NPRM: Proposed New Listings for Mental Impairments

David Traver

By the way, Dell is now selling a very nice (your color choice for a few
dollars more) 15n with Ubuntu for only $299. http://tinyurl.com/pmcmbx

I suggest upgrading the CPU to the dual core T4200 for an additional
$35 Go crazy and add a webcam and upgrade the screen and it's still
great deal.

That's a great example of the savings of not paying the Microsoft tax.

What is Ubuntu? See http://www.ubuntu.com/products/whatisubuntu

Insider (Ret) · Posted: Fri Jun 12, 2009 12:51 pm Post subject: I goofed

OK, David, I admit it; I screwed up. I saw this posting a few days after replacing my dead desktop with this Dell machine....but I paid the Microsoft tax. Dumb, I know.

Now I need a work-around. It turns out that Vista does not support the perfectly good, fully functional Dell printer (J-740) that now sits useless to my left. When this new Vista desktop would not 'recognize' the printer after I got it set up, I thought I simply needed to download the latest driver for the J-740. No good. Anyone know how to fool Vista into accepting this printer?

David Traver · Posted: Fri Jun 12, 2009 02:35 pm Post subject:

That lovely and inexpensive all-in-one printer uses this driver http://tinyurl.com/m47287 and http://tinyurl.com/nx5t2n from Dell. Dell has not upgraded the driver for six years.

I read online that you might have a rebranded Lexmark printer. You may wish to search for a similar Lexmark machine. Here, for example, are some mug shots: http://www.mouse2house.co.uk/category-T89-Lexmark+Colour+JetPrinter+Series.html If you are adventurous pull off some panels and search for some model numbers on the inside of the machine that you can plug into a Google search. Maybe you will be able to figure out what Lexmark did with updates to the drivers, if anything. You can also try telling Vista that you have a Lexmark and try a few Lexmark drivers by chance.

My research suggests that HP has the most drivers and is the best at keeping up with the world of operating systems. My old HP works beautifully with Linux. My next printer will be HP, whenever I get one.

By the way, which Dell laptop did you get? How much did you pay? Do you like it (aside from that one driver problem?) Is it pretty?

If you like send me a SASE of appropriate size and you can run a live CD of Linux to see if it supports your printer. (That means you can try Linux without installing it on your machine.) It may be that your printer is too old for Linux to pick up too. You may have a printer that is ready for the exciting world of garage sales.

Insider (Ret) · Posted: Fri Jun 12, 2009 08:14 pm Post subject:

Good ideas, but so far, no dice. Tried fooling Vista with Lexmark look-alikes, but it wouldn't bite. This is beginning to look like a planned obsolescence exercise--and a successful one at that. Maybe the local high school needs more printers.

I picked up a new laptop last year; Uncle Sam was moving us to Baltimore and the PC had to go into storage (along with all the rest of our 'stuff') for at least three, four months, as we house-hunted up here, and I knew I couldn't survive sans internet/email connection for that long. So I bought a nice Inspiron 1525, not too fancy but with most bells and whistles. I especially like the webcam; I use ooVoo to hook up to my golf fitness guru in Philly between in-person sessions.

Anyhow, once rescued from storage, the desktop was fine at first, but it began to hiccup (crash) with increasing regularity over the past winter, and age finally caught up with it. It gasped and crashed for the last time a week or two ago. I replaced it with the Inspiron 530, 3 GB Ram, 500 GB hard drive, pretty basic. Since everything else was working fine--monitor, keyboard, printer, I didn't bother to change/upgrade them. And thus I'm stuck with the aging but perfectly functional printer that Vista won't recognize. Probably time for HP, as you suggest.

Olan Barnes · Joined: 17 May 2004 Posts: 1648 Location: Michigan

I hate to sound like a throw away society but you know printers are cheap compared to what they once were.

It is the ink / toner that is expensive.

David Traver · Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2009 01:50 am Post subject:

Goodwill is the best place for those kinds of gadgets to go. Or, the garage sale.

Olan Barnes · Joined: 17 May 2004 Posts: 1648 Location: Michigan

A couple of weeks ago our local recycle center took my old laser printer that was streaking and making too much noise - for free. I priced out a new printer and the cost of toner and figured for a ten or fifteen differential I could get a new one. The new toner that came with the printer can do a starter pack for 1000 pages.

Looks like you may have a touch more grey since I saw you last.

David Traver · Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2009 01:41 pm Post subject:

Yes, but I'm even happier.

Insider (Ret) · Posted: Mon Jun 15, 2009 01:31 pm Post subject:

Happy beats gray, hands down.

Printer saga continued. While waiting for tires to be mounted, I wandered through Staples, looking at the inexpensive (100 bucks or less) printers. Found four very likely candidates; one Lexmark, one Epson, two HPs. Came home to check Vista to see if they were supported....and not a one showed up. Now I am getting irked. I must be missing something.

David Traver · Posted: Mon Jun 15, 2009 02:53 pm Post subject:

Haven't you heard? Vista sucks.

I wasted a hundred dollars putting Vista on my computer I built for our big screen TV/home entertainment center. Vista did not recognize the video rate on my 52" Samsung. So it drove it at the lowest working rate. In fact, Vista had never heard of Samsung LCD televisions and it did not have any way to increase the frame rate. I should have used Ubuntu. (To be specific, I should have used Mythbuntu. http://www.mythbuntu.org/ )

That was the last Microsoft product I will ever buy. Not out of anger or anything like that. I just don't pay for stuff that I can legally get for free. I use that kind of free stuff when it works, which Linux does.

I wonder why SSA pays the Microsoft tax? Are they ignorant or stuck in a rut? Both? Maybe their IT staff drank the Microsoft Kool -Aid :lol:

MikeWalters · Joined: 13 May 2004 Posts: 1315 Location: Cincinnati OH

For what it's worth I'm having the exact same printer problem with a new computer my wife bought for our home. The old printer is a Lexmark so I'm optimistic I will be able to update the driver and get it to work. What's worse, the Vista "premium" package sold with the computer includes virtually no Office software. No Word. No Outlook. Everything involves a short duration "free trial."

I'm ready to follow David's suggestion and dump the whole load of MS crap off the computer and start from scratch with an open source operating system. I don't know anything about computers, but I know enough to know when I am being hosed.

David Traver · Posted: Mon Jun 15, 2009 05:30 pm Post subject:

Assuming you can get your printer to work with Vista, you can get a free open source office suite here: http://openoffice.org

Instead of using Outlook, which sucks anyway, use this better free open source alternative with Vista: http://www.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/thunderbird/

Instead of buying virus protection for your Microsoft computer, use this free alternative, Avast home edition: http://www.avast.com/ (follow the "free software" links.)

All antivirus software sucks too. With Linux you don't need the anti-virus software bloat. You have no idea how fast a computer is until you run one that does not need to scan files before opening and closing them.

Insider (Ret) · Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2009 11:15 pm Post subject:

Been meaning to thank you for the OpenOffice.org info. While I paid the Microsoft tax, I didn't pay the surcharge--i.e., I didn't buy the "Office" suite. Rather, I did as you suggested and downloaded the OpenOffice suite, and while I haven't tried everything out yet, I do know it opens Word documents with ease. Now, if I could just figure out the darned printer issue, I could print those documents....

Olan Barnes · Joined: 17 May 2004 Posts: 1648 Location: Michigan

I recently got this from the net for $89.00 and it works great for home use on vista. I have a netbook using linux OS - was not aware it needed anti virus?

Phil Robinson · Joined: 12 May 2004 Posts: 790 Location: MA

open office runs on any machine including an Apple. They send out updates periodically, but some are really slow loading. I now use Neo office for Apple ( it is OO specifically modified). Does every thing OO does and is a a tiny bit faster. I am still looking for a billing / bookkeeping program such as a My Invoices from My Software Co which is 12 or more years old.

David Traver · Posted: Fri Jun 19, 2009 03:01 am Post subject:

Linux does not need a antivirus because of built in security and all ports are closed by default. I added a free firewall out of a excess of caution. It is really not needed

The link I gave for Avast antivirus is for microsoft systems. They make a version for Linux but don't bother.

David Traver · Posted: Tue Jun 23, 2009 08:59 pm Post subject:

Here is what I ordered. It should be here in a week. Notice that I could not possibly buy the base model. I just had to have some bling! On the other hand, I didn't go crazy with it either.

David Traver · Posted: Wed Jul 08, 2009 03:26 pm Post subject:

My Dell 15n Ubuntu laptop arrived yesterday and I am very happy. The keyboard is big and that was essential for me because I am going to use it for serious writing. It does not get too hot, the screen is very pretty and clear. The red cover is shiny and kind of fun, but it is a fingerprint magnet.

There were minor issues which I easily corrected. First, the Dell DVD player did not recognize commercial DVDs and it gave an "out of region error." I did not want it anyway and I did not expect that it would have been included. I installed Linuxs' restricted codecs and VLC player, which are perfect. It plays everything except Blu-ray.

Also, the version of Ubuntu needed updating IMHO, as it does following all new installations. I suspect the update manager would have kicked in automatically during the first day of use, but I did not want to wait. So, I opened a terminal in Applications > Accessories > Terminal and entered the following commands:

sudo apt-get update

It got the list of updates from the various sources. This took about 10 seconds.

Then I typed

sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

This updated the "Intrepid" verion and I will not install the newer "Jaunty" version of Ubuntu until I check with Dell to make sure it is okay to do so. That would be an automatic installation upgrade via a button on the update manager, which pops up from time to time.

A minor problem is that two of the distribution security keys were missing. I clicked y to accept the installation without verification.

It took about 45 minutes for the machine to download all of the updates and install them. I went shopping and when I came back it was done.

Everything would be ready to use for the average user at that point. However, I added some stuff following the instructions here:

http://ssaconnect.com/component/option,com_forum/Itemid,0/page,viewtopic/t,7405/

http://ssaconnect.com/component/option,com_forum/Itemid,0/page,viewtopic/t,7478/

I also updated to the most recent versions of Openoffice.org (Version 3.1.0) and Firefox (3.5). If you want details about that, just let me know.

The only bloatware on the entire system was the Dell DVD reader that did not work. Everything else was nice and clean. So, I did not have to go though the usual ritual of removing AOL crap and other ads from the drive. Also, there are no keys to enter every time I start a new program. If I had wanted, I could have used it the way it came out of the box forever doing nothing but getting the Dell DVD software fixed with a call to Dell.

Oh, one final comment. The CPU is rated for 2.0 gigahertz, but it was running at 1.3. WTF? I checked the BIOS and speed-step was running. That means that it automatically adjusts the CPU clock to meet the demand. At idle it uses less power, which saves heat and makes the battery last longer. That's nice.

P.S. I did not have to install any anti-virus software. It does not need it and it would just slow it down.

Next: How does it do with hearing files?
See http://ssaconnect.com/component/option,com_forum/Itemid,0/page,viewtopic/t,7487/#25247