Web Browser Troubles

A few weeks ago I went to Disneyland with my wife and oldest grandson. We found an incredible deal at one of the Disney hotels and booked the trip for a huge discount. I bundled my park tickets with the hotel and all seemed to go well. Then I tried to make park reservations. Unfortunately I couldn't. I thought maybe because I didn't fully pay for the trip and so I paid for everything. A few days later I tried to make the park reservations. I ended up calling a reservation specialist. She told me to try using Chrome as my problems were related to my browser. I didn't believe her but did as she said. Guess what? She was right.

A few days after getting my Disney reservations sorted out, I tried reserving a rental car from Hertz. I attempted to log in using my favorite browser only to have it spin endlessly and never get to the login-successful page. At first I thought it might be because I used the wrong password. Then I remembered my experience with the Disney website and pulled up Chrome to see if it was the same problem. Changing to Chrome worked and I was able to log in. Ultimately I went with another rental car company as they had a less expensive option. It isn't always the case as I have a great discount with Hertz.

It used to be that Netscape was the standard browser and everyone tried to be bug-for-bug compatible with it. That means that they tried to mimic all aspects of the browser, including the bugs. Netscape became Mozilla and is now known as Firefox. Now it seems that Chrome has displaced Firefox as the browser that everyone uses as a baseline for compatibility testing. If you go to use your favorite browser at a website and it doesn't seem to behave correctly, try Chrome. If it still doesn't behave then its not you, its the website.

Playing with Spotify

I know I have compared Spotify and Pandora in the past and so I don't need to do that again. I am currently doing a project at work that ties in data from Spotify. Any time I look at data, I try to use the tool that generated it so I am more familiar with where it comes from. While normally I like to listen to Pandora, I have spent the last week and a half listening to Spotify.

Ultimately we are all prefer using tools we know. As I have more experience with Pandora, that is pretty much what I have stuck to. I felt like Spotify was way more complicated and felt like it took way too long to get configured correctly. Part of that is because I didn't understand how playlists are created. With Pandora, I could pick my favorite band and similar music from other artists automatically appears on the channel. With Spotify, only that group's music is on the channel. What I ended up doing was listening to one group for a while, selecting my favorite songs, and having them added to my "favorites" channel. Then I would do the same thing with another group. Once I felt like I had enough music, I could listen to just my "favorites" playlist.

While that is one way to create your own playlist on Spotify, it isn't the only way. Yesterday I discovered that I could just search for my favorite songs and add them without having to wait for them to appear. Now I can just think of a song I like and instantly add it to my favorites. That is a big win for me as I don't like every single song from my favorite groups. Let's be honest, some songs do not illustrate the best talent of certain bands. I watched an interview with Eddie Van Halen once and he admitted that he hated playing "Dance the Night Away" and just wanted to get through it as quickly as possible every time it came up at a concert. So I guess I am not alone in this area.

There is a problem with only listening to your favorite songs: your list never grows because you never hear anything new. I guess the solution is to try other playlists every so often. While I generally only listen to artist-specific lists, they do have general categories as well. I'm not a fan of popular music and so I will avoid those.

After a week and a half of listening to Spotify, I have it set up with the right songs currently. Unfortunately I ran into a technical issue this morning during my daily bike ride. I rode indoors because of the rain and like to listen to music when I am not outside. I started Spotify only to have it freeze on me. I restarted the application only to have the same problem. I tried a number of fixes but ultimately went back to Pandora for my morning ride. The sad thing is I prefer Spotify now as my playlist is perfectly dialed in. Oh well.

Not a Fan of Samsung Laser Printers

Before I thrash on Samsung, I have to point out that I work for Sony and the two companies compete with each other in a number of areas. That means my opinion is not unbiased. Fortunately I am not writing about a product that Sony makes and so I hope this comes across as a bit more objective.

Several years ago I needed a color laser printer. I had gotten tired of using color inkjet printers and wanted to try the laser technology. I shopped around and found a great deal on a Samsung CLP-315W printer. It worked as expected for a while and then the print quality went downhill. I tried cleaning the printer and various other solutions. The one that actually worked was replacing the toner cartridges. Then it started working great again.

I am getting low on toner and so I looked at getting new cartridges. Samsung recommends using only theirs, as you would expect and so I looked all over the Internet to get name-brand replacement cartridges. I found some on Amazon and ordered them. It surprised me when they shipped out of the UK but I waited patiently for them to arrive. They showed up a week later and I immediately loaded them into the printer. They didn't work at all.

Any time something doesn't work on the first try, I do a bit of Internet searching and make sure it is not a user error. I found a number of articles that talk about resetting the page counter. I thought that might be necessary and then I discovered how to get the page count via the printer's web interface. I just had to know the IP address of my printer and point my browser at it. The page counter showed me that each of the cartridges had no pages printed but also that the cartridges didn't have any toner. After playing around with the printer for a week, I decided to send the cartridges back.

Amazon is a great place to order stuff because of their return policy. The catch is if they send you something from abroad. In order to get my refund, I had to ship them back to the UK and was only allotted  $20 for shipping. While Amazon may be able to ship overseas for that price, it cost me significantly more than that. While I will get some of my money back, I am out $60 because of shipping costs to return the defective toner cartridges. I have learned my lesson with Amazon and will not order anything from overseas ever again. I am actually going to cut back what I order from them because of this experience.

So now I am stuck with a laser printer that either needs to be replaced or I need to find replacement cartridges for it. My gut feel is to take to the top of a really tall cliff and watch it explode after I throw it off the top. Unfortunately the responsible person in me doesn't want to have to find the million little pieces it will become as leaving any of them is littering. E-wasting the printer is probably more socially responsible.

I could also try off-brand cartridges but am not sure that is the right choice as I have not had great luck with them. My experience is that they work for about half the life of the cartridge and then the print quality starts suffering. I really would like to get the full life out of whatever I purchase.

Ultimately I am thinking of finding another brand of printer that doesn't have nearly as many problems as I have had with my Samsung. I have always had great luck with Hewlett Packard printers and may pay the premium for their product. At least I know their printers work when you replace their toner cartridges.