UK Mac Wizards

I'm a PC

I’m not very impressed by the latest Microsoft Windows advertising campaign (life without walls) that tries to bring some balance to Apple’s get a mac ads. Apple’s ads made PCs, and possibly their users, look dull and deluded, and that is surely a stereotype. But the truth is that the majority of PCs probably don’t have an interesting existence.

I reflect on the clientele I have and find that there are many creatives and that they use their macs to genuinely make stuff, rather than do spreadsheets (yawn).

Photographers (wildlife, weddings, portraits), authors, designers (web, magazine, publicity), a conductor, a soprano, a voice coach, a copywriter, a hypnotherapist, an artist; and that’s just the ones that I know what they do. And of course there are a fair few that do use spreadsheets as there is no shortage of financial advisors, market analysts and company executives that use macs too. 

I am thinking out loud here but I guess I could have a page specifically for my clients, with links to their websites, demonstrating the range of mac users. Nothing cheesy I hope, but it would show clearly the interesting things mac people do.

It should also be added that intel macs can actually be PCs. They can run Windows natively or virtually, as well as a PC, and if that qualifies them they could say “I’m a PC” too.

Finally, a PC might not be running Windows anyway. Linux makes a good alternative. I have one running Ubuntu linux. It is certainly a good way to have a PC with lots of (free) productive software on it, without all the vulnerability to viruses that Windows suffers. Linux also runs on macs.

Epson inkjet not printing

I came across another photographer today with an Epson Stylus Photo R2400 that wouldn’t print from Leopard. I suspect that this problem could afflict any Epson printer installation.

Symptoms are:

1) The document to be printed appears in the printer queue but doesn’t go anywhere. Neither does it complain.

2) If you try to open Epson’s printer utility (where you would normally check ink-levels, clean the printer heads, etc) it appears briefly in the dock and then disappears.

If you get the unexpectedly quit dialog and select report to Apple, you see the error details. This time around it complained that it couldn’t find:

/Library/Printers/EPSON/CIOSupport/CIOSupport.framework/Versions/A/CIOSupport

Inspection of this location showed an alias to CIOSupport pointing nowhere.

Fortunately the client had no other printers, so despite the fact he had previously tried to install the latest driver (from here), I did the same, but before doing so removing the EPSON folder entirely to the desktop to make sure the installer created a fresh version and also removing the printer from Print and Fax set-up. I then recreated it after the installer had reinstated the EPSON folder.

That did the trick.

iPhone Microsoft Exchange Account error 'Incorrect Password'

When setting up an Microsoft Exchange mail account on the iPhone you will need to take at least one error message with a pinch of salt. I was running around for days with the settings for an Exchange account.

First let me say that if the Microsoft Exchange mail set-up doesn’t work and the emails don’t instantly flood in there are indicators as to progress.

1. If the iPhone asks whether to accept a certificate, it at least means contact with the server has been made. Fed up with this error? Ask the server admin to send you the certificate in an email. Send it to your iPhone unzipped, open the email, tap the attachment and install it.
2. If the iPhone says the password is incorrect, and it doesn’t accept the password you know is right. Always the thing with the iPhone keyboard –  the nagging doubt that you haven’t typed it in right – the problem might be nothing to do with the password:

Look again at what you have entered in “Domain”. If you are like me and you followed what works in Entourage, you might feel confident that you have it right. But double check. I found it was this “optional” entry that was the cause of my problems. It wasn’t until I used the company domain name that the emails started to arrive (rather than the name of any internal domain, or web email server, or anything else I was given or had even worked in Microsoft Entourage). And no password errors.

What I don’t understand is why the iPhone didn’t just say “Unknown Domain” instead of “Incorrect Password”. It would have saved me a day’s messing about.

A good guide to Microsoft Exchange setup here:

http://support.apple.com/manuals/en_US/Enterprise_Deployment_Guide.pdf