Apple have started to sell a new range of Mac Pros, with improved processor power, graphics and support for up to 4TB hard drive space.

I bought my Mac Pro back in April 2007 when the quad core version was “top of the line”. The quad core option is now a standard feature and you can configure the system up to 3.2Ghz.

I’ve not regretted buying my Mac Pro. Even though it was expensive, it’s going to last me for ages. The speed in which I can process and manipulate photos using Aperture and Photoshop is unparalleled. I suppose the next item on my list will be upgrading to Leopard!

Today saw me finally buy a printer. An OKI C3300.
I had originally ordered an Epson C1100, but the company I ordered through kept ringing to tell me that they were still awaiting stock. I cancelled that order on Wednesday last week and looked at some of the other suggestions that they’d made.

I eventually came back to the OKI C3300 on PC World and noticed the price wasn’t too different to ordering online. So I placed an online order, but specified to pick it up in store as I’m not going to be round much this week for a delivery.

Whilst the box and advertising paraphernalia says the printer supports Mac OS X, I’d like to point out that this is very limited support. They’ve got a very basic driver to make the printer work on OS X, but the driver and printer don’t support Bonjour.
For those non-mac readers Bonjour helps with networking and using equipment by discovering services automatically. It makes using things on a Mac very easy indeed.
Without support for Bonjour and lacking any intelligent drivers, this printer does not work on an Airport Express via USB, even though my Mac could pick the printer up. No matter how many different configurations I tried, it just would not work.

The next step was to try using the printer via ethernet. I didn’t want to plug the printer directly into my Mac Pro as there are other computers I wanted to be able to use the printer with. Ethernet failed to work initially. For some reason it couldn’t pick up an IP address and I ran into all sorts of problems trying to assign it one manually (what manufacturer assigns a password to the software set up without then telling you what it is!?).

After about forty-five minutes of messing around, I finally managed to get the printer set up and operational on my home network. It even works from a windows computer and my two Macs. I do wonder how those slightly less technically minded people would manage to get the printer operational however.

Update (Dec 17th)
I’m going to be ordering some new cartridges as I’m down to about 20% black and 40% on each colour. May as well order an entire set as it works out slightly cheaper.
The Oki 3300 uses four toner printer cartridges that, according to the sales spiel, have a page yield of 2000 A4 pages at coverage of 5% - the codes they use are Black: 43459340, Cyan 43459339, Magenta 43459338 and Yellow 43459337. I’ve not counted how many pages I’ve printed, but it’s quite a lot!

How to fry a PowerBook quick and easily.

Attach a power cable to your cable modem.

Oops. I went out shopping for a printer the other day with the intention of getting a printer. Obviously. However, I came back with this instead.

A 20″ Apple screen now joins my collection of Apple related goodness. A very welcome member to the family I say!