Hi Luis,

A thank you for all your mac topics and answers to my questions in the past. I bought my first Imac yesterday and am really enjoying it. some questions–I need a driver for my copier/printer a SHARP AR-266FG –I looked at their home page and could not find a mac driver. Any advice? Thanks matthew

Matthew: That’s a Japan-specific model; Japan-specific copier-printer models are notorious for not providing specific Mac support. You might want to call Sharp up and ask; they sometimes have solutions.

However, it is possible that your Mac already has the answer. Connect your Mac to the printer, then go to the Control Panel, and open up Print & Fax, selecting the “Printing” tab. See if the copier lists automatically in the printer list.

I expect it will not. So click on the little “+” button below that list. At the top, “Default Browser” should be selected; see if the printer appears there. If, after a minute or so, it does not, then click on “IP Printer.” Under all three protocols, see if an IP address comes up in the menu. If not, find out the IP Address of the printer from whomever controls that, and enter it under “address.” Once you do that, the “Print Using” pull-down menu at the bottom of the dialog should resolve to “Generic PostScript Printer.” Add the printer, and then see if it works (make sure that printer is selected when you print the document).

If none of this works, then call Sharp tech/customer support and see what they say. As I mentioned, they might have some specific solutions.

It is conceivable that the specific printer does not work with a Mac, but usually there is a way for them to play nice.

BTW, you mention that this is “your” copier/printer–you bought a 1.2 million-yen copier? If it’s a business machine, and you rent it, and it won’t work at all with the Mac, see about swapping it for one that can.

What surprises me the most is how happy and casual they all look posing in the shots. Breaking and entering and theft…what good times! What a Kodak moment!

Jeff: that struck me that way as well. But when you get down to it, you gotta imagine that most criminals who believe that they are getting away with it cold probably have the same attitude. These kids may have even been the exact same ones who had broken in before. A lot of cabins in the wilderness, unused for long periods of time, no security systems. Clearly they believed they had enough time for a party and settled down to it.

It also gets down to the ethics of the criminal. These idiots almost certainly believed that what they were doing was justified for some reason–even if the reason was as simple as the idea that they wouldn’t get caught. You gotta admit, most premeditated criminals probably don’t spend much time during the crime worrying about the wrongness of their actions. They’ve already thought about it enough to develop a rationale for it, or just simply not to care about it any more.

I suppose that, for these kids, this answers the question: if you could break in and steal something and no one would know about it, would you do it?

Thanks as always Luis. Tried what you said but no go. I will call sharp tomorrow and see what they say. If they cant help then a call to the salesman to see about a switch–yes it is a leased machine for my business. Thanks. I am really loving my new mac. Learing curve is quite easy but I may hit you up for more advice in the future. Perhaps I can send you Ochugen for all your help.

matthew

Matthew:

No worries, ask anything anytime. No chuugen necessary.

I made a Mac Starter/Switcher kit on a CD, which is too big to post… but here’s the location of an RTF file with descriptions of freeware that I put in the kit. By using VersionTracker, you should be able to find all of them, and install the ones you want. The address of the RTF file (you can either download the link target, or perhaps your browser can read it directly):

http://www.blogd.com/newmac.rtf