Look! We’re on the news!

So we recently setup a new Win2k8 R2 print server to replace our aging 2k3 server, and I needed a way to easily switch a whole bunch of users over to the printer mappings on the new server.  After some digging, I came up with this method of switching everyone over at login with Powershell:

<#

.SYNOPSIS
This is a Powershell script to remove the old <printserver> printers and replace them with Printers mapped to <newprintserver>

.DESCRIPTION
This script will run at logon, and accomplish the following tasks:
1) Sets ErrorAction to Silently Continue to hide any red errors if a printer connection doesn’t exist
2) Gets the machines list of installed printers and passes it to the $localprinters variable
3) Searches the $localprinters variable for the printer names and declares them
4) Tests each variable for existence, and if it exists removes the old <printserver> version and installs the <newprintserver> version
5) Checks what the original default printer was, and if it was a <printserver> one changes it to the new <newprintserver> version

.NOTES
This script is fairly easy to modify and tailor to a different site by modifying the what is searched for via -pattern, and adjusting the printer connections in each test case.

.LINK
http://www.blueglowy.com

#>
$ErrorActionPreference = "SilentlyContinue"

$localprinters = Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_Printer -ComputerName ${env:computername}

$defaultprt = Get-WMIObject -class Win32_Printer -computer ${env:computername} -Filter Default=True | Select Name,Default

$test = Select-String -inputObject $localprinters -pattern "<printer1>" -quiet
$test2 = Select-String -inputObject $localprinters -pattern "<printer2>" -quiet
$test3 = Select-String -inputObject $localprinters -pattern "<printer3>" -quiet
$test4 = Select-String -inputObject $localprinters -pattern "<printer4>" -quiet

$prt1 = Select-String -inputObject $defaultprt -pattern "<printer1>" -quiet
$prt2 = Select-String -inputObject $defaultprt -pattern "<printer2>" -quiet
$prt3 = Select-String -inputObject $defaultprt -pattern "<printer3>" -quiet
$prt4 = Select-String -inputObject $defaultprt -pattern "<printer4>" -quiet

if ($test -eq "True") {(New-Object -ComObject WScript.Network).RemovePrinterConnection("\\<printserver>\<printer1>")
    (New-Object -ComObject WScript.Network).AddWindowsPrinterConnection("\\<newprintserver>\<printer1>")}
    else {""}
   
if ($test2 -eq "True") {(New-Object -ComObject WScript.Network).RemovePrinterConnection("\\<printserver>\<printer2>")
    (New-Object -ComObject WScript.Network).AddWindowsPrinterConnection("\\<newprintserver>\<printer2>")}
    else {""}
   
if ($test3 -eq "True") {(New-Object -ComObject WScript.Network).RemovePrinterConnection("\\<printserver>\<printer3>")
    (New-Object -ComObject WScript.Network).AddWindowsPrinterConnection("\\<newprintserver>\<printer3>")}
    else {""}
   
if ($test4 -eq "True") {(New-Object -ComObject WScript.Network).RemovePrinterConnection("\\<printserver>\<printer4>")
    (New-Object -ComObject WScript.Network).AddWindowsPrinterConnection("\\<newprintserver>\<printer4> PCL5")}
    else {""}

#Check for default printer and reset it to users original choice if printer was removed
if ($prt1 -eq "True") {($Printer = Get-WmiObject win32_printer  | where {$_.name -match "<printer1>"})}
    Elseif ($prt2 -eq "True") {($Printer = Get-WmiObject win32_printer  | where {$_.name -match "<printer2>"})}
        Elseif ($prt3 -eq "True") {($Printer = Get-WmiObject win32_printer  | where {$_.name -match "<printer3>"})}
            Elseif ($prt4 -eq "True") {($Printer = Get-WmiObject win32_printer  | where {$_.name -match "<printer4> PCL5"})}
                Else {$Printer = ""}

$Printer.SetDefaultPrinter()
       
Printer Check Complete

Please to be enjoying

ME2 action figure 4 pack.

Liar Vox

and here’s a video of me mucking about playing it

So i like a good consumer I updated my itunes to 9.2 today, and after it completed, 88 files are missing, 564 tv shows are showing as unplayed, and some of my music is now gone.  Thankfully the music had already been copied over to my Zune library, but the problem is that I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT HAPPENED. Its just gone.

Frankly though, my greater concern is the fact that even if I want to move to a computer’s product, like oh say….Zune, I can’t take my media with me.  Due to drm and failure to adhere to standards, Apple has assured that I will forever have to use this apple TV they don’t really want to support to view the files.  The container Apple uses for MP4 is an M4V with AC3 passthru, which is an unsupported hack to the MP4 codec container, therefore most other software won’t read it.  Combined with the DRM, you are locked forever into using this thing, no matter how laggy and crappy it is, since Apple doesn’t wanna actually upgrade the device. 

The lesson I’ve learned here is this, if you want interoperability and you want to insure your investment in media isn’t destroyed by a shitty software update….PIRATE. 

And they wonder why they can’t beat piracy?

At just after 1:30pm, we head down to line up, and there’s a TON of people there without the registration armbands, just lined up for a free for all.  Apparently following simple instructions is beyond the majority of people at these events.  We ended up near the back of the line behind a bunch of these people who didn’t register and refused to get out of line.

Eventually, they call a start to the hunt, and these people pushed and shoved their way in, and my daughter got stuck in the back.  She managed to get a few eggs, but not many.  Now we were under the impression based on what they were saying that there was supposed to be candy and stickers in all the eggs, and a few would have tickets for larger prizes.  Well, after the event we opened the eggs, and got NOTHING.  Not a damn thing.   Way to fail guys, thanks for the fun day.

So anyone who knows me knows I’m all into the arguments against what the RIAA/Record Labels are doing, and have followed many a Techdirt post about it.  Recently, I was catching up on some heavy metal news, and found an interesting remark from Michael Amott of Arch Enemy/Carcass regarding album sales.

“Now the majority of fans rather download albums for free, now you can go see how many downloads there are for The Root Of All Evil. It’s a lot more than what the Soundscan figures are for CD sales. That’s just the reality of it, I’m not one of these guys who’s going to sit around being bitter about it. It’s like "Ok, this is the situation", so you just change your business model a little bit. But you know, new music is very important to me and we’re still writing new music. As I said, last night I wrote a new song.” 

The full interview can be found here.

Now this is a fine example of a guy who GETS IT.  People WILL download, there is nothing you can do about, except adjust your business model and move on with life.  The last sentence I believe really strikes home against the core argument that the Labels like to make, that when there is piracy that people will not make music as they have no incentive.

The incentive to make music is this: MUSICIANS MAKE MUSIC.  Its what they do, its in the blood.  Piracy or not, musicians will make music, and they will want it to be heard by as many people as possible.  Any musician who says otherwise has forgotten why they began making music in the first place.