compress the image.

... I left it over night and it did it. A nice thing to note is that if you use a local repository, I think it doesn't use the server to compress the image.

Worked a charm, and even worked with multicasting, yay.

iMac 21.5" - 11, 2 - 10.6.6 - Installation and deployment

Just received 10 new 21.5" iMacs, version "11, 2" ,  with 10.6.6 installed. Very nice, with quad core and 1GB Hard Drives, but having a few different issues has caused me to put them back to 10.5.8 temporarily until the main issues are fixed.

To streamline the operation I decided rather then starting from scratch, I would use Migration Assistant to transfer accounts and applications from the latest MacBook Pro which had everything on. This worked very well, but in heinsight might have caused the issues below. These problems need testing on a fresh install of OS X 10.6.6.

Issues which I encountered:

• Students on Active Directory require to put details in more then once before they can login, for machines only just switched on!! I think this is to do with how quick the mac boots up, too quick to authenticate itself on active directory?
• NHR (Network Home Redirector) scripts not running at login or logout.
• Deploy Studio netboot not working; firstly freezing on the white screen with the grey apple (no spinning wheel, and secondly crashing and rebooting when loading the next screen after the one just mentioned.

With the students active directory issue (not properly tested on staff accounts), there was not much to try as I think it is more of a problem with Active Directory Servers or how OS X 10.6.6 communicates with them, which is too time consuming at present (there is pressure to deploy iMacs within the next 2 days at most). I did some simply exploratory fixes:

1. take off of active directory and put it back on
2. make sure everything was up-to-date
3. refer back to solution 1.

When there is more time I shall need to look into this, but also future releases of the operating system will fix these. One thing I would like to do is try active directory logins on a fresh install of the operating system

With NHR I downloaded the latest, 3.2.6, uninstalled and reinstalled. What might have caused the problems is that I transferred files from a MacBook Pro running 10.5.8, which might have transferred some of NHR Scripts but not all. I also tried the full version which creates more alias's. Unfortunately not much info on NHR website, no-one else seems to be having problems. One thing I would like to do is try the scripts on a fresh copy of 10.6.6.

After these two problems and diminishing time I decided it was best to revert to 10.5.8 until time would allow these problems to be resolved. But, I did not want my efforts to go to waste, so I decided to make a disk image of the machine with its' problems so I can continue later. Little was I to suspect any more issues. I held down 'N' for netboot to DeployStudio and the machine froze on the white screen with the grey apple (no spinning wheel). Doh! The problem was probably because the last deploy studio netboot image was made on a MacBook Pro 15" now 2 years old.

I subsequently made a new netboot image (nbi) from this iMac and tried again, this time to get the spinning wheel but to crash on trying to load the next screen! This was probably due to outdated DeployStudio (currently using RC14 on the server and RC 15 on clients). I updated the client to the latest and the same happened again! So I updated the server, but alas, the installer said the minimum requirements were not met!! Server is running 10.4.11!!! Needs updating!!! So I go traipsing around for the last version to support 10.4.11 server, which was a lot of hassle. I'd like to not that the DeployStudio website (both Wiki and main site) are not good for troubleshooting, with only the latest versions available. I finally found RC20 here. Eventually worked! Yay.

After this I went to make an image of the drive but alas, not enough room on the server. So I used Boot Camp Assistant in OS X 10.6.6, and partitioned the drive - 160GB for OS X and the rest for "Scratch Disk". I then NetBooted again and used Disk Utility to make a compressed Disk Image and put it on the Scratch. Turned out to be 79GB, original was 106GB.

So now to put OS X 10.5.8 on, which will hopefully work on this machine!!

MacBook Pro 17" fsck error EXITED WITH SIGNAL 8

Rob brought in his 17" MacBook which wouldn't get past the white screen with a gray apple and spinning dotty thing. I tried resetting the PR RAM. Next I tried single user mode with /sbin/fsck -yf. Results as shown:

Rebuilding B-Tree
could not repair volume
/dev/rdisk1s2 (hfs) EXITED WITH SIGNAL 8

Looked this up and found quite a few people with MacBook Pro's having the same error, looked to be related just with the file system and probably not a hard drive fault (hopefully). As Rob needed stuff off the HD I found only one command which might fix it, found it here:

1. Boot off the OS X CD (reboot, hold C while booting).
2. The installer will load up, go to Utilities in the menu and run Terminal.
3. Type df and look for the drive that has your Mac system mounted---you'll have to unmount this. On my MacBook Pro, it was /dev/disk0s2.
4. Type umount /dev/disk0s2, replacing disk0s2 with whatever disk your OS lives on.
5. Type fsck_hfs -r /dev/disk0s2. If you umounted the wrong thing, it will complain that you can't repair a mounted drive. Go back and umount the right thing and repeat this step.

I found netbooting to a deploy studio image had the same results as using the install disk. Coinsidence or not it, it was disk0s2 that was the OS X partition.

Anyway, it came up with another error, saying volume could not be repaired. I put it in target disk mode and mounted it on another MacBook Pro. It came up saying that there are serious issues with the volume which cannot be repaired, it is only being mounted to retrieve files which should be backed up immediately.

I used Migration Assistant to get the user account across, and copied other erroneous files. I re-partitioned and re-imaged the macbook pro and all is well.

 

Adobe Acrobat OS X Active Directory Crash

So after fixing Adobe Acrobat admin password problem acrobat 8 loads up, but crashes after 20 seconds. I remember fixing this exact problem with Marketings' computer, Louise Webster I think.

Doh! I didn't write the solution in the blog!!! Lesson learned over and over again. So here's the brief explination I told Paul Jenkins by email:

Hi Paul,

I went over at 12 today to have a look. It appears to have problems on any active directory accounts which aren’t administrators. Its a permissions issue because acrobat (and lots of other programs) write temp files to the users home drive with the wrong permissions. The NHR program was installed but only redirects caches and fonts folders to the local drive, but still didn’t fix the acrobat problems. I found another folder which needed re-directing - “~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Acrobat/”

I made a folder in “/Users/Shared/Websterl/” and created an alias in her “/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Acrobat/” so it gets re-directed to the local drive. It only works on this machine for only her at the moment. If any more people have the same problem it would be worth adding an entry in the NHR program for acrobat.

I also noticed the programs and operating system weren’t up-to-date. I’ve set it updating adobe products. Louise said she’d get back in contact if she had any more problems. I didn’t get around to updating the operating system though.

Cheers

Stephen

I had a look at this folder and came up straight away with error! I remember not it was a folder within this folder:  /Library/Application\ Support/Adobe/Acrobat/9.0_x86. So after redirecting this one it works. So to fix this problem for everyone, NHR program will need to do this as well! I'll find out how to do that tomorrow!

Unfortunately, NHR the full program redirects too many folders, i.e. Microsoft User Data, so I'll have to adapt the loginhook, logouthook, clean script files etc. But then I can copy them to all machines and it should be fine.

OS X Active Directory login issues - delete parallels

I keep coming across Apple Macs which have been working in Active Directory and yet not letting users log in (or even use kerberos in Firefox). The general symptoms are:

• "Some network accounts available" at login screen (i.e. active directory not working, open directory working)
• not letting active directory users log in
• showing active directory working in "Directory Utility"
• letting you re-bind to active directory with no problems
• trying to use firefox with kerberos authentication comes up with "unable to ......." (can't remember the exact error)

I tried the simple fixes such as reset the PR Ram and fsck -yf. I was going to do a disk permissions fix but thought it'd take too long. I looked in the console and found a few kerberos errors.

I found that there were a few errors with the network settings. I found that because the image was taken from a computer with Airport, it hadn't updated this and thought the ethernet connection was in fact an airport connection. I deleted the "Chesterfield College" location and made it "automatic" but deleted the airport which fixed that. I also noticed two Parallels shared connection network interfaces, which were set up when I was trialing Parallels. On deleting these and logging out, active directory accounts worked. But on reboot the devices were remade. So there was some files somewhere which remade the connections. I thought it be quicker looking for help rather then looking for files, and on a quick search I found some helpful stuff. Before I come to that I did notice that Parallels was actually still installed. So I recommend first you delete Parallels from the Applications folder.

Next would be deleting parallels library files. I found this forum, and down the bottom they mention:

cd /Library/
sudo rm -rf Parallels
cd /Library/Preferences/
sudo rm -rf Parallels
cd /Library/StartupItems/
sudo rm -rf ParallelsTransporter
cd /System/Library/Extensions/
sudo rm -rf prl_hid_hook.kext
sudo rm -rf prl_hypervisor.kext
sudo rm -rf prl_vnic.kext
sudo rm -rf prl_usb_connect.kext
sudo rm -rf prl_netbridge.kext
cd /Users//
sudo rm -rf .parallels/
sudo rm -rf .parallels_settings

I of course did all of this, but I think just deleting the Parallels application should do the job.




.... well, had a little play around and it turns out it's best doing all of it and heres ARD send command thing (under root)



rm -R /Applications/Parallels
rm -R /Applications/Parallels\ Desktop.app
rm -rf /Library/Parallels
rm -rf /Library/Preferences/Parallels
rm -rf /Library/StartupItems/ParallelsTransporter
rm -rf /System/Library/Extensions/prl_hid_hook.kext
rm -rf /System/Library/Extensions/prl_hypervisor.kext
rm -rf /System/Library/Extensions/prl_vnic.kext
rm -rf /System/Library/Extensions/prl_usb_connect.kext
rm -rf /System/Library/Extensions/prl_netbridge.kext
rm -rf /Users//.parallels/
rm -rf /Users//.parallels_settings

It's impossible to delete network devices via command line, but doing the above disconnects them, which is the next best thing.

Website creation for Nviro-Clean Solutions NCS

Tom asked me if I'd be interested and I jumped at the chance. His brother is just starting out and wants a nice clean coorporate website for the cleaning company. Mostly to advertise and make first contact with customers. Firstly a front page, then some more pages with info.

The company is very flexible set up into two main parts; Domestic and Commercial. It is setup to do business in the midlands, centred on Matlock. Tom has designed the logo which the website will work around.

I've jumped the gun and had some ideas. Based around the blog templates of having a blurred background, each page could have it's own background. So for the domestic some non-de-script clean home, and for commercial some offices. Perhaps for others we could have a commercial kitchen.

Perhaps to contrast the blur, we could some cleaning utilities in focus. Of-course this means some bespoke photography and the question of what products to show. Perhaps a silhouette of a vaccum cleaner and brush. Perhaps not the brush, a little old fashioned.

For the navigation nothing has really come to mind. Keep it simple and in line with the logo.