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HP, as far as I'm concerned, has some of the most insane driver and software installs ever. They are right up next to Adobe, as far as craziness, some of the time.
At work, we just attempted to install the LJ M1530 multi-fuction printer. Of course there were issues as always with new devices like this in a proper enterprise environment. There are at least 5 workstations that the device driver needed to be loaded on. Once I hear that I wondered why I wasn't scripting the install.
So I downloaded the M1530's driver. The first thing I did was use 7-zip to unzip the contents of hp_M1530_MFP_full_Solution_usb_n_w.exe. I found the usual HP mess of install files with no useful instructions for a silent install.
I dug up what looked like the main install executable under the Installer directory and ran it with the /? argument.

hpbcsiInstaller.exe /?
The following text is what I got back

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I normally don’t blog about things like the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) here.  I figure the few readers I have want to hear about RPGs, comics, or other nerdy pursuits.  Today, I felt I had to make an exception.

I am not pro-piracy.  In fact, I believe strongly in voting with my dollars when it comes to the things I like.  I want the people who make these things to get paid so that they will continue making them.

I can even understand the frustration of the people who watch their intellectual property get pirated over and over.  While I disagree with him strongly on SOPA, comic book writer and novelist Peter David sums up this frustration over at his blog.

None of this justifies a bad law like SOPA though.  SOPA assumes guilt without proof.  I don’t want an Internet where the mere accusation of piracy can get a website removed from DNS servers, effectively erased from the web.  Under the current Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) companies like Warner Brothers have issued takedown notices for files they have never looked at based solely on the filename.  Do we really want to make it easier for this sort of thing to happen?

So I urge you you to contact your congressman and tell them you are opposed to SOPA.  Sites like Stop American Censorship make it easy to get this contact information.  Congress is supposed to represent the will of the people, not that of corporate lobbyists, but it is up to us to let them know what our will is.

Stop SOPA!

Since I already posted my initial rambling thoughts on Dungeons & Dragons 5E, I figured it was worth pointing out this interesting post by Jeff Grubb:

A Game Divided Against Itself

Not surprisingly, Jeff brings a lot of historical perspective to the discussion of D&D 5E.  It is easy to think of the “Edition Wars” as something new and forget how often D&D has been its own worst competition in the past.

Wizards of the Coast has officially announced Dungeons & Dragons 5E.  This probably isn’t a shocker to people who follow the industry.  The rehiring of veteran game designer Monte Cook, especially considering the tenor of his recent Legends & Lore articles, pointed to a new edition.  Recent rulebooks have also seemed more willing to experiment with the existing D&D 4E rules, reminiscent of late D&D 3E books like the Tome of Battle.

And of course sagging sales of D&D 4E products probably sped things along.  After all, traditionally nothing sells as well as the Player’s Handbook, Dungeon Master’s Guide and Monster Manual.

What I find interesting is that D&D 5E was announced so early in the process.  Even though it was obvious a new edition was in the works, I expected them to keep mum out of fear that they would torpedo the sales of upcoming 4E products.  After all, why would you buy books that will soon be considered obsolete?

Well, according to Mike Mearls they intend on conducting open playtests and soliciting feedback from the gaming community.  Of course this is a great marketing line, but the fact that they would risk hurting sales of these upcoming books makes me think that they are serious about getting feedback from the gaming community on D&D 5E.

The real question is whether or not this will work.  Wizards of the Coast is hoping for an “ultimate” edition of D&D that will help unite the fractured fanbase.  I’m not sure if this is even possible.  D&D means different things to different people, and when products are designed to please everyone they often end up pleasing no one.

Nevertheless I remain hopeful.  There are a lot of talented game designers behind this new edition at WOTC and if RPG blogs have taught me anything it is that there is a lot of untapped talent in the gaming community.

In any case, this new approach to creating the new edition has piqued my interest.

The Fire is pretty awesome for $199. But it lacks several features that I think would put it right over the edge. I also have an older Nook Color. It has the one thing that I wish the Kindle did. An external MicroSD slot. 

The Kindle actually has MORE memory for media/apps than a Nook Color does by default however. The Nook only allows 1GB of its 8GB of memory to be used for user loaded content. The Fire has about 6GB for Amazon or user loaded content.

With the whole "cloud" thing, as long as you have a network connection, you really don't need much storage so its a nit picky thing.

The fact that it will be the best selling Android tablet guarantees that it will have great support in the modding community. I'm 100% positive that Cyanogenmod will create an Android OS install for it. As long as I can still do all the Amazon Prime streaming with a modded OS I'm game!

I've already "rooted" it and side loaded the Google Market and some Google apps. Its not perfect yet, but new tweaks and hacks are coming out everyday for it.

The bottom line is that if you are already an Amazon customer (especially if you are already a Prime user) the Kindle is spectacular.

If you have nothing invested in the Amazon eco system than it is cheap enough at $199 to make you want to be invested in it.

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Kindle Fire... Rooted from my Mac using http://blog.actlocalmedia.com/2011/11/developing-on-kindle-fire.html and http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1296916.

You need to have the Android SDK installed. To do that, go download the SDK at http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html. Unzip it and install it to a location in your home directory. I put at ~/android-sdk-macosx.

Then you need to update the SDK by running the following command: 

That update can take quite some time. Sit back and relax while you watch a free Amazon Prime streaming TV show like Serenity or Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

You can add the path to the adb command by editing your ~/.bash_profile and adding a path statement like the following.

Edit the ~./android/adb_usb.ini and add a line at the end with "0x1949". Then plug in the Fire (you have to have your own mini usb cable to plug it into your workstation). Then tell the Kindle to "Disconnect" so it is no longer sharing files over USB. Then run "adb kill-server" on the mac to to restart things. Once that is done you can check to see if you are able to see the device by running "adb devices". If a device is listed you are good to go!

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