Old Printers Never Die

Printing desires

My career in information technology does not have office doors or opening hours when I visit friends or relations. There is usually one little problem that requires a good looking at and sometimes I will think up an elaborate solution just because fundamentally I believe using computing tools should be a pleasure to the user at work and at home.

Recently, my cousin just wanted to print to an old printer she was never able to get to work with her laptop – what she wanted was a simple solution and decided to have a look.

Her idea was to connect the printer to her laptop whenever she wanted to print anything but that presented a number of inconveniences I felt should be eliminated.

It’s old but not to be sold

First of all the printer was a HP LaserJet 4L printer, it think a second generation one because it a non-detachable USB cable that went into that back of a not easily accessible old desktop running Microsoft Windows Vista.

Immediately, I thought I could share the printer and that would mean everyone would be able to use the printer over the wireless network.

I have always hated Windows Vista security and the idea of each person having to log on to the system to print was just extraneous, they all belonged to the same IP subnet but each computer was in a different standalone workgroup – all functions of inconsistent installation methods offered by Microsoft.

I shared the printer and then removed password protected sharing which meant any printers and the Public folder were open for usage to those on the network.

Where is the driver?

I started with my cousin’s laptop which was running 64-bit Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate Edition, it saw the printer but could not download the driver from Microsoft Update. Hewlett Packard said the driver was contained in the installation of Windows but there was nothing I could do to get the driver.

I modified the properties of the printer to allow the Microsoft Windows Vista to render the print jobs for all clients and tried again to no avail. Then I got the printer to work from other laptops running 32-bit Windows 7 of various editions – the installation just downloaded the driver from the Windows Vista system.

Now, if Hewlett Packard was saying the printer driver was within the Microsoft Windows version and consequently obtainable from Microsoft Update but during installation it bombed out searching for the driver automatically, somehow, there had to be a way to obtain the printer driver because Hewlett Packard was just not providing one.

What was even more surprising was none of the forums I contacted had any clearly thought through solutions, it all seemed like some trial-and-error activity eventually solved the problem and that was just not enough for me, I had to understand the how and the why.

Aha!

The most persuasive solution offered was Microsoft has my printer driver, so I decided to search for the printer driver on the Microsoft website.

That is how I came upon the Microsoft Update Catalog, it expects you to be running Microsoft Internet Explorer or a browser with IE Extensions else in my case running Google Chrome thanked me for visiting before asking me to upgrade my Internet Explorer installation.

At the Microsoft Update Catalog, you are presented with a text search box into which you can type in your search terms, I was specific – HP LaserJet 4L – and that offered a number of choices two of which were for PostScript drivers – those were not the ones I needed.

Getting the driver

The description of each driver is clear enough, with a button to Add [1] the driver require, as indicated in the graphic and once the drivers required are added, click on View Basket [2] to see the added driver(s) with the option to download.

Clicking on the Download [1] button on the graphic below presents a dialog box asking for where to save your downloaded file(s) and the downloaded file is a Microsoft Cabinet file with a .CAB extension.

You can either extract the files into a folder but right-clicking on the file and choosing where to extract the files and then install the drivers from that folder using the dialog that appears after Windows Update fails to find the files needed or use the Windows Package Manager (PKGMGR.EXE) from an elevated privileges command prompt with the command line:

pkgmgr /ip /m:.cab /quiet

This integrates the driver into the system so when the driver is being searched for by the wizard, it will automatically be found and installed.

In conclusion

The long and short of this treatise is, if the manufacturer of any of your old devices suggests the driver you require is available within the operating system or from Microsoft Windows Update but the drivers cannot be automatically found and downloaded – go to the Microsoft Update Catalog and get the driver you need.

Your old devices need not be replaced because of the frustration of not being able to find the right driver or because the forums that should provide clear directions just assume too much of enquirers and their knowledge of these things.

Nigeria: Jega Joint Committee Hearing - Part II

Introducing Part II

In Part I [1] of my notes on the Joint Committee on Election Matters (JCEM) hearing with the INEC Chairman Professor Attahiru Jega, the chairman dealt with the attendant problems with the registration and the options for extending the registration period.

In Part II we address the professor’s views and answers to questions on the issues of probability, abuse of registration, failsafe mechanisms and registration amelioration procedures.

On the matter of 10 fingerprint scanning

I had in a previous blog [2] questioned the rationale behind a 10-finger registration rather than just a thumbprint. That view gained its strength of opposition from the fact that the fingerprint scanning was problematic, time-consuming and in many cases failing.

There is also the data-acquisition, data-security and data-privacy dimension to this because there is no law that quarantines this data from use by other agencies of government that might find it useful.

Many persuasive arguments can be made for sharing the fingerprint data of the adult Nigerian population beyond the primary voter identification requirement.

When you do not need the scans

The INEC Registrars were circumventing the process and overriding the 10-fingerprint scan which was only supposed to apply for special registrations of amputees, people who have lost fingers or very rare medical conditions that could affect fingerprint recognition.

#JegaSays Lazy #INECRegistration officials, overwhelmed by queues, 'suspended' 10 fingers & will be disciplined #JCEM #RSVP

On missing fingers, #JegaSays #INECRegistration team have been abusing the 10 finger override. #JCEM #RSVP

On missing fingers, #JegaSays fingers available tips. #INECRegistration team MUST make detailed notes of missing digits #JCEM #RSVP

#JegaSays Detailed guidelines for re-registration due to 10 fingers. #JCEM suggested Jega inform all via mass media #RSVP

#JegaSays ALL #INECRegistration lacking 10 fingers or detailed notes explaining absence of 10 will be voided #JCEM #RSVP

Memo on special registrations

Five days into the voters registration exercise, INEC released a memo to address the matter of registrations without some or all the fingerprints which I covered in this blog [3].

@forakin Just reading it. I'm impressed #INECRegistration published the memo. Didn't realise they had. Corresponds with #JegaSays - #JCEM date

The chairman took the opportunity at the hearing to address the matter of the 10-fingerprint requirement with statistics and probabilities.

Probabilities and statistics

#JegaSays '10 fingers' reduces chances of multiple #INECRegistration to 1 in every 5,000,000 #JCEM #RSVP

This is an interesting statistic and this drew a number of Twitter comments.

Since the estimated number of eligible voters in Nigeria is 70,000,000, there is the possibility of one set of 10 fingerprints matching the set for 14 people.

@rmajayi Which means in a sample of 70,000,000 possible voters, 14 people per 10 fingerprints can match #INECRegistration #JCEM fantastic.

@rmajayi The probability charts and calculations presaging 1/5,000,000 for #INECRegistration fingerprint match should be interesting #JCEM

The 1 in every 5,000,000 probability issue would only be identified when all the data is collated and processed by INEC computers.

Multiple registrations and detection

#JegaSays Multiple #INECRegistration is possible by using different PU. But final collation will flag ALL multiples #JCEM #RSVP

#JegaSays Some unscrupulous politicians have found out this #INECRegistration trick, but use will backfire! #JCEM #RSVP

However, there have been reports of registrations where the system indicated the new fingerprints being scanned were already in use by others.

@eshkhai LMFAO #inecregistration my fingerprints already in use by a registered voter... SMH

One wonders if the adjusted resolution of the fingerprint scanner would results in false duplicates because there are not enough distinguishing features to give the fingerprints the necessary uniqueness for differentiation.

That would present INEC with an interesting dilemma that I would not want to contemplate at this moment.

That's exactly what #JegaSays - only 14 possible multiple #INECRegistration's in 70,000,000 #JCEM

I am of the view that this is theoretical and in a practical sense there might be certain realities that INEC have not considered and might have been answered better if the chairman had been accompanied as the next tweet suggested.

So, there is one issue of the DDC machines not being able to create uniqueness between different registrants beyond the matter of the prevention of multiple registrations at the same Polling Unit.

#JegaSays Multiple registration is NOT possible on same #INECRegistration Polling Unit. #JCEM #RSVP

Handling the issues

The chairman then said INEC is equipped to deal with these issues, technically and legally.

#JCEM commended #JegaSays for upgrading from #INECRegistration software Version 1.2 to 1.8 in the first few days. #RSVP

Beyond recalibrating the fingerprint scanners, the software had to be upgraded from Version 1.2 to Version 1.8, which might indicated between testing and deployment that there serious issues that INEC had not taken on board regarding the software.

#JegaSays Each DDC's configured to 1 #INECRegistration Polling Unit. If diverted, INEC can cancel & replace. #JCEM #RSVP

This would perhaps deal with the many cases of stolen DDCs that had user data uploaded unto them but outside the supervision of INEC personnel.

#JegaSays There is no way to feed data from stolen DDCs into the final #INECRegistration register. #JCEM #RSVP

If such DDC machines have been flagged as suspect that might be the case but what of those who were registered before the machines disappeared?

One representative at the #JCEM said Jega should have brought the #INECRegistration IT guru to the grilling. That would've been fun!

It would have been interesting indeed.

In any event, there are provisions to deal with electoral crimes once that offenders are caught.

#JegaSays INEC has capacity to investigate & prosecute multiple & underage #INECRegistration & other crimes #JCEM #RSVP

Poor logistics

The chairman then addressed the matter of furniture for Polling Units, this is strange since one would think schools were closed to allow for the premises to be used for the registration exercise.

#JCEM asked #JegaSays why #INECRegistration centres lacked chairs for those waiting, despite FG budget provision #RSVP

#JegaSays Money for #INECRegistration chairs disbursed to states. Suggested logistics to blame for no chairs #JCEM #RSVP

Indeed, the logistical framework of INEC is an appalling disaster, unplanned, unprepared, unready, unsure and full of hubris.

#JCEM scolded #JegaSays for not carrying out a 'mock' #INECRegistration to test the process. #RSVP :: Word!

This is a critical project management oversight, they basically tested the systems in the field and used firefighting methods to arrest the farcical developments that led to the JCEM requiring an urgent visit from the INEC chairman – the whole project seemed to be failing and it might only be redeemed because the voters registration exercise has been extended for a week.

#JCEM also criticised the lacklustre attitude of #JegaSays' permanent and ad hoc #INECRegistration staff #RSVP

The timetable was tight, the deadlines were almost unrealistic and the time constraints made for shoddy arrangements and staff literally learning on the job and not very motivated in what they were doing.

Re-registration tips

The following are tips the chairman gave with regards to re-registering.

#INECRegistration re-reg tip 1/9. #JegaSays: If 10 fingers were NOT scanned, you MUST re-register! #JCEM #RSVP #Nigeria

#INECRegistration re-reg tip 2/9. #JegaSays: Return to the SAME Polling Unit with old voter’s card #JCEM #RSVP #Nigeria

#INECRegistration re-reg tip 3/9. #JegaSays: Give card to officer, who will CUT it but not discard #JCEM #RSVP #Nigeria

#INECRegistration re-reg tip 4/9. #JegaSays: Recapture ALL personal data #JCEM #RSVP #Nigeria

#INECRegistration re-reg tip 5/9. #JegaSays: Officer to locate & CANCEL original entry in docket #JCEM #RSVP #Nigeria

#INECRegistration re-reg tip 6/9. #JegaSays: Officer MUST write reason as 'NON CAPTURE OF FINGERS’ #JCEM #RSVP #Nigeria

#INECRegistration re-reg tip 7/9. #JegaSays: Officer MUST make fresh entry in registration docket #JCEM #RSVP #Nigeria

#INECRegistration re-reg tip 8/9. #JegaSays: Failure to do 1-8 will result in voiding of both regs #JCEM #RSVP #Nigeria

#INECRegistration re-reg tip 9/9. Challenge any officer who refuses to follow #JegaSays guidelines #JCEM #RSVP #Nigeria

These notes were created from Twitter conversations given by @RMAjayi who in turn took notes from watching the proceedings and hearing.

@forakin I hope I can get my hands on the Jega-#JCEM NTA news video. I wish #INECRegistration had a YouTube channel. #RSVP

Many thanks to @RMAjayi for the tweets, I hope these are as representative as possible of the hearings.

Sources

[1] Akin Akintayo: Nigeria: Jega Joint Committee Hearing - Part I

[2] Akin Akintayo: Nigeria: INEC - One finger is enough 10 fingers is insanity

[3] Akin Akintayo: Nigeria: INEC Memo to Correct Prior Registration without Fingerprints

Nigeria: Jega Joint Committee Hearing - Part I

Take off to a grounding

I would like to believe that every little helps towards ensuring that the elections to take place in Nigerian in April 2011 are free, fair, beyond reproach and at the point of declaration of the results all contestants would find themselves content with the conduct and the dispatch of the electioneering process.

Since the 15^th of January, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has been conducting a voters’ registration exercise planned to last 15 days until Saturday the 29^th of January 2011.

This process has been fraught with problems and issues that the INEC Chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega was invited for a hearing by the Joint Committee for Election Monitoring (JCEM) of the Nigerian National Assembly to answer a whole range of questions concerning the conduct and the pace of the exercise.

Stenography meets Twitter

This hearing was broadcast on the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) and copious notes were taken by my good Twitter friend RMAjayi and relayed to me in a number of Twitter messages that were logged for well over an hour. We hope that eventually we would get a recording of that hearing to share here with you so that you can review the conversations yourself.

Meanwhile, this blog will combine the Twitter messages with comments and analysis that I will provide and hopefully will be annotated and commented on by RMAjayi to maintain the context, import and setting of that hearing.

RMAjayi has smartly given the core elements of that hearing the Twitter #JCEM hashtag, it includes quotes or paraphrased commends of Professor Jega as the Twitter #JegaSays hashtag and a majority of this falls under the more general Twitter #INECRegistration hashtag, you can click on the links to provide you the Twitter streams related to each hashtag.

The #RSVP hashtag is the initiative of the Enough is Enough Nigeria Organisation and it is the acronym for Register – Select – Vote – Protect.

Short on the orders

At the hearing Professor Jega started with the numbers game by enumerating the number of Digital Data Capture (DDC) machines ordered, recorded in the following tweets.

#JegaSays all 80,000 Zinox (Nigeria) DDCs delivered on time for Jan 15 #INECRegistration start. #JCEM #RSVP

#JegaSays all 30,000 Haier (China) DDCs delivered on time for Jan 15 #INECRegistration start. #JCEM #RSVP

#JegaSays only 5,500 of 22,000 Avente (USA) DDCs delivered on time for Jan 15 #INECRegistration start. #JCEM #RSVP

#JegaSays By Jan 15, #INECRegistration had 115,500 (80+30+5.5)K DDC machines for 119,973 PUs across #Nigeria#JCEM #RSVP

This indicates that DDCs which are essentially laptops were ordered from Nigerian, Chinese and American companies with the American company only fulfilling 25% of its allocation when the registration started and that meant 4,473 Polling Units (PUs) could not start registration at the commencement date.

By #JegaSays calculations, there are 12,027 surplus #INECRegistration DDC machines. #JCEM #RSVP. What'll happen to them?

In fact, there would be 13,037 surplus systems whose function has not yet been clearly defined.

#JegaSays US-based Avente Tech will face penalty for failure to deliver #INECRegistration DDCs in time. #JCEM #RSVP

Obviously, if that is written into the contract and the small print does not exculpate the company, there might be a case for claim compensation, however, there is no doubt that the schedules were tight and no one company could fulfil the complete order.

Fast and Cheap is usually not Good

After the DDCs were acquired they had to be installed and configured, the costs were kept low by using Open Source software which included a distribution of Linux and a custom built database to warehouse the captured data.

#JegaSays #INECRegistration software was designed in-house & there was "no need to pay for it''. What exactly did Nigeria pay for?

@DoubleEph @forakin #JegaSays the DDCs were built to #INECRegistration specs. I don't think we can blame the suppliers. #JCEM

We can only hope that the database is robust enough to handle that data which would include the comparison of fingerprint data.

One interesting oversight has been noticed in the database where in the Profession/Occupation field “Journalist” is missing which for Nigeria is an error bordering on sacrilege.

The gender selection section on the user interface should have been a radio button allowing an either/or selection of gender but it was a drop-down box leaving some registrants registered as transsexuals.

The ghosts of censuses past

#JegaSays Shortfall of #INECRegistration DDCs was shared across #Nigeria in carefully considered percentages #JCEM #RSVP

The only reference data they would have had to compute these “carefully considered percentages” would have been the 2006 Census that left many unhappy that we had not properly counted ourselves, a topic I wrote about in one of my blogs – Gauging the 2006 Census.

The granting of a long holiday without restrictions in mobility especially in the South allowed for the numbers to skewed in favour of villages of typical town dwellers who took the opportunity to travel home.

And it explains why - #JegaSays Lagos was hit hardest by insufficient #INECRegistration DDCs, due to its population size. #JCEM #RSVP

Fingerprints were the linchpin of success

As far as the Professor was concerned - #JegaSays standard of #INECRegistration DDCs is world-class. No issues with equipment, only fingerprints #JCEM #RSVP

But if fingerprint scanning was critical to ensuring a registration was complete and successful, it has become part of the critical path and hence to the layman the system was faulty because the product did not meet the standard required for valid Voter’s Registration Cards, the minutiae was superfluous to the expected goal though necessary for effective troubleshooting.

#JegaSays #INECRegistration fingerprint scanners were set to the highest sensitivity possible, higher than necessary #JCEM #RSVP

#JegaSays #INECRegistration fingerprint sensitivity was set to 50-point miniature as used in forensics; slowing down scans #JCEM #RSVP

This shows that demonstrations might have been given to show the full capability of the systems but someone should have reviewed the capabilities (forensics) against the needs (identification) and that gap analysis would have allowed to the necessary trade-offs to be made mitigating the localised issues we later encountered which crudely suggest Sub-Saharan fingerprint whorls might not be readable at certain resolutions.

The difficulties encountered led to interesting improvisations from the washing of hands, through cleaning the fingers with methylated spirit which could damage the plastic components of the scanner to the illogical passing of fingers through sand.

Recalibrate and upgrade

#JegaSays #INECRegistration DDCs were reset, reducing scan quality but still adequate to combat multiple registration #JCEM#RSVP

The systems were then recalibrated and suddenly the fingerprint scanner process became easier with many registrations being completed within 10 minutes maximum.

#JCEM commended #JegaSays for upgrading from #INECRegistration software Version 1.2 to 1.8 in the first few days. #RSVP

Sneeze in this one

It appears a napkin calculation was made on the following assumptions.

An estimate of 70 million eligible voters to register at 119,973 Polling Units would mean 584 an average of registrants per DDC machine and if each registrant completed registration in 10 minutes in an efficient Polling Unit we can assume the DDC would perform for 6,000 minutes or 60 hours.

This spread over 15 days would be 4 hours of work effective work a day and since polling units would be open for 8 hours a day, most of the registrations would have been done within the first week.

The reality with all the issues that have arisen has had INEC asking for an additional week of registrations to cost NGN 6.6 billion.

To suggest this has been a Project Management debacle bordering on a farce is to compliment the exercise with sarcasm to laughable for the ears; the whole event might well be redeemed, since some really though the whole project would never take off.

#JegaSays Many international agencies have sent congratulations on #INECRegistration, as they expected it to fail! #JCEM #RSVP

Revert to the Guttenberg Press

There have been serious printing issues, first to do with insufficient power from the batteries to run the laptop and the printer, though it appears no questions and answers transpired on the power issue.

The printer ordered - RT @rmajayi: #INECRegistration printer is a HP Deskjet 1000 http://j.mp/gCZAc7 #RSVP #JCEM

#JegaSays #INECRegistration printers can produce 450-500 cards per cartridge but @bubusn says about 110. #JCEM #RSVP

How the professor could be so way off the mark that the ink cartridges were only able to print 22% of their estimated capacity is amazing that you had to give it to him when he came up with this reason for the low performance of the ink cartridges.

On insufficient ink, #JegaSays Due to outdoor #INECRegistration, the heat of the sun caused ink IN printers to cake. #JCEM #RSVP

Genius, which led me to say - @rmajayi Ah! The function of an expert is not to get things right but wrong for more sophisticated reasons. #INECRegistration #JegaSays

Obviously, it would be absurd to suggest that this was a tropically-induced malfunction, but it would be uncouth to shout down the gravitas of a professor.

The other parts of the hearing will be completed in another blog as Part II, this covers the issues of probability, abuse of registration, failsafe mechanisms and registration amelioration procedures.

Holiday Snaps: At the font of letters amiss

The baptism of the font

Being a veteran of desktop publishing when it was a technical feat requiring your read the manuals to know what you were doing, I think I have a good idea about typesetting.

This was a time when you only had three fonts, Times New Roman, Helvetica and Courier, you had various weights and learnt that you did not throw everything on the screen and print out on paper with the thought that you were some artistic genius.

Printers were expensive and memory was not cheap and when you got new fonts it took the best part of 8 hours or more to build the font tables for each weight – you appreciated the luxury of variety and with moderation applied what you had to differentiate your work from others.

Rue the fate of the guru

Serifs, san serifs, proportional spacing, kerning, ghosting, pitch were some of the many terms brought from the printing world into the domain of personal computer software.

What I was involved in was not typical of the cut and paste collages by Patrick & Pets Printing Press just down the street, this was legal publishing in volumes as much as 40 requiring thoroughness and consistency you had to be meticulous.

Along the way, you picked the flyer type of work knowing that you were encroaching on the turf of traditional printers who were loath to embrace technology or were afraid they would lose influence.

The part about influence was something I experienced when I interviewed for a job at the BBC Enterprises and I was told I was selling myself short, a euphemism for you are a threat to our cosy setup – I was being hired as a desktop publishing guru with pedigree and I was to report someone whose background was from the toil and graft of setting type – I moved on, but it was tough lesson in 1991.

Brewing tea from steak

In any case, desktop publishing is no more the exclusive technical field it once was; everyone can churn out that most impressive work or the downright rottenly bad thing thinking they have done a work of commendable art.

Another sign came into view just last night, very big type at a restaurant I might have dared to patronise, SILOIN STEAK it read, someone had dropped a letter - Arggh! And I wonder how rare it would have become if a few more letters were dropped to allow for larger type whilst fitting the words to the width of the A2 size poster.

The tricks of desktop publishing, language, correctness and fitting all reaching for some consensus like if the STEAK lost the S and the K, the meat of the meal would have metamorphosed into Ceylon Tea – the rumpus of forgetting to spell check signs and the trouble that ensues.

Even Es are good

However, the economic situation in Spain was brought into stark relief when I noticed that name tag on one of the waiters in the hotel restaurant had lost a letter, he said it was due to the cuts – it was centred to create excite the animosity between the Catalans and the Castellans, the former preferring to drop the E on the end and the latter keeping it.

Which brings me to a memory of childhood – songs on the Children’s Television Workshop about how the E on the end can make all the difference between a tub and a tube; a scar and a scare and when driving a car, do it with care – English suddenly takes on a modicum of difficulty requiring everyone just make sure the letters are all in place, in the right order and check against a basic English dictionary.