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.
   
   
   
   
   

You need help. Informal non-professional help. Your code is unconcious at 4AM. You can’t wade through the sea of coders at the hackathon, but you need to tell your friend to save you a burrito. You’re terminally bored, and browsing reddit isn’t cutting it anymore.

If only there were a virtual space for Columbia techs to hang out in!

Have no fear, for the ADI now has their very own IRC channel.

IRC stands for Internet Relay Chat; it is, and has been one of the most popular chat options in the virtual world. It’s dead simple: anyone can set up their own IRC server*, and the protocol is very mature. Sure, it can’t do video conferencing or cook you an omlet, but by golly does it do chat.

To start chatting, you need an IRC client. Pidgin is my preferred client, although you can go out and simply google ‘irc client’ to find a whole host of choices.

Pidgin is pretty darn cool: not only can it talk to IRC servers, it can speak essentially any other chat language, including AIM, MSN, Google Talk, Facebook chat**, and many more. It doesn’t do video conferencing or omlet-cooking either, but for our intents and purposes it’ll do swell.

Okay, go get pidgin here.

Installation

Windows

It’s a pretty standard installation process. Open up the installer, hit next until it finishes.

OS X

You probably want to install Adium instead. It uses the same chat engine as pidgin, but has a more mac-y feel.

Linux

Use your favorite package manager to install pidgin.

Examples:

Ubuntu – apt-get install pidgin

Fedora – yum install pidgin

Getting on IRC

Fire up pidgin if it’s not already running. When you run it for the first time, it should ask you if you want to add an account, and you should go right on ahead and add whatever chat accounts you want.

Since you’re reading this, I’m guessing you want to join our IRC channel, so you should add an account that uses the IRC protocol. Choose some username for now, set the server to irc.freenode.com (it might be the default), and finish making the account.

When you finish adding the account, it should log into the freenode server (this might take a minute) and you might get some messages from someone named ‘nickserv’ or ‘frigg’. This is just the way IRC lets you know that the connection is finished, so there’s no need to get scared or anything: go ahead and close those windows. Do note that it’ll happen every time you log in***.

Once you’ve logged onto the IRC server, there are different chatrooms/channels you can join. Usually, the channel name starts with a pound symbol, like #blender (general talk channel for the 3D software Blender) or a double hash like ##church-of-loudbot (ALL CAPS ALL THE TIME).

To get into the #adicu channel, go to your buddy list (if your buddy list disappeared, it usually minimizes to wherever your “system tray” is) and go into the Buddies->Add Chat menu. Select your IRC account in the drop down menu, and put in the channel name into channel. Don’t forget the # at the beginning: so if you want to link into the ADI channel, put #adicu into the channel field. Tick off autojoin when account connects, and finish adding it.

Great! A chat window for #adicu should pop open, and you can start chatting.

If you’re new to chatrooms, then it’s a good idea to read this uber-short intro to netiquette, and this guide on how to ask questions (we won’t be rude, but it’s good to read anyways). If you want to, the freenode guidelines are also fun reading.

Do keep in mind that pidgin usually doesn’t alert users whenever someone posts a new message to a channel, so responses may be slow.

Note that the username you chose earlier when logging into the account isn’t saved anywhere: other people can use your username (nick, in IRC parlance) and no one will be the wiser as to who you actually are. If you want some measure of protection for your IRC nick, so that other people can’t steal your username so easily, type the following into the #adicu chat window:

/msg nickserv register <your-password> <your-email>

Make sure you type in a /, not a \****, and change the password you login with (Buddy List->Accounts->Manage Accounts). The original instructions for registering are here, with more info about registering in general.

Happy IRC-ing!

* No one sets up their own servers, true, but the fact your chat is not tied to a company is pretty cool

** There is not an obvious Facebook chat option, but googling ‘facebook chat pidgin’ will get you there. Ignore the pidgin-facebookchat plugin, it’s somewhat obsolete now.

*** http://freenode.net/faq.shtml#freenodeconnect has more information about why this happens