Category: Home Ec

Things around the home & hearth

Epson R380 Printer: Cutting In a Continuous Ink Supply System

The continuous ink supply system on the Epson R380 printer developed a slow air leak in one cartridge, which may have contributed to the nozzle problems, so I just installed another system from the usual eBay supplier: prefilled with ink and $30 delivered.

As nearly as I can tell, Epson designed a number of features into the R380 specifically to thwart CISS installation, including the awkward bridge across the middle of the printer that interferes with the flat tube feeding ink to the flying cartridges. I managed to route the previous CISS tubing around the bridge, but this time I figured enough was enough.

So I tucked a shop rag inside the printer, put a vacuum cleaner nozzle near the operation, and applied a fine-tooth pull saw to the bridge:

Epson R380 – bridge removed

That certainly simplified the rest of the installation…

2013-02-19

Why Friends Don’t Let Friends Run Windows: Conficker

Mary gave a gardening presentation at the local library, popping a 4 GB USB memory stick with the presentation into a library computer connected to the display projector. Back home, she deleted the presentations and was about to add more files, when she noticed something interesting:

drwx------  4 ed   ed    4096 Dec 31  1969 ./
drwxr-x---+ 3 root root  4096 Jan 31 19:21 ../
-r--r--r--  1 ed   ed   59288 Mar 21  2009 autorun.inf
drwx------  3 ed   ed    4096 Jan 30 19:31 RECYCLER/
drwx------  4 ed   ed    4096 Jan 31 19:10 .Trash-1001/

Ubuntu 12.10 automagically mounts FAT filesystems with the current user as owner and group. The .Trash-1001 directory is the Linux trash heap, but where did all that other stuff come from? The autorun.inf definitely looks Window-y, doesn’t it?

Perforce, the library runs Windows, but that shouldn’t add files to a USB memory stick that just was plugged in and used for a read-only presentation, should it?

Huh. You know where this is going…

Let’s hand autorun.inf to VirusTotal for a second opinion. The first three results from their long list confirm my suspicion:

Antivirus	Result	Update
Agnitum	INF.Conficker.F	20130131
AhnLab-V3	Win32/Conficker.worm	20130131
AntiVir	Worm/Kido.IH.40	20130131

The executable file containing the actual payload is, of course, buried in a subdirectory that might look more innocent on a Windows box:
/RECYCLER/S-5-3-42-2819952290-8240758988-879315005-3665/

It sports a randomized name to evade a really stupid malware detector:
jwgkvsq.vmx

Here’s what VirusTotal reports from some heavy hitters in the AV field:

Kaspersky	Net-Worm.Win32.Kido.ih	20130131
Kingsoft	Worm.Kido.ih.(kcloud)	20130131
Malwarebytes	Worm.Conficker	20130131
McAfee	W32/Conficker.worm	20130201
McAfee-GW-Edition	W32/Conficker.worm	20130131
Microsoft	Worm:Win32/Conficker.B	20130131

The Wikipedia article gives the details. I suppose that PC got it from somebody else’s USB stick, but the library really should be running some defensive software; Conficker dates back to 2008, so it’s not new news these days.

That kind of Windows Genuine Advantage makes up for all the hassles of running Linux, right there. Mary reported the problem to the library; we’ll never know the rest of the story.

[Update: We got an update!]

2013-02-18

Dishwasher Rack Pins: More Plastic

Those 3D printed dishwasher rack protectors solved the problem on the bottom of the pins, but the tops also had some rust. I dosed the pins with Evapo-Rust to stabilize the corrosion:

Dishwasher rack – rusted pins

After that picture, the pins soaked for a while, got a rinse & blotting, then sat for a while to dry. I can’t say that’s in complete accordance with the directions, but it’s close to the spirit of the thing.

Meanwhile, the MEK / xylene / acetone I added to the bottle of stiffened ReRACK repair coating had softened it up pretty well. They recommend several coats at half-hour intervals, of which this was the first:

Dishwasher rack – first plastic layer

I probably should have chewed off the corrosion bulging the OEM coating, but, given the number of pins that needed chewing, that started looking like a major project. Let’s face it, I can always touch things up if the pins continue rotting out.

The next morning, the rack was back in service:

Dishwasher rack – recoated pins

One advantage of a big blob atop each pin: the printed rack protectors might not wriggle off quite so easily.

2013-02-14
Kill A Watt: IEC Adapters

I should have done this a long time ago:

Kill-A-Watt – IEC plug and socket

It makes measuring PC power consumption much easier!

I picked up some cheap AC plugs and sockets, cut a short IEC extender cable in half, and wired ’em up. If the IEC extender link breaks again, search amazon.com for something like “computer power cord extension” and rummage around.

IEC color code hint: brown = hot, blue = neutral (unless they cheat).

US NEMA 5 plug / socket hint: the blade marked W is neutral. More expensive hardware will have dark brass = hot, light brass = neutral, but don’t bet your life on it.

2013-02-13
LibreOffice 3.6: Fixing Font Selection Problems

This may not be a LibreOffice problem, but that’s where it shows up: the font selection dialog won’t display fonts with nonstandard Style names. There is, of course, no documentation anywhere (that I can find, anyway) on what Style names are permitted, so you discover this only when a font style that’s properly installed and accessible by other programs (like, say, Inkscape or Scribus) doesn’t render properly and doesn’t appear in the list.

In Xubuntu 12.10, LibreOffice 3.6.2.2 can’t handle the American Typewriter font style called Medium, which is what I’ve been using for the return address field on my (very few, these days) mail envelopes. Over the years, various versions of OpenOffice and LibreOffice have alternately accepted and rejected the Medium style, so this isn’t exactly a regression. It is, however, Yet Another Annoyance.

The solution, hinted at in that thread, involves using FontForge to rename the offending Style to, say, Regular, then saving the font. It’s actually the Weight property, hidden in Element → Font Info → PS Names tab. In this case, I changed the word “Medium” in the Fontname, Name for Humans, and Weight fields to “Regular”, which also updates the values in the TTF Names tab.

I save the modified font files in ~/.local/share/fonts using TrueType format, just to be sure I don’t confuse them with the original Postscript version in /usr/share/fonts/custom, delete the original, and then run fc-cache -v -f to update the caches. This surely isn’t the cleanest way to make it happen and almost certainly isn’t allowed by the Adobe EULA I agreed to, back when I actually bought the fonts, but so it goes.

And then It Just Works…

LibreOffice vs American Typewriter font

2013-02-11
Long-term Paint Storage: Just Don’t

We probably should have noticed this sooner, but …

Leaking paint can

Yes, that can really ~~does~~ did contain white paint!

It cleaned up about as well as you’d expect, which is to say not very well at all:

Leaking paint can – residue

Fortunately, we’re not particularly fussy about shelves in the Basement Laboratory Paint Storage Wing.

Memo to Self: Just throw the nearly empty paint cans out, OK?

2013-02-07
Dishwasher Rack Protectors: Into The Maw

Three rack protectors have gone missing over the last few months, presumably being digested by the dishwasher’s grinder, so I ran off another batch:

Dishwasher Rack Protectors – on platform

I used the original solid model, shown here with the support structure outside for visibility:

Dishwasher rack protector – support model

I re-sliced the model to pick up whatever printer config tweakage happened since then. Those ribbed doodads snapped out easily and, in fact, some remained bonded to the platform:

Dishwasher Rack Protectors – support structures

No finishing required: just slide them over the pins atop a blob of acrylic caulk. Despite the few missing protectors, it does a good job of bonding them to the rack and sealing gaps in the worn vinyl coating.

I picked up a jar of ReRack glop on closeout duing my last pass through the Big Box Home Repair Store. It seemed a bit stiff, so I’ve added generous dollops of xylene, acetone, and MEK to thin it out; that’ll take a while to stabilize.

2013-02-04