If you are using Linux, like me, you may have been frustrated by the lack of documentation for adding printers from Columbia’s Ninja printing system to your computer. Well, this post will show you an easy-peasy way to set up printing on your Linux system. As an added bonus, this method should work on Mac OS X as well!

Downloading

Get the script from https://raw.github.com/adicu/ninja-unix/master/addprinters.sh.

Adding Printers

Running the script like so,

sudo ./addprinters.sh

without any arguments will add all the printers in the NINJA system to your computer. This will take a long time, so you may only want to add a subset. You can supply an argument to the script to restrict the printers installed. For instance.

./addprinters.sh butler

will add all printers in Butler library.

./addprinters.sh butler301a

adds a specific printer.

Deleting printers

To delete a specific printer, run the command

lpadmin -x printername

where printername is the name of the printer. Alternatively, you can use the CUPS web interface by navigating to http://localhost:631 in your webbrowser and removing the printer from there.

If you need to delete many printers at once. You can use the delprinters.sh script, available at https://raw.github.com/adicu/ninja-unix/master/addprinters.sh. The usage is the same as the addprinters.sh script.

Printing from the Command Line

You may be thinking: “I’m a Linux user dammit, how do I print from the command line?”
This is easy enough, just do

lpr -d printername filename

Where printername is the name of the NiNJA printer and filename is the name of a PostScript, PDF, or Image File.

Possible problems

If you see the error message “Could not find the lpadmin program”, you do not have the Common Unix Printing System (CUPS) installed. In most distributions, CUPS can be found in a package called, well “cups”.

If you see the message “Could not find foomatic-ppdfile”, you do not have the foomatic database installed. Foomatic is a database containing the driver information for many different printer types. In most distributions, foomatic is generally composed of two packages “foomatic-db” and “foomatic-db-engine”.

If you see “lpadmin: could not read ppd file”, something may have gone wrong during installation, delete the printer and try again.

Dropbox is as great free tool that no one has an excuse not to have. It is a good first step into the cloud for any user. Dropbox lets you designate a folder on one or more computers that automatically syncs to the cloud (on their secure servers). What does this mean for you? Using Dropbox, you can (for free):

• Access up to 2 GB of your documents through a web portal on any computer. This means no more trips back to your room because you forgot to email yourself something or left your flash drive.
• Have a secure backup if your something happens to your computer and you were not able to access your data.
• Keep folders on one or more computers synced.
• Host documents that you want to publicly share with others without having to upload them to another website.

Now to get started:

1. Go to the registration page.
   Be sure to register using your @columbia.edu email address because you get extra space as a student.
   The registration process is quite simple—just follow the steps and confirm your email address.
2. Download the software and follow the instructions for installation. This is very easy. You can do it.
3. Move the files you want to have synced into your Dropbox folder. You won’t have enough space for videos, music, or photos with a free account, but you can definitely put important documents that you want to access easily and safeguard.
4. Configure your Dropbox folder to be the default save folder. In Word or an Office program, go to the “Word” section of the top menu and open “Preferences.” Go to the bottom row of icons and select files, click modify and set your default document save location to your Dropbox folder.