May 06 2010
The Power of a Printer
Hey, a post! I feel that this story deserves some internet coverage somewhere, so why not automaticable! And maybe this will convince the others to post something, other than April’s Fools Posts.
So, as some of you may know, I have been working for a commercial printing company doing IT for about half a year now. The company has been in the middle of a massive merge and building-consolidation process. All-in-all, everything has gone quite well. One server crashed, but everything was recovered from backups. However, working in a small business during poor economic times means working with some painfully old devices.
Last week I was given a pretty simple task. I needed to set up a networked label printer that had been moved from the old shop. Easy enough, it should just grab an IP via DHCP, and I can log onto its web interface to set it up – no big deal. I hooked up the printer and voila, 192.168.2.13. It was set up. Went into our router, changed the IP from dynamic to static, and headed out for the evening. Seemed like everything had gone great.
Now fast forward to the next morning, the pressmen are just getting ready to pull the press data from the servers, and – oh crap. The press computer is down. This press prints out 16,000 sheets per hour, and each sheet has 2-3 pieces on it. You can imagine how fast I got the phone call. I went straight to the press when I got in to see an error about an IP Conflict. Our presses are all assigned static IP’s, so I went in to the network config – the IP assigned was 192.168.2.13. Sounds familiar.
Turns out this label printer (I won’t name the brand, but I can’t say I’m surprised by this faulty setup) does not quite understand the meaning of DHCP and IP conflicts. When it booted up the BOOTP process assigned it any random IP, regardless of what else might be under that IP. I quickly unplugged the printer, and the press came back online. In the end, I hooked the printer up to a more manageable HP JetDirect, and avoided any more IP conflicts.
The ironic part of this story?
A desk label printer this small : Shut down a printing press this large :




Hey everyone, I know it’s been a while, but hopefully with this new post I can spark some enthusiasm into my dead beat brothers to start posting here again. Have you ever wished for something and hoped that it came true? Around the last couple times I posted, I stated that I got my extension to work in recreation. I’ve enjoyed this new job for the most part, but as any job, it has its ups and downs. The upside is some days I get to either work on the dock with boats all day, or work the “gates” position, handing out wristbands and interacting with guests and kids. The downside is that at a resort, there are “custodial” positions that I have to work as well that aren’t fun at all, very labor intensive, and the other cast members don’t treat you very well because the position has the word “custodial” in it.
Well folks, again last week was a very hectic week for me and I didn’t get around to posting again, but that just means I have a lot to write about! The last couple of weeks were a real blast because I got a bunch of days off, and used that time to really treat myself to some fun outings. I have been mainly just chilling with my roommates, but I did get a chance to go mini-golfing at a pretty sweet course during the time between my last post. If you don’t know me, then let it be known that I LOVE mini-golfing and go-karting, probably two of my most favorite things to do to hang out with friends and such like that. The place was kind of expensive, but I had buy-one-get-one free coupons, so it turned out to be about average price. I also got too take some time and actually get some sun down at the pool, and let me tell you, it’s probably the most relaxing sensation in the world to just lay out in either the direct sun, or a partly overcast day and be at peace with yourself and your surroundings.
I want to formally apologize to all loyal readers of Automaticable for my lack of post last week. It’s been a very crazy past couple weeks for me with lots of work, very little down time and crazy parties that last ’till all hours of the night I just haven’t found time to sit down and just be able to collect my thoughts. I’m in the process of trying to remember things, and really, all that’s coming up is a giant blur. I know on my days off I went to Blizzard Beach and had a blast. There were next to no lines for any of the slides, so I was able to do the entire park with my roommate in under 3 hours. It’s nice being a Disney cast member because you get free admission to just about everything, and when you tell people that you’re a cast member, you notice their eyes light up in a special way that you don’t really see in many other cases. Immediately following this you’re bombarded with questions about the parks, your job, your experience and how many Mickey’s are there? (There’s only 1 by the way)
Well, the first week of my vacation/internship has concluded, and I still have a smile on my face! My first day of training at the Wide World of Sports was cool, but trying to get home was a pain in the butt. It takes me an hour and a half to get to the park by a double bus transfer, but if I had a car to drive there, it would only take half an hour. Going home is where the real problem is, because the bus doesn’t stop at the Wide World of Sports very often to pick up cast members (that’s what they call Disney employees). So I called the bus before I went out to wait, which I then waited an hour, called the bus company AGAIN then preceded to wait another half hour until the bus came. Once it arrived we rode to the Pop Century cast back lot to go over to Costuming to get our Disney Regulated uniforms (costumes). We were there for about a half hour, and were pushing our luck on trying to catch the next bus (which left at 4:00), and we arrived outside at 4:01 and JUST missed the bus and had to wait ANOTHER half hour to catch the next bus. Once that one came it was a half hour ride home, and a fifteen minute walk from the bus stop to my apartment. All and all, it was about three hours from the time I clocked out until the time I stepped back into my apartment.
I’m a couple days late, but Happy New Years! 2008 was our inaugural year for automaticable, and it has been a huge success.
