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Google Launches Cloud Printer Service For Windows
An anonymous reader writes "Google today announced it is bringing its Cloud Print project to Windows. The company has launched both a driver and a service, both of which are available for download now from Google Tools. For those who don't know, Google Cloud Print connects Cloud Print-aware applications (across the Web, desktop, and mobile) to any printer. It integrates with the mobile versions of Gmail and Google Docs, and is also listed as a printer option in the Print Preview page of Chrome."
One of the things that annoys me about Android: having to print through the Cloud (tm) when I have an Internet Printing Protocol CUPS server on the same network as my phone connected to a printer ten feet from me. It wouldn't be so bad if the Google Cloud Print libraries weren't proprietary and did something like IPP proxying instead of using a similarly proprietary API.
Will the advertisements be in the middle of your print jobs or printed to the side?
Google supported existing open APIs instead of pulling a Microsoft and inventing their own for everything and dropping support for open APIs?
Whats next to be replaced by some Google specific protocol for Google users? SMTP?
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Would it be possible for alternative Android rom makers like CyanogenMod to replace or augment Google's cloud-printing service with printing directly to your IPP-capable printer or CUPS print server when connected to your home network?
It seems like it should be possible for someone to make a custom rom set that eliminates a lot of the Google spyware stuff and makes Android closer to just plain Linux-on-your-phone, while still being compatible with all the Android apps.
You're 1 of 2 people who can get CUPS a) setup and b) working well enough to not just spew ink with a real printer.
Says the person who apparently hasn't used Linux since 1993.
Back on topic, presumably Google won't support CUPS, because the NSA wants a copy of everything we print as well as everything we email.
Every Mac user on the planet who prints ... does it through CUPs.
I.E. there are more CUPS users than Linux users.
Want to try again?
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Now I can share everything I print with the NSA too!
Thanks google!
... if Google announced the date this service will be discontinued so my business partners won't be crying like they have about Chrome Frame and Google Reader.
One of the things that annoys me about Android: having to print through the Cloud ... to a printer ten feet from me
Sure it would be lovely to have easy printing built into Android, but honestly I've found that PrinterShare works just fine.
Three Squirrels
Only because Apple made it work properly and added a GUI instead of text files that bomb with a misplaced comma or tab.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
I guess Google wants to have access now to the traditional hardcopy documents that you provide to your tax accountant and your banker.
The world is quickly separating into two stable groups: Google fans and Google haters. The latter started as the former, but got better.
So why couldn't Google do that?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
It worked 8 years ago just fine. I remember early Mandrake linux had that shit nailed down.
If you want it to print to CUPS, make it do so.
which the NSA can get by taping Google's ISP without Google's consent....Try paying attention.
"One of the things that annoys me about Android: having to print through the Cloud"
A networked Samsung printer can print on your local network from an Android device via Samsung's print app.
which the NSA can get by taping Google's ISP without Google's consent....Try paying attention.
How exactly are they going to tap my printing if it goes over my local LAN to a CUPS printer?
Try paying attention to the discusion.
As much as the privacy concerns, I'd be worried that they'll shrug and suddenly decide to 'pull the plug' a year after I incorporate it into my routine. This is too low-level of a function to hand over to a bunch of easily distracted next-big-thing buccaneers.
Google and/or Microsoft will put code in the driver to divert a copy to the NSA.
Wow, they reinvented spam and printer sharing?! What an innovative company!
Only because Apple made it work properly and added a GUI instead of text files that bomb with a misplaced comma or tab.
Wow - you really haven't used linux in the last decade or so, have you?
Find a computer with an install of any of the major linux distributions, fire up a web browser, and point it to http://localhost:631/
You'll find local and network printer search and configuration, default paper and printer settings, print queues, pretty much everything you need, all in a nice pretty gui.
You can never know everything, and part of what you do know will always be wrong. Perhaps even the most important part.
The reason it Just Works to print on just about any printer, without having to install any manner of driver, is that OS X has all the CUPS drivers bundled. They are regularly updated as well through Software Update. I've never had a problem with printing on OS X.
Not the first time but the second time I printed something on a laser printer, I asked a friend to print out some manner of UNIX manual for me, a lengthy book.
He said, "We better go look at the printer. Sometimes it prints out the Postscript verbatim, rather than rendering it."
That was on a BSD VAX.
Good Times.
And print it whenever you like. Woz was right - nobody owns anything anymore, you're just using a device (terminal?) to access content that another has agreed to let you access. Soon printing your own content will be seen as some kind of subversive act.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
For those who don't know, Google Cloud Print connects Cloud Print-aware applications (across the Web, desktop, and mobile) to any printer
So if I want to print my document to a printer in Bulgaria, no problem! That's just flat out daft. Cloud storage, processing and applications provide ubiquitous accessibility. Cloud printing provides ubiquitous inaccessibility.
Google 2.0 is a collection of some of the dumbest ideas I've ever seen in my life. Surely there's still somebody with common sense working for Google?!?
"It's illegal to threaten the President, even if you're joking."
-- The Mayor of Carmel, portraying a Secret Service agent in Line of Fire.
For committing an offense against a "Covered Person" - there are more than just the President - at Kuro5hin back in the day, a couple of Secret Service agent turned up at his place of work not long after. I'm not certain it was the very next day, but it might have been.
I promise to keep it (reasonably) clean.
OK, I broke that promise.
Only because Apple made it work properly and added a GUI instead of text files that bomb with a misplaced comma or tab.
Wow - you really haven't used linux in the last decade or so, have you?
Find a computer with an install of any of the major linux distributions, fire up a web browser, and point it to http://localhost:631/
Are you serious? How on earth would a normal person figure out that printing is on port 631? I use Linux eight hours a day at work, and for programming I wouldn't use anything else, but even I use a mac when I need things to work. A web server running on a port I would never find is not a reasonable place for a UI most users need to discover.
wow, does that make the other person? I remember having to fuss with it some in the 90s, but since then it pretty much just automagically works every time I have to set one up...
http://www.niftiestsoftware.com/cups-cloud-print/
Linux drivers todo the same thing landed in 2011.
Unknown Lamer
"It wouldn't be so bad if the Google Cloud Print libraries weren't proprietary and did something like IPP proxying instead of using a similarly proprietary API."
No proprietary libraries are used by the Linux cups cloud print. Yet it prints to Google Cloud Print Perfectly. https://developers.google.com/cloud-print/docs/pythonCode Yes the inferface instructions are written for python programmers. Yes you can write a print driver in python on Linux, OS X..... Almost all OS's bar Microsoft made OS's. The C/C++ versions are inside the chromuim source code.
Yes it is possible to create a cloud print circle of never ending print. Yes have chrome/chromuin proxy provide printer to google cloud print that just happens to be google cloud print itself. Anyone who makes this mistake is going to love the missing bandwidth.
What is lacking is a man in middle solution to intercept and redirect google cloud print and the option to set up your own private cloud print equal servers.
It's not like I don't understand cryptography, but my client Wiebetech got flamed by the "Pros" at the MacWorld Expo back in the day.
They were very excited that I'd implemented FireWire Encrypt hard drive AES encryption in ARM assembly code in the Oxford 911 storage bridge firmware. That enabled us to secure your external drives without the need of a driver, just a simple OS X GUI to enter your password, then transmit it over a proprietary FireWire protocol to the drive.
After confirming the password, the drive performed a bus reset, then appeared on the bus as an SBP-2/RBC storage device, as if unencrypted.
However, because I had a bit of a hard time getting that assembly code right - I called it "The Data Motel" until my encryptor and decryptor were BOTH fully debugged - James Wiebe appeared at the show, with my GUI transmitting the passphrase to the firmware in cleartext.
Now see if you can figure out why I'm calling you a damn fool.
As my father once said of his work at Mare Island Naval Shipyard:
"Every time we install a new computer, we have to wait for three months for someone to fly out from Washington, then another month while he spends a solid month before he is willing to "bless" it."
It was plainly apparent to me what he meant by "blessing" a computer at a Nuclear Submarine maintenance shipyard, but the proper term for "bless" was classified way, way about Top Secret, with the actual name of that classification being itself classified.
Perhaps you can take High School Physics at your local adult school, you knew where you'd go to study for your G.E.D. If not, I'm sure your local community college could fix you right up.
Are you serious? How on earth would a normal person figure out that printing is on port 631?
IPP has been a IETF standard for over 13 years.
"Find a computer with an install of any of the major linux distributions, fire up a web browser, and point it to http://localhost:631/"
In the main, that works. However, it should be noted that support for CUPS-HTTP-ADMIN varies from distribution to distribution, and even from version to version.
What I find (seriously) annoying is that if CUPS-HTTP-ADMIN is enabled, it's always defaulted to localhost only. That may be fine for a desktop... but in case no one ever told the CUPS folks (and the folks creating server linux distros), sometimes linux is used on servers.
To that end, here is my own cheat-sheet on getting CUPS-HTTP-ADMIN on the LAN:
Yes, it's in shorthand. No, it's not super-duper-secure. Because I have yet to see CUPS-HTTP-ADMIN be an actual attack vector. No, this is obviously not for a public facing linux box.
PS, don't forget to open up TCP 631 on whatever firewall is on your linux machine.
/dev/random
I've had Google print service for months now on a standard off the shelf Epson printer.
I think most newbies just use the hand dandy printer wizard. I set up Ultimate Linux for one guy and he later bought a printer. He called me about what to do with the cd that came with it and I told him to pull the pdf off of it and then throw it away. I explained to look for the picture of the printer on the settings menu and about 2 minutes later he was happily printing away. Even I don't use cups page anymore. I will say that if you own a canon printer it prints about 3 times faster on a mac than on linux. I love the printer but I'm starting to hate canon. Next printer will be from HP. Canon can suck my dick.
Web Interface is Disabled
The web interface is currently disabled. Run "cupsctl WebInterface=yes" to enable it.
I've always wondered with Cloud Print, it is routed through Google servers?? So Google and NSA sees everything you print?
i.e. it's not just some sort of exchange of IP addresses and port numbers, it's an actual man-in-the-middle attack on printing? You print to the printer in Epson in your house and it actually routes the thing through Google/NSA data center?
Really??
What kind of encryption is there between the device that's doing the printing and the printer, and is the source code available for inspection?
that's what is is. Greetings to 66MI in Erbenheim - whom have you peeped on today ?
Novell (yeah that old company that made NetWare back in the day) just released their mobile iPrint app last week. It would let you print via IPP from your android or iOS device without the need to set up a google cloud printer. Granted, it's targeted at enterprises, not end-users... http://www.novell.com/products/iprint/
which the NSA can get by taping Google's ISP without Google's consent....Try paying attention.
Don't be naive... Google *IS* the NSA.
all your bases r belong to us
localhost only is the sane default. A server admin should know how to forward port 631 via ssh; i.e.,
I really don't understand why in the world you're exposing this kind of control over the network all the time. It's kind of scary, TBH.
Nice try, Google, but you've burned me enough times that I'm not getting suckered into another one of your services that'll go away if it doesn't make you enough money.
Yes, Windows 2000 came with it turned on by default. Just in case some friendly person on the internet wanted to send you a malformed print job.
In any case, the CUPS admin screen is not IPP.
I don't think that an company would be so stupid to send their documents through Google.
This works on Macs too. The Mac power user I know always sets up printers on Macs with the web interface.
As someone who's been trying to use Cloud Print since it launched, I had assumed that the project was abandoned long ago. It has always been extremely flakey, it never "just works", etc. When it works, it's great. When it doesn't, you are left staring at a screen identical to when it does, with no diagnostics, and no sign of potential progress.
There are also some rather insane missing features, like the inability to rename printers (eg: if two of your friends have an HP DeskJet 1050a, and they both left it with the default name, have fun trying to decide which one to print on. Or if they both renamed their printers, but gave them sensible names like "HP (Upstairs)")
CloudPrint was a nice idea which Google has given zero attention. I do not expect things to suddenly work now that Windows is in the mix.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
HP is mostly ok, but I cannot get borderless prints with my Hp under Linux, Virtualbox and XP no problem at all.
I guess i'm asking too much for lab quality prints from an old inkjet.
Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
It gets better: Every computer user on the planet who prints through CUPS... is using Apple-owned software.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
Which you then wire into samba, which you then connect to with a Windows 8 box, which half the time just doesn't print anything. And then, when it doesn't, are there any clear error messages in the cups log? in the samba log? No. When a job starts but does not complete, it stands to reason that I don't want either no error message or a thousand unit debug messages, but something tracing the path of a failure up the call stack from where it's first found. It is annoying when developers cater only for 1) themselves; 2) the user whose system works perfectly first time.
I've never understood why print software has become so universally awful. Printing is *not* a particularly complex thing. It's the lack of transaction robustness which really grates me.
Is Google trying to get out of their way just to acquire every last bit of information for NSA masters?
I cant deny information to an app - its an app that decides if it will run on my phone depending on what Im willing to give it. Dont want to share my contact list? wont play half the games.
Then Google disables WiFi button because 'gotta have this location data no mater what!'
"Let Google's location service and other apps scan for networks, even when Wi-Fi is off"
And now they want copy of everything I print? They already have copy of every email ffs.
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
How on earth would a normal person figure out that printing is on port 631?
One of two ways:
Seriously, your complaint makes as much sense as asking 'How on earth would a normal person figure out that you browse the web by running iexplore.exe?'
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
What the fuck?
On what planet is a cumbersome, inflexible, feature-lacking dumbed-down GUI superior to a simple text file??
The text file can be edited in *any* editor (there you have your stupid GUI), can be extended with no work, is nice and comfortable to edit, has its documentation right with it, has *all* the options available, and is *scriptable*. (As in: Suitable for actual computer users!)
And no, it won't "bomb" on a simple tab.
Only a complete retard would seriously suggest a GUI is preferable. If you can't handle a text file, THEN WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING, TOUCHING THE MOST POWERFUL MACHINE ANY NORMAL HUMAN WILL EVER TOUCH?? You're *clearly* not fit to use one. Go get some fixed-function gadget/appliance, you backwards troglodyte!
It's just so nasty that it's an embarrassment. Android really, really needs a set of rendering APIs that apps can use to render content to a canvas and some dialogs for previewing, printing, page setup and spooling documents to a printer via a CUPS-like API. I'm sure it doesn't even need a new API level - the printer server could be a an app, the APIs for rendering could be drawing primitives with some convenient methods for snapshotting screens for lazy apps. It could be backported like other things have been like fragments to encourage wide adoption. But it does need them.
CUPS didn't even exist in 1993! It was lpd back then. I don't remember when CUPS first popped up in RedHat or whatever i was using at the time, but it was as long time after 1993.
I just dont think cloud as a medium will be solid enough.
Funny, that was about the first thing I thought too.
Wrt your other complaints I could, of course, observe that other platforms offer a much finer granulation of access control, even AFTER installation, but we still have to acknowledge that being asked is better than not being asked at all, as was the case before..
Insert
I clicked you link, but nothings happening
Is my Windows install broken ?
The Android software works like a charm (except for the occasional forgetting that pages that require logging in won't be logged in -- your receipts, for instance, aren't so simple to print).
On the other hand, HP's software, which only operated while I am on the WiFi, never worked to print a web page (I could print photos). I'd get a blank page, or worse, a black page.
Design for Use, not Construction!
We default to localhost for security reasons - most systems are clients/not sharing printers, so why expose your system to the world/office?
Run "cupsctl --remote-admin --remote-any --share-printers WebInterface=Yes" after you install to enable remote access, share printers, and enable the web interface. Add "DefaultEncryption=Never" if you don't want to use SSL/TLS (although personally I don't recommend that - encryption comes "for free" these days...)
I print, therefore I am.
I set this up the other week for the mother in law, and me, I'd stick with cloud printing through Chrome the way I set it up for her.
Why? Because I can sign out of Chrome until I need it again.
Installing this as a driver into Windows means I've now put Google into the operating system -- and increasingly I believe they will take advantage of that and record and send data when I'm not directly using it.
So, I will pass on installing a Google cloud-print driver, because I prefer the option of being able to turn them off. I prefer my trust relationship with Google to be something I can meter a little more closely, and disable when I'm not using it.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Only because Apple made it work properly and added a GUI instead of text files that bomb with a misplaced comma or tab.
Wow - you really haven't used linux in the last decade or so, have you?
Find a computer with an install of any of the major linux distributions, fire up a web browser, and point it to http://localhost:631/
You exaggerate the difficulties of setting up a printer using CUPS and a modern Linux distribution. ;-)
I just did a little experiment. I'm sitting in a holiday house borrowed from friends, using my trusty Lenovo laptop running Debian Squeeze. Next to me on the bench is a printer - I've never used it before and it's been covered with a cloth up until the start of the experiment.
I removed the cloth, powered up the printer, and then plugged the USB lead into my laptop. About 10 seconds later a dialogue box appeared on my desktop saying, "A new printer has come into existence. Do you want to use this driver?". I answered yes. It then said, "Do you want to print a test page?" Again I said yes, and shortly afterwards there appeared a perfectly formatted colour test page.
I'm not sure it can be made much easier than this.
John
Only because Apple made it work properly and added a GUI instead of text files that bomb with a misplaced comma or tab.
You mean like Ubuntu Linux provides CUPS administration via a webpage? Setting up networked printers is a breeze with CUPS via the webpage on my local computer. Heck I even set-up CUPS command-line only on a server and it worked flawlessly and almost too easily. GNU/Linux has come a long way since the early 1990s.
You exaggerate the difficulties of setting up a printer using CUPS and a modern Linux distribution. ;-)
I removed the cloth, powered up the printer, and then plugged the USB lead into my laptop. About 10 seconds later a dialogue box appeared on my desktop saying, "A new printer has come into existence. Do you want to use this driver?". I answered yes. It then said, "Do you want to print a test page?" Again I said yes, and shortly afterwards there appeared a perfectly formatted colour test page.
I'm not sure it can be made much easier than this.
John
Ok - even I didn't know things had progressed that far! In my defence, the only USB-only printer I own is plugged into my router so that it can pretend to be a network printer. It's probably been years since I last configured a USB printer on a linux desktop distro :-)
You can never know everything, and part of what you do know will always be wrong. Perhaps even the most important part.
As the parent said: Apple created an easy to use GUI and made it work. He didn't say just the Printer Dialog in OSX. Remember the world of printing in Linux prior to Apple taking over CUPS? I do. As much as it's cool to rip apple on /. these days, the next time you can easily attach and use a printer in *iux remember to thank the folks at Apple.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
please dont reproduce
Additionally, Apple's use of Bonjour (like many things Apple a combination of existing protocols with a little polish) lets local network printers appear as print targets with automatic configuration and driver downloads if needed. That's something that's been promised by many systems, including Windows and Linux, but again with OSX it actually just works - almost boringly well.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
One reason its so nice that Apple still uses the same boring, simple text files that everyone else in the *NIX world does - but has also created little daemons and GUIs to make modifying them simple for non-expert users. And even if you're an expert computer programmer, there's no reason for you to also become skilled in administering CUPS and Postfix just to print a memo and send email.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
I have used cloud print for my wireless printer for quite a while for home or mobile use. Though always through Chrome browser.
Perhaps I've missed an obvious step but after loading the Cloud Print for Windows I cannot seem to find a way to connect my work PC to my homes Cloud Print printer. As with many that work from home, I log into the company network via VPN. While on Chrome I can easily print to it but have not found a way to print to it using any Office app as it doesn't load drivers for a "Cloud Print Printer". Cloud Print for Windows just wants to add my works networked printers to the cloud which is worthless to me.
From their help section it says to go to the cloud printer management page and select print, upload the file to print. That seems far less than ideal. If I can't set it as my default printer in windows, then it's near worthless to me.
Most "normal people" (i.e. Linux and OSX users) use a GUI built into the OS which does all of the nice driver location, installation and configuration. I rarely use 631 (in fact, just checked my Mac and was surprised to find 631 is disabled by default... never used it).
CUPS works really well on Linux and Mac. (Except for many Canon printers since Canon is just a terrible company... don't buy Canon printers).
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Most Linux users access their printers from either a notification area icon or something like:
Application Menu>Administration>Print Settings
or even:
system-config-printer
in a terminal.
Gives you a nice GUI....even the cups page on port 631 is all GUI based. Heck, even on the Playstation 2 Linux kit you didn't need to edit printer configurations manually, you brought up the old style redhat printtool and that was on a Red Hat 6.1 based distro.
You know that would be a good idea to put a link to localhost:631 (or whatever printer configuration utility there is) on the desktop, Fedora doesn't do it though. On XFCE printer administration is "hidden" in Applications Menu>Administration>Print Settings.
IIRC in Gnome2 it was Gnome Menu>System>Printer Settings.
Who would ever think to look there.
Of course in many modern Linux distro's you don't have to actually set up your printer because it's done automagically when you plug it in. In my case, since my printer has the minimum RAM, using hp's PJL works better than plain postscript so I did have to go into the tool and change it.
I meant that "Who would ever think to look there" sarcastically since those are easy to find. I always get messed up because vbulletin uses braces and Slashdot uses greater-than/less-than so my "sarcasm" tags disappeared.
That doesn't really address the question.
...this project?
http://www.chromium.org/developers/how-tos/build-instructions-windows
Yea, we have this up already, but nice to see an actually-released installer.
Are you saying they have done this or projecting they will?
I have two Android devices running pretty current versions, and I have a button to disable wifi.
In fact, I routinely turn off wifi on both devices to prevent ads and other network traffic when I don't want it. Neither has access to cellular data.
My test for a new application is airplane mode ... if it can't operate in airplane mode, it gets immediately deleted. As wifi is a subset of airplane mode, I don't think they could ever remove the ability to turn this off. Games and stuff which is local only are much better if I deny them access to their ads.
And, yes, I agree that we should be able to come in later and revoke certain permissions on apps. Because I don't think the app itself needs to read my phone calls, I believe that should be taken care of by the OS. And things which are essentially local post-it notes, those apps don't need network access at all.
For me, Google is increasingly becoming a "kinda trust, but not always", and many of the apps don't get much trust at all.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Seriously, your complaint makes as much sense as asking 'How on earth would a normal person figure out that you browse the web by running iexplore.exe?'
Not exactly. No doubt that they seem alike in your eyes, but to someone lacking in experience with computers, a better comparison would be "how on earth would a normal person figure out what server/port to set for POP3/IMAP/SMTP in their mail client?"
The answer, of course, is still to RTFM, but that assumes that an FM exists that tells you about these things. Now I don't know how it is with setting up a printer, but regarding email, it has not always been the case that an FM was provided which told you about those things. If you didn't want your ISP's custom software touching your machine (or if they did not officially support your OS), it was almost like a scavenger hunt to find the required info.
You'll find local and network printer search and configuration, default paper and printer settings, print queues, pretty much everything you need, all in a nice pretty gui.
Yup, and there is a 10% chance that your printer will even be in the list, or work. My last printer was a nightmare to get working with CUPS, and at some point a foomatic upgrade broke it somewhat (disabled color or something).
My current printer is a postscript printer and I'll never go back - works out-of-the-box with the vendor-provided ppd with almost zero effort to set up. However, this is still not the norm for linux printing, unless your distro is doing a LOT of integration work.
My Ubuntu installation has a graphic interface. Works just fine. I haven't used a text file to set up CUPS in years. Prints no problem, diagnostics, no problem.
My Windows installation on the other hand has a very annoying problem of "printer offline" occurring even though some part of the brain dead printing system recognizes that I just plugged the printer in. About the only thing you can do is delete the printer and reboot and re-install. This only works for a while because Windows doesn't completely delete the printer. Eventually the windows box stops printing. That's when I started using Google Cloud Print. It is easier to print over the internet from a windows box to a printer that you are sitting right next to, rather than connecting it with a USB cable.
I use windows at work. It's easy because the sysadmins have to deal with the MS BS. I use linux at home because I have to deal with the admin stuff and I can't stand the MS BS
So? Its OSS, not exactly possible to lock you in.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Are you saying they have done this or projecting they will?
I have two Android devices running pretty current versions, and I have a button to disable wifi.
this button will stop working in 4.3, it will still be there, but it wont turn off wifi :) it will be there to make you feel good
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
When collaborating with a team at a remote office, it makes sense to:1)save scan stuff to the remote office server and 2)queue stuff to print to the remote office server. These two tasks are possible through the cloud, but not necessary to have. A lot of this has already been dealt with in existing desktop operating systems. It's surprising to see they didn't integrate this kind of stuff from the beginning.
Events like these prove people consider smartphones/tablets should be mobile desktops crippled with no keyboard and mouse. Yes there are phones with a qwerty keyboard, but they are tiny and if you have stubby fingers like me they are inefficient. Manufacturers are doing their best to try to wean us off desktops/laptops because it gives them the opportunity to sell us all those things we take for granted as phone app$$$. I bought 3 slow and shitty expensive tablets and I won't be fooled again. I don't want Android. I think Android is slow and it sucks. I don't want to code for it either because the programming toolkit and api are not the same as regular Linux.
These so-called inexpensive devices are expensive when you calculate all the time you waste with them trying to make things work like on your Desktop Linux.
More people will be screaming for more Linux Desktop experience on phones/tablets. Android in its present form is definitely not where I see myself tomorrow or ten years from now. Desktop Linux is where I am. Desktop Linux is where I will be with X-Window(x.org wayland)/GTK/GNOME/KDE/QT on a traditional DIY Desktop PC and hopefully a DIY Mobile Phone. UBUNTU touch is coming, but I hope it will cut the mustard, but I won't pay for something in advance when I haven't even touched it or had a ride around the block with it yet. I made that mistake with those 3 android tablets. Never again. That was just smoke and mirrors advertisements on TV thinking it was up to snuff like a Desktop. Android tablets are not up-to-snuff or at least not to my opinion of a useful work device; high-end laptops and dedicated rudimentary Motorola cellphones that last 4-5 days without recharging are useful work devices. I did try LilDebi(Debian Linux on ARM) on my Android tablets and LilDebi is more like what I want, but LilDebi runs simultaneously with Android so it's very very slow. I would prefer a NATIVE touch & usb keyboard/mouse capable (your favorite flavor Linux) DEBIAN with (your favorite flavor GUI) GNOME and without any Android GUI.
In the meantime, I continue to use my Linux desktop for doing real work.
Partially agreed. Printing, including installation, should go like this on a ETIAF *NIX system:
# Setup
pushd
ln -s
ln -s "My Printer" _default
cp -a
$EDITOR "My Printer.conf" # Here you set the paper size, resolution, etc, but only in case you want it to differ from the good default.
popd
# Print
echo "someotherconfig = someothervalue" > "/var/spool/cups/My Document.ext.conf"
ln -s "My Document.ext"
# or alternatively: $somePDFoutputter "$sourceFile" > "/var/spool/cups/$sourceFile.pdf"
# CUPS uses e.g. inotify to watch for changes in that directory, prints the stuff (e.g. to the default printer), and then deletes those two files.
Easy, obvious once the general pattern is known (which should be a single paragraph in /usr/share/doc/cups*/README), nicely automatable, compatible with everything, infinitely flexible.
The routine for Postfix mailing would be EXACTLY the same. Just replace "cups" with "mail" or whatever it's called.
The setup would of course be a bit different, but in the same spirit.
Ditto for just about everything like that. (Which is the point. It's all the same.)
I've had this setup on my Windows machine for a long time now. It's been a feature in Chrome for a very long time.
Are agnostics skeptical of unicorns too?
Partially agreed. Printing, including installation, should go like this on a ETIAF *NIX system:
...echo "someotherconfig = someothervalue" > "/var/spool/cups/My Document.ext.conf" ...
Easy, obvious once the general pattern is known...
That's your definition of easy? And obvious? FWIW, the same approach on the OSX variant of UNIX is:
1) Plug the printer into the computer or indeed anywhere on the local network
2) Choose the printer from the list of "Nearby printers" when you go to print something
3) Very occasionally wait a few seconds while your computer communes with the internet on your behalf and installs the appropriate drivers
4) Retrieve your printout from the printer
Why make it harder than it has to be?
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
WTF are you talking about? Total WOOSH, I was pointing out that Google has not been complicit in any of the NSA spying because they have captured the traffic at their ISP.
You realize there is a embedded web GUI in CUPS, and has been for quite some time? (I was using it 6 years ago, and it wasn't 'new' then). Try checking http://localhost:631/ - that is the URL if you have it enabled.
Trackball users will be first against the wall.