Thanks,
Jane

I’ve been wanting my own domain name/site for several years, mostly because I wanted to switch to the WordPress.org version of this because I found the WordPress.com version a bit too limiting…

And now that I have a site, I don’t think I’ll ever get to switching over.  I’m distracted by too many other projects.  So, plain layout for now.  It’s not like I’ve been updating this anyways!

And who knows, I might be convinced to use Joomla or ExpressionEngine instead of WordPress!

My refuge group sure knows how to celebrate God’s blessings!

I got a new toy today — a CD/DVD tray for my printer which allows me to print on CD’s and DVD’s!  Apparently this feature was disabled on the Canon MP530′s made for the U.S. market but it can be enabled with MANY pushes of a few buttons.  (Can you do the hokey pokey???  Links to instructions at the end of this post.)  Why spend potentially hundreds of dollars on a new CD/DVD printer when I only need to spend $18.99 to upgrade a printer I already have?

I did a test print on the CD that shipped with the CD tray I purchased off of eBay using a photo I took while in the Netherlands:

Not bad… It’s not as crisp and clear as I would like it to be, and it’s definitely not “professional” quality, but I’m still very happy with it.  Good enough for me!  And besides, this was only my first test print.  The not-so-great resolution might be a result of the poor quality of this particular CD’s printing surface.

Or…  It could be a result of the ink I used, though I doubt that.  Admittedly, though, the ink I’m using is non-OEM, eBay ink:

Yes, yes, forgive my nasty habit of dating things I open or install…  $27.94 for the 5 bottles of ink above…  I opened the first bottle more than a year ago and still have half of the ink left!  And unlike with the Epsons, you don’t have to hassle with chip resets or freezing the ink counter.

“eBay ink?” you ask?  Yes, eBay ink. $30 for 2 years’ worth of ink?  Versus $30 for just ONE ink cartridge that only lasts 3 months?  Yes, eBay ink, please!

My eBay ink actually produces almost-photo quality prints as shown in this photo of a photo!

I wanted to design a mug for my friend Leigh, but I wanted it to be a surprise, so I grabbed the images of her beautiful pup Owen from her Facebook page.  Of course, trying to print something of any decent quality from 72 dpi web jpgs is a HUGE no-no, but I didn’t want to ruin the surprise!  So, I did a test print of the image before I sent my design to the fantastic website, Zazzle, and hot dog, it looked crisp and clear!

Here’s a Zazzle rendering of the mug (not a photo of the actual product, since I didn’t take a picture of it before I gave it to her, but it looks very much like this!):

And so… All in all, I’m very happy with Gus.  I can print VERY near-photo quality using non-OEM ink AND now I can print CD and DVD labels!  (Although…  Seriously… Will I even do that???  That’s another question that I should have asked myself before I bought it…)

Yes, the MP530 is a great printer, but it is not network-ready, so my next task is to get my wireless print server (in the back) working.  And guess what?  It’s ANOTHER eBay purchase.  I love eBay.  The print server was half-configured before I crazily started punching buttons on my printer (see video at the end of this post).

But for right now, he’s keeping Rolf, my Western Digital hard drive, and Max, my Maxtor hard drive, company.  Poor Max.  He’s had several identity crises.  He used to be named George, but then Rolf came along, and he insisted on being called Georg.  But then his owner kept forgetting his name, so he gave up, and gave into answering to the name Max.

Since the archival properties of the printer ink is highly suspect (most likely deteriorating DVD’s and paper over time), Rolf and Max are invaluable.

Yes, I have a messy jumble of cords, but one day I’ll get it all organized.  At least I’m part-way there.  Here’s a cord-wrangling tip: hole-punch a used gift card, and use it to manage your cords:

I kept having to search for the ends of the cords for Rolf and Max until I made this.

And lastly, meet Hermie, my laptop!  He’s slogging along, good ol’ boy that he is!  Although his owner is quite egotistical.  The unforeseen consequence of this has been that people borrowing Hermie have had a hard time trying to type their passwords!

Is this worse than Jane putting her mouse on the left?  Why does that also throw people off?

But wait!  We mustn’t forget Jack and Q!  (I’m not sure Q’s name is sticking yet…  It’s supposed to be short for Q*bert… I think…)  Jack, the Nokia, and Hermie got along very very well!  They were always gossiping about people in Jane’s contact lists and discussing things on her calendars whenever they got within range of each other.  And Jane would always hear them beeping excitedly whenever they were joyfully roughhousing with each other.  Boys will be boys!  But now, Q, the LG…  He’s a recalcitrant one, refusing to get along with Hermie the way that Jack so easily got along with him!  Jane jumped onto the Sprint family bandwagon, and abandoned poor little Jack as an orphan…  Jack, you weren’t very showy, but Momma misses you!!!

And if you’ve noticed a trend, no, Jane doesn’t seem to have any female gadgets.  Only the gadget master is female!

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I almost forgot to include links for how to enable your Canon MP530 to print on CD’s!  These aren’t my videos, but they are fantastic, despite the few typos!

http://pixma.ulmb.com/?p=137

For other Canon models: http://pixma.ulmb.com/?p=105

Erg…  Can never do anything on this WordPress.com site…  Ah well.

My tires are cupped, and I was told I needed new struts… Well, my Corolla has more than 90,000 miles on it. I guess that seems reasonable. And so, I decided to try changing them myself. (Especially since the shop told me it would cost $800 for them to change them with their “buy 3, get one free” special.)

Old front driver-side MacPherson strut (black)

Front passenger-side strut removed

New front passenger-side KYB strut installed (silver)

When you push in the piston rod, it is supposed to come back out, like the new silver strut on the bottom. The old black one on the top is obviously worn out, as it doesn’t come back out at all.

Keep people and pets away from the strut springs and away from your jacked up car! Lucky should have been inside the house.

Collateral damage. I don’t think I torqued those bolts to the right specs… I broke and/or deformed some of my tools in the process of tightening them. This whole process gave me much more of a workout than I had anticipated!!! I’ll need to remember to ask the tire guys to double-check those knuckle bolts for me when I get new tires…

And here, I decided that my rear strut mounting bolts were too difficult to access… And I would pay to let someone else have fun with the rears… Plus, I was too lazy to buy replacements for the tools I broke and/or figure out what kind of tools I needed to access these bolts. (Though this would have been a great excuse to upgrade from Dad’s motley socket wrench set.)

So, I took my Corolla into a shop, and they told me it would cost $383 for labor to do the rears… And a second opinion is in order. In the meantime… Looking at this picture, maybe the rears wouldn’t be that hard to do, either… Just need the right tools… Or need to figure out a way to take that whole plastic panel off….

… and Zebra wins!

Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch.  San Antonio, TX.