Take Control of Printers on OS X

Tags

apple macintosh, CUPS, os x, printer control

We recently fixed the connection from Gary’s iMac (OS X 10.10) to a network connected photo printer, a Canon iPFS 5100 which uses 17 inch wide roll paper. Gary tried to print several times which failed but left the print job “stuck” in the print queue on his computer. When we finally got the connection working, and that printer is an SOB to use but it prints really well, the old stuck print jobs came spewing out of the printer. If you have ever bought photo paper and ink, you know these items are very expensive and it’s maddening to watch them being consumed on unwanted prints.

OS X, as you likely know, has a full fledged Unix system at its core. The Unix/Linux printing system is called CUPS, and it’s pretty well hidden from the OS X user interface. But with a bit of command line magic you can recover access to it. Here’s how.

1) open Terminal, the command line interface to your iMac.

2) type in exactly the following line (or cut and paste from here) and then press return

sudo cupsctl WebInterface=yes

it will ask for an administrative password

3) close Terminal

4) open a new Safari window or tab, enter http://localhost:631

5) you now have the CUPS web interface. bookmark it.

6) click the Administration tab, then manage printers, select the one you want. You can then see and cancel print jobs.

Bad Reputation of Crows, Ravens, and Other Corvids

Tags

birds, corvids, raven, western scrub jay

Here’s the link:  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/01/150123081801.htm

These birds are said to have bad reputations but I like ravens and western scrub jays, both corvids. These birds are smart and interesting. Gary had an uncle who though if a black bird, like a raven, flew across your path someone was going to die. Strange.

Dog People vs. Cat People

Tags

cats, Dogs

I’ve not been posting much this week. Nothing’s wrong, I just did not have anything cool to share. However, I did see a couple of things today.

Dog vs. cat people. Yeah, this is an old one. And personally, I like both though I do prefer dogs. I came across this 10 Differences Between Dog and Cat Lovers article that you might like to see. It’s based on a survey of 600 college students, a group easy for academic researchers to access (hey, they’re right there on campus) and made up of mostly young adults (not a good sample for the population as a whole).  I’ll turn off my inner geek now 🙂