Tired of crappy HP Scanner software

Just about everyday, I get crash reports from customers using HP scanners. The latest one I got, the customer was quite angry at me because DocumentWallet kept crashing. He finally sent the crash log and look at what it contains:

Thread 0 Crashed:
0   HP All-in-One Scan DS          	0x058f1240 0x57a4000 + 1364544
1   HP All-in-One Scan DS          	0x057b84fc BroadcastMessage__12LBroadcasterFlPv + 108
2   HP All-in-One Scan DS          	0x057bc604 BroadcastValueMessage__8LControlFv + 52
3   HP All-in-One Scan DS          	0x057e8388 HotSpotResult__11LPushButtonFs + 24
4   HP All-in-One Scan DS          	0x057bcbc8 ClickSelf__8LControlFRC15SMouseDownEvent + 184
5   HP All-in-One Scan DS          	0x057c2d6c Click__5LPaneFR15SMouseDownEvent + 140
6   HP All-in-One Scan DS          	0x057c96ec Click__5LViewFR15SMouseDownEvent + 76
7   HP All-in-One Scan DS          	0x057c96ec Click__5LViewFR15SMouseDownEvent + 76
8   HP All-in-One Scan DS          	0x057bdc38 ClickInContent__13LGrafPortViewFRC11EventRecord + 232
9   HP All-in-One Scan DS          	0x05874bec DoMouseDown__15CHPGrafPortViewFR11EventRecord + 236
10  HP All-in-One Scan DS          	0x0584b4e0 ScanWindowEventHandler__FP25OpaqueEventHandlerCallRefP14OpaqueEventRefPv + 304

Yes, folks, that means that HP's software crashed DocumentWallet. It's hard to convince user's that my app isn't causing the problem, but that's reality. Vendors make crappy Mac scanner software and should be ashamed. They never expect people to use the TWAIN drivers because they suck so much and apparently never get tested.

HP, are you listening? Please fix your TWAIN drivers so that they don't crash app's that make scanner calls using proper TWAIN interfaces.

Zip ties to the rescue!

Several weeks ago our dishwasher stopped functioning properly; the door to release the soap stopped opening during the cycle. After this happened a number of times, I decided to take a look. I don't have a problem calling a repairman, but the last time we called an appliance repairman, I felt like an idiot. Our stove had an auto-igniter and it kept clicking in order to re-light when it was already lit. The repairman took a look, asked if I had a file and filed the tips of the igniters. Uhh, I could have done that myself.

So back to the story. I took apart the front of the dishwasher, fiddled with some plastic and thought I was good. Nope. Still didn't work during the cycle. I tried again, but this time took off the front panel to work on it and made some more adjustments. No luck, again (it worked when I tested it by hand). So I got out a zip tie (one of those plastic thingies) and used it to make a connection tighter. The guts of the front of the dishwasher are all plastic, so after time, it starts to wear. Low and behold, this time it work. Knock on wood, it has been functional for a couple of weeks now. Who knew that a little piece of plastic could fix such a complicated appliance!

Domain lost to spammers

Awhile back I noticed that the amount of spam (basically a dictionary attack) against one of my domains (notifymail.com). It was so bad that the load average on my server kept going up just to reject the mail for addresses that didn't exist. I went ahead and used the email forwarding of my domain registrar to handle the incoming email. My server load went down and all was fine. Today I turned mail back on for that domain and instantly my server got flooded with email to that domain. So I had to move email back to the domain registrar; I lose some control over my mail, but it is my only choice. Too bad that the domain is basically dead; I've had it for years and really liked the domain as it was one of my very successful products.

A new sport

My wife and I were watching the news last night when she started laughing. Apparently someone creating the text blurbs on the screen didn't proofread his work.