Download: HP Officejet 100 Printer Driver for OS X Lion Version 12.13.20 (Direct FTP Link)

Here’s the catch: Unlike nearly every other printer for OS X Lion, the driver is not currently available via Apple Software Update. Apple pushed printer makers really hard to release drivers exclusively on Apple Software Update this go-around. In fact, it’s hard at times to set up some printer models on OS X Lion if you don’t have an Internet connection for the computer.

I can figure how this happened. HP’s Officejet 100 probably required significant customizations from the base HP printer driver. It’s one of the only HP printers that primarily prints via Bluetooth, which in and of itself requires additional battle testing. Since it’s sold in stores, HP didn’t want to wait and pushed the driver out on their web site early.

Eventually, I suspect, this driver will get rolled into the next HP Printer Driver Update that gets pushed out via Apple Software Update. The good news is that for road warriors, you can download and keep this driver on a flash drive. That’s another reason I suspect HP posted a standalone download… this printer is meant to be used in situations (on the road) where you may not be able to pop on the Internet and grab the driver. For a particular Mac.

I just purchased my Officejet 100 for over half off at Office Depot. $149 after a $50 trade-in (I traded in a brand new, in-box printer I found on clearance at Target for $10… a year ago). While I wasn’t too keen on trading in a brand new printer, needlessly creating e-waste for the sake of price discrimination, I am in love with the Officejet 100. It’s Bluetooth, plugs into my car’s DC-in or AC outlets, and does USB as well.

While on travel, I can toss it in my backpack and have a printer in my hotel room. But where it really shines is on the road. If I need a coupon, I can print it without having to drive home. With the price of gas, driving home to grab a coupon can become worthless… before even factoring in the loss of time. Now, I can print from my car whenever I want, and ditch the coupon box. Less stress, and more productivity.

When combined with a NeatReceipt scanner, I have the ability to scan and print from anywhere in the world. Paper, mastered.

If you look at Apple Support Documents, and the Apple product pages, they refer to the product as “OS X Lion“. Not “Mac OS X Lion” or “Mac OS 10.7″, simply “OS X Lion”.

Note that this title lacks two key things; Mac and 10.7. More specifically, if you look at an Apple Support Page’s affected products listing, it will appear like this:

Mac OS X 10.0, Mac OS X 10.3, Mac OS X 10.2, Mac OS X 10.1, Mac OS X 10.4, Mac OS X 10.5, Mac OS X 10.6, OS X Lion

Why the change? It’s not quite clear. Apple still refers to the product as Mac OS X under the About This Mac feature in 10.7.2, so there is a bit of mixed branding.

I do suspect though that this late change in branding implies that Apple may be prepared to do what many have rumored; blend iOS and Mac OS in some way down the line. It may or may not happen with Lion itself, but there has been considerable talk of ARM-based devices that resemble netbook-style MacBooks, instead featuring multi-touch displays and an ARM CPU.

In light of Windows 8 running on ARM, and notebook makers eager to combine ARM and Windows to increase profit margins, and deliver lower-cost computers (to combat tablets primarily), Apple may see the need to quickly respond to the rise of Windows ARM. Having a product that is “Lion” but also not necessarily the power, prowess, and capacity of a “Mac”, could allow Apple to retain customers that would otherwise defect to the lower-cost Windows ARM offerings.

Such a change also allows Apple to mix branding while creating a hierarchy of devices. With iOS devices focusing on portability, and Mac being the Cadillac brand of premium personal computers, Apple could create a middle-ground offering that runs on ARM, runs Lion, but requires recompiled software and functions as a middle-ground between the two products.

It could be one of the best moves Apple makes. Honestly, how many iOS device owners would buy a $400 Apple netbook? How many $2,500 MacBook Pro owners would buy one?

Apple has said netbooks may not be in their DNA. They never said they wouldn’t compete in that price-point or arena. This is a small change that could mean big things for where Apple takes Lion, especially if that means taking it to ARM… which they now happens to be a strong point for the dual-core Cortex manufacturer.

If you are a Momentus XT owner (like myself), you can breath a sigh of relief and update immediately… after backing up, of course. This firmware update will hopefully, hopefully tie up some painful loose ends that have stifled the life (thus far) of this innovative technology.

As the first second generation hybrid hard drive out there, the Momentus XT took the operating system out of the equation of hybrid drives. Whereas the first generation required Windows Vista (and only Windows Vista), these new drives benefit from OS independent caching of files to the solid state portion of the drive. As such, you can even dual-boot Linux, Mac, and Windows on the same drive, and still see a performance benefit.

Unfortunately, the issues I mentioned above are quite severe. The drives from the start have had issues booting on many systems, especially Mac systems where they are in an especially high level of demand. Worse, the firmware updates have made a bad situation worse. Some booted with SD24, and didn’t with the updated SD25.

To make that matter worse, a file corruption bug was found where when dealing with ultra-large (as in, several gigabyte) files, you then lost data completely. This usually could only be recreated using a terminal command to generate a massive file, filling up most of the 250 to 500 GB drive, followed by a very long CRC/MD5 checksumming process.

Seagate did offer up an update, SD26, but only did so under the table, and on newly-shipped drives. Why? Because yet again the update had bootability issues, rending some Macs boot-less immediately after updating, whereas other machines worked just fine. Seagate couldn’t issue the update as-is to users, especially in the wake of other problems, so Seagate casually hoped the issue would blow over in regards to file corruption, waiting for engineers to issue a consolidated fix.

Judging by the version number, it appears another version almost came out, though I doubt we’ll ever know (or really care, for that matter) what held up SD27. Bottom line, SD28 is out, and you should update immediate. Just, backup first. I’ll be backing up tonight, and updating later today. I’ll report back on my experiences, but I encourage everyone to immediately make updating your Momentus XT (again, after backing up) to be a tip-top priority.

After all, it’s firmware, and if you have this drive, odds are you get a small sense of glee from updating your firmware anyways.

Seagate Momentus XT Firmware Update – Seagate.com

Update: You can see my personal debrief of the SD28 update in the following article.

However, I will say that I am disappointed at the pricing that has emerged on other web sites (here’s just one for example).

At double the pricing for Amazon’s Cloud Drive, I can’t say I’ll be using iCloud. For $120/year I get unlimited storage on CrashPlan, for up to 10 computers worth of storage in my house. Other online backup services combine online backup with mobile app access to all your files, at one low monthly price.

What about communication? Calendars? Etc? All freely supported on Google Apps. Which, I might add, is still free for up to 10 email addresses worth. At the current free Google storage rates, that translates to 75 GB per domain name… and domain names cost only a few dollars a year.

I hear the argument all the time that these cloud services are different than raw storage, they make lives easier. Granted, I don’t think iCloud should compete with the “unlimited storage” shared hosting solutions. I think that’s unrealistic.

That said, I think cloud solutions do have to compete with services like Google Apps and Windows Live. If I can store documents via email, if I can manage them in a Gmail view, and if I get 25 GB free from Windows Live SkyDrive… what am I paying for with iCloud?

Of course, there’s the freemium argument as well. People will get “hooked” on iCloud with the first 5 GB, and then want more. And they then won’t want to move. Sorry, I don’t buy it. I think people will get more tech savvy as their 5 GB get used up, and ask even more technically-inclined people for a way to keep the free file bash going.

That may work for Apple too, but it’s far from a cost-effective solution. iCloud may be the best cloud out there, but in terms of bang for your buck, I don’t think it’s there yet. Not with the pricing that has been disclosed, at least.

No, the screen grab below has not been edited in any way, nor was it coaxed into fruition. It is what appeared after clicking the close button after a “successful” Office installation.

And yes, it did infinite loop. Had to force quit the setup “assistant” and relaunch Office to break the loop.

But even I justified paying $275 for an Intel X25-M SSD. And, I’ve got the perfect example of why it makes business sense.

Sure, 17 second startups are great. But, I am in love with my NeatReceipt system. It has saved my bacon over the past year countless times. From finding proof of warranty to tackling my taxes. I can just feed documents through the NeatReceipt, and drop them in my shredder. They’re digitized, in PDF-ready format… and you can search through the text of each and every document on the fly.

You literally can scan every receipt, even fast food ones, and keep track of where every penny goes. I don’t use it for that, but if you want to know how many Burger King TenderGrill, or how many Jack in the Box Chicken Fajita Pitas I order in a year (both rather healthy fast food choices, I might add), it’s as simple as typing that into NeatWorks.

Unfortunately, if you scan every receipt, your database gets crowded. Everything works, but the app does take awhile to load. And, your system won’t multitask as well as it did (you can still surf the web, check your email, just don’t expect to run Windows in the background).

The good news is, this is where the Intel X25-M shines in office situations. With 700 MB worth of receipts, it loads in under 20 seconds. This took about a minute and a half on a hard drive.

Take a deep breath, I haven’t lost it.

ProCare provides some Apple-centric users powerful tools at the Apple Store. It used to also include One to One, but that’s now an additional $99, on top of the $99 in ProCare.

Let’s say for the moment that I have five Macs in my family, and ProCare covers all five (technically if you have six to ten Apple wants you to purchase a second ProCare membership).

Let’s say that per year, I have two warranty claims. With the usage of my systems, that’s extremely conservative. I know these systems inside and out, I like many others advocate changes to Apple products frequently. And, I like many others becomes bored to death answering tech support’s questions. When my Mac breaks, it’s really broken… and I can usually point out exactly what part is broken.

I realize 99% of customers aren’t like this. But, at the same time, Apple needs to realize 1% of customers are.

So, to those customers, I think it would make a lot of sense for Apple to offer things like QuickDrop express drop-off on Mac repairs. When I fill out a QuickDrop form, I practically give Apple the part number to order, and that takes the waiting at the Apple Store out of the deal. I save Apple time, shipping costs, and most importantly… money. But, I’m not going to pay for ProCare for the privilege of doing all of that.

So, instead I sit on hold with Apple, wasting more money than the cost of a ProCare membership in a year… as the billable hours for Apple Experts, shipping costs for individual overnight parcels, and troubleshooting costs pile up.

An even better middle ground would be for a ProCare Lite membership. Something that would only cost $25/year, and let me just take advantage of QuickDrops. I’m not interested in the rest of ProCare, I have no need for the Genius Bar to defrag my hard drive and run the AppleCare Service Diagnostic suite.

Though, it would be nice if they posted the extended Apple Service Diagnostic discs online for eveyone… again, that would cut troubleshooting costs for IT professionals, and Apple. However, Apple didn’t listen to my last suggestion on that one.

Bottom line: Apple should profile those customers that could save the company money by being able to diagnose and request warranty repairs on their own. They started this with the original iMac G5… they need to pick up the pace.

Sorry, I once again have to burst your bubble.

The folks at mswhs.com found HP’s white paper on the new HP MediaSmart servers. I’ll quote the most depressing line: “Note that the “Restore System from Backup” feature of Time Machine is not implemented.”

What that means is, while you can restore individual files that were accidentally deleted… you cannot recover a Mac from a catastrophic failure (won’t boot, lost, stolen, damaged, defective, etc).

And, while the white paper doesn’t say why… I know why, and I’ll tell you. See, what HP did to enable Time Machine to work with Windows Home Server (WHS), was to patch the way WHS handles SMB stores. Then, on the Mac, they tweak a few settings to override Apple’s backup restrictions. This allows the Mac to see SMB file shares (like, WHS file shares), and then HP’s intermediary on the Mac mounts the special patched SMB file share mount.

And, if you’re running Mac OS X 10.5.5 or later, that works great. The problem is, the Mac OS X install/restore disc is not using 10.5.5. It’s usually at 10.5.0. Worse, HP can’t patch the install disc to “see” the Windows Home Server anyways.

There is a workaround, what HP would have to do is slipstream their patches onto the Mac OS X disc. That’s really complicated, and well, they’d have to hire someone… like me… to write a utility that would let someone insert a Mac OS X install/restore disc, and then a blank DVD, and create a custom restore disc that would work with Windows Home Server.

Will I do it? Sorry, I don’t have time. But, if HP wants to hire MechaWorks to do the consulting on it… I’m sure something can be arranged…

Another workaround that I’ve come up with would be to copy the Time Machine store to a Mac-formatted hard drive, once you need to do a full system restore. That would allow the restore disc to see it. I’m surprised HP doesn’t document this solution as being a supported workaround… it certainly would save a lot of users frustration when they realize they can’t do a full system restore (and then HP tells them it isn’t possible, when it in fact is).

Kega Fusion is one of the most popular SEGA Genesis + CD + 32X emulators out there, and the developer has just finished porting it as his first Mac app.

This really opens up a lot of potential for better emulation on the Mac, as well as possibly on iPhone and iPod touch. I haven’t had a chance to use it throughly, but all three platforms are supported in the first release, and netplay will be added eventually. The only real caveat to the Mac version right now is that SEGA CD games have to be in BIN/CUE format to be played.

Kega Fusion

Namely, if you strip the unnecessary foreign language translations (using a tool like Youpi Optimizer, Monolingual, or even Finder)… the updater will complain that there aren’t any viable installations available.

And yes, this is a bug. Apple guidelines are clear, a user can delete the foreign language localizations, and that should not damage the integrity of the application. Unfortunately, the Office 2008 updater is not respecting that.

Unfortunately, the only workaround is to completely uninstall Office 2008, reinstall Office 2008, update Office 2008 to the latest version, and then re-remove the localizations. This is getting to be a monthly hassle… and hopefully Microsoft will get this message (with this post).