Apple's CUPS Repository Has Died. CUPS creator M. Sweet has moved on to a fork
linuxreviews.org
linuxreviews.org
> In order to offer an "ad-filled experience" and maximize our profits, LinuxReviews would very much like you to allow our Google AdSense ad-partner to use tracking and cookies so we can show ads from them on our website.
> Options: Resist, Approve (2x bigger)
As a web developer, this was refreshing, but as a user didn't immediately make me want to accept. I wonder what their opt in rate is like compared to the "best" practice
Your information is, quite frankly, not very important to us. ... The only reason to store any information on random users would be to sell that information to third parties. We are not willing to do that. Thus; your user data is worth zero and that is why we don't collect your worthless information. When other sites write "Your information is very important to us" they actually mean that "We are collecting and selling your personal data and that revenue stream is very important to us".
First, understand that we, and other websites on the Internet, can not set cookies or store data in your browser. Web-servers can ask web browsers to store cookies. It is up to you to configure your web browser running on your computer to behave according to your desires. Politicians and law-makers who think "cookie warnings" and similar web pollution make sense are blundering morons who simply fail to understand how the Internet works. You can configure your web browser so you do not get any third party tracking when you use this website using any of these alterantives: ...
You can do that, of course many of us do. But can the average user? Does the average user even know this sort of tracking goes on? And that just blocking cookies is a small part of the battle?
The cookie law was a crude measure, but with both that law and the GDPR something crucial always gets missed -
You don't need the banners if you're not doing this stuff.
Isn't that the point? To make the average user aware. Every little bit helps when spreading awareness.
The other thing is that if you allow those cookies by default then a site that doesn't care about EU law can still track you whenever they want.
>You don't need the banners if you're not doing this stuff.
And yet even the EU commission's own site has one: https://www.europa.eu
Ah, but now that every website under the sun has the banner, nobody thinks twice about them beyond (in the back of their minds) "these are annoying" and "fie on the EU and their foolishness". Much like every overused obtrusive dialogue box in the history of graphical interfaces, users learn to dismiss it and whatever it was trying to achieve eventually becomes irrelevant.
I know, because they're regularly writing me confused and angry emails complaining legitimate functionality on my websites is broken as a result of them.
Well, if the average user can't configure their browser to block cookies, then forcing every website to implement a popup to re-implement cookie blocking on a semi-voluntary basis (a feature already available on the client side) seems nonsensical.
I think this is the most commonly used plugin for that: https://www.i-dont-care-about-cookies.eu
(and yeah, it does accept all cookies by default, but the adblocker already deals with that).
Apple calls it AirPrint. Microsoft calls it Universal Print. Google killed CloudPrint and has adopted IPP as well.
What's left of CUPS seems to be the ability to allow a machine attached to a legacy printer to function as IPP print server.
Newer printers support IPP out of the box.
WPS has been a thing for the last 10 years.
Inkjet Printers are such a pain to make work in general, have such high costs for ink, and rarely hold up well. I would rather buy a color laser if I needed to print color and I’d probably go find a used one that was loved before dealing with the new ones.
Reminds me of 20 years ago when people kept the early HP LaserJet models going for their needs because they were such workhorses.
I'm pretty happy with my color laser, I don't print much, just replaced my black and about to replace the color tonor cartridges after about 5 years on the ones that came in the box.
(That said, I just got an Epson P900 which will do borderless 17x22"/A2 printing with archival pigment inks <3 <3 <3 which is a little bit prone to clogging as a general rule, but still)
Lasers, even relatively inexpensive ones, are often better than cheap inkjets for photos and fine art, too.
Expensive inkjets, usually with additional fancy options and paper, are for photos and fine art, but most inkjets are just a rip-off leveraging the ability to conceal high printing costs behind low initial buy-in cost.
The cost of replacing toner is more than the printer so the next time it acts up I will just replace it.
That being said, if you pay attention you can pick up a very nice HP Color Laser at a really low price point.
I did replace it with an HP Colour LaserJet, primarily so that I could get colour prints and not have to worry about ink drying up due to very infrequent use.
My family used this until 2012: https://i.imgur.com/QedZrsm.png
(They're on a newer LaserJet model now, and they've been using that one for the past 8 years.)
No idea what happened to it though... I suspect finding replacement parts for the things that wear out has become close to impossible, but I doubt that thing was broken in any other way.
I't on the second cartridge and works perfectly. I had some old sticks of RAM laying around so I upgraded it to 64Mb about ten years ago.
It is so odd to me that setting up a printer on Mac is so much harder for the average user, apparently. My current printer worked by just plugging it into the computer. Windows downloaded the drivers and it all just worked.
If your printer is well supported out of the box in CUPS you might do ok, but that does not seem to be that common if your printer is new-ish.
I wish. We do have some problems on Windows, but the Mac is so, so much worse. I get the feeling its one of those things that Apple just doesn't value.
I do wonder why there hasn't been a universal printer protocol? You would think that we could get to some set of properties that could describe any printer.
Except for one HP printer because HP made everything too complicated (I was able to find a way to connect directly to it rather than through their software, I just had to corrupt my phone with their app to get the printer on the network the first time).
I couldn't figure out where the disconnect between your experience and mine was, as I never have to help Mac family and friends, but the windows users wind up throwing their printers out the window.
The disconnect must be that - you're plugging them in! I haven't used a USB printer in over a decade, and back when Idid the printer makers were almost hostile to Mac users, so their drivers sucked, installed crapware, and frequently hogged resources so they could throw up a splash screen to sell you new ink/toner.
For probably close to 15 years, and especially in the decade since the advent of AirPrint, I stopped doing all of that. Printer gets on the network, macs all see it as an AirPrint device, and it works.
My wired printers have had no issues though, even from wifi devices.
Right when Apple switch to having the only plug on MacBooks be USB-C, I was talking with an (older) friend who I often end up as tech-support for. He'd just upgraded his iPhone and his MacBook, so I repeated the popular-on-HN-at-the-time line about how it was bone-headed that you could buy a top-of-the-line iPhone and a top-of-the-line MacBook, and you couldn't plug one in to the other without buying a separate adapter. He said it had been years and years since he'd wanted to actually plug his phone in to his computer; he uses WiFi.
I recently bought a new printer. I plugged an ethernet cable in to it and the router. And yet, its menus still tried to get me to go through WiFi setup, I had to press "back" and go through some hoops to tell it "no, just use the Ethernet plug". That's not a great design--it should have just detected that I'd plugged something in to the Ethernet port, but it helps show:
Somewhere along the way, WiFi absolutely became the expectation, wires became an oddity, and a lot of us techies missed it.
It's also extremely common now for people to use "Wi-Fi" as a synonym for "Internet connection"
I don't see the point of plugging a printer into anything. How would I plug it into my phone?
Not to discount your experience at all, but my immediate reaction to this was to think "Why would I ever want to print from my phone?" I think the answer to both of our questions is that other people have very different workflows, so something that might be a show-stopper or a killer feature for one person could be an afterthought for another.
Because the thing I want to print is already on my phone? I don't move stuff that's on my laptop that I want to print to my phone first, nor the other way around. Both seem somewhat pointless.
In comparison, zero issues on my Mac laptop.
Aside, I really wish Google hadn't removed the Print options from Android/Chrome. Being able to buy tickets and send them to my printer from my phone was awesome... having to save/share links and go to my desktop to print something, less so. I know I can often show a code on my phone, but there are times and places where wifi and mobile connections aren't reliable.
Not really in favor of HP over other mfg's, only that I've had far fewer issues with them than any other mfg for laser printers at least. Been using a color laser (m451nw) for about 5 years now. I don't really print that often, a couple pages a month, and always had issues with ink printers gumming up when I'd go a couple months without printing anything.
I generally just print to a PDF on my phone (or download them directly that way, if that's an option). That way, I can get them scanned even if I don't have internet. That said, I did use to worry about my phone running out of battery or something, but at this point I haven't had my phone run out of battery while I'm out for several years now, so it isn't much of a factor for me.
Also cloud print is going away, which is disappointing. Have my hp eprint setup with it so I could print from anywhere.
With Windows you often had to fiddle with installing drivers. Don’t know the current situation as I use Windows as little as possible. Every time I have to use Windows I think my blood pressure goes up a few nothces.
So, looking at the various comments, experiences do seem to vary widely.
Just to contrast, I never had a problem with WiFi on my Macs, while one of my colleagues had incessant problems with one of theirs!