My old HP Multifunction printer gave up the other day, so as I do not do a lot of printing I got the next printer / fax on my local freecycle (http://www.uk.freecycle.org/) for nothing. For those who don’t know, freecycle is a generic name for a load of locally operated forums, where people can offer or request any item that they either want to get rid of or need. The main rule is that no money should change hands, and the result is a load of stuff which would have gone to landfill is re-used.

I immediately found and Epson Stylus DX7450 printer a few miles away, checked that linux supported it (http://www.linux-drivers.org/)   and collected it. Although it came with the windows driver cd I use Linux Mint (a free operating system that can replace Windows or Apple’s OS) (http://www.linuxmint.com/) so did not need that. Here is how I set it up.

1. plug printer into mains, connect usb lead and switch it on
2. go to system > administration > printing and click on ‘add printer’
3. the system offered the new printer as first choice. Select ‘apply’
4. a message window asked if I wanted to print a test page – I did and it was fine

The next stage was to test the scanner because the scanner programmes (Acquireimages, Simple scan and Xsane) did not list it. I immediately found the answers in this forum http://forums.v3.co.uk/showthread.php?t=208231, which referred to this set of instructions http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1581065. I’ll repeat what worked for me now:

1. check that you have an epson configuration file by opening terminal and typing 

   cat /etc/sane.d/epson2.conf

2. what I got was a load of stuff the same as the original post, so it proves that I had the right file and just need something added to it
3. type

   sudo nano /etc/sane.d/epson2.conf (this will start to edit the settings file) or use the command in the forum posting that I referred to

4. position the cursor on the line before #Network …… and type

   usb 0×4b8 0×838

   it is best to copy and paste this to get it 100% accurate

5. if you did it my way, type ctrl + x to exit, y to save the file
6. switch the printer off then on again. The scanner now works!

So the conclusions are:

• freecycle is fantastic for a load of things, especially if your business is not critical on them and the time spent collecting is not more than time to order a new one
• recycling this way does two people a favour – the donor did not have to take it to the tip
• linux supports most hardware out of the box
• linux forums are wonderful, free resources where you can find most answers

Happy recycling, scanning and printing!

Recent campaigns to prevent scams

February was “Scams Awareness Month” when the government’s National Fraud Authority re-launched its “Action Fraud” 24-hour online reporting service, aimed at reducing letter post and telephone scams said to be cheating Britons out of millions of pounds per year. In March, Action Fraud set up an additional reporting service to tackle scam e-mail messages, establishing a dedicated e-mail address – email@actionfraud.org.uk – where scam messages can simply be forwarded. The plan is for all e-mails sent to Action Fraud to be shared with the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau, run by the City of London Police, for collation and analysis. “This will enable crucial intelligence to be gathered and preventative action to be taken, seeking to disrupt the fraudsters and close down the links between them”, according to Dr Bernard Herdan, CEO of the National Fraud Authority, who runs Action Fraud. He added: “This is the first time we have been able to collect and analyse scam mail and e-mails in this way. Collecting intelligence is the key to us being able to disrupt the activities of fraudsters and target their networks for closure”. One bank – HSBC – has been running its own scam reporting service since last year, asking targeted e-mail recipients to forward any suspect messages involving the bank to phishing@hsbc.com.

The response from Action Fraud

If you take up the government’s invitation to forward scam e-mail messages to Action Fraud via email@actionfraud.org.uk, they may be ‘bounced back’ – apparently rejected by a standard spam filtering service (at first glance the worst possible thing to have in place for a service specifically designed to accept mail with dubious content).

But according to Action Fraud “Please note, We have still received the scam emails you forward to us even if you get a bounce back message. The bounce back message just means the email has gone into a holding area for spam, which is then released and received by us as usual”, so all seems OK.

As an alternative, Action Fraud suggest sending printed copies of scam e-mails to their offices in Manchester, although the very information they need – about the true senders of the messages and the ‘click here’ links that reveal the addresses of fraudulent Web sites – are unlikely to survive when translated to paper.

Ideally, you need to forward the entire email in as complete a form as possible – your email viewer (outlook, thunderbird or other) may strip out the details of links)

So, fingers crossed.

Note – this update has been extracted form the monthly newsletter of Zen, a highly recommended broadband provider.

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