Scanning legal-size documents with the Canon MX860 ADF is needlessly complicated

July 25th, 2010
Canon MX860: how to scan legal-size documents

Pound the Canon MX860 repeatedly with a gavel.

You’d think in this day & age of all-in-one printers, you could put a legal-size document in the document feeder (ADF) & scan away. Not so with the Canon MX860.

Out of the box, the MX860′s ADF will scan legal-size documents as a letter-size PDF with the bottom 3 inches cut off. Document length auto-detection with the ADF was apparently too complex for Canon engineers (?!)

Technically the MX860 can scan legal-size paper, but it’s a trick (“trick” meaning pain in the ass) if you typically use the handy buttons on the scanner for everything. Here’s how:

Load up the MX860′s desktop scanning software, which Canon cryptically called “MP Navigator EX” — mine opens up to a wizard-style screen. Select “Stack Of Documents (ADF)”, the click the “Specify…” button on the left-hand side & there you can temporarily change the PDF document size for the next ADF scan.

If you scan legal documents all the time & want to change the settings permanently: Click the “Preferences” button (top/right corner) & switch to the “Scanner Button Settings” tab. Then you can change the document settings for each one-click action. So for instance you could set the “Save to PC” action to scan a legal-size PDF & “Save to PDF” to scan in letter size.

Sounds needlessly complicated? It is, absolutely. Hopefully Canon will add automatic document length detection for the ADF in a future firmware/software update, but I wouldn’t count on it.

(Anyone know if this is fixed with the Canon MX870?)

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Raising The Cheonan

April 30th, 2010

Salvaging the South Korean corvette “Cheonan” is old news now that the US has a major ecological disaster to contend with, but these AP photos of the bow section being raised are pretty amazing. It’s hard to believe a world that has the technology to grab a sunken battleship off the seafloor after a few days can’t plug an itty bitty mile-deep runaway oil well any faster.

Posted in Machines Of Unusual Size, nautical disasters, photos | No Comments »

Continuous Beeping from a Trojan UV Max C4

April 30th, 2010

Continuous beeping from my Trojan UV Max C4Our Trojan UVMax C4 water purifier started beeping continuously. The install date was April 2009, so it’s been a year — according to the manual, time to replace the UV bulb!

I dutifully ordered a new UV lamp ($90) & installed it. Wiping my hands in smug homeowner anticipation of what was sure to be the return of super clean water for my family, I plugged the C4 power supply back in… green lights all around… but the beeping didn’t stop.

I unplugged the unit, waited a bit, plugged it back in… more beeping. Pulled out the manual. The only mention of the beeping alarm is in the troubleshooting section, which refers you back to the Control Panel section, which has all kinds of useful information about the status lights but absolutely nothing about a beeping alarm.

The manual says there’s supposed to be a model-specific reference card stuck behind the power supply. Sure enough I could see the tab sticking up — I felt a wave of relief, as surely the reference card would have an answer to The Meaning Of The Incessant Beep.

Nope. No mention of an audible alarm whatsoever.

By now I could feel a beeping-induced headache. Putting my hope in the Internet for a solution, I ran upstairs to the computer. Sure enough, the top result had the answer (thanks, Google) — but it wasn’t from the Trojan UVMax website — a random reseller had taken the time to post the answer … Apparently TrojanUV produced defective C4 power supply units between January 2009 – January 2010. Yep, a whole year of defective units. But although they’re now four months into people discovering the problem, there’s nothing about it on their website. No notice, no press release, nothing (or am I just not seeing it?)

The solution is to contact Trojan for a replacement power supply. In the meantime, I’m stuck with choosing between unsafe drinking water or constant beeping.

So in review:

  1. There is nothing the Trojan UV Max manual about what the beeping alarm means,
  2. There is no way to silence the beeping alarm,
  3. The Trojan UV website lacks any information about this year-long manufacturing defect.

Just to make life a little harder, the email link on the Trojan UV Max support website (Viqua) goes nowhere.

I called their customer service line & the rep I spoke with knew about the C4 problem right away. Apparently they had mistakenly installed firmware for the “Plus” version — which have a reset button to silence the alarm — into the “regular” C4 units, which don’t.

I asked the rep if the replacement C4 power supply was shipping via overnight express. He mumbled something to the effect that I should have it “within a day or two”. However it’s been 3 days & I still don’t have the replacement Trojan UV Max C4 power supply, so it’s becoming clear that Trojan doesn’t care enough to ship these via overnight or 2-day mail.

By now I’ve lost count how many ways Trojan UV customer service has completely failed their customers.

Posted in awful customer service, bugs, tips | 2 Comments »

Thunderbird ignores Windows’ default printer setting

January 13th, 2010

I bought a new printer, a Canon MX860. As all-in-one printers go, it’s fantastic. Soon it was knighted as my new Windows’ default printer.

Everything was happy in Printerland until I tried to print an email from Thunderbird. Thunderbird kept selecting my old printer — I had left the old printer driver installed — and each time I had to change the printer back to my new Canon. Granted, that’s a pretty minor annoyance, but let enough minor annoyances pass you by & soon they get together & storm the castle.

Turns out Thunderbird stores its own default printer setting & if it’s set, the Windows default printer gets completely ignored. Worse, Thunderbird’s default printer setting is about as hidden as it gets:

  1. Tools menu -> Options -> Advanced tab -> Config Editor button
  2. filter the list by typing “printer” in the Filter box (top of the screen)
  3. find the “print.print_printer” setting (who names these settings, anyway?)
  4. right-click & click “Reset”.

That does the trick!

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Prototype mismatch: sub main::head ($) vs none

July 9th, 2009

Turns out that when you use the LWP::Simple & CGI modules together in a Perl script, each has a conflicting head() function that throws that error. Who knew? Everyone who didn’t take the time to read the CAVEAT note at the bottom of the LWP::Simple docs, apparently:

Note that if you are using both LWP::Simple and the very popular CGI.pm module, you may be importing a head function from each module, producing a warning like “Prototype mismatch: sub main::head ($) vs none”. Get around this problem by just not importing LWP::Simple’s head function, like so:

use LWP::Simple qw(!head);
use CGI qw(:standard);  # then only CGI.pm defines a head()

Then if you do need LWP::Simple’s head function, you can just call it as LWP::Simple::head($url).

Posted in bugs, perl | No Comments »

The Cougar Ace tips over, Alaska

May 28th, 2009

The Cougar Ace is well-known for setting a Canadian record for most vehicles unloaded from a single ship, and also for a shipping disaster that once again caught my attention primarily because of the amazing Coast Guard photos. Like the Selendang Ayu disaster, the Cougar Ace became disabled off the Aleutian Islands, Alaska — this time though, the problem was an 60 degree list due to a ballast handling mistake. Wired has a pretty amazing writeup about the salvage operation. Click photos for the full-size versions.

MV Cougar Ace
Aug. 8, 2006: towed to safer waters in Wide Bay, Aleutian Islands

MV Cougar Ace
Aug. 10, 2006: still waiting to be righted, Wide Bay, Aleutian Islands

Posted in nautical disasters | No Comments »

Resize script in Paint Shop Pro X2

May 28th, 2009

PSP X2 resize scriptI batch-process-resized some photos in PSP X2, & realized too late (after I had emailed 90 photos off to various relatives) that everyone appeared a little taller & thinner than they normally are. Not so bad right? Except that headshots look a little weird. The photos were taken with different cameras with slightly different aspect ratios.

So here’s an easy way to batch process/resize photos with a PSP X2 script, each to their correct aspect ratio (fixed width, variable height):

  • Open any one image.
  • File, Script, Start recording … resize the image.
  • File, Script, Save recording … save it under your scripts folder, which is generally Documents/My PSP Files/Scripts-Restricted/
  • File, Script, Edit.. browse to your scripts folder & select the resize script that you just saved.
  • click the Text Editor button
  • delete or comment out (# in front of the line) the ‘Height’ AND ‘AspectRatio’ lines. Setting them both to None works too. Make sure ‘MaintainAspectRatio’ is set to True.
  • Save & enjoy not looking warped.

Posted in graphics, paint shop pro, tips | No Comments »

The birth of an island near Tonga

January 3rd, 2007

the birth of an island

The yacht Maiken witnessed the birth of a new island near Tonga. Some pretty amazing photos, a sea of floating stone & the volcanic island rising up out of the water.

Posted in world | 1 Comment »

Windsurfing, late fall in Vermont

October 28th, 2006

Wick windsurfing jumpNormally the National Weather Service tends to downgrade the weekend wind forecast the closer it gets to Friday afternoon.

Not so in the late fall — the forecasts just keep get better & better, or for all the non-windsurfers, worse & worse! Also you would think the local NWS office would just give up on the Ultraviolet Index after mid-October. It’s nice of them to clarify which category a “1″ rating is in.

.THE LAKE CHAMPLAIN OPEN WATERS FORECAST...

...A LAKE WIND ADVISORY TODAY AND TONIGHT...

.TODAY...SOUTHEAST WINDS 25 TO 35 KNOTS WITH GUSTS TO 45 KNOTS POSSIBLE. WAVES 3 TO 5 FEET AND LOCALLY HIGHER. RAIN...HEAVY AT TIMES....BRIEFLY MIXED WITH SLEET OR SNOW AT THE ONSET. VISIBILITY 1 TO 3 MILES IN PRECIPITATION.
.TONIGHT...SOUTHWEST WINDS 15 TO 30 KNOTS. WAVES 2 TO 3 FEET. OCCASIONAL RAIN. VISIBILITY REDUCED TO 3 TO 5 MILES AT TIMES.
.SUNDAY...SOUTHWEST TO WEST WINDS 25 TO 35 KNOTS WITH HIGHER GUSTS POSSIBLE. WAVES 3 TO 4 FEET. SCATTERED RAIN SHOWERS. VISIBILITY REDUCED TO 2 TO 4 MILES AT TIMES.

THE LAKE CHAMPLAIN LAKE LEVEL AT THE KING STREET FERRY DOCK IN BURLINGTON WAS 96.80 FEET...AND THE WATER TEMPERATURE WAS 49 DEGREES.

THE ULTRAVIOLET INDEX FOR SATURDAY OCTOBER 28 IS A 1. THIS IS IN THE LOW CATEGORY.

SATURDAY UPDATE: Usually when the NWS forecasts wind 25-35 knots “with gusts to 45 knots”, they’re not this wrong:

White's Beach wind graph

So .. far less wind than forecast in the morning .. followed by a quick 90-degree switch & even lighter breeze in the afternoon .. then another quick 180-degree switch. Finally the promised wind shows up, well after sunset.

West Dennis wind graph West Dennis beach (Cape Cod) had a much better day.. consistent 35-40 mph with a very gradual direction shift from SSE to SSW. This typifies the difference between coastal & Lake Champlain surfing conditions.

Vermont keeps everyone guessing, professional forecasters included.

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Worst political websites

October 27th, 2006

The worst political websitesCNet has a great review of
the worst political websites »

Among the top picks .. plenty of under construction sites, the Tennessee Independent DEPORTATION PARTY should deport their web designer, one candidate is waiting to start her campaign until the last minute, & even a recipe for Easy Killer Margaritas, with beer (!!) as a main ingredient.

This just goes to show that even today, websites aren’t everything to everyone .. just a relatively cheap, easy way to stay in touch with your constituents .. also good for smear campaigns funded by the National Republican Senatorial Committee!

Posted in politics | No Comments »

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