Al Lustie's Tips and Tricks

Maybe "Curse" is a bit too strong, but printing has been the difficult part of computing since computing was started.  I have been struggling with printing, dare I say, "As usual", for several weeks. 

My Brother multifunction printer printed our Christmas letter well.  Then it would no longer print any black ink.  I had a new inkjet cartridge.  No Black.  I got another new black cartridge.  No Black. 

So I now have an HP.  Brother has served me well, but newer Brother printers do not seem to be my friend.  I couldn't get any support, either.

About that time my wife, who has a Brother color laser printer that has been her workhorse for a couple of years, began to notice. that when she tried to print from Windows (VMWare Fusion, Windows 7, on an iMac), the iMac would shut down suddenly.  Not always, but usually the first printing of the day. 

It was most pronounced when printing .pdf files. 

Then it began doing the same from the iMac side, especially .pdf files. 

A tech from VMWare worked with me for several hours, and we thought we had it fixed.  Today, the first print job, and the machine shut down.  The print job was on the iMac side, not the Windows side.  So I called Apple (we have an Applecare contract.) 

He was helpful, but no luck.  "Check with Brother -- maybe it needs a firmware upgrade." 

So I did, and Brother suggested plugging it in to a different outlet, and using a new USB cable.  I have done that. 

It is printing well so far.  We'll know more tomorrow.  Stay tuned.